Click on the 1st line, under the character's name, to see the full monologue.
King Lear · · Verse Edmund
King Lear · · Prose Edmund
King Lear · · Verse Edgar
King Lear · · Verse & Prose Fool
King Lear · · Verse Lear
King Lear · · Verse Lear Blow, winds, and crack your cheeks! rage! blow! You cataracts and hurricanoes, spout Till you have drench'd our steeples, drown'd the cocks! You sulph'rous and thought-executing fires, Vaunt-couriers to oak-cleaving thunderbolts, Singe my white head! And thou, all-shaking thunder, Strike flat the thick rotundity o' th' world, Crack Nature's moulds, all germains spill at once, That makes ingrateful man!
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 nether wise men nor fools.
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, call'd you children, You owe me no subscription. Then let fall Your horrible pleasure. Here I stand your slave, A poor, infirm, weak, and despis'd old man. But yet I call you servile ministers, That will with two pernicious daughters join Your high-engender'd battles 'gainst a head So old and white as this! O! O! 'tis foul!
King Lear · · Prose Edgar
King Lear · · Verse Edgar
King Lear · · Verse Cordelia Unhappy that I am, I cannot heave My heart into my mouth. I love your Majesty According to my bond; no more nor less.
How, how, Cordelia? Mend your speech a little, Lest it may mar your fortunes.
Good my lord, You have begot me, bred me, lov'd me; I Return those duties back as are right fit, Obey you, love you, and most honour you. Why have my sisters husbands, if they say They love you all? Haply, when I shall wed, That lord whose hand must take my plight shall carry Half my love with him, half my care and duty. Sure I shall never marry like my sisters, To love my father all.
King Lear · · Verse Goneril By day and night, he wrongs me! Every hour He flashes into one gross crime or other That sets us all at odds. I'll not endure it. His knights grow riotous, and himself upbraids us On every trifle. When he returns from hunting, I will not speak with him. Say I am sick. If you come slack of former services, You shall do well; the fault of it I'll answer.
He's coming, madam; I hear him.
Put on what weary negligence you please, You and your fellows. I'd have it come to question. If he distaste it, let him to our sister, Whose mind and mine I know in that are one, Not to be overrul'd. Idle old man, That still would manage those authorities That he hath given away! Now, by my life, Old fools are babes again, and must be us'd With checks as flatteries, when they are seen abus'd. Remember what I have said.
King Lear · · Verse Goneril
King Lear · · Verse Goneril
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‘Unhappy That Am I, I Cannot Heave’ Monologue Analysis
Read King Lear ‘s ‘Unhappy That Am I, I Cannot Heave’ monologue below with a modern English translation and analysis, with a performance.
Spoken by Cordelia , Act 1, Scene 1
Unhappy that I am, I cannot heave My heart into my mouth. I love your Majesty According to my bond; no more nor less. Good my lord, You have begot me, bred me, lov’d me; I Return those duties back as are right fit, Obey you, love you, and most honour you. Why have my sisters husbands, if they say They love you all? Haply, when I shall wed, That lord whose hand must take my plight shall carry Half my love with him, half my care and duty. Sure I shall never marry like my sisters, To love my father all.
‘Unhappy That Am I, I Cannot Heave’ Monologue Translation
Unhappy as I am, I can’t express in words the things that are in my heart. I love your Majesty according to my duty as a daughter. No more, no less. My dear lord, you have conceived me, brought me up and loved me. I return those duties accordingly – obey you, love you, and honour you entirely. Why do my sisters have husbands if they say they love you exclusively? If it happens that I should marry, that man who has my hand in marriage will have half my love, half my care and duty. Certainly, I’ll never marry like my sisters to love my father totally.
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King Lear
| | Act 1, Scene 2 |
Enter EDMUND, with a letter
Thou, nature, art my goddess; to thy law My services are bound. Wherefore should I Stand in the plague of custom, and permit The curiosity of nations to deprive me, For that I am some twelve or fourteen moon-shines Lag of a brother? Why bastard? wherefore base? When my dimensions are as well compact, My mind as generous, and my shape as true, As honest madam's issue? Why brand they us With base? with baseness? bastardy? base, base? Who, in the lusty stealth of nature, take More composition and fierce quality Than doth, within a dull, stale, tired bed, Go to the creating a whole tribe of fops, Got 'tween asleep and wake? Well, then, Legitimate Edgar, I must have your land: Our father's love is to the bastard Edmund As to the legitimate: fine word,--legitimate! Well, my legitimate, if this letter speed, And my invention thrive, Edmund the base Shall top the legitimate. I grow; I prosper: Now, gods, stand up for bastards! Enter GLOUCESTER
Kent banish'd thus! and France in choler parted! And the king gone to-night! subscribed his power! Confined to exhibition! All this done Upon the gad! Edmund, how now! what news?
So please your lordship, none. Putting up the letter
Why so earnestly seek you to put up that letter?
I know no news, my lord.
What paper were you reading?
Nothing, my lord.
No? What needed, then, that terrible dispatch 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.
I beseech you, sir, pardon me: it is a letter from my brother, that I have not all o'er-read; and for so much as I have perused, I find it not fit for your o'er-looking.
Give me the letter, sir.
I shall offend, either to detain or give it. The contents, as in part I understand them, are to blame.
Let's see, let's see.
I hope, for my brother's justification, he wrote this but as an essay or taste of my virtue.
[Reads] 'This policy and reverence of age makes the world bitter to the best of our times; 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 half his revenue for ever, and live the beloved of your brother, EDGAR.' Hum--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?
It was not brought me, my lord; there's the cunning of it; I found it thrown in at the casement of my closet.
You know the character to be your brother's?
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.
It is his hand, my lord; but I hope his heart is not in the contents.
Hath he never heretofore sounded you in this business?
Never, my lord: but I have heard him oft 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.
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?
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, 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 wrote this to feel my affection to your honour, and to no further pretence of danger.
Think you so?
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.
He cannot be such a monster--
Nor is not, sure.
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 business after your own wisdom. I would unstate myself, to be in a due resolution.
I will seek him, sir, presently: convey the business as I shall find means and acquaint you withal.
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 sequent effects: love cools, friendship falls off, brothers divide: in cities, mutinies; in countries, discord; in palaces, treason; and the bond cracked 'twixt 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! 'Tis strange. Exit
This is the excellent foppery of the world, that, when we are sick in fortune,--often the surfeit of our own behavior,--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, had the maidenliest star in the firmament twinkled on my bastardizing. Edgar-- Enter EDGAR And pat he comes like the catastrophe of the old comedy: my cue is villanous melancholy, with a sigh like Tom o' Bedlam. O, these eclipses do portend these divisions! fa, sol, la, mi.
How now, brother Edmund! what serious contemplation are you in?
I am thinking, brother, of a prediction I read this other day, what should follow these eclipses.
Do you busy yourself about that?
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.
How long have you been a sectary astronomical?
Come, come; when saw you my father last?
Why, the night gone by.
Spake you with him?
Ay, two hours together.
Parted you in good terms? Found you no displeasure in him by word or countenance?
None at all.
Bethink yourself wherein you may have offended him: and at my entreaty forbear his presence till some little time hath qualified the heat of his displeasure; which at this instant so rageth in him, that with the mischief of your person it would scarcely allay.
Some villain hath done me wrong.
That's my fear. I pray you, have a continent forbearance till the spied of his rage goes slower; and, as I say, retire with me to my lodging, from whence I will fitly bring you to hear my lord speak: pray ye, go; there's my key: if you do stir abroad, go armed.
Armed, brother!
Brother, I advise you to the best; go armed: I am no honest man 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.
Shall I hear from you anon?
I do serve you in this business. Exit EDGAR A credulous father! and a brother noble, Whose nature is so far from doing harms, That he suspects none: on whose foolish honesty My practises ride easy! I see the business. Let me, if not by birth, have lands by wit: All with me's meet that I can fashion fit. Exit
| | Act 1, Scene 2 |
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The man that hath no music in himself, Nor is not moved with concord of sweet sounds, Is fit for treasons, stratagems, and spoils. — The Merchant of Venice, Act V, Scene 1
The Tragedy of King Lear
(complete text)
King Lear’s Palace.
The Earl of Gloucester’s Castle.
The Duke of Albany’s Palace.
The Duke of Albany’s Palace.
Court before the Duke of Albany’s Palace. Enter Lear, Kent, and Fool.
A court within the Castle of the Earl of Gloucester.
Before Gloucester’s Castle.
The open country.
Before Gloucester’s Castle; Kent in the stocks.
A heath. Storm still.
Another part of the heath. Storm still.
Gloucester’s Castle.
The heath. Before a hovel. Storm still.
Gloucester’s Castle.
A farmhouse near Gloucester’s Castle.
Gloucester’s Castle.
The heath.
Before the Duke of Albany’s Palace.
The French camp near Dover.
The French camp.
Gloucester’s Castle.
The country near Dover.
A tent in the French camp.
The British camp near Dover.
A field between the two camps. Alarum within.
The British camp, near Dover.
Act I, Scene 1
King Lear’s Palace.
