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

Автор книги: William Shakespeare

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Sc. 14 Enter the Duke of Cornwall and Regan, and Gonoril and Edmund the bastard, and Servants

CORNWALL (to Gonoril)

Post speedily to my lord your husband.

Show him this letter. The army of France is landed.

(To Servants) Seek out the villain Gloucester.

Exeunt some

REGAN

Hang him instantly.

GONORIL

Pluck out his eyes.

CORNWALL Leave him to my displeasure.—

Edmund, keep you our sister company.

The revenges we are bound to take upon your traitorous

father are not fit for your beholding. Advise the Duke

where you are going, to a most festinate preparation;

we are bound to the like. Our posts shall be swift, and

intelligence betwixt us.—

Farewell, dear sister. Farewell, my lord of Gloucester.

Enter Oswald the steward

How now, where’s the King?

OSWALD

My lord of Gloucester hath conveyed him hence.

Some five– or six-and-thirty of his knights,

Hot questants after him, met him at gate,

Who, with some other of the lord’s dependants,

Are gone with him towards Dover, where they boast

To have well-armed friends.

CORNWALL Get horses for your mistress. Exit Oswald

GONORIL Farewell, sweet lord, and sister.

CORNWALL

Edmund, farewell. Exeunt Gonoril and Edmund

(To Servants) Go seek the traitor Gloucester.

Pinion him like a thief; bring him before us.

Exeunt other Servants

Though we may not pass upon his life

Without the form of justice, yet our power

Shall do a curtsy to our wrath, which men

May blame but not control. Who’s there—the traitor?

Enter the Duke of Gloucester brought in by two or

three

REGAN

Ingrateful fox, ’tis he.

CORNWALL (to Servants) Bind fast his corky arms.

GLOUCESTER

What means your graces? Good my friends, consider

You are my guests. Do me no foul play, friends.

CORNWALL (to Servants)

Bind him, I say—

REGAN Hard, hard! O filthy traitor!

GLOUCESTER

Unmerciful lady as you are, I am true.

CORNWALL (to Servants)

To this chair bind him. (To Gloucester) Villain, thou

shalt find—

Regan plucks Gloucester’s beard

GLOUCESTER

By the kind gods, ’tis most ignobly done,

To pluck me by the beard.

REGAN So white, and such a traitor!

GLOUCESTER Naughty lady,

These hairs which thou dost ravish from my chin

Will quicken and accuse thee. I am your host.

With robbers’ hands my hospitable favours

You should not ruffle thus. What will you do?

CORNWALL

Come, sir, what letters had you late from France?

REGAN

Be simple, answerer, for we know the truth.

CORNWALL

And what confederacy have you with the traitors

Late footed in the kingdom?

REGAN To whose hands

You have sent the lunatic King. Speak.

GLOUCESTER

I have a letter guessingly set down,

Which came from one that’s of a neutral heart,

And not from one opposed.

CORNWALL Cunning.

REGAN And false.

CORNWALL

Where hast thou sent the King?

GLOUCESTER To Dover.

REGAN

Wherefore to Dover? Wast thou not charged at peril—

CORNWALL

Wherefore to Dover? Let him first answer that.

GLOUCESTER

I am tied to th’ stake, and I must stand the course.

REGAN Wherefore to Dover, sir?

GLOUCESTER

Because I would not see thy cruel nails

Pluck out his poor old eyes, nor thy fierce sister

In his anointed flesh rash boarish fangs.

The sea, with such a storm as his bowed head

In hell-black night endured, would have buoyed up

And quenched the stellèd fires. Yet, poor old heart,

He holped the heavens to rage.

If wolves had at thy gate howled that dern time,

Thou shouldst have said ‘Good porter, turn the key;

All cruels I’ll subscribe.’ But I shall see

The winged vengeance overtake such children.

CORNWALL

See’t shalt thou never.—Fellows, hold the chair.—

Upon those eyes of thine I’ll set my foot.

GLOUCESTER

He that will think to live till he be old

Give me some help!—O cruel! O ye gods!

