William Shakespeare: The Complete Works 2nd Edition

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

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Sc. 8 Storm. Enter the Earl of Kent disguised, and First Gentleman, at several doors

KENT

What’s here, beside foul weather?

FIRST GENTLEMAN One minded like the weather,

Most unquietly.

KENT I know you. Where’s the King?

FIRST GENTLEMAN

Contending with the fretful element;

Bids the wind blow the earth into the sea

Or swell the curled waters ’bove the main,

That things might change or cease; tears his white

hair,

Which the impetuous blasts, with eyeless rage,

Catch in their fury and make nothing of;

Strives in his little world of man to outstorm

The to-and-fro-conflicting wind and rain.

This night, wherein the cub-drawn bear would couch,

The lion and the belly-pinched wolf

Keep their fur dry, unbonneted he runs,

And bids what will take all.

KENT But who is with him?

FIRST GENTLEMAN

None but the fool, who labours to outjest

His heart-struck injuries.

KENT Sir, I do know you,

And dare upon the warrant of my art

Commend a dear thing to you. There is division,

Although as yet the face of it be covered

With mutual cunning, ’twixt Albany and Cornwall;

But true it is. From France there comes a power

Into this scattered kingdom, who already,

Wise in our negligence, have secret feet

In some of our best ports, and are at point

To show their open banner. Now to you:

If on my credit you dare build so far

To make your speed to Dover, you shall find

Some that will thank you, making just report

Of how unnatural and bemadding sorrow

The King hath cause to plain.

I am a gentleman of blood and breeding,

And from some knowledge and assurance offer

This office to you.

FIRST GENTLEMAN I will talk farther with you.

KENT No, do not.

For confirmation that I am much more

Than my out-wall, open this purse, and take

What it contains. If you shall see Cordelia—

As fear not but you shall—show her this ring

And she will tell you who your fellow is,

That yet you do not know. Fie on this storm!

I will go seek the King.

FIRST GENTLEMAN Give me your hand.

Have you no more to say?

KENT Few words, but to effect

More than all yet: that when we have found the King—

In which endeavour I’ll this way, you that—

He that first lights on him holla the other.

Exeunt severally

Sc. 9 Storm. Enter King Lear and his Fool

LEAR

Blow, wind, and crack your cheeks! Rage, blow,

You cataracts and hurricanoes, spout

Till you have drenched the steeples, drowned the

cocks!

You sulphurous and thought-executing fires,

Vaunt-couriers to oak-cleaving thunderbolts,

Singe my white head; and thou all-shaking thunder,

Smite flat the thick rotundity of the world,

Crack nature’s mould, all germens spill at once

That make ingrateful man.

FOOL O nuncle, court holy water in a dry house is better than this rain-water out o’ door. Good nuncle, in, and ask thy daughters blessing. Here’s a night pities neither wise man nor fool.

LEAR

Rumble thy bellyful; spit, fire; spout, rain.

Nor rain, wind, thunder, fire are my daughters.

I tax not you, you elements, with unkindness.

I never gave you kingdom, called you children.

You owe me no subscription. Why then, let fall

Your horrible pleasure. Here I stand your slave,

A poor, infirm, weak and despised old man,

But yet I call you servile ministers,

That have with two pernicious daughters joined

Your high engendered battle ‘gainst a head

So old and white as this. O, ’tis foul!

FOOL He that has a house to put his head in has a good headpiece.

⌈Sings⌉

The codpiece that will house Before the head has any,

The head and he shall louse,

So beggars marry many.

The man that makes his toe

What he his heart should make

Shall have a corn cry woe,

And turn his sleep to wake– for there was never yet fair woman but she made mouths in a glass.

LEAR

No, I will be the pattern of all patience.

⌈He sits.⌉ Enter the Earl of Kent disguised

I will say nothing.

KENT Who’s there?

FOOL Marry, here’s grace and a codpiece—that’s a wise man and a fool.

KENT (to Lear)

Alas, sir, sit you here? Things that love night

Love not such nights as these. The wrathful skies

Gallow the very wanderers of the dark

And makes them keep their caves. Since I was man

Such sheets of fire, such bursts of horrid thunder,

Such groans of roaring wind and rain I ne’er

Remember to have heard. Man’s nature cannot carry

The affliction nor the force.