Enter Kent, Gloucester, and Edmund. [Kent and Gloucester converse. Edmund stands back.] . I thought the King had more affected the Duke of Albany than Cornwall. . It did always seem so to us; but now, in the division of the kingdom, it appears not which of the Dukes he values most, for 5 equalities are so weigh'd that curiosity in neither can make choice of either's moiety. . Is not this your son, my lord? . His breeding, sir, hath been at my charge. I have so often blush'd to acknowledge him that now I am braz'd to't. 10 . I cannot conceive you. . Sir, this young fellow's mother could; whereupon she grew round-womb'd, and had indeed, sir, a son for her cradle ere she had a husband for her bed. Do you smell a fault? . I cannot wish the fault undone, the issue of it being so 15 proper. . But I have, sir, a son by order of law, some year elder than this, who yet is no dearer in my account. Though this knave came something saucily into the world before he was sent for, yet was his mother fair, there was good sport at his making, and the 20 whoreson must be acknowledged.- Do you know this noble gentleman, Edmund? . No, my lord. . My Lord of Kent. Remember him hereafter as my honourable friend. 25 . My services to your lordship. . I must love you, and sue to know you better. . Sir, I shall study deserving. . He hath been out nine years, and away he shall again. 30 The King is coming.
Enter one bearing a coronet; then Lear; then the Dukes of Albany and Cornwall; next, Goneril, Regan, Cordelia, with Followers. . Attend the lords of France and Burgundy, Gloucester. . I shall, my liege.
Exeunt [Gloucester and Edmund]. . Meantime we shall express our darker purpose. Give me the map there. Know we have divided In three our kingdom; and 'tis our fast intent To shake all cares and business from our age, Conferring them on younger strengths while we 40 Unburthen'd crawl toward death. Our son of Cornwall, And you, our no less loving son of Albany, We have this hour a constant will to publish Our daughters' several dowers, that future strife May be prevented now. The princes, France and Burgundy, 45 Great rivals in our youngest daughter's love, Long in our court have made their amorous sojourn, And here are to be answer'd. Tell me, my daughters (Since now we will divest us both of rule, Interest of territory, cares of state), 50 Which of you shall we say doth love us most? That we our largest bounty may extend Where nature doth with merit challenge. Goneril, Our eldest-born, speak first. . Sir, I love you more than words can wield the matter; 55 Dearer than eyesight, space, and liberty; Beyond what can be valued, rich or rare; No less than life, with grace, health, beauty, honour; As much as child e'er lov'd, or father found; A love that makes breath poor, and speech unable. 60 Beyond all manner of so much I love you. . What shall Cordelia speak? Love, and be silent. . Of all these bounds, even from this line to this, With shadowy forests and with champains rich'd, With plenteous rivers and wide-skirted meads, 65 We make thee lady. To thine and Albany's issue Be this perpetual.- What says our second daughter, Our dearest Regan, wife to Cornwall? Speak. . Sir, I am made Of the selfsame metal that my sister is, 70 And prize me at her worth. In my true heart I find she names my very deed of love; Only she comes too short, that I profess Myself an enemy to all other joys Which the most precious square of sense possesses, 75 And find I am alone felicitate In your dear Highness' love. . Then poor Cordelia! And yet not so; since I am sure my love's More richer than my tongue. 80 . To thee and thine hereditary ever Remain this ample third of our fair kingdom, No less in space, validity, and pleasure Than that conferr'd on Goneril.- Now, our joy, Although the last, not least; to whose young love 85 The vines of France and milk of Burgundy Strive to be interest; what can you say to draw A third more opulent than your sisters? Speak. . Nothing, my lord. . Nothing? 90 . Nothing. . Nothing can come of nothing. Speak again. . Unhappy that I am, I cannot heave My heart into my mouth. I love your Majesty According to my bond; no more nor less. 95 . How, how, Cordelia? Mend your speech a little, Lest it may mar your fortunes. . Good my lord, You have begot me, bred me, lov'd me; I Return those duties back as are right fit, 100 Obey you, love you, and most honour you. Why have my sisters husbands, if they say They love you all? Haply, when I shall wed, That lord whose hand must take my plight shall carry Half my love with him, half my care and duty. 105 Sure I shall never marry like my sisters, To love my father all. . But goes thy heart with this? . Ay, good my lord. . So young, and so untender? 110 . So young, my lord, and true. . Let it be so! thy truth then be thy dower! For, by the sacred radiance of the sun, The mysteries of Hecate and the night; By all the operation of the orbs 115 From whom we do exist and cease to be; Here I disclaim all my paternal care, Propinquity and property of blood, And as a stranger to my heart and me Hold thee from this for ever. The barbarous Scythian, 120 Or he that makes his generation messes To gorge his appetite, shall to my bosom Be as well neighbour'd, pitied, and reliev'd, As thou my sometime daughter. . Good my liege- 125 . Peace, Kent! Come not between the dragon and his wrath. I lov'd her most, and thought to set my rest On her kind nursery.- Hence and avoid my sight!- So be my grave my peace as here I give 130 Her father's heart from her! Call France! Who stirs? Call Burgundy! Cornwall and Albany, With my two daughters' dowers digest this third; Let pride, which she calls plainness, marry her. I do invest you jointly in my power, 135 Preeminence, and all the large effects That troop with majesty. Ourself, by monthly course, With reservation of an hundred knights, By you to be sustain'd, shall our abode Make with you by due turns. Only we still retain 140 The name, and all th' additions to a king. The sway, Revenue, execution of the rest, Beloved sons, be yours; which to confirm, This coronet part betwixt you. . Royal Lear, 145 Whom I have ever honour'd as my king, Lov'd as my father, as my master follow'd, As my great patron thought on in my prayers- . The bow is bent and drawn; make from the shaft. . Let it fall rather, though the fork invade 150 The region of my heart! Be Kent unmannerly When Lear is mad. What wouldst thou do, old man? Think'st thou that duty shall have dread to speak When power to flattery bows? To plainness honour's bound When majesty falls to folly. Reverse thy doom; 155 And in thy best consideration check This hideous rashness. Answer my life my judgment, Thy youngest daughter does not love thee least, Nor are those empty-hearted whose low sound Reverbs no hollowness. 160 . Kent, on thy life, no more! . My life I never held but as a pawn To wage against thine enemies; nor fear to lose it, Thy safety being the motive. . Out of my sight! 165 . See better, Lear, and let me still remain The true blank of thine eye. . Now by Apollo- . Now by Apollo, King, Thou swear'st thy gods in vain. 170 . O vassal! miscreant! . Dear sir, forbear! . Do! Kill thy physician, and the fee bestow Upon the foul disease. Revoke thy gift, 175 Or, whilst I can vent clamour from my throat, I'll tell thee thou dost evil. . Hear me, recreant! On thine allegiance, hear me! Since thou hast sought to make us break our vow- 180 Which we durst never yet- and with strain'd pride To come between our sentence and our power,- Which nor our nature nor our place can bear,- Our potency made good, take thy reward. Five days we do allot thee for provision 185 To shield thee from diseases of the world, And on the sixth to turn thy hated back Upon our kingdom. If, on the tenth day following, Thy banish'd trunk be found in our dominions, The moment is thy death. Away! By Jupiter, 190 This shall not be revok'd. . 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, That justly think'st and hast most rightly said! 195 And your large speeches may your deeds approve, That good effects may spring from words of love. Thus Kent, O princes, bids you all adieu; He'll shape his old course in a country new. Exit. 200
Flourish. Enter Gloucester, with France and Burgundy; Attendants. . Here's France and Burgundy, my noble lord. . My Lord of Burgundy, We first address toward you, who with this king Hath rivall'd for our daughter. What in the least 205 Will you require in present dower with her, Or cease your quest of love? . Most royal Majesty, I crave no more than hath your Highness offer'd, Nor will you tender less. 210 . Right noble Burgundy, When she was dear to us, we did hold her so; But now her price is fall'n. Sir, there she stands. If aught within that little seeming substance, Or all of it, with our displeasure piec'd, 215 And nothing more, may fitly like your Grace, She's there, and she is yours. . I know no answer. . Will you, with those infirmities she owes, Unfriended, new adopted to our hate, 220 Dow'r'd with our curse, and stranger'd with our oath, Take her, or leave her? . Pardon me, royal sir. Election makes not up on such conditions. . Then leave her, sir; for, by the pow'r that made me, 225 I tell you all her wealth. For you, great King, I would not from your love make such a stray To match you where I hate; therefore beseech you T' avert your liking a more worthier way Than on a wretch whom nature is asham'd 230 Almost t' acknowledge hers. . This is most strange, That she that even but now was your best object, The argument of your praise, balm of your age, Most best, most dearest, should in this trice of time 235 Commit a thing so monstrous to dismantle So many folds of favour. Sure her offence Must be of such unnatural degree That monsters it, or your fore-vouch'd affection Fall'n into taint; which to believe of her 240 Must be a faith that reason without miracle Should never plant in me. . I yet beseech your Majesty, If for I want that glib and oily art To speak and purpose not, since what I well intend, 245 I'll do't before I speak- that you make known It is no vicious blot, murther, or foulness, No unchaste action or dishonoured step, That hath depriv'd me of your grace and favour; But even for want of that for which I am richer- 250 A still-soliciting eye, and such a tongue As I am glad I have not, though not to have it Hath lost me in your liking. . Better thou Hadst not been born than not t' have pleas'd me better. 255 . Is it but this- a tardiness in nature Which often leaves the history unspoke That it intends to do? My Lord of Burgundy, What say you to the lady? Love's not love When it is mingled with regards that stands 260 Aloof from th' entire point. Will you have her? She is herself a dowry. . Royal Lear, Give but that portion which yourself propos'd, And here I take Cordelia by the hand, 265 Duchess of Burgundy. . Nothing! I have sworn; I am firm. . I am sorry then you have so lost a father That you must lose a husband. . Peace be with Burgundy! 270 Since that respects of fortune are his love, I shall not be his wife. . Fairest Cordelia, that art most rich, being poor; Most choice, forsaken; and most lov'd, despis'd! Thee and thy virtues here I seize upon. 275 Be it lawful I take up what's cast away. Gods, gods! 'tis strange that from their cold'st neglect My love should kindle to inflam'd respect. Thy dow'rless daughter, King, thrown to my chance, Is queen of us, of ours, and our fair France. 280 Not all the dukes in wat'rish Burgundy Can buy this unpriz'd precious maid of me. Bid them farewell, Cordelia, though unkind. Thou losest here, a better where to find. . Thou hast her, France; let her be thine; for we 285 Have no such daughter, nor shall ever see That face of hers again. Therefore be gone Without our grace, our love, our benison. Come, noble Burgundy.