⌈Cornwall pulls out one of Gloucester’s eyes and

stamps on it⌉

REGAN (to Cornwall)

One side will mock another; t’other, too.

CORNWALL (to Gloucester)

If you see vengeance—

SERVANT Hold your hand, my lord.

I have served you ever since I was a child,

But better service have I never done you

Than now to bid you hold.

REGAN How now, you dog!

SERVANT

If you did wear a beard upon your chin

I’d shake it on this quarrel. ⌈To Cornwall⌉ What do

you mean?

CORNWALL My villein!

SERVANT

Why then, come on, and take the chance of anger.

They draw and fight

REGAN ⌈to another Servant⌉

Give me thy sword. A peasant stand up thus!

She takes a sword and runs at him behind

SERVANT (to Gloucester)

O, I am slain, my lord! Yet have you one eye left

To see some mischief on him.

⌈Regan stabs him again⌉

O! He dies

CORNWALL

Lest it see more, prevent it. Out, vile jelly!

He ⌈pulls out⌉ Gloucester’s other eye

Where is thy lustre now?

GLOUCESTER

All dark and comfortless. Where’s my son Edmund?

Edmund, enkindle all the sparks of nature

To quite this horrid act.

REGAN Out, villain!

Thou call’st on him that hates thee. It was he

That made the overture of thy treasons to us,

Who is too good to pity thee.

GLOUCESTER

O, my follies! Then Edgar was abused.

Kind gods, forgive me that, and prosper him!

REGAN (to Servants)

Go thrust him out at gates, and let him smell

His way to Dover. (To Cornwall) How is’t, my lord?

How look you?

CORNWALL

I have received a hurt. Follow me, lady.

(To Servants) Turn out that eyeless villain. Throw this

slave

Upon the dunghill.

Exit one or more with Gloucester

⌈and the body⌉

Regan, I bleed apace.

Untimely comes this hurt. Give me your arm.

Exeunt Cornwall and Regan

SECOND SERVANT

I’ll never care what wickedness I do

If this man come to good.

THIRD SERVANT If she live long

And in the end meet the old course of death,

Women will all turn monsters.

SECOND SERVANT

Let’s follow the old Earl and get the bedlam

To lead him where he would. His roguish madness

Allows itself to anything.

THIRD SERVANT

Go thou. I’ll fetch some flax and whites of eggs

To apply to his bleeding face. Now heaven help him!

Exeunt severally

Sc. 15 Enter Edgar as a Bedlam beggar

EDGAR

Yet better thus and known to be contemned

Than still contemned and flattered. To be worst,

The low’st and most dejected thing of fortune,

Stands still in esperance, lives not in fear.

The lamentable change is from the best;

The worst returns to laughter.

Enter the Duke of Gloucester led by an Old Man

Who’s here? My father, parti-eyed? World, world, O

world!

But that thy strange mutations make us hate thee,

Life would not yield to age.

⌈Edgar stands aside⌉

OLD MAN (to Gloucester) O my good lord,

I have been your tenant and your father’s tenant

This fourscore—

GLOUCESTER

Away, get thee away, good friend, be gone.

Thy comforts can do me no good at all;

Thee they may hurt.

OLD MAN

Alack, sir, you cannot see your way.

GLOUCESTER

I have no way, and therefore want no eyes.

I stumbled when I saw. Full oft ’tis seen

Our means secure us, and our mere defects

Prove our commodities. Ah dear son Edgar,

The food of thy abused father’s wrath—

Might I but live to see thee in my touch

I’d say I had eyes again.

OLD MAN How now? Who’s there?

EDGAR (aside)

O gods! Who is’t can say ‘I am at the worst?

I am worse than e’er I was.

OLD MAN ’Tis poor mad Tom.

EDGAR (aside)

And worse I may be yet. The worst is not

As long as we can say ‘This is the worst.’

OLD MAN (to Edgar) Fellow, where goest?

GLOUCESTER Is it a beggarman?

OLD MAN Madman and beggar too.

GLOUCESTER

A has some reason, else he could not beg.

In the last night’s storm I such a fellow saw,

Which made me think a man a worm. My son

Came then into my mind, and yet my mind

Was then scarce friends with him. I have heard more

since.