LEAR Let the great gods,

That keep this dreadful pother o’er our heads,

Find out their enemies now. Tremble, thou wretch

That hast within thee undivulgèd crimes

Unwhipped of justice; hide thee, thou bloody hand,

Thou perjured and thou simular man of virtue

That art incestuous; caitiff, in pieces shake,

That under covert and convenient seeming

Hast practised on man’s life;

Close pent-up guilts, rive your concealed centres

And cry these dreadful summoners grace.

I am a man more sinned against than sinning.

KENT Alack, bare-headed?

Gracious my lord, hard by here is a hovel.

Some friendship will it lend you ‘gainst the tempest.

Repose you there whilst I to this hard house-

More hard than is the stone whereof ’tis raised,

Which even but now, demanding after you,

Denied me to come in—return and force

Their scanted courtesy.

LEAR My wit begins to turn.

(To Fool) Come on, my boy. How dost, my boy? Art

cold?

I am cold myself.—Where is this straw, my fellow?

The art of our necessities is strange,

That can make vile things precious. Come, your

hovel.—

Poor fool and knave, I have one part of my heart

That sorrows yet for thee.

FOOL ⌈sings⌉

He that has a little tiny wit,

With heigh-ho, the wind and the rain,

Must make content with his fortunes fit,

For the rain it raineth every day.

LEAR

True, my good boy. (To Kent) Come, bring us to this hovel. Exeunt

Sc. 10 Enter the Duke of Gloucester and Edmund the bastard, with lights

GLOUCESTER

Alack, alack, Edmund, I like not this

Unnatural dealing. When I desired their leave

That I might pity him, they took from me

The use of mine own house, charged me on pain

Of their displeasure neither to speak of him,

Entreat for him, nor any way sustain him.

EDMUND Most savage and unnatural!

GLOUCESTER Go to, say you nothing. There’s a division betwixt the Dukes, and a worse matter than that. I have received a letter this night—‘tis dangerous to be spoken—I have locked the letter in my closet. These injuries the King now bears will be revenged home. There’s part of a power already landed. We must incline to the King. I will seek him and privily relieve him. Go you and maintain talk with the Duke, that my charity be not of him perceived. If he ask for me, I am ill and gone to bed. Though I die for’t—as no less is threatened me—the King my old master must be relieved. There is some strange thing toward. Edmund, pray you be careful. Exit

EDMUND

This courtesy, forbid thee, shall the Duke

Instantly know, and of that letter too.

This seems a fair deserving, and must draw me

That which my father loses: no less than all.

The younger rises when the old do fall. Exit

Sc. 11 Storm. Enter King Lear, the Earl of Kent disguised, and Lear’s Fool

KENT

Here is the place, my lord. Good my lord, enter.

The tyranny of the open night’s too rough

For nature to endure.

LEAR Let me alone.

KENT

Good my lord, enter here.

LEAR Wilt break my heart?

KENT

I had rather break mine own. Good my lord, enter.

LEAR

Thou think‘st ’tis much that this contentious storm

Invades us to the skin. So ‘tis to thee;

But where the greater malady is fixed,

The lesser is scarce felt. Thou’dst shun a bear,

But if thy flight lay toward the roaring sea

Thou‘dst meet the bear i’th’ mouth. When the mind’s

free,

The body’s delicate. This tempest in my mind

Doth from my senses take all feeling else

Save what beats there: filial ingratitude.

Is it not as this mouth should tear this hand

For lifting food to’t? But I will punish sure.

No, I will weep no more.—

In such a night as this! O Regan, Gonoril,

Your old kind father, whose frank heart gave you all—

O, that way madness lies. Let me shun that.

No more of that.

KENT Good my lord, enter.

LEAR

Prithee, go in thyself. Seek thy own ease.

This tempest will not give me leave to ponder

On things would hurt me more; but I’ll go in.