Flourish. Exeunt Lear, Burgundy, [Cornwall, Albany, Gloucester, and Attendants]. . Bid farewell to your sisters. . The jewels of our father, with wash'd eyes Cordelia leaves you. I know you what you are; And, like a sister, am most loath to call Your faults as they are nam'd. Use well our father. 295 To your professed bosoms I commit him; But yet, alas, stood I within his grace, I would prefer him to a better place! So farewell to you both. . Prescribe not us our duties. 300 . Let your study Be to content your lord, who hath receiv'd you At fortune's alms. You have obedience scanted, And well are worth the want that you have wanted. . Time shall unfold what plighted cunning hides. 305 Who cover faults, at last shame them derides. Well may you prosper! . Come, my fair Cordelia.
Exeunt France and Cordelia. . Sister, it is not little I have to say of what most nearly 310 appertains to us both. I think our father will hence to-night. . That's most certain, and with you; next month with us. . You see how full of changes his age is. The observation we have made of it hath not been little. He always lov'd our sister most, and with what poor judgment he hath now cast her 315 off appears too grossly. . 'Tis the infirmity of his age; yet he hath ever but slenderly known himself. . The best and soundest of his time hath been but rash; then must we look to receive from his age, not alone the 320 imperfections of long-ingraffed condition, but therewithal the unruly waywardness that infirm and choleric years bring with them. . Such unconstant starts are we like to have from him as this of Kent's banishment. 325 . There is further compliment of leave-taking between France and him. Pray you let's hit together. If our father carry authority with such dispositions as he bears, this last surrender of his will but offend us. . We shall further think on't. 330 . We must do something, and i' th' heat.
Exeunt.
Act I, Scene 2
The Earl of Gloucester’s Castle.
Enter [Edmund the] Bastard solus, [with a letter]. . Thou, Nature, art my goddess; to thy law My services are bound. Wherefore should I 335 Stand in the plague of custom, and permit The curiosity of nations to deprive me, For that I am some twelve or fourteen moonshines Lag of a brother? Why bastard? wherefore base? When my dimensions are as well compact, 340 My mind as generous, and my shape as true, As honest madam's issue? Why brand they us With base? with baseness? bastardy? base, base? Who, in the lusty stealth of nature, take More composition and fierce quality 345 Than doth, within a dull, stale, tired bed, Go to th' creating a whole tribe of fops Got 'tween asleep and wake? Well then, Legitimate Edgar, I must have your land. Our father's love is to the bastard Edmund 350 As to th' legitimate. Fine word- 'legitimate'! Well, my legitimate, if this letter speed, And my invention thrive, Edmund the base Shall top th' legitimate. I grow; I prosper. Now, gods, stand up for bastards! 355
Enter Gloucester. . Kent banish'd thus? and France in choler parted? And the King gone to-night? subscrib'd his pow'r? Confin'd to exhibition? All this done Upon the gad? Edmund, how now? What news? 360 . So please your lordship, none.
[Puts up the letter.] . Why so earnestly seek you to put up that letter? . I know no news, my lord. . What paper were you reading? 365 . Nothing, my lord. . No? What needed then that terrible dispatch 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. 370 . I beseech you, sir, pardon me. It is a letter from my brother that I have not all o'er-read; and for so much as I have perus'd, I find it not fit for your o'erlooking. . Give me the letter, sir. . I shall offend, either to detain or give it. The contents, as 375 in part I understand them, are to blame. . Let's see, let's see! . I hope, for my brother's justification, he wrote this but as an essay or taste of my virtue. . 'This policy and reverence of age makes the world 380 bitter to the best of our times; 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 suffer'd. Come to me, that of this I may speak more. If our father would sleep till I 385 wak'd him, you should enjoy half his revenue for ever, and live the beloved of your brother, 'EDGAR.' Hum! Conspiracy? 'Sleep till I wak'd him, you should enjoy half his revenue.' My son Edgar! Had he a hand to write this? a heart 390 and brain to breed it in? When came this to you? Who brought it? . It was not brought me, my lord: there's the cunning of it. I found it thrown in at the casement of my closet. . You know the character to be your brother's? . If the matter were good, my lord, I durst swear it were his; 395 but in respect of that, I would fain think it were not. . It is his. . It is his hand, my lord; but I hope his heart is not in the contents. . Hath he never before sounded you in this business? 400 . Never, my lord. But I have heard him oft 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. . O villain, villain! His very opinion in the letter! Abhorred villain! Unnatural, detested, brutish villain! worse than 405 brutish! Go, sirrah, seek him. I'll apprehend him. Abominable villain! Where is he? . 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 should run a certain course; 410 where, 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 pretence of danger. 415 . Think you so? . 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. 420 . He cannot be such a monster. . Nor is not, sure. . 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 business after your own wisdom. I would unstate 425 myself to be in a due resolution. . I will seek him, sir, presently; convey the business as I shall find means, and acquaint you withal. . 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 430 nature finds itself scourg'd by the sequent effects. Love cools, friendship falls off, brothers divide. In cities, mutinies; in countries, discord; in palaces, treason; and the bond crack'd 'twixt son and father. This villain of mine comes under the prediction; there's son against father: the King falls from bias 435 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 banish'd! his 440 offence, honesty! 'Tis strange. Exit. . 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 on necessity; fools by heavenly compulsion; 445 knaves, thieves, and treachers by spherical pre-dominance; drunkards, liars, and adulterers by an enforc'd obedience of planetary influence; and all that we are evil in, by a divine thrusting on. An admirable evasion of whore-master man, to lay his goatish disposition to the charge of a star! My father 450 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. Fut! I should have been that I am, had the maidenliest star in the firmament twinkled on my bastardizing. Edgar- 455
and pat! he comes, like the catastrophe of the old comedy. My cue is villainous melancholy, with a sigh like Tom o' Bedlam. O, these eclipses do portend these divisions! Fa, sol, la, mi. . How now, brother Edmund? What serious contemplation are you 460 in? . I am thinking, brother, of a prediction I read this other day, what should follow these eclipses. . Do you busy yourself with that? . I promise you, the effects he writes of succeed unhappily: as 465 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. 470 . How long have you been a sectary astronomical? . Come, come! When saw you my father last? . The night gone by. . Spake you with him? . Ay, two hours together. 475 . Parted you in good terms? Found you no displeasure in him by word or countenance . None at all. . Bethink yourself wherein you may have offended him; and at my entreaty forbear his presence until some little time hath 480 qualified the heat of his displeasure, which at this instant so rageth in him that with the mischief of your person it would scarcely allay. . Some villain hath done me wrong. . That's my fear. I pray you have a continent forbearance till 485 the speed of his rage goes slower; and, as I say, retire with me to my lodging, from whence I will fitly bring you to hear my lord speak. Pray ye, go! There's my key. If you do stir abroad, go arm'd. . Arm'd, brother? 490 . Brother, I advise you to the best. Go arm'd. I am no honest man if there be any good meaning toward you. I have told you what I have seen and heard; but faintly, nothing like the image and horror of it. Pray you, away! . Shall I hear from you anon? 495 . I do serve you in this business.
A credulous father! and a brother noble, Whose nature is so far from doing harms That he suspects none; on whose foolish honesty 500 My practices ride easy! I see the business. Let me, if not by birth, have lands by wit; All with me's meet that I can fashion fit. Exit.
Act I, Scene 3
The Duke of Albany’s Palace.
Enter Goneril and [her] Steward [Oswald]. . Did my father strike my gentleman for chiding of his fool? 505 . Ay, madam. . By day and night, he wrongs me! Every hour He flashes into one gross crime or other That sets us all at odds. I'll not endure it. His knights grow riotous, and himself upbraids us 510 On every trifle. When he returns from hunting, I will not speak with him. Say I am sick. If you come slack of former services, You shall do well; the fault of it I'll answer.
[Horns within.] . He's coming, madam; I hear him. . Put on what weary negligence you please, You and your fellows. I'd have it come to question. If he distaste it, let him to our sister, Whose mind and mine I know in that are one, 520 Not to be overrul'd. Idle old man, That still would manage those authorities That he hath given away! Now, by my life, Old fools are babes again, and must be us'd With checks as flatteries, when they are seen abus'd. 525 Remember what I have said. . Very well, madam. . And let his knights have colder looks among you. What grows of it, no matter. Advise your fellows so. I would breed from hence occasions, and I shall, 530 That I may speak. I'll write straight to my sister To hold my very course. Prepare for dinner.
Exeunt.
Act I, Scene 4
The Duke of Albany’s Palace.