As flies to wanton boys are we to th’ gods;

They kill us for their sport.

EDGAR (aside) How should this be?

Bad is the trade that must play fool to sorrow,

Ang’ring itself and others.

⌈He comes forward⌉

Bless thee, master.

GLOUCESTER

Is that the naked fellow?

OLD MAN Ay, my lord.

GLOUCESTER

Then prithee, get thee gone. If for my sake

Thou wilt o‘ertake us hence a mile or twain

I’th’ way toward Dover, do it for ancient love,

And bring some covering for this naked soul,

Who I’ll entreat to lead me.

OLD MAN Alack, sir, he is mad.

GLOUCESTER

’Tis the time’s plague when madmen lead the blind.

Do as I bid thee; or rather do thy pleasure.

Above the rest, be gone.

OLD MAN

I’ll bring him the best ’parel that I have,

Come on’t what will. Exit

GLOUCESTER Sirrah, naked fellow!

EDGAR

Poor Tom’s a-cold. I cannot dance it farther.

GLOUCESTER Come hither, fellow.

EDGAR Bless thy sweet eyes, they bleed.

GLOUCESTER Know’st thou the way to Dover?

EDGAR Both stile and gate, horseway and footpath. Poor Tom hath been scared out of his good wits. Bless thee, goodman, from the foul fiend. Five fiends have been in Poor Tom at once, as Obidicut of lust, Hobbididence prince of dumbness, Mahu of stealing, Modo of murder, Flibbertigibbet of mocking and mowing, who since possesses chambermaids and waiting-women. So bless thee, master.

GLOUCESTER

Here, take this purse, thou whom the heavens’ plagues

Have humbled to all strokes. That I am wretched

Makes thee the happier. Heavens deal so still.

Let the superfluous and lust-dieted man

That stands your ordinance, that will not see

Because he does not feel, feel your power quickly.

So distribution should undo excess,

And each man have enough. Dost thou know Dover?

EDGAR Ay, master.

GLOUCESTER

There is a cliff whose high and bending head

Looks saucily in the confined deep.

Bring me but to the very brim of it

And I’ll repair the misery thou dost bear

With something rich about me. From that place

I shall no leading need.

EDGAR Give me thy arm.

Poor Tom shall lead thee.

Exit Edgar guiding Gloucester

Sc. 16 Enter ⌈at one door⌉ Gonoril and Edmund the bastard

GONORIL

Welcome, my lord. I marvel our mild husband

Not met us on the way.

Enter ⌈at another door⌉ Oswald the steward

Now, where’s your master?

OSWALD

Madam, within; but never man so changed.

I told him of the army that was landed;

He smiled at it. I told him you were coming;

His answer was ‘The worse.’ Of Gloucester’s treachery

And of the loyal service of his son

When I informed him, then he called me sot,

And told me I had turned the wrong side out.

What he should most defy seems pleasant to him;

What like, offensive.

GONORIL (to Edmund) Then shall you go no further.

It is the cowish terror of his spirit

That dares not undertake. He’ll not feel wrongs

Which tie him to an answer. Our wishes on the way

May prove effects. Back, Edmund, to my brother.

Hasten his musters and conduct his powers.

I must change arms at home, and give the distaff

Into my husband’s hands. This trusty servant

Shall pass between us. Ere long you are like to hear,

If you dare venture in your own behalf,

A mistress’s command. Wear this. Spare speech.

Decline your head. This kiss, if it durst speak,

Would stretch thy spirits up into the air.

⌈she kisses him⌉

Conceive, and fare you well.

EDMUND Yours in the ranks of death.

GONORIL My most dear Gloucester.

⌈Exit Edmund⌉

To thee a woman’s services are due;

My foot usurps my body.

OSWALD Madam, here comes my lord.

Exit

Enter the Duke of Albany

GONORIL

I have been worth the whistling.

ALBANY O Gonoril,

You are not worth the dust which the rude wind

Blows in your face. I fear your disposition.

That nature which contemns it origin

Cannot be bordered certain in itself.