⌈Exit Fool⌉

Poor naked wretches, wheresoe‘er you are,

That bide the pelting of this pitiless night,

How shall your houseless heads and unfed sides,

Your looped and windowed raggedness, defend you

From seasons such as these? O, I have ta’en

Too little care of this. Take physic, pomp,

Expose thyself to feel what wretches feel,

That thou mayst shake the superflux to them

And show the heavens more just.

Enter Lear’s Fool

FOOL Come not in here, nuncle; here’s a spirit. Help me, help me!

KENT Give me thy hand. Who’s there?

FOOL A spirit. He says his name’s Poor Tom.

KENT

What art thou that dost grumble there in the straw?

Come forth.

⌈Enter Edgar as a Bedlam beggar⌉

EDGAR Away, the foul fiend follows me. Through the sharp hawthorn blows the cold wind. Go to thy cold bed and warm thee.

LEAR

Hast thou given all to thy two daughters,

And art thou come to this?

EDGAR Who gives anything to Poor Tom, whom the foul fiend hath led through fire and through ford and whirlypool, o’er bog and quagmire; that has laid knives under his pillow and halters in his pew, set ratsbane by his potage, made him proud of heart to ride on a bay trotting-horse over four-inched bridges, to course his own shadow for a traitor. Bless thy five wits, Tom’s a-cold! Bless thee from whirlwinds, star-blasting, and taking. Do Poor Tom some charity, whom the foul fiend vexes. There could I have him, now, and there, and there again.

LEAR

What, has his daughters brought him to this pass?

(To Edgar) Couldst thou save nothing? Didst thou give

them all?

FOOL Nay, he reserved a blanket, else we had been all shamed.

LEAR (to Edgar)

Now all the plagues that in the pendulous air

Hang fated o’er men’s faults fall on thy daughters!

KENT He hath no daughters, sir.

LEAR

Death, traitor! Nothing could have subdued nature

To such a lowness but his unkind daughters.

(To Edgar) Is it the fashion that discarded fathers

Should have thus little mercy on their flesh?

Judicious punishment: ’twas this flesh begot

Those pelican daughters.

EDGAR Pillicock sat on pillicock’s hill; a lo, lo, lo.

FOOL This cold night will turn us all to fools and madmen.

EDGAR Take heed o’th’ foul fiend; obey thy parents; keep thy word justly; swear not; commit not with man’s sworn spouse: set not thy sweet heart on proud array. Tom’s a-cold.

LEAR What hast thou been?

EDGAR A servingman, proud in heart and mind, that curled my hair, wore gloves in my cap, served the lust of my mistress’ heart, and did the act of darkness with her; swore as many oaths as I spake words, and broke them in the sweet face of heaven; one that slept in the contriving of lust, and waked to do it. Wine loved I deeply, dice dearly, and in woman out-paramoured the Turk. False of heart, light of ear, bloody of hand; hog in sloth, fox in stealth, wolf in greediness, dog in madness, lion in prey. Let not the creaking of shoes nor the rustlings of silks betray thy poor heart to women. Keep thy foot out of brothel, thy hand out of placket, thy pen from lender’s book, and defy the foul fiend. Still through the hawthorn blows the cold wind. Heigh no nonny. Dolphin, my boy, my boy! Cease, let him trot by.

LEAR Why, thou wert better in thy grave than to answer with thy uncovered body this extremity of the skies. Is man no more but this? Consider him well. Thou owest the worm no silk, the beast no hide, the sheep no wool, the cat no perfume. Here’s three on ’s are sophisticated; thou art the thing itself. Unaccommodated man is no more but such a poor, bare, forked animal as thou art. Off, off, you lendings! Come on, be true.

FOOL Prithee, nuncle, be content. This is a naughty night to swim in. Now a little fire in a wild field were like an old lecher’s heart—a small spark, all the rest on ’s body cold. Look, here comes a walking fire.

Enter the Duke of Gloucester with a ⌈torch⌉

EDGAR This is the foul fiend Flibbertigibbet. He begins at curfew and walks till the first cock. He gives the web and the pin, squinies the eye, and makes the harelip; mildews the white wheat, and hurts the poor creature of earth.

⌈Sings⌉

Swithin footed thrice the wold,

A met the night mare and her nine foal;

Bid her alight

And her troth plight,

And aroint thee, witch, aroint thee!