Enter Kent, [disguised]. . If but as well I other accents borrow, 535 That can my speech defuse, my good intent May carry through itself to that full issue For which I raz'd my likeness. Now, banish'd Kent, If thou canst serve where thou dost stand condemn'd, So may it come, thy master, whom thou lov'st, 540 Shall find thee full of labours. Horns within. Enter Lear, and Attendants. . Let me not stay a jot for dinner; go get it ready. How now? What art thou? . A man, sir. 545 . What dost thou profess? What wouldst thou with us? . 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 converse with him that is wise and says little, to fear judgment, to fight when I cannot choose, and to eat no fish. 550 . What art thou? . A very honest-hearted fellow, and as poor as the King. . If thou be'st as poor for a subject as he's for a king, thou art poor enough. What wouldst thou? . Service. 555 . Who wouldst thou serve? . You. . Dost thou know me, fellow? . No, sir; but you have that in your countenance which I would fain call master. 560 . What's that? . Authority. . What services canst thou do? . I can keep honest counsel, ride, run, mar a curious tale in telling it and deliver a plain message bluntly. That which 565 ordinary men are fit for, I am qualified in, and the best of me is diligence. . How old art thou? . Not so young, sir, to love a woman for singing, nor so old to dote on her for anything. I have years on my back forty-eight. 570 . 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.
Steward.] 575 You, you, sirrah, where's my daughter? . So please you- Exit. . What says the fellow there? Call the clotpoll back. Where's my fool, ho? I think the world's asleep. 580
How now? Where's that mongrel? . He says, my lord, your daughter is not well. . Why came not the slave back to me when I call'd him? . Sir, he answered me in the roundest manner, he would not. 585 . He would not? . My lord, I know not what the matter is; but to my judgment your Highness is not entertain'd 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 590 and your daughter. . Ha! say'st thou so? . I beseech you pardon me, my lord, if I be mistaken; for my duty cannot be silent when I think your Highness wrong'd. . Thou but rememb'rest me of mine own conception. I have 595 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't. But where's my fool? I have not seen him this two days. . Since my young lady's going into France, sir, the fool 600 hath much pined away. . 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. 605 Steward.] O, you, sir, you! Come you hither, sir. Who am I, sir? . My lady's father. . 'My lady's father'? My lord's knave! You whoreson dog! you slave! you cur! 610 . I am none of these, my lord; I beseech your pardon. . Do you bandy looks with me, you rascal?
[Strikes him.] . I'll not be strucken, my lord. . Nor tripp'd neither, you base football player? 615
[Trips up his heels. . I thank thee, fellow. Thou serv'st me, and I'll love thee. . 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. 620
[Pushes him out.] . Now, my friendly knave, I thank thee. There's earnest of thy service.
Enter Fool. . Let me hire him too. Here's my coxcomb. 625
[Offers Kent his cap.] . How now, my pretty knave? How dost thou? . Sirrah, you were best take my coxcomb. . Why, fool? . Why? For taking one's part that's out of favour. Nay, an thou 630 canst not smile as the wind sits, thou'lt catch cold shortly. There, take my coxcomb! Why, this fellow hath banish'd two on's daughters, and did the third a blessing against his will. If thou follow him, thou must needs wear my coxcomb.- How now, nuncle? Would I had two coxcombs and two daughters! 635 . Why, my boy? . If I gave them all my living, I'ld keep my coxcombs myself. There's mine! beg another of thy daughters. . Take heed, sirrah- the whip. . Truth's a dog must to kennel; he must be whipp'd out, when 640 Lady the brach may stand by th' fire and stink. . A pestilent gall to me! . Sirrah, I'll teach thee a speech. . Do. . Mark it, nuncle. 645 Have more than thou showest, Speak less than thou knowest, Lend less than thou owest, Ride more than thou goest, Learn more than thou trowest, 650 Set less than thou throwest; Leave thy drink and thy whore, And keep in-a-door, And thou shalt have more Than two tens to a score. 655 . This is nothing, fool. . Then 'tis like the breath of an unfeed lawyer- you gave me nothing for't. Can you make no use of nothing, nuncle? . Why, no, boy. Nothing can be made out of nothing. . Prithee tell him, so much the rent of his land 660 comes to. He will not believe a fool. . A bitter fool! . Dost thou know the difference, my boy, between a bitter fool and a sweet fool? . No, lad; teach me. 665 . That lord that counsell'd thee To give away thy land, Come place him here by me- Do thou for him stand. The sweet and bitter fool 670 Will presently appear; The one in motley here, The other found out there. . Dost thou call me fool, boy? . All thy other titles thou hast given away; that thou wast 675 born with. . This is not altogether fool, my lord. . No, faith; lords and great men will not let me. If I had a monopoly out, they would have part on't. And ladies too, they will not let me have all the fool to myself; they'll be 680 snatching. Give me an egg, nuncle, and I'll give thee two crowns. . What two crowns shall they be? . Why, after I have cut the egg i' th' middle and eat up the meat, the two crowns of the egg. When thou clovest thy crown i' 685 th' middle and gav'st away both parts, thou bor'st thine ass on thy back o'er the dirt. Thou hadst little wit in thy bald crown when thou gav'st thy golden one away. If I speak like myself in this, let him be whipp'd that first finds it so. Fools had ne'er less grace in a year, 690 For wise men are grown foppish; They know not how their wits to wear, Their manners are so apish. . When were you wont to be so full of songs, sirrah? . I have us'd it, nuncle, ever since thou mad'st thy daughters 695 thy mother; for when thou gav'st them the rod, and put'st down thine own breeches, Then they for sudden joy did weep, And I for sorrow sung, That such a king should play bo-peep 700 And go the fools among. Prithee, nuncle, keep a schoolmaster that can teach thy fool to lie. I would fain learn to lie. . An you lie, sirrah, we'll have you whipp'd. . I marvel what kin thou and thy daughters are. They'll have me 705 whipp'd for speaking true; thou'lt have me whipp'd for lying; and sometimes I am whipp'd for holding my peace. I had rather be any kind o' thing than a fool! And yet I would not be thee, nuncle. Thou hast pared thy wit o' both sides and left nothing i' th' middle. Here comes one o' the parings. 710
Enter Goneril. . How now, daughter? What makes that frontlet on? Methinks you are too much o' late i' th' frown. . Thou wast a pretty fellow when thou hadst no need to care for her frowning. Now thou art an O without a figure. I am better 715 than thou art now: I am a fool, thou art nothing. Yes, forsooth, I will hold my tongue. So your face bids me, though you say nothing. Mum, mum! He that keeps nor crust nor crum, Weary of all, shall want some.- 720 That's a sheal'd peascod. . Not only, sir, this your all-licens'd fool, But other of your insolent retinue Do hourly carp and quarrel, breaking forth In rank and not-to-be-endured riots. Sir, 725 I had thought, by making this well known unto you, To have found a safe redress, but now grow fearful, By what yourself, too, late have spoke and done, That you protect this course, and put it on By your allowance; which if you should, the fault 730 Would not scape censure, nor the redresses sleep, Which, in the tender of a wholesome weal, Might in their working do you that offence Which else were shame, that then necessity Must call discreet proceeding. 735 . For you know, nuncle, The hedge-sparrow fed the cuckoo so long That it had it head bit off by it young. So out went the candle, and we were left darkling. . Are you our daughter? 740 . Come, sir, I would you would make use of that good wisdom Whereof I know you are fraught, and put away These dispositions that of late transform you From what you rightly are. 745 . May not an ass know when the cart draws the horse? Whoop, Jug, I love thee! . Doth any here know me? This is not Lear. Doth Lear walk thus? speak thus? Where are his eyes? Either his notion weakens, his discernings 750 Are lethargied- Ha! waking? '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 sovereignty, Knowledge, and reason, I should be false persuaded 755 I had daughters. . Which they will make an obedient father. . Your name, fair gentlewoman? . This admiration, sir, is much o' th' savour Of other your new pranks. I do beseech you 760 To understand my purposes aright. As you are old and reverend, you should be wise. Here do you keep a hundred knights and squires; Men so disorder'd, so debosh'd, and bold That this our court, infected with their manners, 765 Shows like a riotous inn. Epicurism and lust Make it more like a tavern or a brothel Than a grac'd palace. The shame itself doth speak For instant remedy. Be then desir'd By her that else will take the thing she begs 770 A little to disquantity your train, And the remainder that shall still depend To be such men as may besort your age, Which know themselves, and you. . Darkness and devils! 775 Saddle my horses! Call my train together! Degenerate bastard, I'll not trouble thee; Yet have I left a daughter. . You strike my people, and your disorder'd rabble Make servants of their betters. 780
Enter Albany. . Woe that too late repents!- O, sir, are you come? Is it your will? Speak, sir!- Prepare my horses. Ingratitude, thou marble-hearted fiend, More hideous when thou show'st thee in a child 785 Than the sea-monster! . Pray, sir, be patient. . Detested kite, thou liest! My train are men of choice and rarest parts, That all particulars of duty know 790 And in the most exact regard support The worships of their name.- O most small fault, How ugly didst thou in Cordelia show! Which, like an engine, wrench'd my frame of nature From the fix'd place; drew from my heart all love 795 And added to the gall. O Lear, Lear, Lear! Beat at this gate that let thy folly in And thy dear judgment out! Go, go, my people. . My lord, I am guiltless, as I am ignorant Of what hath mov'd you. 800 . It may be so, my lord. Hear, Nature, hear! dear goddess, hear! Suspend thy purpose, if thou didst intend To make this creature fruitful. Into her womb convey sterility; 805 Dry up in her the organs of increase; And from her derogate body never spring A babe to honour her! If she must teem, Create her child of spleen, that it may live And be a thwart disnatur'd torment to her. 810 Let it stamp wrinkles in her brow of youth, With cadent tears fret channels in her cheeks, Turn all her mother's pains and benefits To laughter and contempt, that she may feel How sharper than a serpent's tooth it is 815 To have a thankless child! Away, away! Exit. . Now, gods that we adore, whereof comes this? . Never afflict yourself to know the cause; But let his disposition have that scope That dotage gives it. 820
Enter Lear. . What, fifty of my followers at a clap? Within a fortnight? . What's the matter, sir? . I'll tell thee. Life and death! I am asham'd 825 That thou hast power to shake my manhood thus; That these hot tears, which break from me perforce, Should make thee worth them. Blasts and fogs upon thee! Th' untented woundings of a father's curse Pierce every sense about thee!- Old fond eyes, 830 Beweep this cause again, I'll pluck ye out, And cast you, with the waters that you lose, To temper clay. Yea, is it come to this? Let it be so. Yet have I left a daughter, Who I am sure is kind and comfortable. 835 When she shall hear this of thee, with her nails She'll flay thy wolvish visage. Thou shalt find That I'll resume the shape which thou dost think I have cast off for ever; thou shalt, I warrant thee.