She that herself will sliver and disbranch

From her material sap perforce must wither,

And come to deadly use.

GONORIL No more. The text is foolish.

ALBANY

Wisdom and goodness to the vile seem vile;

Filths savour but themselves. What have you done?

Tigers, not daughters, what have you performed?

A father, and a gracious, aged man,

Whose reverence even the head-lugged bear would

lick,

Most barbarous, most degenerate, have you madded.

Could my good-brother suffer you to do it—

A man, a prince by him so benefacted?

If that the heavens do not their visible spirits

Send quickly down to tame these vile offences,

It will come,

Humanity must perforce prey on itself,

Like monsters of the deep.

GONORIL Milk-livered man,

That bear‘st a cheek for blows, a head for wrongs;

Who hast not in thy brows an eye discerning

Thine honour from thy suffering; that not know’st

Fools do those villains pity who are punished

Ere they have done their mischief: where’s thy drum?

France spreads his banners in our noiseless land,

With plumed helm thy flaxen biggin threats,

Whiles thou, a moral fool, sits still and cries

‘Alack, why does he so?’

ALBANY See thyself, devil.

Proper deformity shows not in the fiend

So horrid as in woman.

GONORIL O vain fool! 60

ALBANY

Thou changed and self-covered thing, for shame

Bemonster not thy feature. Were’t my fitness

To let these hands obey my blood,

They are apt enough to dislocate and tear

Thy flesh and bones. Howe’er thou art a fiend,

A woman’s shape doth shield thee.

GONORIL Marry your manhood, mew—

Enter ⌈Second⌉ Gentleman

ALBANY What news?

⌈SECOND⌉ GENTLEMAN

O my good lord, the Duke of Cornwall’s dead,

Slain by his servant going to put out

The other eye of Gloucester.

ALBANY Gloucester’s eyes?

⌈FSECOND⌉ GENTLEMAN

A servant that he bred, thralled with remorse,

Opposed against the act, bending his sword

To his great master, who thereat enraged

Flew on him, and amongst them felled him dead,

But not without that harmful stroke which since

Hath plucked him after.

ALBANY This shows you are above,

You justicers, that these our nether crimes

So speedily can venge. But O, poor Gloucester!

Lost he his other eye?

⌈SECOND⌉ GENTLEMAN Both, both, my lord. 80

(To Gonoril) This letter, madam, craves a speedy

answer.

’Tis from your sister.

GONORIL (aside) One way I like this well;

But being widow, and my Gloucester with her,

May all the building on my fancy pluck

Upon my hateful life. Another way

The news is not so took.—I’ll read and answer. Exit

ALBANY

Where was his son when they did take his eyes?

⌈ECOND⌉GENTLEMAN

Come with my lady hither.

ALBANY He is not here.

⌈ECOND⌉GENTLEMAN

No, my good lord; I met him back again.

ALBANY Knows he the wickedness? 90

⌈ECOND⌉GENTLEMAN

Ay, my good lord; ’twas he informed against him,

And quit the house on purpose that their punishment

Might have the freer course.

ALBANY Gloucester, I live

To thank thee for the love thou showed’st the King,

And to revenge thy eyes.—Come hither, friend

Tell me what more thou knowest. Exeunt

Sc. 17 Enter the Earl of Kent disguised, and ⌈First⌉ Gentleman

KENT Why the King of France is so suddenly gone back know you no reason?

⌈FIRST⌉ GENTLEMAN

Something he left imperfect in the state

Which, since his coming forth, is thought of; which

Imports to the kingdom so much fear and danger

That his personal return was most required

And necessary.

KENT

Who hath he left behind him general?

⌈IRST⌉ NTLEMAN

The Maréchal of France, Monsieur la Far.

KENT Did your letters pierce the Queen to any demonstration of grief? II

⌈IRST⌉ ENTLEMAN

Ay, sir. She took them, read them in my presence,

And now and then an ample tear trilled down

Her delicate cheek. It seemed she was a queen

Over her passion who, most rebel-like,

Sought to be king o’er her.

KENT O, then it moved her.

