stirs? Call Burgundy.-Cornwall, and Albany, With shadowy forests and with champains1 rich'd, || Her father's heart from her!-Call France ;-Who Which the most precious square2 of sense possesses; In your dear highness' love. Then poor Cordelia! [Aside. Lear. To thee, and thine, hereditary ever, Lear. Nothing? 1 Cor. Lest it may mar your fortunes. Cor. Half my love with him, half my care, and duty: To love my father all. Lear. But goes this with thy heart? course, With reservation of a hundred knights, Revenue, execution of the rest,10 the shaft. When majesty stoops to folly: Reverse thy doom; This hideous rashness: answer my life my judg, Thy youngest daughter does not love thee least; Lear. Lear. Now, by Apollo, king, Ay, good my lord. Thou swear'st thy gods in vain. Lear. So young, and so untender? Lear. Let it be so.-Thy truth then be thy dower: From whom we do exist, and cease to be; Hold thee, from this,7 for ever. The barbarous Or he that makes his generations messes Be as well neighbour'd, pitied, and reliev'd, Kent. Lear. Peace, Kent! Lear. O, vassal! miscreant ! [Laying his hand on his sword Alb. Corn, Dear sir, forbear. Kill thy physician, and the fee bestow pride, To come betwixt our sentence and our power Good my liege,-Five days we do allot thee, for provision Come not between the dragon and his wrath: (1) Open plains. (3) Made happy. (5) Perhaps. (2) Comprehension. (6) Kindred. (7) From this time. (8) His children. Kent. Fare thee well, king: since thus thou wilt || A still-soliciting eye, and such a tongue Lear. Hadst not been born, than not to have pleas'd me better. appear, Freedom lives hence, and banishment is here.The gods to their dear shelter take thee, maid, [To Cordelia. That justly think'st, and hast most rightly said!And your large speeches may your deeds approve, France. Is it but this? a tardiness in nature, [To Regan and Goneril. Which often leaves the history unspoke, That good effects may spring from words of love.-That it intends to do?-My lord of Burgundy, Thus Kent, O princes, bids you all adieu; What say you to the lady? Love is not love, He'll shape his old course in a country new. [Ex. When it is mingled with respects, that stand Re-enter Gloster; with France, Burgundy, and She is herself a dowry. Aloof from the entire point. 10 Will you have her? Attendants. Glo. Here's France and Burgundy, my noble lord. Lear. My lord of Burgundy, We first address towards you, who with this king Nor will you tender less. Bur. Lear. Sir, I know no answer. Will you, with those infirmities she owes,4 Bur. Lear. Nothing: I have sworn; I am firm. Cor. France. Fairest Cordelia, thou art most rich, Most choice, forsaken; and most lov'd, despis'd! My love should kindle to inflam'd respect.— Dower'd with our curse, and stranger'd with our Bid them farewell, Cordelia, though unkind : oath, Take her, or leave her? Bur. I tell you all her wealth.-For you, great king, France. That monsters it, or your fore-vouch'd' affection Cor. I yet beseech your majesty I'll do't before I speak,) that you make known (1) Follow his old mode of life. Thou losest here, a better wherell to find. Lear. Thou hast her, France: let her be thine; Have no such daughter, nor shall ever see [Flourish. Exeunt Lear, Burgundy, Cornwall, Gon. Prescribe not us our duties. Let your study Who cover faults, at last shame them derides. Come, my fair Cordelia. [Exeunt France and Cordelia. Gon. Sister, it is not a little I have to say, of what most nearly appertains to us both. I think, our father will hence to-night. Reg. That's most certain, and with you; next month with us. (8) Reproach or censure. (9) Because. (7) Former declaration of. (11) Place. (12) Blessing. (13) Folded, doubled (4) Owns, is possessed of. (5) Concludes not. || (10) Who seeks for aught in love but love alone!" (6) Turn. ; Gon. You see how full of changes his age is the observation we have made of it hath not been little he always loved our sister most; and with what poor judgment he hath now cast her off, appears too grossly. Reg. 