Exeunt [Lear, Kent, and Attendants]. . Do you mark that, my lord? . I cannot be so partial, Goneril, To the great love I bear you— . Pray you, content.- What, Oswald, ho! You, sir, more knave than fool, after your master! 845 . Nuncle Lear, nuncle Lear, tarry! Take the fool with thee. A fox when one has caught her, And such a daughter, Should sure to the slaughter, If my cap would buy a halter. 850 So the fool follows after. Exit. . This man hath had good counsel! A hundred knights? 'Tis politic and safe to let him keep At point a hundred knights; yes, that on every dream, Each buzz, each fancy, each complaint, dislike, 855 He may enguard his dotage with their pow'rs And hold our lives in mercy.- Oswald, I say! . Well, you may fear too far. . Safer than trust too far. Let me still take away the harms I fear, 860 Not fear still to be taken. I know his heart. What he hath utter'd I have writ my sister. If she sustain him and his hundred knights, When I have show'd th' unfitness- Steward.] How now, Oswald? 865 What, have you writ that letter to my sister? . Yes, madam. . Take you some company, and away to horse! Inform her full of my particular fear, And thereto add such reasons of your own 870 As may compact it more. Get you gone, And hasten your return. No, no, my lord! This milky gentleness and course of yours, Though I condemn it not, yet, under pardon, You are much more at task for want of wisdom 875 Than prais'd for harmful mildness. . How far your eyes may pierce I cannot tell. Striving to better, oft we mar what's well. . Nay then- . Well, well; th' event. Exeunt. 880
Act I, Scene 5
Court before the Duke of Albany’s Palace. Enter Lear, Kent, and Fool.
. Go you before to Gloucester with these letters. Acquaint my daughter no further with anything you know than comes from her demand out of the letter. If your diligence be not speedy, I shall be there afore you. . I will not sleep, my lord, till I have delivered your letter. Exit. 885 . If a man's brains were in's heels, were't not in danger of kibes? . Ay, boy. . Then I prithee be merry. Thy wit shall ne'er go slip-shod. . Ha, ha, ha! 890 . Shalt see thy other daughter will use thee kindly; for though she's as like this as a crab's like an apple, yet I can tell what I can tell. . What canst tell, boy? . She'll taste as like this as a crab does to a crab. Thou 895 canst tell why one's nose stands i' th' middle on's face? . No. . Why, to keep one's eyes of either side's nose, that what a man cannot smell out, 'a may spy into. . I did her wrong. 900 . Canst tell how an oyster makes his shell? . No. . Nor I neither; but I can tell why a snail has a house. . Why? . Why, to put's head in; not to give it away to his daughters, 905 and leave his horns without a case. . I will forget my nature. So kind a father!- Be my horses ready? . Thy asses are gone about 'em. The reason why the seven stars are no moe than seven is a pretty reason. 910 . Because they are not eight? . Yes indeed. Thou wouldst make a good fool. . To tak't again perforce! Monster ingratitude! . If thou wert my fool, nuncle, I'ld have thee beaten for being old before thy time. 915 . How's that? . Thou shouldst not have been old till thou hadst been wise. . O, let me not be mad, not mad, sweet heaven! Keep me in temper; I would not be mad! How now? Are the horses ready? 920 . Ready, my lord. . Come, boy. . She that's a maid now, and laughs at my departure, Shall not be a maid long, unless things be cut shorter
Exeunt.
Act II, Scene 1
A court within the Castle of the Earl of Gloucester.
Enter [Edmund the] Bastard and Curan, meeting. . Save thee, Curan. . And you, sir. I have been with your father, and given him notice that the Duke of Cornwall and Regan his Duchess will be here with him this night. 930 . How comes that? . Nay, I know not. You have heard of the news abroad- I mean the whisper'd ones, for they are yet but ear-kissing arguments? . Not I. Pray you, what are they? . Have you heard of no likely wars toward 'twixt the two Dukes 935 of Cornwall and Albany? . Not a word. . You may do, then, in time. Fare you well, sir. Exit. . The Duke be here to-night? The better! best! This weaves itself perforce into my business. 940 My father hath set guard to take my brother; And I have one thing, of a queasy question, Which I must act. Briefness and fortune, work! Brother, a word! Descend! Brother, I say! 945 My father watches. O sir, fly this place! Intelligence is given where you are hid. You have now the good advantage of the night. Have you not spoken 'gainst the Duke of Cornwall? He's coming hither; now, i' th' night, i' th' haste, 950 And Regan with him. Have you nothing said Upon his party 'gainst the Duke of Albany? Advise yourself. . I am sure on't, not a word. . I hear my father coming. Pardon me! 955 In cunning I must draw my sword upon you. Draw, seem to defend yourself; now quit you well.- Yield! Come before my father. Light, ho, here! Fly, brother.- Torches, torches!- So farewell. 960 Some blood drawn on me would beget opinion Of my more fierce endeavour. I have seen drunkards Do more than this in sport.- Father, father!- Stop, stop! No help? 965
Enter Gloucester, and Servants with torches. . Now, Edmund, where's the villain? . Here stood he in the dark, his sharp sword out, Mumbling of wicked charms, conjuring the moon To stand 's auspicious mistress. 970 . But where is he? . Look, sir, I bleed. . Where is the villain, Edmund? . Fled this way, sir. When by no means he could- . Pursue him, ho! Go after. . 975 By no means what? . Persuade me to the murther of your lordship; But that I told him the revenging gods 'Gainst parricides did all their thunders bend; Spoke with how manifold and strong a bond 980 The child was bound to th' father- sir, in fine, Seeing how loathly opposite I stood To his unnatural purpose, in fell motion With his prepared sword he charges home My unprovided body, lanch'd mine arm; 985 But when he saw my best alarum'd spirits, Bold in the quarrel's right, rous'd to th' encounter, Or whether gasted by the noise I made, Full suddenly he fled. . Let him fly far. 990 Not in this land shall he remain uncaught; And found- dispatch. The noble Duke my master, My worthy arch and patron, comes to-night. By his authority I will proclaim it That he which find, him shall deserve our thanks, 995 Bringing the murderous caitiff to the stake; He that conceals him, death. . When I dissuaded him from his intent And found him pight to do it, with curst speech I threaten'd to discover him. He replied, 1000 'Thou unpossessing bastard, dost thou think, If I would stand against thee, would the reposal Of any trust, virtue, or worth in thee Make thy words faith'd? No. What I should deny (As this I would; ay, though thou didst produce 1005 My very character), I'ld turn it all To thy suggestion, plot, and damned practice; And thou must make a dullard of the world, If they not thought the profits of my death Were very pregnant and potential spurs 1010 To make thee seek it.' . Strong and fast'ned villain! Would he deny his letter? I never got him.
Hark, the Duke's trumpets! I know not why he comes. 1015 All ports I'll bar; the villain shall not scape; The Duke must grant me that. Besides, his picture I will send far and near, that all the kingdom May have due note of him, and of my land, Loyal and natural boy, I'll work the means 1020 To make thee capable.
Enter Cornwall, Regan, and Attendants. . How now, my noble friend? Since I came hither (Which I can call but now) I have heard strange news. . If it be true, all vengeance comes too short 1025 Which can pursue th' offender. How dost, my lord? . O madam, my old heart is crack'd, it's crack'd! . What, did my father's godson seek your life? He whom my father nam'd? Your Edgar? . O lady, lady, shame would have it hid! 1030 . Was he not companion with the riotous knights That tend upon my father? . I know not, madam. 'Tis too bad, too bad! . Yes, madam, he was of that consort. . No marvel then though he were ill affected. 1035 'Tis they have put him on the old man's death, To have th' expense and waste of his revenues. I have this present evening from my sister Been well inform'd of them, and with such cautions That, if they come to sojourn at my house, 1040 I'll not be there. . Nor I, assure thee, Regan. Edmund, I hear that you have shown your father A childlike office. . 'Twas my duty, sir. 1045 . He did bewray his practice, and receiv'd This hurt you see, striving to apprehend him. . Is he pursued? . Ay, my good lord. . If he be taken, he shall never more 1050 Be fear'd of doing harm. Make your own purpose, How in my strength you please. For you, Edmund, Whose virtue and obedience doth this instant So much commend itself, you shall be ours. Natures of such deep trust we shall much need; 1055 You we first seize on. . I shall serve you, sir, Truly, however else. . For him I thank your Grace. . You know not why we came to visit you- 1060 . Thus out of season, threading dark-ey'd night. Occasions, noble Gloucester, of some poise, Wherein we must have use of your advice. Our father he hath writ, so hath our sister, Of differences, which I best thought it fit 1065 To answer from our home. The several messengers From hence attend dispatch. Our good old friend, Lay comforts to your bosom, and bestow Your needful counsel to our business, Which craves the instant use. 1070 . I serve you, madam. Your Graces are right welcome.