⌈IRST⌉GENTLEMAN

Not to a rage. Patience and sorrow strove

Who should express her goodliest. You have seen

Sunshine and rain at once; her smiles and tears

Were like, a better way. Those happy smilets

That played on her ripe lip seemed not to know

What guests were in her eyes, which parted thence

As pearls from diamonds dropped. In brief,

Sorrow would be a rarity most beloved

If all could so become it.

KENT Made she no verbal question?

⌈IRST⌉ ENTLEMAN

Faith, once or twice she heaved the name of ‘father’

Pantingly forth as if it pressed her heart,

Cried ‘Sisters, sisters, shame of ladies, sisters,

Kent, father, sisters, what, i‘th’ storm, i’th’ night,

Let piety not be believed!’ There she shook

The holy water from her heavenly eyes

And clamour mastered, then away she started

To deal with grief alone.

KENT It is the stars,

The stars above us govern our conditions,

Else one self mate and make could not beget

Such different issues. You spoke not with her since?

⌈IRST⌉ ENTLEMAN No.

KENT

Was this before the King returned?

⌈IRST⌉ ENTLEMAN No, since.

KENT

Well, sir, the poor distressed Lear’s i’th’ town,

Who sometime in his better tune remembers

What we are come about, and by no means

Will yield to see his daughter.

⌈IRST⌉ NTLEMAN Why, good sir?

KENT

A sovereign shame so elbows him: his own unkindness,

That stripped her from his benediction, turned her

To foreign casualties, gave her dear rights

To his dog-hearted daughters—these things sting

His mind so venomously that burning shame

Detains him from Cordelia.

⌈IRST⌉ ENTLEMAN Alack, poor gentleman!

KENT

Of Albany’s and Cornwall’s powers you heard not?

⌈IRST⌉ ENTLEMAN ’Tis so; they are afoot.

KENT

Well, sir, I’ll bring you to our master Lear,

And leave you to attend him. Some dear cause

Will in concealment wrap me up a while.

When I am known aright you shall not grieve

Lending me this acquaintance. I pray you go

Along with me. Exeunt

Sc. 18 Enter Queen Cordelia, a Doctor, and others

CORDELIA

Alack, ’tis he! Why, he was met even now,

As mad as the racked sea, singing aloud,

Crowned with rank fumitor and furrow-weeds,

With burdocks, hemlock, nettles, cuckoo-flowers,

Darnel, and all the idle weeds that grow

In our sustaining corn. The centuries send forth.

Search every acre in the high-grown field,

And bring him to our eye.

⌈Exit one or more⌉

What can man’s wisdom

In the restoring his bereaved sense,

He that can help him

Take all my outward worth.

DOCTOR There is means, madam.

Our foster-nurse of nature is repose,

The which he lacks. That to provoke in him

Are many simples operative, whose power

Will close the eye of anguish.

CORDELIA All blest secrets,

All you unpublished virtues of the earth,

Spring with my tears, be aidant and remediate

In the good man’s distress!—Seek, seek for him,

Lest his ungoverned rage dissolve the life

That wants the means to lead it.

Enter a Messenger

MESSENGER News, madam.

The British powers are marching hitherward.

CORDELIA

’Tis known before; our preparation stands

In expectation of them.—O dear father,

It is thy business that I go about;

Therefore great France

My mourning and important tears hath pitied.

No blown ambition doth our arms incite,

But love, dear love, and our aged father’s right.

Soon may I hear and see him! Exeunt

Sc. 19 Enter Regan and Oswald, Gonoril’s steward

REGAN

But are my brother’s powers set forth?

OSWALD Ay, madam.

REGAN

Himself in person?

OSWALD Madam, with much ado.

Your sister is the better soldier.

REGAN

Lord Edmund spake not with your lord at home?

OSWALD No, madam.

REGAN

What might import my sister’s letters to him?

OSWALD I know not, lady.

REGAN

Faith, he is posted hence on serious matter.

It was great ignorance, Gloucester’s eyes being out,

To let him live. Where he arrives he moves

All hearts against us. Edmund, I think, is gone,

In pity of his misery, to dispatch

His ‘nighted life, moreover to descry

The strength o’th’ army.