'Tis the infirmity of his age: yet he hath ever but slenderly known himself. for so much as I have perused, I find it not fit for your over-looking Glo. Give me the letter, sir. Edm. I shall offend, either to detain or give it. The contents, as in part I understand them, are to blame. Glo. Let's see, let's see. Edm. I hope, for my brother's justification, he wrote this but as an essay or taste of my virtue. Glo. [Reads.] This policy, and reverence of age, Gon. The best and soundest of his time hath been but rash; then must we look to receive from his age, not alone the imperfections of long-engrafted condition, but therewithal, the unruly way-makes the world bitter to the best of our times; wardness that infirm and choleric years bring with them. Reg. Such unconstant starts are we like to have from him, as this of Kent's banishment. Gon. There is further compliment of leavetaking between France and him. Pray you, let us hit together: If our father carry authority with such dispositions as he bears, this last surrender of his will but offend us. Reg. We shall further think of it. Gon. We must do something, and i'the heat.2 [Exeunt. SCENE II.—A hall in the Earl of Gloster's castle. Enter Edmund, with a letter. Edm. Thou, nature, art my goddess; to thy law My services are bound: Wherefore should I Stand in the plagues of custom; and permit The curiosity4 of nations to deprive me, For that I am some twelve or fourteen moon-shines Lag of a brother? Why bastard? wherefore base? When my dimensions are as well compact, My mind as generous, and my shape as true, As honest madam's issue? Why brand they us With base? with baseness? bastardy? base, base? Who, in the lusty stealth of nature, take More composition and fierce quality, Than doth, within a dull, stale, tired bed, Go to the creating a whole tribe of fops, Got 'tween asleep and wake?-Well then, Legitimate Edgar, I must have your land: Our father's love is to the bastard Edmund, As to the legitimate: Fine word,-legitimate! Well, my legitimate, if this letter speed, And my invention thrive, Edmund the base Shall top the legitimate. I grow ; 1 prosper :Now, gods, stand up for bastards! Enter Gloster. Glo. Kent banish'd thus! And France in choler parted! And the king gone to-night! subscrib'd5 his power! [Putting up the letter. Glo. Why so earnestly seek you to put up that letter? Edm. I know no news, my lord. Glo. No? What needed then that terrible despatch of it into your pocket? the quality of nothing hath not such need to hide itself. Let's see: Come, if it be nothing, I shall not need spectacles. keeps our fortunes from us, till our oldness cannot relish them. I begin to find an idle and fonds bondage in the oppression of aged tyranny; who sways, not as it hath power, but as it is suffered. Come to me, that of this I may speak more. If our father would sleep till I waked him, you should enjoy half his revenue for ever, and live the beloved of your brother, Edgar.-Humph-Conspiracy!-Sleep till I waked him, you should enjoy half his revenue,-My son Edgar! Had he a hand to write this? a heart and brain to breed it in ?— When came this to you? Who brought it? the cunning of it; I found it thrown in at the caseEdm. It was not brought me, my lord, there's ment of my closet. Glo. You know the character to be your brother's? Edm. If the matter were good, my lord, I durst swear it were his; but, in respect of that, I would fain think it were not. Glo. It is his. Edm. It is his hand, my lord; but, I hope, his heart is not in the contents. Glo. Hath he never heretofore sounded you in this business? Edm. Never, my lord: But I have often heard him maintain it to be fit, that, sons at perfect age, and fathers declining, the father should be as ward to the son, and the son manage his revenue. Glo. O villain, villain !-His very opinion in the letter!-Abhorred villain! Unnatural, detested, brutish villain! worse than brutish!-Go, sirrah, seek him; I'll apprehend him:-Abominable villain!-Where is he? Edm. I do not well know, my lord. If it shall please you to suspend your indignation against my brother, till you can derive from him better testimony of his intent, you shall run a certain course; where,10 if you violently proceed against him, mistaking his purpose, it would make a great gap in your own honour, and shake in pieces the heart of his obedience. I dare pawn down my life for him, that he hath writ this to feel my affection to your honour, and to no other pretence12 of danger. Glo. Think you so? Edm. If your honour judge it meet, I will place you where you shall hear us confer of this, and by an auricular assurance have your satisfaction; and that without any further delay than this very evening. Glo. He cannot be such a monster. Edm. Nor is not, sure. Glo. To his father, that so tenderly and entirely loves him.