Exeunt. Flourish.
Act II, Scene 2
Before Gloucester’s Castle.
Enter Kent and [Oswald the] Steward, severally. . Good dawning to thee, friend. Art of this house? 1075 . Ay. . Where may we set our horses? . I' th' mire. . Prithee, if thou lov'st me, tell me. . I love thee not. 1080 . Why then, I care not for thee. . If I had thee in Lipsbury Pinfold, I would make thee care for me. . Why dost thou use me thus? I know thee not. . Fellow, I know thee. 1085 . What dost thou know me for? . A knave; a rascal; an eater of broken meats; a base, proud, shallow, beggarly, three-suited, hundred-pound, filthy, worsted-stocking knave; a lily-liver'd, action-taking, whoreson, glass-gazing, superserviceable, finical rogue; 1090 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; one whom I will beat into clamorous whining, if thou deny the least syllable of thy addition. 1095 . Why, what a monstrous fellow art thou, thus to rail on one that's neither known of thee nor knows thee! . What a brazen-fac'd varlet art thou, to deny thou knowest me! Is it two days ago since I beat thee and tripp'd up thy heels before the King? Draw, you rogue! for, though 1100 it be night, yet the moon shines. I'll make a sop o' th' moonshine o' you. Draw, you whoreson cullionly barbermonger! draw! . Away! I have nothing to do with thee. . Draw, you rascal! You come with letters against the King, and 1105 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! . Help, ho! murther! help! . Strike, you slave! Stand, rogue! Stand, you neat slave! 1110 Strike! . Help, ho! murther! murther!
Enter Edmund, with his rapier drawn, Gloucester, Cornwall, Regan, Servants. . How now? What's the matter? Parts . . With you, goodman boy, an you please! Come, I'll flesh ye! 1115 Come on, young master! . Weapons? arms? What's the matter here? . Keep peace, upon your lives! He dies that strikes again. What is the matter? . The messengers from our sister and the King 1120 . What is your difference? Speak. . I am scarce in breath, my lord. . No marvel, you have so bestirr'd your valour. You cowardly rascal, nature disclaims in thee; a tailor made thee. . Thou art a strange fellow. A tailor make a man? 1125 . Ay, a tailor, sir. A stonecutter or a painter could not have made him so ill, though he had been but two hours at the trade. . Speak yet, how grew your quarrel? . This ancient ruffian, sir, whose life I have spar'd At suit of his grey beard- 1130 . Thou whoreson zed! thou unnecessary letter! My lord, if you'll give me leave, I will tread this unbolted villain into mortar and daub the walls of a jakes with him. 'Spare my grey beard,' you wagtail? . Peace, sirrah! 1135 You beastly knave, know you no reverence? . Yes, sir, but anger hath a privilege. . Why art thou angry? . That such a slave as this should wear a sword, Who wears no honesty. Such smiling rogues as these, 1140 Like rats, oft bite the holy cords atwain Which are too intrinse t' 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 1145 With every gale and vary of their masters, Knowing naught (like dogs) but following. A plague upon your epileptic visage! Smile you my speeches, as I were a fool? Goose, an I had you upon Sarum Plain, 1150 I'ld drive ye cackling home to Camelot. . What, art thou mad, old fellow? . How fell you out? Say that. . No contraries hold more antipathy Than I and such a knave. 1155 . Why dost thou call him knave? What is his fault? . His countenance likes me not. . No more perchance does mine, or his, or hers. . Sir, 'tis my occupation to be plain. I have seen better faces in my time 1160 Than stands on any shoulder that I see Before me at this instant. . This is some fellow Who, having been prais'd for bluntness, doth affect A saucy roughness, and constrains the garb 1165 Quite from his nature. He cannot flatter, he! An honest mind and plain- he must speak truth! An they will take it, so; if not, he's plain. These kind of knaves I know which in this plainness Harbour more craft and more corrupter ends 1170 Than twenty silly-ducking observants That stretch their duties nicely. . Sir, in good faith, in sincere verity, Under th' allowance of your great aspect, Whose influence, like the wreath of radiant fire 1175 On flickering Phoebus' front- . What mean'st by this? . To go out of my dialect, which you discommend so much. I know, sir, I am no flatterer. He that beguil'd you in a plain accent was a plain knave, which, for my part, I will not be, 1180 though I should win your displeasure to entreat me to't. . What was th' offence you gave him? . I never gave him any. It pleas'd the King his master very late To strike at me, upon his misconstruction; 1185 When he, conjunct, and flattering his displeasure, Tripp'd me behind; being down, insulted, rail'd And put upon him such a deal of man That worthied him, got praises of the King For him attempting who was self-subdu'd; 1190 And, in the fleshment of this dread exploit, Drew on me here again. . None of these rogues and cowards But Ajax is their fool. . Fetch forth the stocks! 1195 You stubborn ancient knave, you reverent braggart, We'll teach you- . Sir, I am too old to learn. Call not your stocks for me. I serve the King; On whose employment I was sent to you. 1200 You shall do small respect, show too bold malice Against the grace and person of my master, Stocking his messenger. . Fetch forth the stocks! As I have life and honour, There shall he sit till noon. 1205 . Till noon? Till night, my lord, and all night too! . Why, madam, if I were your father's dog, You should not use me so. . Sir, being his knave, I will. . This is a fellow of the selfsame colour 1210 Our sister speaks of. Come, bring away the stocks!
Stocks brought out. . 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 purpos'd low correction 1215 Is such as basest and contemn'dest wretches For pilf'rings and most common trespasses Are punish'd with. The King must take it ill That he, so slightly valued in his messenger, Should have him thus restrain'd. 1220 . I'll answer that. . My sister may receive it much more worse, To have her gentleman abus'd, assaulted, For following her affairs. Put in his legs.- 1225 Come, my good lord, away.
Exeunt [all but Gloucester and Kent]. . I am sorry for thee, friend. 'Tis the Duke's pleasure, Whose disposition, all the world well knows, Will not be rubb'd nor stopp'd. I'll entreat for thee. 1230 . Pray do not, sir. I have watch'd and travell'd 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! . The Duke 's to blame in this; 'twill be ill taken. Exit. 1235 . Good King, that must approve the common saw, Thou out of heaven's benediction com'st To the warm sun! Approach, thou beacon to this under globe, That by thy comfortable beams I may 1240 Peruse this letter. Nothing almost sees miracles But misery. I know 'tis from Cordelia, Who hath most fortunately been inform'd Of my obscured course- and 'shall find time From this enormous state, seeking to give 1245 Losses their remedies'- All weary and o'erwatch'd, Take vantage, heavy eyes, not to behold This shameful lodging. Fortune, good night; smile once more, turn thy wheel.
Sleeps.
Act II, Scene 3
The open country.
Enter Edgar. . I heard myself proclaim'd, And by the happy hollow of a tree Escap'd the hunt. No port is free, no place That guard and most unusual vigilance 1255 Does not attend my taking. Whiles 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, 1260 Blanket my loins, elf all my hair in knots, And with presented nakedness outface The winds and persecutions of the sky. The country gives me proof and precedent Of Bedlam beggars, who, with roaring voices, 1265 Strike in their numb'd and mortified bare arms Pins, wooden pricks, nails, sprigs of rosemary; And with this horrible object, from low farms, Poor pelting villages, sheepcotes, and mills, Sometime with lunatic bans, sometime with prayers, 1270 Enforce their charity. 'Poor Turlygod! poor Tom!' That's something yet! Edgar I nothing am. Exit.
Act II, Scene 4
Before Gloucester’s Castle; Kent in the stocks.