OSWALD

I must needs after with my letters, madam.

REGAN

Our troop sets forth tomorrow. Stay with us.

The ways are dangerous.

OSWALD I may not, madam.

My lady charged my duty in this business.

REGAN

Why should she write to Edmund? Might not you

Transport her purposes by word? Belike—

Something, I know not what. I’ll love thee much:

Let me unseal the letter.

OSWALD Madam, I’d rather—

REGAN

I know your lady does not love her husband.

I am sure of that, and at her late being here

She gave strange oeillades and most speaking looks

To noble Edmund. I know you are of her bosom.

OSWALD I, madam?

REGAN

I speak in understanding, for I know’t.

Therefore I do advise you take this note.

My lord is dead. Edmund and I have talked,

And more convenient is he for my hand

Than for your lady’s. You may gather more.

If you do find him, pray you give him this,

And when your mistress hears thus much from you,

I pray desire her call her wisdom to her.

So, farewell.

If you do chance to hear of that blind traitor,

Preferment falls on him that cuts him off.

OSWALD

Would I could meet him, madam. I would show

What lady I do follow.

REGAN Fare thee well. Exeunt severally

Sc. 20 Enter Edgar disguised as a peasant, with a staff, guiding the blind Duke of Gloucester

GLOUCESTER

When shall we come to th’ top of that same hill?

EDGAR

You do climb up it now. Look how we labour.

GLOUCESTER

Methinks the ground is even.

EDGAR Horrible steep.

Hark, do you hear the sea?

GLOUCESTER No, truly.

EDGAR

Why, then your other senses grow imperfect

By your eyes’ anguish.

GLOUCESTER So may it be indeed.

Methinks thy voice is altered, and thou speak’st

With better phrase and matter than thou didst.

EDGAR

You’re much deceived. In nothing am I changed

But in my garments.

GLOUCESTER Methinks you’re better spoken.

EDGAR

Come on, sir, here’s the place. Stand still. How fearful

And dizzy ’tis to cast one’s eyes so low!

The crows and choughs that wing the midway air

Show scarce so gross as beetles. Halfway down

Hangs one that gathers samphire, dreadful trade!

Methinks he seems no bigger than his head.

The fishermen that walk upon the beach

Appear like mice, and yon tall anchoring barque

Diminished to her cock, her cock a buoy

Almost too small for sight. The murmuring surge

That on the unnumbered idle pebble chafes

Cannot be heard, it’s so high. I’ll look no more,

Lest my brain turn and the deficient sight

Topple down headlong.

GLOUCESTER Set me where you stand.

EDGAR

Give me your hand. You are now within a foot

Of th’extreme verge. For all beneath the moon

Would I not leap upright.

GLOUCESTER Let go my hand.

Here, friend, ’s another purse; in it a jewel

Well worth a poor man’s taking. Fairies and gods

Prosper it with thee! Go thou farther off.

Bid me farewell, and let me hear thee going.

EDGAR

Now fare you well, good sir.

He stands aside

GLOUCESTER With all my heart.

EDGAR (aside)

Why I do trifle thus with his despair

Is done to cure it.

GLOUCESTER O you mighty gods,

He kneels

This world I do renounce, and in your sights

Shake patiently my great affliction off!

If I could bear it longer, and not fall

To quarrel with your great opposeless wills,

My snuff and loathed part of nature should

Burn itself out. If Edgar live, O bless him!—

Now, fellow, fare thee well.

EDGAR Gone, sir. Farewell.

Gloucester falls forward

(Aside) And yet I know not how conceit may rob

The treasury of life, when life itself

Yields to the theft. Had he been where he thought,

By this had thought been past.—Ative or dead?

(To Gloucester) Ho you, sir; hear you, sir? Speak.

(Aside) Thus might he pass indeed. Yet he revives.

(To Gloucester) What are you, sir?

GLOUCESTER Away, and let me die.

EDGAR

Hadst thou been aught but goss‘mer, feathers, air,

So many fathom down precipitating

Thou hadst shivered like an egg. But thou dost breathe,

Hast heavy substance, bleed’st not, speak’st, art sound.

