lose it, Thy safety being the motive. Lear. Out of my sight! LEAR. If aught within that little seeming⚫ substance, Bur. I know no answer. Will you, with those infirmities she owes, t Take her, or leave her? Bur. Pardon me, royal Sir; Election makes not up on such conditions. I tell you all her wealth.-For you, great king, I would not from your love make such a stray, To avert your liking a more worthier way, Kent. See better, Lear; and let me still re-Than on a wretch whom nature is asham'd The true blank + of thine eye. Lear. Now, by Apollo, Kent. Now, by Apollo, king, Thou swear'st thy gods in vain. Lear. O vassal miscreant ! [main, [Laying his Hand upon his Sword. Kill thy physician, and the fee bestow Lear. Hear me, recreant! VOW, Since thou hast sought to make us break our Almost to acknowledge hers. France. This is most strange ! That she, that even but now was your best object, Commit a thing so monstrous, to dismantle That monsters it, or your fore-vouch'd || affection Cor. I yet beseech your majesty, (If for I want that glib and oily art, [intend, A still-sol..iting eye, and such a tongue Upon our kingdom: if, on the tenth day follow-That I am glad I have not, though not to have it, ing, Thy banish d trunk be found in our dominions, Kent. Fare thee well, king: since thus thou wilt appear, Freedom lives hence, and banishment is here.The gods to their dear shelter take thee, maid, [To CORDELIA. That justly think'st, and has most rightly said! And your large speeches may your deeds approve, [To REGAN and GONERIL. That good effects may spring from words of love. Thus Kent, O princes, bids you all adieu; [Exit. Re-enter GLOSTER; with FRANCE, BURGUNDY, and Attendants. Glo. Here's France and Burgundy, my noble Lear. My lord of Burgundy, king We first address towards you, who with this Bur. Most royal majesty, Hath lost me in your liking. Lear. Better thou Hadst not been born, than not to have pleas'd France. Is it but this? a tardiness in nature, Bur. Royal Lear, Give but that portion which yourself propos'd, Lear. Nothing: I have sworn: I am firm. [father, Cor. Peace be with Burgundy! France. Fairest Cordelia, thou art most rich, being poor; Most choice, forsaken; and most lov'd, despis'd: My love should kindle to inflam'd respect. I crave no more than hath your highness offer'd, Thy dowerless daughter, king, thrown to my Bid them farewell, Cordelia, though unkind: Lear. Thou hast her, France: let her be thine; Have no such daughter, nor shall ever see [Flourish. Exeunt LEAR, BURGUNDY, CORN Cor. The jewels of our father with wash'd Cordelia leaves you: I know you what you are; To your professed bosoms I commit him: I would prefer him to a better place. Gon. Prescribe not us our duties. Be to content your lord; who hath receiv'd you Cor. Time shall unfold what plaited cun- Who cover faults, at last shame them derides. -France. 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. 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. 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 waywardness 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. SCENE II.-A Hall in the Earl of GLOSTER's Castle. Enter EDMUND, with a Letter. Edm. Thou, nature, art my goddess; to thy My services are bound: Wherefore should I Lag of a brother? Why bastard? wherefore base? Who, in the Insty stealth of nature, take Edm. I know no news, my lord. Glo. What paper were you reading? 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. Edm. I beseech you, Sir, pardon me it is a letter from my brother, that I have not all o'erread; 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 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 makes the world bitter to the best of our times, keeps cur fortunes from us till our oldness cannot relish them. I begin to find an idle and fond 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? Edm. It was not brought me, my lord, there's the cunning of it; I found it thrown in at the casement of my closet. Glo. You know the character to be your brother's? Edm. If the matter were good, my lord, I 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, sous at perfect age, and fathers declining, the father should be as ward to the son, and the son manage his revenue. Gio. 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. Surrendered. If it + Allowance. * Suddenly Weak and foolish shall please you to suspend your indignation |tions of ancient amities; divisions iu state, against my brother, till you can derive from him menaces and maledictions against king and better testimony of his intent, you shall run a nobles; needless diffidences, banishment of certain course where, if you violently pro- friends, dissipation of cohorts, nuptial breaches, ceed against him, mistaking his purpose, it and I know not what. 