Enter Lear, Fool, and Gentleman. . 'Tis strange that they should so depart from home, And not send back my messenger. 1275 . As I learn'd, The night before there was no purpose in them Of this remove. . Hail to thee, noble master! . Ha! 1280 Mak'st thou this shame thy pastime? . No, my lord. . Ha, ha! look! he wears cruel garters. Horses are tied by the head, 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 1285 wooden nether-stocks. . What's he that hath so much thy place mistook To set thee here? . It is both he and she- Your son and daughter. 1290 . No. . Yes. . No, I say. . I say yea. . No, no, they would not! 1295 . Yes, they have. . By Jupiter, I swear no! . By Juno, I swear ay! . They durst not do't; They would not, could not do't. 'Tis worse than murther 1300 To do upon respect such violent outrage. Resolve me with all modest haste which way Thou mightst deserve or they impose this usage, Coming from us. . My lord, when at their home 1305 I did commend your Highness' letters to them, Ere I was risen from the place that show'd My duty kneeling, came there a reeking post, Stew'd in his haste, half breathless, panting forth From Goneril his mistress salutations; 1310 Deliver'd letters, spite of intermission, Which presently they read; on whose contents, They summon'd up their meiny, straight took horse, Commanded me to follow and attend The leisure of their answer, gave me cold looks, 1315 And meeting here the other messenger, Whose welcome I perceiv'd had poison'd mine- Being the very fellow which of late Display'd so saucily against your Highness- Having more man than wit about me, drew. 1320 He rais'd the house with loud and coward cries. Your son and daughter found this trespass worth The shame which here it suffers. . Winter's not gone yet, if the wild geese fly that way. Fathers that wear rags 1325 Do make their children blind; But fathers that bear bags Shall see their children kind. Fortune, that arrant whore, Ne'er turns the key to th' poor. 1330 But for all this, thou shalt have as many dolours for thy daughters as thou canst tell in a year. . O, how this mother swells up toward my heart! Hysterica passio! Down, thou climbing sorrow! Thy element's below! Where is this daughter? 1335 . With the Earl, sir, here within. . Follow me not; Stay here. Exit. . Made you no more offence but what you speak of? . None. 1340 How chance the King comes with so small a number? . An thou hadst been set i' th' stocks for that question, thou'dst well deserv'd it. . Why, fool? . We'll set thee to school to an ant, to teach thee there's no 1345 labouring i' th' winter. All that follow their noses are led by their eyes but blind men, and there's not a nose among twenty 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 upward, let him draw thee after. 1350 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. That sir which serves and seeks for gain, And follows but for form, Will pack when it begins to rain 1355 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, perdy. 1360 . Where learn'd you this, fool? . Not i' th' stocks, fool. Enter Lear and Gloucester . Deny to speak with me? They are sick? they are weary? They have travell'd all the night? Mere fetches- 1365 The images of revolt and flying off! Fetch me a better answer. . My dear lord, You know the fiery quality of the Duke, How unremovable and fix'd he is 1370 In his own course. . Vengeance! plague! death! confusion! Fiery? What quality? Why, Gloucester, Gloucester, I'ld speak with the Duke of Cornwall and his wife. . Well, my good lord, I have inform'd them so. 1375 . Inform'd them? Dost thou understand me, man? . Ay, my good lord. . The King would speak with Cornwall; the dear father Would with his daughter speak, commands her service. Are they inform'd of this? My breath and blood! 1380 Fiery? the fiery Duke? Tell the hot Duke that- No, but not yet! May be he is not well. Infirmity doth still neglect all office Whereto our health is bound. We are not ourselves When nature, being oppress'd, commands the mind 1385 To suffer with the body. I'll forbear; And am fallen out with my more headier will, To take the indispos'd and sickly fit For the sound man.- Death on my state! Wherefore Should he sit here? This act persuades me 1390 That this remotion of the Duke and her Is practice only. Give me my servant forth. Go tell the Duke and 's wife I'ld speak with them- Now, presently. Bid them come forth and hear me, Or at their chamber door I'll beat the drum 1395 Till it cry sleep to death. . I would have all well betwixt you. Exit. . O me, my heart, my rising heart! But down! . Cry to it, nuncle, as the cockney did to the eels when she put 'em i' th' paste alive. She knapp'd 'em o' th' coxcombs with 1400 a stick and cried 'Down, wantons, down!' 'Twas her brother that, in pure kindness to his horse, buttered his hay.
Enter Cornwall, Regan, Gloucester, Servants. . Good morrow to you both. . Hail to your Grace! 1405
Kent here set at liberty. . I am glad to see your Highness. . 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 tomb, 1410 Sepulchring an adultress. O, are you free? Some other time for that.- Beloved Regan, Thy sister's naught. O Regan, she hath tied Sharp-tooth'd unkindness, like a vulture, here! 1415 I can scarce speak to thee. Thou'lt not believe With how deprav'd a quality- O Regan! . I pray you, sir, take patience. I have hope You less know how to value her desert Than she to scant her duty. 1420 . Say, how is that? . I cannot think my sister in the least Would fail her obligation. If, sir, perchance She have restrain'd the riots of your followers, 'Tis on such ground, and to such wholesome end, 1425 As clears her from all blame. . My curses on her! . O, sir, you are old! Nature in you stands on the very verge Of her confine. You should be rul'd, and led 1430 By some discretion that discerns your state Better than you yourself. Therefore I pray you That to our sister you do make return; Say you have wrong'd her, sir. . Ask her forgiveness? 1435 Do you but mark how this becomes the house: '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.' . Good sir, no more! These are unsightly tricks. 1440 Return you to my sister. . Never, Regan! She hath abated me of half my train; Look'd black upon me; struck me with her tongue, Most serpent-like, upon the very heart. 1445 All the stor'd vengeances of heaven fall On her ingrateful top! Strike her young bones, You taking airs, with lameness! . Fie, sir, fie! . You nimble lightnings, dart your blinding flames 1450 Into her scornful eyes! Infect her beauty, You fen-suck'd fogs, drawn by the pow'rful sun, To fall and blast her pride! . O the blest gods! so will you wish on me When the rash mood is on. 1455 . No, Regan, thou shalt never have my curse. Thy tender-hefted 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, 1460 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. 1465 Thy half o' th' kingdom hast thou not forgot, Wherein I thee endow'd. . Good sir, to th' purpose.
Tucket within. . Who put my man i' th' stocks? 1470 . What trumpet's that? . I know't- my sister's. This approves her letter, That she would soon be here. Steward.] Is your lady come? 1475 . This is a slave, whose easy-borrowed pride Dwells in the fickle grace of her he follows. Out, varlet, from my sight! . What means your Grace?
Enter Goneril. . Who stock'd my servant? Regan, I have good hope Thou didst not know on't.- 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! 1485 Art not asham'd to look upon this beard?- O Regan, wilt thou take her by the hand? . Why not by th' hand, sir? How have I offended? All's not offence that indiscretion finds And dotage terms so. 1490 . O sides, you are too tough! Will you yet hold? How came my man i' th' stocks? . I set him there, sir; but his own disorders Deserv'd much less advancement. . You? Did you? 1495 . 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 1500 Which shall be needful for your entertainment. . Return to her, and fifty men dismiss'd? No, rather I abjure all roofs, and choose To wage against the enmity o' th' air, To be a comrade with the wolf and owl- 1505 Necessity's sharp pinch! Return with her? Why, the hot-blooded 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? 1510 Persuade me rather to be slave and sumpter To this detested groom. . At your choice, sir. . I prithee, daughter, do not make me mad. I will not trouble thee, my child; farewell. 1515 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's in my flesh, Which I must needs call mine. Thou art a boil, A plague sore, an embossed carbuncle 1520 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; 1525 I can be patient, I can stay with Regan, I and my hundred knights. . Not altogether so. I look'd not for you yet, nor am provided For your fit welcome. Give ear, sir, to my sister; 1530 For those that mingle reason with your passion Must be content to think you old, and so- But she knows what she does. . Is this well spoken? . I dare avouch it, sir. What, fifty followers? 1535 Is it not well? What should you need of more? Yea, or so many, sith that both charge and danger Speak 'gainst so great a number? How in one house Should many people, under two commands, Hold amity? 'Tis hard; almost impossible. 1540 . Why might not you, my lord, receive attendance From those that she calls servants, or from mine? . Why not, my lord? If then they chanc'd to slack ye, We could control them. If you will come to me (For now I spy a danger), I entreat you 1545 To bring but five-and-twenty. To no more Will I give place or notice. . I gave you all- . And in good time you gave it! . Made you my guardians, my depositaries; 1550 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? . And speak't again my lord. No more with me. . Those wicked creatures yet do look well-favour'd 1555 When others are more wicked; not being the worst Stands in some rank of praise. I'll go with thee. Thy fifty yet doth double five-and-twenty, And thou art twice her love. . Hear, me, my lord. 1560 What need you five-and-twenty, ten, or five, To follow in a house where twice so many Have a command to tend you? . What need one? . O, reason not the need! Our basest beggars 1565 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 wear'st 1570 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 man, As full of grief as age; wretched in both. If it be you that stirs these daughters' hearts 1575 Against their father, fool me not so much To bear it tamely; touch me with noble anger, And let not women's weapons, water drops, Stain my man's cheeks! No, you unnatural hags! I will have such revenges on you both 1580 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. I have full cause of weeping, but this heart 1585 Shall break into a hundred thousand flaws Or ere I'll weep. O fool, I shall go mad!
Exeunt Lear, Gloucester, Kent, and Fool. Storm and tempest. . Let us withdraw; 'twill be a storm. . This house is little; the old man and 's people 1590 Cannot be well bestow'd. . 'Tis his own blame; hath put himself from rest And must needs taste his folly. . For his particular, I'll receive him gladly, But not one follower. 1595 . So am I purpos'd. Where is my Lord of Gloucester? . Followed the old man forth.
He is return'd. 1600 . The King is in high rage. . Whither is he going? . He calls to horse, but will I know not whither. . 'Tis best to give him way; he leads himself. . My lord, entreat him by no means to stay. 1605 . Alack, the night comes on, and the bleak winds Do sorely ruffle. For many miles about There's scarce a bush. . O, sir, to wilful men The injuries that they themselves procure 1610 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 abus'd, wisdom bids fear. . Shut up your doors, my lord: 'tis a wild night. 1615 My Regan counsels well. Come out o' th' storm.
Act III, Scene 1
A heath. Storm still.
Enter Kent and a Gentleman at several doors. . Who's there, besides foul weather? . One minded like the weather, most unquietly. . I know you. Where's the King? 1620 . Contending with the fretful elements; 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, 1625 Catch in their fury and make nothing of; Strives in his little world of man to outscorn The to-and-fro-conflicting wind and rain. This night, wherein the cub-drawn bear would couch, The lion and the belly-pinched wolf 1630 Keep their fur dry, unbonneted he runs, And bids what will take all. . But who is with him? . None but the fool, who labours to outjest His heart-struck injuries. 1635 . Sir, I do know you, And dare upon the warrant of my note Commend a dear thing to you. There is division (Although as yet the face of it be cover'd With mutual cunning) 'twixt Albany and Cornwall; 1640 Who have (as who have not, that their great stars Thron'd and set high?) servants, who seem no less, Which are to France the spies and speculations Intelligent of our state. What hath been seen, Either in snuffs and packings of the Dukes, 1645 Or the hard rein which both of them have borne Against the old kind King, or something deeper, Whereof, perchance, these are but furnishings- But, true it is, from France there comes a power Into this scattered kingdom, who already, 1650 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 1655 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 1660 This office to you. . I will talk further with you. . No, do not. For confirmation that I am much more Than my out-wall, open this purse and take 1665 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. 1670 . Give me your hand. Have you no more to say? . Few words, but, to effect, more than all yet: That, when we have found the King (in which your pain That way, I'll this), he that first lights on him Holla the other. 1675
Exeunt [severally].