Ten masts a-length make not the altitude

Which thou hast perpendicularly fell.

Thy life’s a miracle. Speak yet again.

GLOUCESTER But have I fallen, or no?

EDGAR

From the dread summit of this chalky bourn.

Look up a-height. The shrill-gorged lark so far

Cannot be seen or heard. Do but look up.

GLOUCESTER Alack, I have no eyes.

Is wretchedness deprived that benefit

To end itself by death? ’Twas yet some comfort

When misery could beguile the tyrant’s rage

And frustrate his proud will.

EDGAR Give me your arm.

Up. So, how now? Feel you your legs? You stand.

GLOUCESTER

Too well, too well.

EDGAR This is above all strangeness.

Upon the crown of the cliff what thing was that

Which parted from you?

GLOUCESTER A poor unfortunate beggar.

EDGAR

As I stood here below, methoughts his eyes

Were two full moons. A had a thousand noses,

Horns whelked and waved like the enridged sea.

It was some fiend. Therefore, thou happy father,

Think that the clearest gods, who made their honours

Of men’s impossibilities, have preserved thee.

GLOUCESTER

I do remember now. Henceforth I’ll bear

Affliction till it do cry out itself

‘Enough, enough,’ and die. That thing you speak of,

I took it for a man. Often would it say

‘The fiend, the fiend!’ He led me to that place.

EDGAR

Bear free and patient thoughts.

Enter King Lear mad, ⌈crowned with weeds and flowers⌉

But who comes here?

The safer sense will ne’er accommodate

His master thus.

LEAR No, they cannot touch me for coining. I am the King himself.

EDGAR O thou side-piercing sight!

LEAR Nature is above art in that respect. There’s your press-money. That fellow handles his bow like a crow-keeper. Draw me a clothier’s yard. Look, look, a mouse! Peace, peace, this toasted cheese will do it. There’s my gauntlet. I’ll prove it on a giant. Bring up the brown bills. O, well flown, bird, in the air. Hal Give the word.

EDGAR Sweet marjoram.

LEAR Pass.

GLOUCESTER I know that voice.

LEAR Ha, Gonorill Ha, Regan! They flattered me like a dog, and told me I had white hairs in my beard ere the black ones were there. To say ‘ay’ and ‘no’ to everything I said ‘ay’ and ‘no’ to was no good divinity. When the rain came to wet me once, and the wind to make me chatter, when the thunder would not peace at my bidding, there I found them, there I smelt them out. Go to, they are not men of their words. They told me I was everything; ’tis a lie, I am not ague-proof.

GLOUCESTER

The trick of that voice I do well remember.

Is’t not the King?

LEAR Ay, every inch a king.

⌈Gloucester kneels⌉

When I do stare, see how the subject quakes!

I pardon that man’s life. What was thy cause?

Adultery? Thou shalt not die for adultery.

No, the wren goes to‘t, and the small gilded fly

Does lecher in my sight.

Let copulation thrive, for Gloucester’s bastard son

Was kinder to his father than my daughters

Got ’tween the lawful sheets. To‘t, luxury, pell-mell,

For I lack soldiers. Behold yon simp’ring dame,

Whose face between her forks presageth snow,

That minces virtue, and does shake the head

To hear of pleasure’s name:

The fitchew nor the soiled horse goes to’t

With a more riotous appetite. Down from the waist

They’re centaurs, though women all above.

But to the girdle do the gods inherit;

Beneath is all the fiend’s. There’s hell, there’s

darkness,

There’s the sulphury pit, burning, scalding,

Stench, consummation. Fie, fie, fie; pah, pah!

Give me an ounce of civet, good apothecary,

To sweeten my imagination.

There’s money for thee.

GLOUCESTER O, let me kiss that hand!

LEAR Here, wipe it first; it smells of mortality.

GLOUCESTER

O ruined piece of nature! This great world

Shall so wear out to naught. Do you know me?

LEAR I remember thy eyes well enough. Dost thou squiny on me?

No, do thy worst, blind Cupid, I’ll not love.

Read thou that challenge. Mark the penning of’t.

GLOUCESTER

Were all the letters suns, I could not see one.

EDGAR (aside)

I would not take this from report; it is,

And my heart breaks at it.

LEAR (to Gloucester) Read.

GLOUCESTER What—with the case of eyes?

LEAR O ho, are you there with me? No eyes in your head, nor no money in your purse? Your eyes are in a heavy case, your purse in a light; yet you see how this world goes.

GLOUCESTER I see it feelingly.

LEAR What, art mad? A man may see how the world goes with no eyes; look with thy ears. See how yon justice rails upon yon simple thief. Hark in thy ear: handy-dandy, which is the thief, which is the justice? Thou hast seen a farmer’s dog bark at a beggar?

GLOUCESTER Ay, sir.

LEAR An the creature run from the cur, there thou mightst behold the great image of authority. A dog’s obeyed in office.

Thou rascal beadle, hold thy bloody hand.

Why dost thou lash that whore? Strip thine own back.

Thy blood as hotly lusts to use her in that kind

For which thou whip’st her. The usurer hangs the

cozener.

Through tattered rags small vices do appear;

Robes and furred gowns hides all. Get thee glass eyes,

And, like a scurvy politician, seem

To see the things thou dost not. No tears, now.

Pull off my boots. Harder, harder! So.

EDGAR (aside)

O, matter and impertinency mixed—

Reason in madness!

LEAR

If thou wilt weep my fortune, take my eyes.

I know thee well enough: thy name is Gloucester.

Thou must be patient. We came crying hither.

Thou know’st the first time that we smell the air

We wail and cry. I will preach to thee. Mark me.

GLOUCESTER Alack, alack, the day!

LEAR ⌈removing his crown of weeds⌉

When we are born, we cry that we are come

To this great stage of fools. This’ a good block.

It were a delicate stratagem to shoe

A troop of horse with felt; and when I have stole

upon

These son-in-laws, then kill, kill, kill, kill, kill, kill!

Enter three Gentlemen

⌈FIRST⌉ GENTLEMAN

O, here he is. Lay hands upon him, sirs.

(To Lear) Your most dear—

LEAR

No rescue? What, a prisoner? I am e’en

The natural fool of fortune. Use me well.

You shall have ransom. Let me have a surgeon;

I am cut to the brains.

⌈FIRST⌉ GENTLEMAN You shall have anything.

LEAR No seconds? All myself?

Why, this would make a man a man of salt,

To use his eyes for garden water-pots,

Ay, and laying autumn’s dust.

⌈FIRST⌉ GENTLEMAN Good sir—

LEAR

I will die bravely, like a bridegroom.

What, I will be jovial. Come, come,

I am a king, my masters, know you that?

⌈FIRST⌉ GENTLEMAN

You are a royal one, and we obey you.

LEAR Then there’s life in’t. Nay, an you get it, you shall get it with running.

Exit running, pursued by two Gentlemen

⌈FIRST⌉ GENTLEMAN

A sight most pitiful in the meanest wretch,

Past speaking in a king. Thou hast one daughter

Who redeems nature from the general curse

Which twain hath brought her to.

EDGAR Hail, gentle sir.

⌈FIRST⌉ GENTLEMAN Sir, speed you. What’s your will?

EDGAR

Do you hear aught of a battle toward?

⌈FIRST⌉ GENTLEMAN

Most sure and vulgar, everyone hears that

That can distinguish sense.

EDGAR But, by your favour,

How near’s the other army?

⌈FIRST⌉ GENTLEMAN

Near and on speedy foot, the main; descriers

Stands on the hourly thoughts.

EDGAR I thank you, sir. That’s all.

⌈FIRST⌉ GENTLEMAN

Though that the Queen on special cause is here,

Her army is moved on.

EDGAR I thank you, sir. Exit Gentleman

GLOUCESTER

You ever gentle gods, take my breath from me.

Let not my worser spirit tempt me again

To die before you please.

EDGAR Well pray you, father.

GLOUCESTER Now, good sir, what are you?