-Heaven and earth!-Edmund, seek him out; wind me into him, I pray you: frame the let-business after your own wisdom: I would unstate myself, to be in a due resolution.13 Edm. I beseech you, sir, pardon me : it is a ter from my brother, that I have not all o'er-read; (1) Qualities of mind. (2) Strike while the iron is hot. (3) The injustice. (4) The nicety of civil institution. (5) Yielded, surrendered. (6) Allowance. (7) Suddenly. (8) Trial. (9) Weak and foolish. (10) Whereas. (11) The usual address to a lord. (12) Design. (13) Give all that I am possessed of, to be certain of the truth. Edm. I will seek him, sir, presently; convey1in him, that with the mischief of your person it the business as I shall find means, and acquaint you would scarcely allay. withal. Edg. Some villain hath done me wrong. Edg. Armed, brother? Edm. Brother, I advise you to the best: go armed; I am no honest man, if there be any good meaning towards you: I have told you what I have seen and heard, but faintly; nothing like the image and horror of it: Pray you, away. Edg. Shall I hear from you anon? Edm. I do serve you in this business.-[Exit Edgar. Glo. These late eclipses in the sun and moon portend no good to us : Though the wisdom of naturenent? forbearance, till the speed of his rage goes can reason it thus and thus, yet nature finds itself slower; and, as I say, retire with me to my lodging, Scourged by the sequent2 effects: love cools, friend- from whence I will fitly bring you to hear my lord ship falls off, brothers divide: in cities, mutinies; in speak: Pray you, go; there's my key:-If you do countries, discord; in palaces, treason: and the stir abroad, go armed. bond cracked between son and father. This villain of mine comes under the prediction; there's son against father: the king falls from bias of nature; there's father against child. We have seen the best of our time: Machinations, hollowness, treachery, and all ruinous disorders, follow us disquietly to our graves! Find out this villain, Edmund, it shall lose thee nothing; do it carefully:-And the noble and true-hearted Kent banished! his offence, honesty-Strange! strange! [Exit. A credulous father, and a brother noble, Edm. This is the excellent foppery of the world! Whose nature is so far from doing harms, that, when we are sick in fortune (often the surfeit That he suspects none; on whose foolish honesty of our behaviour,) we make guilty of our disasters, My practices ride easy!--I see the business.-the sun, the moon, and the stars: as if we were vil-Let me, if not by birth, have lands by wit: lains by necessity; fools, by heavenly compulsion; All with ine's meet, that I can fashion fit. [Exit. knaves, thieves, and treachers, by spherical pre- SCENE III-A room in the Duke of Albany's dorninance; drunkards, liars, and adulterers, by an enforced obedience of planetary influence; and palace. Enter Goneril and Steward. all that we are evil in, by a divine thrusting on: Gon. Did my father strike my gentleman for An admirable evasion of whoremaster man, to lay chiding of his fool? his goatish disposition to the charge of a star! My father compounded with my mother under the dragon's tail; and my nativity was under ursa major, so that it follows, I am rough and leche-He flashes into one gross crime or other, rous.--Tut; I should have been that I am, had the That sets us all at odds: I'll not endure it: maidenliest star in the firmament twinkled on my His knights grow riotous, and himself upbraids us bastardizing. EdgarOn every trifle:-When he returns from hunting, I will not speak with him; say, I am sick :-If you come slack of former services, You shall do well; the fault of it I'll answer. Stew. He's coming, madam; I hear him. Enter Edgar. and pat he comes, like the catastrophe of the old Stew. Ay, madam. Gon. By day and night! he wrongs me; every hour [Horns within. Gon. Put on what weary negligence you please, Edg. Do you busy yourself with that? Edm. I promise you, the effects he writes of succeed unhappily; as of unnaturalness between the child and the parent; death, dearth, dissolutions of ancient amities; divisions in state, menaces and maledictions against king and nobles; needless diffidences, banishment of friends, dissipation of cohorts,6 nuptial breaches, and I know not what. Edg. How long have you been a sectary astro-What grows of it, no matter; advise your