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 pretence of danger. Glo. Think yon 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. Edg. How long have you been a sectary astronomical ? Edm. Come, come, when saw you my father last? Edg. Why, the night gone by. Edm. Parted you in good terms? Found you no displeasure in him, by word or countenance? Edg. None at all. Edm. Bethink yourself, wherein you may have offended him; and my entreaty, forbear his presence, till some little time hath qualified the Glo. To his father, that so tenderly and en-heat of his displeasure; which at this instant so tirely loves him. Heaven and earth!-Ed-rageth in him, that with the mischief of your mund, seek him out wind me into him, I pray person it would scarcely allay. you: frame the business after your own wisdom i would unstate myself, to be in a due resolution. § Edg. Some villain hath done me wrong. Edm. That's my fear. I pray you, have a continent + forbearance, till the speed of his Edm. I will seek him, Sir, presently; convey ||rage goes slower; and, as I say, retire with me the business as I shall find means, aud acquaint you withal. Glo. These late eclipses in the sun and moon portend no good to us: Though the wisdom of nature can reason it thus and thus, yet nature finds itself scourged by the sequeut effects: love cools, friendship falls off, brothers divide: in cities, mutinies; in countries, discord; in palaces, treason; and the 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. Edm. This is the excellent foppery of the world! that, when we are sick in fortune, (often the surfeit of our own behaviour,) we make guilty of our disasters, the sun, the moon, and the stars; as if we were villains by necessity: fools, by heavenly compulsion; knaves, thieves, and treachers, by spherical predominance; drunkards, liars, and adulterers, by an enforced obedience of planetary influence: and all that we are evil in, by a divine thrusting on: An admirable evasion of whoremaster man, to lay 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 lecherous.-Tut, I should have been that I am, bad the maidenliest star the firmament twinkled on my bastardizing. Edgar Enter EDGAR. in Edg. How now, brother Edmund? What serious contemplation are you in? I read this other day, what should follow these Edm. I am thinking, brother, of a prediction eclipses. Edg. Do you busy yourself with that? Edm. I promise yon, the effects he writes of succeed unhappily; as of unnaturalness between the child and the parent; death, dearth, dissolu1 Design. to my lodging, from whence I will fitly bring you to hear my lord speak: Pray you, go; there's my key-If you do stir abroad, go armed. Edg. Armed, brother? Edm. Brother, I advise you to the best: go armed; I am no honest mau, 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? [Exit. SCENE III-A Room in the Duke of Enter GONERIL and STEWARD. Stew. Ay, madam. Gon. By day and night! he wrongs me; He flashes into one gross crime or other, every hour That sets us all at odds: I'll not endure it: His knights grow riotous, and himself upbraids [ing us On every trifle :-When he returns from hunt- Stew. Very well, madam. • Whereas. The usual address to a lord. Descend from my diguity by privately listening, to What grows of it, no matter; advise your fel. Manage. be sure of the truth. Following. .. Traitors. + The constellation so named. lows so: + These sounds are unnatural and offensive in music. • For cohorts some editors read courts. Temperate, I would breed from hence occasions, and I shall, | kindness appears, as well in the general depen" That I may speak :-I'll write straight to my dants, as in the duke himself also, and your sister, To hold my very course :-Prepare for dinner. [Exeunt. Lear. What services canst thon do? Kent. I can keep honest counsel, ide, run, mar a curious tale in telling it, and deliver a plain message bluntly: that which ordinary men are fit for, I am qualify'd 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 ine; if 1 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, yon, Sirrah, where's my daughter? Stew. So please you,[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, be answer'd me in the roundest manner, be would not. Lear. He would not! daughter. Lear. Ha! say'st 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 wrong'd. Lear. Thou but remember'st me of mine own conception; I have perceived a most faint neglect of late; which I have rather blamed as mine own jealous curiosity, than as a very pretence and purpose of unkindness: I will look further into'.-But where's my fool? I have not seen him these two days. Knight. Since my young lady's going into France, Sir, the fool bath much pined away. Lear. No more of that; I have noted it well. -Go you, and tell my daughter I would speak with her.-Go you, cail hither my fool. Re-enter STEWARD. 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 whoresom 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 football 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 lubber's length again, tarry but away: go to; Have you wisdom? so. [Pushes the STEWARD out. Lear. Now, my friendly knave, I thank thee: there's earnest of thy service. [Giving KENT Money. Enter FOOL. Fool. Let me hire him too;-Here's my cox. comb. [Giving KENT his Cap. Lear. How now, my pretty knave ? how dost thou? Fool. Sirrah, you were best take my cox comb. Kent. Why, fool? Fool. Why? For taking one's part that is out of favour: Nay, an thou canst not smile as the wind sits, thou'lt catch cold shortly: There, ish'd two of his daughters, and did the third a take my coxcomb: Why, this fellow has banblessing against his will; if thou follow him, nuncle? Would I had two coxcombs, and two thou must needs wear my coxcomb.-How now, daughters! Lear. Why, my boy? Fool. If I gave them all my living,‡ I'd keep my coxcombs myself: There's mine; beg another of thy daughters. Lear. Take heed, Sirrah; the whip. must be whipp'd out, when Lady, the brach, § Fool. Truth's a dog that must to kennel? he may stand by the fire and stink. Lear. A pestilent gall to me! Fool. Mark it, nuncle: Have more than thon showest, • Punctilious jealousy. ¡Estate or property. Bitch houud. Ownest, possessest. + Design. Believest. Scene IV. KING LEAR. 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 lawyer; you gave me nothing for't: Can you make no use of nothing, nuncle ? Lear. Why, no, boy; nothing can be made out of nothing. Fool. Pr'ythee, tell him, so much the rent of bis land comes to; he will not believe a fool. [To KENT. Lear. A bitter fool! Fool. Dost thou know the difference, my boy, Fool. That lord, that counsel'd thee Come place him here by me, The sweet and bitter fool Will presently appear; The other found out there. Kent. This is not altogether fool, my lord. Fool. No, 'faith, lords and great men will not let me; if I had a monopoly out, they Mould have part on't: and ladies too, they will not let me have all fool to myself; they'll be snatching. Give me an egg, nuncle, and I'll give thee two crowns. ing.-Yes, forsooth, I will hold my tongue; so He that keeps nor crust nor crum, That's a sheal'd peascod. [Pointing to LEAR. Gon. Not only, Sir, this your all-licens'd fool, But other of your insolent retinue Do hourly carp and quarrel; breaking forth I had thought, by making this well known un to you, To bave found a safe redress; but now grow fearful, By what yourself too late have spoke and done, fault Would not 'scape censure, nor the redresses Which, in the tender of a wholesome weal, t So, Fool. For you trow, nuncle, The hedge-sparrow fed the cuckoo so long, Lear. Are you our daughter? Gon. Come, Sir, I would you would make use of that good wisdom whereof I know you are fraught; and put away these dispositions, which of late transform you from what you rightly are. Lear. What two crowns shall they be? Fool. Why, after I have cut the egg 'the middle, and eat up the meat, the two crowns of the egg. When thou clovest thy crown i'the Fool. May not an ass know when the cart middle, and gavest away both parts, thou borLear. Does any here know me ?-Why this is est thine ass on thy back over the dirt: Thou draws the horse ?-Whoop, Jug! I love thee. hadst little wit in thy bald crown, when thou gavest thy golden one away. If I speak like not Lear: does Lear walk thus? speak thus ? myself in this, let him be whipp'd that first, Where are his eyes? Either his notion weakfinds it so. [Singing. Fools had ne'er less grace* in a year; Lear. When were you wont to be so full of songs, Sirrah ? Fool. I have used it, nuncle, ever since thou madest thy daughters thy mother: for when thou gavest them the rod, and put'st down thine own breeches, Then they for sudden joy did weep, [Singing. That such a king should play bo-peep. Pr'ythee, nuncle, keep a schoolmaster that can thou and thy Enter GONERIL. Lear. How now, daughter! what makes that Fool. Thou wast a pretty fellow, when thou ens, or his discernings are lethargied.-Sleeping or waking ?-Ha! sure, 'tis not so.-Who is it that can tell me who I am ?-Lear's shadow ? I would learn that; for by the marks of sove reignty, knowledge, and reason, I should be false persuaded I had daughters. Fool. Which they will make an obedient fa- Lear. Your name, fair gentlewoman? This admiration is much o'the favour ¶ As you are old and reverend, you should be Here do you keep a hundred knights and Men so disordered, so debauch'd, and bold, Gon. You strike my people; and your dis- Enter ALBANY. Lear. Woe, that too late repents,--O Sir, are you come? + Approbation. • A mere husk which contains nothing. Stored. |