KENT (to Lear)

How fares your grace?

LEAR What’s he?

KENT (to Gloucester) Who’s there? What is’t you seek?

GLOUCESTER What are you there? Your names?

EDGAR Poor Tom, that eats the swimming frog, the toad, the tadpole, the wall-newt and the water; that in the fury of his heart, when the foul fiend rages, eats cowdung for salads, swallows the old rat and the ditch-dog, drinks the green mantle of the standing pool; who is whipped from tithing to tithing, and stock-punished, and imprisoned; who hath had three suits to his back, six shirts to his body,

Horse to ride, and weapon to wear.

But mice and rats and such small deer

Hath been Tom’s food for seven long year-

Beware my follower. Peace, Smolking; peace, thou

fiend!

GLOUCESTER (to Lear)

What, hath your grace no better company?

EDGAR

The Prince of Darkness is a gentleman;

Modo he’s called, and Mahu—

GLOUCESTER (to Lear)

Our flesh and blood is grown so vile, my lord,

That it doth hate what gets it.

EDGAR Poor Tom’s a-cold.

GLOUCESTER (to Lear)

Go in with me. My duty cannot suffer

To obey in all your daughters’ hard commands.

Though their injunction be to bar my doors

And let this tyrannous night take hold upon you,

Yet have I ventured to come seek you out

And bring you where both food and fire is ready.

LEAR

First let me talk with this philosopher.

(To Edgar) What is the cause of thunder?

KENT My good lord,

Take his offer; go into the house.

LEAR

I’ll talk a word with this most learnèd Theban.

(To Edgar) What is your study?

EDGAR

How to prevent the fiend, and to kill vermin.

LEAR

Let me ask you one word in private.

They converse apart

KENT (to Gloucester)

Importune him to go, my lord.

His wits begin to unsettle.

GLOUCESTER Canst thou blame him?

His daughters seek his death. O, that good Kent,

He said it would be thus, poor banished man!

Thou sayst the King grows mad; I’ll tell thee, friend,

I am almost mad myself. I had a son,

Now outlawed from my blood; a sought my life

But lately, very late. I loved him, friend;

No father his son dearer. True to tell thee,

The grief hath crazed my wits. What a night’s this!

(To Lear) I do beseech your grace—

LEAR O, cry you mercy.

(To Edgar) Noble philosopher, your company.

EDGAR Tom’s a-cold.

GLOUCESTER

In, fellow, there in t’hovel; keep thee warm.

LEAR

Come, let’s in all.

KENT This way, my lord.

LEAR With him!

I will keep still with my philosopher.

KENT (to Gloucester)

Good my lord, soothe him; let him take the fellow.

GLOUCESTER Take him you on.

KENT ⌈to Edgar⌉

Sirrah, come on. Go along with us.

LEAR (to Edgar)

Come, good Athenian.

GLOUCESTER No words, no words. Hush.

EDGAR Child Roland to the dark tower come, His word was still ‘Fie, fo, and fum; I smell the blood of a British man.’

Exeunt

Sc. 12 Enter the Duke of Cornwall and Edmund the bastard

CORNWALL I will have my revenge ere I depart the house. EDMUND How, my lord, I may be censured, that nature thus gives way to loyalty, something fears me to think of.

CORNWALL I now perceive it was not altogether your brother’s evil disposition made him seek his death, but a provoking merit set a-work by a reprovable badness in himself.

EDMUND How malicious is my fortune, that I must repent to be just! This is the letter he spoke of, which approves him an intelligent party to the advantages of France. O heavens, that his treason were not, or not I the detector!

CORNWALL Go with me to the Duchess.

EDMUND If the matter of this paper be certain, you have mighty business in hand.

CORNWALL True or false, it hath made thee Earl of Gloucester. Seek out where thy father is, that he may be ready for our apprehension.

EDMUND ⌈aside⌉ If I find him comforting the King, it will stuff his suspicion more fully. (To Cornwall) I will persever in my course of loyalty, though the conflict be sore between that and my blood.

