stirs? Call Burgundy.-Cornwall, and Albany, With shadowy forests and with champains' 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? Cor. Lest it may mar your fortunes. Half my love with him, half my care, and duty : goes this with thy heart? course, With reservation of a hundred knights, Revenue, execution of the rest,10 Ay, good my lord. Thou swear'st thy gods in vain. Lear. But From whom we do exist, and cease to be; Hold thee, from this, for ever. The barbarous Or he that makes his generation messes Be as well neighbour'd, pitied, and reliev'd, Kent. Lear. Peace, Kent! Good my liege, Come not between the dragon and his wrath: Lear. O, vassal! miscreant ! [Laying his hand on his sword. Alb. Corn. Dear sir, forbear. Kill thy physician, and the fee bestow Lear. Hear me, recreant! pride, To come betwixt our sentence and our power Scene L Kent. Fare thee well, king: since thus thou wilt || A still-soliciting eye, and such a tongue appear, Attendants. Glo. Here's France and Burgundy, my noble lord. Lear. My lord of Burgundy, We first address towards you, who with this king Bur. Bur. Lear. Sir, I know no answer. Will you, with those infirmities she owes,4 That I am glad I have not, though not to have it, Lear. Hadst not been born, than not to have pleas'd me better. France. Is it but this? a tardiness in nature, Bur. Lear. Nothing: I have sworn; I am firm. Cor. Peace be with Burgundy! 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 : I tell you all her wealth.-For you, great king, France. This is most strange! That monsters it, or your fore-vouch'd' affection Cor. I'll do't before I speak,) that you make known (1) Follow his old mode of life. Have no such daughter, nor shall ever see [Flourish. Exeunt Lear, Burgundy, Cornwall, Gon. Prescribe not us our duties. Let your study Be, to content your lord; who hath receiv'd you 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. 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 essays 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. Enter Gloster. Glo. Kent banish'd thus! And France in choler And the king gone to-night! subscrib'd his power! 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 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 be 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. 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 cer tain of the truth Scene III, IV. KING LEAR. Edm. I will seek him, sir, presently; convey the business as I shall find means, and acquaint you withal. in him, that with the mischief of your person Edg. Some villain hath done me wrong. Edm. That's my fear. I pray you, have a conti- Edm. Brother, I advise you to the best: go [Exit Edgar. 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 sequent2 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, hon[Exit. A credulous father, and a brother noble, esty!-Strange! strange! 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; knaves, thieves, and treachers,3 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, had the maidenliest star in the firmament twinkled on my bastardizing. Edgar Enter Edgar. and pat he comes, like the catastrophe of the old All with me's meet, that I can fashion fit. [Exit. palace. Enter Goneril and Steward. Stew. Ay, madam. Gon. By day and night! he wrongs me; every He flashes into one gross crime or other, 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, nuptial breaches, and I know not what. I would breed from hence occasions, and I shall, Edg. How long have you been a sectary astro-What grows of it, no matter; advise your fellows so: [Exeunt. That I may speak :-I'll write straight to my sister, To hold my very course-Prepare for dinner. nomical? Edm. Come, come; when saw you my father Edg. Why, the night gone by. Edm. Parted you in good terms? Found you no Edm. Bethink yourself, wherein you may have (1) Manage. (2) Following. (3) Traitors. VOL. II. SCENE IV-A hall in the same. Enter Kent, Kent. If but as well I other accents borrow, (So may it come!) thy master, whom thou lov'st, (6) For cohorts some editors read courts. (7) Temperate. (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? Lear. What services canst thou do? 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 hath 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, call hither my fool. Re-enter Steward. 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 difcoun-lubber's length again, tarry: but away: go to ferences; away, away: If you will measure your Have you wisdom? so. [Pushes the Steward out Lear. Now, my friendly knave, I thank thee: there's earnest of thy service. 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? 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, 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. [Giving Kent money. Enter Fool. 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 Lear. Why, my boy? coxcombs myself: There's mine; beg another of Fool. If I gave them all my living, I'd keep my thy_daughters. Lear. Take heed, sirrah; the whip. Fool. Truth's a dog that must to kennel; he must be whipped out, when Lady, the brach, may stand by the fire, and stink. 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 |