Act III, Scene 2
Another part of the heath. Storm still.
Enter Lear and Fool. . Blow, winds, and crack your cheeks! rage! blow! You cataracts and hurricanoes, spout Till you have drench'd our steeples, drown'd the cocks! 1680 You sulph'rous and thought-executing fires, Vaunt-couriers to oak-cleaving thunderbolts, Singe my white head! And thou, all-shaking thunder, Strike flat the thick rotundity o' th' world, Crack Nature's moulds, all germains spill at once, 1685 That makes ingrateful man! . 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 nether wise men nor fools. . Rumble thy bellyful! Spit, fire! spout, rain! 1690 Nor rain, wind, thunder, fire are my daughters. I tax not you, you elements, with unkindness. I never gave you kingdom, call'd you children, You owe me no subscription. Then let fall Your horrible pleasure. Here I stand your slave, 1695 A poor, infirm, weak, and despis'd old man. But yet I call you servile ministers, That will with two pernicious daughters join Your high-engender'd battles 'gainst a head So old and white as this! O! O! 'tis foul! 1700 . He that has a house to put 's head in has a good head-piece. The codpiece that will house Before the head has any, The head and he shall louse: So beggars marry many. 1705 The man that makes his toe What he his heart should make Shall of a corn cry woe, And turn his sleep to wake. For there was never yet fair woman but she made mouths in a 1710 glass.
Enter Kent. . No, I will be the pattern of all patience; I will say nothing. . Who's there? 1715 . Marry, here's grace and a codpiece; that's a wise man and a fool. . Alas, sir, are you here? Things that love night Love not such nights as these. The wrathful skies Gallow the very wanderers of the dark 1720 And make 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 never Remember to have heard. Man's nature cannot carry Th' affliction nor the fear. 1725 . Let the great gods, That keep this dreadful pudder o'er our heads, Find out their enemies now. Tremble, thou wretch, That hast within thee undivulged crimes Unwhipp'd of justice. Hide thee, thou bloody hand; 1730 Thou perjur'd, and thou simular man of virtue That art incestuous. Caitiff, in pieces shake That under covert and convenient seeming Hast practis'd on man's life. Close pent-up guilts, Rive your concealing continents, and cry 1735 These dreadful summoners grace. I am a man More sinn'd against than sinning. . Alack, bareheaded? Gracious my lord, hard by here is a hovel; Some friendship will it lend you 'gainst the tempest. 1740 Repose you there, whilst I to this hard house (More harder than the stones whereof 'tis rais'd, Which even but now, demanding after you, Denied me to come in) return, and force Their scanted courtesy. 1745 . My wits begin to turn. 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. 1750 Poor fool and knave, I have one part in my heart That's sorry yet for thee. . He that has and a little tiny wit- With hey, ho, the wind and the rain- 1755 Must make content with his fortunes fit, For the rain it raineth every day. . True, my good boy. Come, bring us to this hovel.
Exeunt [Lear and Kent]. . This is a brave night to cool a courtesan. I'll speak a 1760 prophecy ere I go: When priests are more in word than matter; When brewers mar their malt with water; When nobles are their tailors' tutors, No heretics burn'd, but wenches' suitors; 1765 When every case in law is right, No squire in debt nor no poor knight; When slanders do not live in tongues, Nor cutpurses come not to throngs; When usurers tell their gold i' th' field, 1770 And bawds and whores do churches build: Then shall the realm of Albion Come to great confusion. Then comes the time, who lives to see't, That going shall be us'd with feet. 1775 This prophecy Merlin shall make, for I live before his time. Exit.
Act III, Scene 3
Gloucester’s Castle.
Enter Gloucester and Edmund. . Alack, alack, Edmund, I like not this unnatural dealing! When I desir'd their leave that I might pity him, they took from me the use of mine own house, charg'd me on pain of perpetual 1780 displeasure neither to speak of him, entreat for him, nor any way sustain him. . Most savage and unnatural! . Go to; say you nothing. There is division betwixt the Dukes, and a worse matter than that. I have received a letter this 1785 night- 'tis dangerous to be spoken- I have lock'd the letter in my closet. These injuries the King now bears will be revenged home; there's part of a power already footed; 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 1790 perceived. If he ask for me, I am ill and gone to bed. Though I die for't, as no less is threat'ned me, the King my old master must be relieved. There is some strange thing toward, Edmund. Pray you be careful. Exit. . This courtesy, forbid thee, shall the Duke 1795 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 doth fall. Exit.
Act III, Scene 4
The heath. Before a hovel. Storm still.
Enter Lear, Kent, and Fool. . Here is the place, my lord. Good my lord, enter. The tyranny of the open night 's too rough For nature to endure. . Let me alone. . Good my lord, enter here. 1805 . Wilt break my heart? . I had rather break mine own. Good my lord, enter. . Thou think'st 'tis much that this contentious storm Invades us to the skin. So 'tis to thee; But where the greater malady is fix'd, 1810 The lesser is scarce felt. Thou'dst shun a bear; But if thy flight lay toward the raging sea, Thou'dst meet the bear i' th' mouth. When the mind's free, The body's delicate. The tempest in my mind Doth from my senses take all feeling else 1815 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 home! No, I will weep no more. In such a night To shut me out! Pour on; I will endure. 1820 In such a night as this! O Regan, Goneril! Your old kind father, whose frank heart gave all! O, that way madness lies; let me shun that! No more of that. . Good my lord, enter here. 1825 . Prithee go in thyself; seek thine own ease. This tempest will not give me leave to ponder On things would hurt me more. But I'll go in. In, boy; go first.- You houseless poverty- Nay, get thee in. I'll pray, and then I'll sleep. 1830 Poor naked wretches, wheresoe'er you are, That bide the pelting of this pitiless storm, How shall your houseless heads and unfed sides, Your loop'd and window'd raggedness, defend you From seasons such as these? O, I have ta'en 1835 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. . Fathom and half, fathom and half! Poor Tom! 1840
Enter Fool [from the hovel]. . Come not in here, nuncle, here's a spirit. Help me, help me! . Give me thy hand. Who's there? . A spirit, a spirit! He says his name's poor Tom. . What art thou that dost grumble there i' th' straw? 1845 Come forth.
Enter Edgar [disguised as a madman]. . Away! the foul fiend follows me! Through the sharp hawthorn blows the cold wind. Humh! go to thy cold bed, and warm thee. . Hast thou given all to thy two daughters, and art thou come 1850 to this? . Who gives anything to poor Tom? whom the foul fiend hath led through fire and through flame, through ford and whirlpool, o'er bog and quagmire; that hath laid knives under his pillow and halters in his pew, set ratsbane by his porridge, made him proud 1855 of heart, to ride on a bay trotting horse over four-inch'd bridges, to course his own shadow for a traitor. Bless thy five wits! Tom 's acold. O, do de, do de, do de. 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- 1860 and there again- and there!
Storm still. . What, have his daughters brought him to this pass? Couldst thou save nothing? Didst thou give 'em all? . Nay, he reserv'd a blanket, else we had been all sham'd. 1865 . Now all the plagues that in the pendulous air Hang fated o'er men's faults light on thy daughters! . He hath no daughters, sir. . Death, traitor! nothing could have subdu'd nature To such a lowness but his unkind daughters. 1870 Is it the fashion that discarded fathers Should have thus little mercy on their flesh? Judicious punishment! 'Twas this flesh begot Those pelican daughters. . Pillicock sat on Pillicock's Hill. 'Allow, 'allow, loo, loo! 1875 . This cold night will turn us all to fools and madmen. . 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 acold. . What hast thou been? 1880 . A servingman, proud in heart and mind; that curl'd my hair, wore gloves in my cap; serv'd 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 wak'd to do it. Wine lov'd 1885 I deeply, dice dearly; and in woman out-paramour'd 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 rustling of silks betray thy poor heart to woman. Keep thy foot out of brothel, thy hand 1890 out of placket, thy pen from lender's book, and defy the foul fiend. Still through the hawthorn blows the cold wind; says suum, mun, hey, no, nonny. Dolphin my boy, my boy, sessa! let him trot by.
Storm still. . Why, thou wert better in thy grave than to answer with thy uncover'd body this extremity of the skies. Is man no more than this? Consider him well. Thou ow'st the worm no silk, the beast no hide, the sheep no wool, the cat no perfume. Ha! Here's three on's are sophisticated! Thou art the thing itself; 1900 unaccommodated man is no more but such a poor, bare, forked animal as thou art. Off, off, you lendings! Come, unbutton here.
[Tears at his clothes.] . Prithee, nuncle, be contented! 'Tis a naughty night to swim 1905 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 Gloucester with a torch. . This is the foul fiend Flibbertigibbet. He begins at curfew, 1910 and walks till the first cock. He gives the web and the pin, squints the eye, and makes the harelip; mildews the white wheat, and hurts the poor creature of earth. Saint Withold footed thrice the 'old; He met the nightmare, and her nine fold; 1915 Bid her alight And her troth plight, And aroint thee, witch, aroint thee! . How fares your Grace? . What's he? 1920 . