Текст книги "William Shakespeare: The Complete Works 2nd Edition"

Автор книги: William Shakespeare

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Sc. 7 Enter the Earl of Kent, disguised, at one door, and Oswald the steward, at another door

OSWALD Good even to thee, friend. Art of the house?

KENT Ay.

OSWALD Where may we set our horses?

KENT I’th’ mire.

OSWALD Prithee, if thou love me, tell me.

KENT I love thee not.

OSWALD Why then, I care not for thee.

KENT If I had thee in Lipsbury pinfold I would make thee care for me.

OSWALD Why dost thou use me thus? I know thee not.

KENT Fellow, I know thee.

OSWALD What dost thou know me for?

KENT A knave, a rascal, an eater of broken meats, a base, proud, shallow, beggarly, three-suited, hundred-pound, filthy worsted-stocking knave; a lily-livered, action-taking knave; a whoreson, glass-gazing, superfinical rogue; one-trunk-inheriting slave; one that wouldst be a bawd in way of good service, and art nothing but the composition of a knave, beggar, coward, pander, and the son and heir of a mongrel bitch, whom I will beat into clamorous whining if thou deny the least syllable of the addition.

OSWALD What a monstrous fellow art thou, thus to rail on one that’s neither known of thee nor knows thee!

KENT What a brazen-faced varlet art thou, to deny thou knowest me! Is it two days ago since I beat thee and tripped up thy heels before the King? Draw, you rogue; for though it be night, the moon shines.

⌈He draws his sword⌉

I’ll make a sop of the moonshine o’ you. Draw, you whoreson, cullionly barber-monger, draw!

OSWALD Away. I have nothing to do with thee.

KENT Draw, you rascal. You bring letters against the King, and take Vanity the puppet’s part against the royalty of her father. Draw, you rogue, or I’ll so carbonado your shanks—draw, you rascal, come your ways!

OSWALD Help, ho, murder, help!

KENT Strike, you slave! Stand, rogue! Stand, you neat slave, strike!

OSWALD Help, ho, murder, help!

Enter Edmund the bastard with his rapier drawn, ⌈then⌉ the Duke of Gloucester, ⌈then⌉ the Duke of Cornwall and Regan the Duchess

EDMUND ⌈parting them⌉ How now, what’s the matter?

KENT With you, goodman boy. An you please come, I’ll flesh you. Come on, young master.

GLOUCESTER Weapons? Arms? What’s the matter here?

CORNWALL Keep peace, upon your lives. He dies that strikes again. What’s the matter?

REGAN The messengers from our sister and the King.

CORNWALL (to Kent and Oswald) What’s your difference? Speak.

OSWALD I am scarce in breath, my lord.

KENT No marvel, you have so bestirred your valour, you cowardly rascal. Nature disclaims in thee; a tailor made thee.

CORNWALL Thou art a strange fellow—a tailor make a man?

KENT Ay, a tailor, sir. A stone-cutter or a painter could not have made him so ill though he had been but two hours at the trade.

GLOUCESTER Speak yet; how grew your quarrel?

OSWALD This ancient ruffian, sir, whose life I have spared at suit of his grey beard—

KENT Thou whoreson Z, thou unnecessary letter—(to Cornwall) my lord, if you’ll give me leave I will tread this unboulted villain into mortar and daub the walls of a jakes with him. (To Oswald) Spare my grey beard, you wagtail?

CORNWALL

Peace, sir. You beastly knave, have you no reverence?

KENT

Yes, sir, but anger has a privilege.

CORNWALL Why art thou angry?

KENT

That such a slave as this should wear a sword,

That wears no honesty. Such smiling rogues

As these, like rats, oft bite those cords in twain

Which are too entrenched to unloose, smooth every

passion

That in the natures of their lords rebel,

Bring oil to fire, snow to their colder moods,

Renege, affirm, and turn their halcyon beaks

With every gale and vary of their masters,

Knowing naught, like dogs, but following.

(To Oswald) A plague upon your epileptic visage!

Smile you my speeches as I were a fool?

Goose, an I had you upon Sarum Plain

I’d send you cackling home to Camelot.

CORNWALL

What, art thou mad, old fellow?

GLOUCESTER ⌈to Kent⌉ How fell you out? Say that.

KENT

No contraries hold more antipathy

Than I and such a knave.

CORNWALL Why dost thou call him knave?

What’s his offence?

KENT His countenance likes me not.

CORNWALL

No more perchance does mine, or his, or hers.

KENT

Sir, ’tis my occupation to be plain:

I have seen better faces in my time

Than stands on any shoulder that I see

Before me at this instant.

CORNWALL This is a fellow

Who, having been praised for bluntness, doth affect

A saucy roughness, and constrains the garb

Quite from his nature. He cannot flatter, he.

He must be plain, he must speak truth.

An they will take’t, so; if not, he’s plain.

These kind of knaves I know, which in this plainness

Harbour more craft and more corrupter ends

Than twenty silly-ducking observants

That stretch their duties nicely.

KENT

Sir, in good sooth, or in sincere verity,

Under the allowance of your grand aspect,

Whose influence, like the wreath of radiant fire

In flickering Phoebus’ front—

CORNWALL What mean’st thou by this?

KENT To go out of my dialect, which you discommend so much. I know, sir, I am no flatterer. He that beguiled you in a plain accent was a plain knave, which for my part I will not be, though I should win your displeasure to entreat me to’t.

CORNWALL (to Oswald)

What’s the offence you gave him?

OSWALD I never gave him any.

It pleased the King his master very late

To strike at me upon his misconstruction,

When he, conjunct, and flattering his displeasure,

Tripped me behind; being down, insulted, railed,

And put upon him such a deal of man that

That worthied him, got praises of the King

For him attempting who was self-subdued,

And in the fleshment of this dread exploit

Drew on me here again.

KENT None of these rogues and cowards

But Ajax is their fool.

CORNWALL ⌈calling⌉ Bring forth the stocks, ho!—

You stubborn, ancient knave, you reverend braggart,

We’ll teach you.

KENT I am too old to learn.

Call not your stocks for me. I serve the King,

On whose employments I was sent to you.

You should do small respect, show too bold malice

Against the grace and person of my master,

Stocking his messenger.

CORNWALL ⌈calling⌉ Fetch forth the stocks!—

As I have life and honour, there shall he sit till noon.

REGAN

Till noon?—till night, my lord, and all night too.

KENT

Why, madam, if I were your father’s dog

You could not use me so.

REGAN Sir, being his knave, I will.

⌈Stocks brought out⌉

CORNWALL

This is a fellow of the selfsame nature

Our sister speaks of.—Come, bring away the stocks.

GLOUCESTER

Let me beseech your grace not to do so.

His fault is much, and the good King his master

Will check him for’t. Your purposed low correction

Is such as basest and contemnèd wretches

For pilf’rings and most common trespasses

Are punished with. The King must take it ill

That he’s so slightly valued in his messenger,

Should have him thus restrained.

CORNWALL I’ll answer that.

REGAN

My sister may receive it much more worse

To have her gentlemen abused, assaulted,

For following her affairs. Put in his legs.

They put Kent in the stocks

Come, my good lord, away!

Exeunt all but Gloucester and Kent

GLOUCESTER

I am sorry for thee, friend. ’Tis the Duke’s pleasure,

Whose disposition, all the world well knows,

Will not be rubbed nor stopped. I’ll entreat for thee.

KENT

Pray you, do not, sir. I have watched and travelled

hard.

Some time I shall sleep out; the rest I’ll whistle.

A good man’s fortune may grow out at heels.

Give you good morrow.

GLOUCESTER

The Duke’s to blame in this; ’twill be ill took.

Exit

KENT

Good King, that must approve the common say:

Thou out of heaven’s benediction com’st

To the warm sun.

⌈He takes out a letter⌉

Approach, thou beacon to this under globe,

That by thy comfortable beams I may

Peruse this letter. Nothing almost sees miracles

But misery. I know ’tis from Cordelia,

Who hath now fortunately been informed

Of my obscured course, and shall find time

For this enormous state, seeking to give

Losses their remedies. All weary and overwatched,

Take vantage, heavy eyes, not to behold

This shameful lodging. Fortune, good night;

Smile; once more turn thy wheel.

He sleeps

Enter Edgar

EDGAR I heard myself proclaimed,

And by the happy hollow of a tree

Escaped the hunt. No port is free, no place

That guard and most unusual vigilance

Does not attend my taking. While I may scape

I will preserve myself, and am bethought

To take the basest and most poorest shape

That ever penury in contempt of man

Brought near to beast. My face I’ll grime with filth,

Blanket my loins, elf all my hair with knots,

And with presented nakedness outface

The wind and persecution of the sky.

The country gives me proof and precedent

Of Bedlam beggars who with roaring voices

Strike in their numbed and mortified bare arms

Pins, wooden pricks, nails, sprigs of rosemary,

And with this horrible object from low farms,

Poor pelting villages, sheep-cotes and mills

Sometime with lunatic bans, sometime with prayers

Enforce their charity. ‘Poor Tuelygod, Poor Tom!’

That’s something yet. Edgar I nothing am.

Exit

Enter King Lear, his Fool, and a Knight

LEAR

’Tis strange that they should so depart from home

And not send back my messenger.

KNIGHT As I learned,

The night before there was no purpose

Of his remove.

KENT (waking) Hail to thee, noble master.

LEAR

How! Mak’st thou this shame thy pastime?

FOOL Ha, ha, look, he wears cruel garters! Horses are tied by the heads, dogs and bears by th’ neck, monkeys by th’ loins, and men by th’ legs. When a man’s over-lusty at legs, then he wears wooden nether-stocks.

LEAR (to Kent)

What’s he that hath so much thy place mistook

To set thee here?

KENT It is both he and she:

Your son and daughter.

LEAR No.

KENT Yes.

LEAR No, I say.

KENT

I say yea.

LEAR No, no, they would not.

KENT Yes, they have.

LEAR

By Jupiter, I swear no. They durst not do‘t,

They would not, could not do’t. ’Tis worse than murder,

To do upon respect such violent outrage.

Resolve me with all modest haste which way

Thou mayst deserve or they propose this usage,

Coming from us.

KENT My lord, when at their home

I did commend your highness’ letters to them,

Ere I was risen from the place that showed

My duty kneeling, came there a reeking post

Stewed in his haste, half breathless, panting forth

From Gonoril, his mistress, salutations,

Delivered letters spite of intermission,

Which presently they read, on whose contents

They summoned up their meiny, straight took horse,

Commanded me to follow and attend

The leisure of their answer, gave me cold looks;

And meeting here the other messenger,

Whose welcome I perceived had poisoned mine—

Being the very fellow that of late

Displayed so saucily against your highness—

Having more man than wit about me, drew.

He raised the house with loud and coward cries.

Your son and daughter found this trespass worth

This shame which here it suffers.

LEAR

O, how this mother swells up toward my heart!

Histerica passio, down, thou climbing sorrow;

Thy element’s betow.—Where is this daughter?

KENT

With the Earl, sir, within.

LEAR Follow me not; stay there.

Exit

KNIGHT (to Kent)

Made you no more offence than what you speak of?

KENT

No. How chance the King comes with so small a train?

FOOL An thou hadst been set in the stocks for that question, thou hadst well deserved it.

KENT Why, fool?

FOOL We’ll set thee to school to an ant, to teach thee there’s no labouring in the winter. All that follow their noses are led by their eyes but blind men, and there’s not a nose among a hundred but can smell him that’s stinking. Let go thy hold when a great wheel runs down a hill, lest it break thy neck with following it; but the great one that goes up the hill, let him draw thee after. When a wise man gives thee better counsel, give me mine again. I would have none but knaves follow it, since a fool gives it.

⌈Sings⌉

That sir that serves for gain And follows but for form,

Will pack when it begin to rain,

And leave thee in the storm.

But I will tarry, the fool will stay,

And let the wise man fly.

The knave turns fool that runs away,

The fool no knave, pardie.

KENT Where learnt you this, fool?

FOOL Not in the stocks.

Enter King Lear and the Duke of Gloucester

LEAR

Deny to speak with me? They’re sick, they’re weary?

They travelled hard tonight?—mere insolence,

Ay, the images of revolt and flying off.

Fetch me a better answer.

GLOUCESTER My dear lord,

You know the fiery quality of the Duke,

How unremovable and fixed he is

In his own course.

LEAR Vengeance, death, plague, confusion! What ‘fiery quality’? Why, Gloucester, Gloucester, I’d Speak with the Duke of Cornwall and his wife.

GLOUCESTER Ay, my good lord.

LEAR

The King would speak with Cornwall; the dear father

Would with his daughter speak, commands, tends

service.

‘Fiery’? The Duke?—tell the hot Duke that Lear—

No, but not yet. Maybe he is not well.

Infirmity doth still neglect all office

Whereto our health is bound. We are not ourselves

When nature, being oppressed, commands the mind

To suffer with the body. I’ll forbear,

And am fallen out with my more headier will,

To take the indisposed and sickly fit

For the sound man.—Death on my state,

Wherefore should he sit here? This act persuades me

That this remotion of the Duke and her

Is practice only. Give me my servant forth.

Tell the Duke and ’s wife I’ll speak with them,

Now, presently. Bid them come forth and hear me,

Or at their chamber door I’ll beat the drum

Till it cry sleep to death.

GLOUCESTER I would have all well

Betwixt you.

Exit

LEAR O, my heart, my heart!

FOOL Cry to it, nuncle, as the cockney did to the eels when she put ‘em i’th’ paste alive. She rapped ‘em o’th’ coxcombs with a stick, and cried ‘Down, wantons, down!’ ’Twas her brother that, in pure kindness to his horse, buttered his hay.

Enter the Duke of Cornwall and Regan, the Duke of Gloucester, and others

LEAR Good morrow to you both.

CORNWALL Hail to your grace.

⌈Kent here set at liberty⌉

REGAN I am glad to see your highness.

LEAR

Regan, I think you are. I know what reason

I have to think so. If thou shouldst not be glad

I would divorce me from thy mother’s shrine,

Sepulchring an adultress. (To Kent) Yea, are you free?

Some other time for that.—Belovèd Regan,

Thy sister is naught. O, Regan, she hath tied

Sharp-toothed unkindness like a vulture here.

I can scarce speak to thee. Thou’lt not believe

Of how deplored a quality—O, Regan!

REGAN

I pray you, sir, take patience. I have hope

You less know how to value her desert

Than she to slack her duty.

LEAR My curses on her.

REGAN O sir, you are old.

Nature in you stands on the very verge

Of her confine. You should be ruled and led

By some discretion that discerns your state

Better than you yourself. Therefore I pray

That to our sister you do make return;

Say you have wronged her, sir.

LEAR Ask her forgiveness?

Do you mark how this becomes the house?

⌈Kneeling⌉ ‘Dear daughter, I confess that I am old.

Age is unnecessary. On my knees I beg

That you’ll vouchsafe me raiment, bed, and food.’

REGAN

Good sir, no more. These are unsightly tricks.

Return you to my sister.

LEAR ⌈rising⌉ No, Regan.

She hath abated me of half my train,

Looked black upon me, struck me with her tongue

Most serpent-like upon the very heart.

All the stored vengeances of heaven fall

On her ungrateful top! Strike her young bones,

You taking airs, with lameness!

CORNWALL Fie, fie, sir.

LEAR

You nimble lightnings, dart your blinding flames

Into her scornful eyes. Infect her beauty,

You fen-sucked fogs drawn by the pow’rful sun

To fall and blast her pride.

REGAN O, the blest gods!

So will you wish on me when the rash mood—

LEAR

No, Regan. Thou shalt never have my curse.

Thy tender-hested nature shall not give

Thee o‘er to harshness. Her eyes are fierce, but thine

Do comfort and not burn. ’Tis not in thee

To grudge my pleasures, to cut off my train,

To bandy hasty words, to scant my sizes,

And, in conclusion, to oppose the bolt

Against my coming in. Thou better know’st

The offices of nature, bond of childhood,

Effects of courtesy, dues of gratitude.

Thy half of the kingdom hast thou not forgot,

Wherein I thee endowed.

REGAN Good sir, to th’ purpose.

LEAR

Who put my man i’th’ stocks?

⌈Trumpets within⌉

CORNWALL What trumpet’s that?

Enter Oswald the steward

REGAN

I know’t, my sister’s. This approves her letters

That she would soon be here. (To Oswald) Is your lady

come?

LEAR

This is a slave whose easy-borrowed pride

Dwells in the fickle grace of her a follows.

He strikes Oswald⌉

Out, varlet, from my sight!

CORNWALL What means your grace?

Enter Gonoril

GONORIL

Who struck my servant? Regan, I have good hope

Thou didst not know on’t.

LEAR Who comes here? O heavens,

If you do love old men, if your sweet sway

Allow obedience, if yourselves are old,

Make it your cause! Send down and take my part.

(To Gonoril) Art not ashamed to look upon this

beard?

O Regan, wilt thou take her by the hand?

GONORIL

Why not by the hand, sir? How have I offended?

All’s not offence that indiscretion finds

And dotage terms so.

LEAR O sides, you are too tough!

Will you yet hold?—How came my man i’th’ stocks?

CORNWALL

I set him there, sir; but his own disorders

Deserved much less advancement.

LEAR You? Did you?

REGAN

I pray you, father, being weak, seem so.

If till the expiration of your month

You will return and sojourn with my sister,

Dismissing half your train, come then to me.

I am now from home, and out of that provision

Which shall be needful for your entertainment.

LEAR

Return to her, and fifty men dismissed?

No, rather I abjure all roofs, and choose

To be a comrade with the wolf and owl,

To wage against the enmity of the air

Necessity’s sharp pinch. Return with her?

Why, the hot-blood in France that dowerless took

Our youngest born—I could as well be brought

To knee his throne and, squire-like, pension beg

To keep base life afoot. Return with her?

Persuade me rather to be slave and sumpter

To this detested groom.

GONORIL At your choice, sir.

LEAR

Now I prithee, daughter, do not make me mad.

I will not trouble thee, my child. Farewell.

We’ll no more meet, no more see one another.

But yet thou art my flesh, my blood, my daughter—

Or rather a disease that lies within my flesh,

Which I must needs call mine. Thou art a boil,

A plague-sore, an embossed carbuncle

In my corrupted blood. But I’ll not chide thee.

Let shame come when it will, I do not call it.

I do not bid the thunder-bearer shoot,

Nor tell tales of thee to high-judging Jove.

Mend when thou canst; be better at thy leisure.

I can be patient, I can stay with Regan,

I and my hundred knights.

REGAN Not altogether so, sir.

I look not for you yet, nor am provided

For your fit welcome. Give ear, sir, to my sister;

For those that mingle reason with your passion

Must be content to think you are old, and so—

But she knows what she does.

LEAR Is this well spoken now?

REGAN

I dare avouch it, sir. What, fifty followers?

Is it not well? What should you need of more,

Yea, or so many, sith that both charge and danger

Speaks ‘gainst so great a number? How in a house

Should many people under two commands

Hold amity? ’Tis hard, almost impossible.

GONORIL

Why might not you, my lord, receive attendance

From those that she calls servants, or from mine?

REGAN

Why not, my lord? If then they chanced to slack you,

We could control them. If you will come to me—

For now I spy a danger—I entreat you

To bring but five-and-twenty; to no more

Will I give place or notice.

LEAR I gave you all.

REGAN And in good time you gave it.

LEAR

Made you my guardians, my depositaries,

But kept a reservation to be followed

With such a number. What, must I come to you

With five-and-twenty, Regan? Said you so?

REGAN

And speak’t again, my lord. No more with me.

LEAR

Those wicked creatures yet do seem well favoured

When others are more wicked. Not being the worst

Stands in some rank of praise. (To Gonoril) I’ll go with

thee.

Thy fifty yet doth double five-and-twenty,

And thou art twice her love.

GONORIL Hear me, my lord.

What need you five-and-twenty, ten, or five,

To follow in a house where twice so many

Have a command to tend you?

REGAN What needs one?

LEAR

O, reason not the need! Our basest beggars

Are in the poorest thing superfluous.

Allow not nature more than nature needs,

Man’s life is cheap as beast’s. Thou art a lady.

If only to go warm were gorgeous,

Why, nature needs not what thou, gorgeous, wearest,

Which scarcely keeps thee warm. But for true need—

You heavens, give me that patience, patience I need.

You see me here, you gods, a poor old fellow,

As full of grief as age, wretched in both.

If it be you that stirs these daughters’ hearts

Against their father, fool me not so much

To bear it tamely. Touch me with noble anger.

O, let not women’s weapons, water-drops,

Stain my man’s cheeks! No, you unnatural hags,

I will have such revenges on you both

That all the world shall—I will do such things—

What they are, yet I know not; but they shall be

The terrors of the earth. You think I’ll weep.

No, I’ll not weep.

⌈Storm within⌉

I have full cause of weeping, but this heart

Shall break into a hundred thousand flaws

Or ere I’ll weep.—O fool, I shall go mad!

Exeunt Lear, Gloucester, Kent, ⌈Knight,⌉ and Fool

CORNWALL

Let us withdraw. ’Twill be a storm.

REGAN

This house is little. The old man and his people

Cannot be well bestowed.

GONORIL ’Tis his own blame;

Hath put himself from rest, and must needs taste his folly.

REGAN

For his particular I’ll receive him gladly,

But not one follower.

CORNWALL

So am I purposed. Where is my lord of Gloucester?

REGAN

Followed the old man forth.

Enter the Duke of Gloucester

He is returned.

GLOUCESTER

The King is in high rage, and will I know not whither.

REGAN

’Tis good to give him way. He leads himself.

GONORIL (to Gloucester)

My lord, entreat him by no means to stay.

GLOUCESTER

Alack, the night comes on, and the bleak winds

Do sorely rustle. For many miles about

There’s not a bush.

REGAN O sir, to wilful men

The injuries that they themselves procure

Must be their schoolmasters. Shut up your doors.

He is attended with a desperate train,

And what they may incense him to, being apt

To have his ear abused, wisdom bids fear.

CORNWALL

Shut up your doors, my lord. ‘Tis a wild night.

My Regan counsels well. Come out o’th’ storm. Exeunt