CORNWALL I will lay trust upon thee, and thou shalt find a dearer father in my love. Exeunt

Sc. 13 Enter the Duke of Gloucester and King Lear, the Earl of Kent disguised, Lear’s Fool, and Edgar as a Bedlam beggar

GLOUCESTER Here is better than the open air; take it thankfully. I will piece out the comfort with what addition I can. I will not be long from you.

KENT All the power of his wits have given way to impatience; the gods discern your kindness! ⌈Exit Gloucester⌉

EDGAR Frateretto calls me, and tells me Nero is an angler in the lake of darkness. Pray, innocent; beware the foul fiend.

FOOL (to Lear) Prithee, nuncle, tell me whether a madman be a gentleman or a yeoman.

LEAR

A king, a king! To have a thousand With red burning spits come hissing in upon them!

EDGAR The foul fiend bites my back.

FOOL (to Lear) He’s mad that trusts in the tameness of a wolf, a horse’s health, a boy’s love, or a whore’s oath.

LEAR

It shall be done. I will arraign them straight.

⌈To Edgar⌉ Come, sit thou here, most learned justicer.

⌈To Fool⌉ Thou sapient sir, sit here.—No, you she-

foxes—

EDGAR Look where he stands and glares. Want’st thou eyes at troll-madam?

⌈Sings⌉ Come o’er the burn, Bessy, to me.

FOOL ⌈sings⌉

Her boat hath a leak,

And she must not speak

Why she dares not come over to thee.

EDGAR The foul fiend haunts Poor Tom in the voice of a nightingale. Hoppedance cries in Tom’s belly for two white herring. Croak not, black angel: I have no food for thee.

KENT (to Lear)

How do you, sir? Stand you not so amazed.

Will you lie down and rest upon the cushions?

LEAR

I’ll see their trial first. Bring in the evidence.

⌈To Edgar⌉ Thou robed man of justice, take thy place;

⌈To Fool⌉ And thou, his yokefellow of equity,

Bench by his side. ⌈To Kent⌉ You are o’th’

commission,

Sit you, too.

EDGAR Let us deal justly.

⌈Sings⌉

Sleepest or wakest thou, jolly shepherd?

Thy sheep be in the corn,

And for one blast of thy minikin mouth

Thy sheep shall take no harm.

Purr, the cat is grey.

LEAR Arraign her first. ’Tis Gonoril. I here take my oath before this honourable assembly she kicked the poor King her father.

FOOL Come hither, mistress. Is your name Gonoril?

LEAR She cannot deny it.

FOOL Cry you mercy, I took you for a join-stool.

LEAR

And here’s another, whose warped looks proclaim

What store her heart is made on. Stop her there.

Arms, arms, sword, fire, corruption in the place!

False justicer, why hast thou let her scape?

EDGAR Bless thy five wits.

KENT (to Lear)

O pity! Sir, where is the patience now

That you so oft have boasted to retain?

EDGAR (aside)

My tears begin to take his part so much

They’ll mar my counterfeiting.

LEAR The little dogs and all,

Tray, Blanch, and Sweetheart—see, they bark at me.

EDGAR Tom will throw his head at them.—Avaunt, you curs!

Be thy mouth or black or white,

Tooth that poisons if it bite,

Mastiff, greyhound, mongrel grim,

Hound or spaniel, brach or him,

Bobtail tyke or trundle-tail,

Tom will make them weep and wail;

For with throwing thus my head,

Dogs leap the hatch, and all are fled.

Loudla, doodla! Come, march to wakes and fairs

And market towns. Poor Tom, thy horn is dry.

LEAR Then let them anatomize Regan; see what breeds about her heart. Is there any cause in nature that makes this hardness? (To Edgar) You, sir, I entertain you for one of my hundred, only I do not like the fashion of your garments. You’ll say they are Persian attire; but let them be changed.

KENT

Now, good my lord, lie here a while.

LEAR Make no noise, make no noise. Draw the curtains.

So, so, so. We’ll go to supper i’th’ morning. So, so, so.

He sleeps. Enter the Duke of Gloucester

GLOUCESTER (to Kent)

Come hither, friend. Where is the King my master?

KENT

Here, sir, but trouble him not; his wits are gone.

GLOUCESTER

Good friend, I prithee take him in thy arms.

I have o’erheard a plot of death upon him.