fellows so: nomical? I would breed from hence occasions, and I shall, That I may speak :--I'll write straight to my sister, To hold my very course :-Prepare for dinner. Edm. Come, come; when saw you my father last? Edg. Why, the night gone by. Edm. Parted you in good terms? Found you no Edm. Bethink yourself, wherein you may have offended him and at my entreaty, forbear his presence, till some little time hath qualified the heat of his displeasure; which at this instant so rageth (1) Manage. (2) Following. (3) Traitors. music. VOL. II. [Exeunt. SCENE IV-A hall in the same. Enter Kent, Kent. If but as well I other accents borrow, If thou canst serve where thou dost stand condemn'd (6) For cohorts some editors read courts. (8) Disorder, disguise. (9) Effaced. 3 N Lear. What dost thou profess? What wouldest thou with us? Kent. I do profess to be no less than I seem; to serve him truly, that will put me in trust; to love him that is honest; to conversel with him that is wise, and says little; to fear judgment; to fight, when I cannot choose; and to eat no fish. Lear. What art thou? Kent. A very honest-hearted fellow, and as poor as the king. Lear. If thou be as poor for a subject, as he is for a king, thou art poor enough. What wouldest thou? Kent. Service. Lear. Who wouldest thou serve? Kent. You. Lear. Dost thou know me, fellow? O, you sir, you sir, come you hither: Who am I, sir? Stew. My lady's father. Lear. My lady's father! my lord's knave: you whoreson dog! you slave! you cur! Stew. I am none of this, my lord; I beseech you, pardon me. Lear. Do you bandy looks with me, you rascal? [Striking him. Stew. I'll not be struck, my lord. Kent. Nor tripped neither; you base foot-ball player. [Tripping up his heels. Lear. I thank thee, fellow; thou servest me, and I'll love thee. Kent. Come, sir, arise, away: I'll teach you differences; away, away: If you will measure your Kent. No, sir; but you have that in your coun- lubber's length again, tarry: but away: go to tenance, which I would fain call master. Lear. What's that? Kent. Authority. Lear. What services canst thou do? Kent. I can keep honest counsel, ride, run, mar a curious tale in telling it, and deliver a plain message bluntly that which ordinary men are fit for, I am qualified in; and the best of me is diligence. Lear. How old art thou? Kent. Not so young, sir, to love a woman for singing; nor so old, to dote on her for any thing: I have years on my back forty-eight. Lear. Follow me; thou shalt serve me; if I like thee no worse after dinner, I will not part from thee yet.—Dinner, ho, dinner!-Where's my knave? my fool? Go you, and call my fool hither :Enter Steward. You, you, sirrah, where's my daughter? [Exit. Lear. What says the fellow there? Call the clotpoll back-Where's my fool, ho?-I think the world's asleep.-How now? where's that mongrel? Knight. He says, my lord, your daughter is not well. Lear. Why came not the slave back to me, when I call'd him? Knight. Sir, he answer'd me in the roundest manner, he would not. Lear. He would not! Knight. My lord, I know not what the matter is; but, to my judgment, your highness is not entertained with that ceremonious affection as you were wont; there's a great abatement of kindness appears, as well in the general dependants, as in the duke himself also, and your daughter. Lear. Ha! sayest thou so? Knight. I beseech you, pardon me, my lord, if I be mistaken; for my duty cannot be silent, when I think your highness is wronged. Lear. Thou but rememberest me of mine own conception; I have perceived a most faint neglect of late; which I have rather blamed as mine own jealous curiosity,2 than as a very pretences and purpose of unkindness: I will look further into't. Fool. Let me hire him too;-Here's my coxcomb [Giving Kent his cap. Lear. How now, my pretty knave? how dost thou? Fool. Sirrah, you were best take my coxcomb. favour: Nay, an thou canst not smile as the wind my coxcomb.-How now, nuncle? 'Would I had two coxcombs, and two daughters! Lear. Why, my boy? coxcombs myself: There's mine; beg another of Fool. If I gave them all my living,4 I'd keep my thy daughters. Lear. Take heed, sirrah; the whip. Fool. Truth's a dog that must to kennel; he Lear. A pestilent gall to me! Fool. Mark it, nuncle : Have more than thou showest, And thou shalt have more Than two tens to a score. Lear. This is nothing, fool. Fool. Then 'tis like the breath of an unfee'd |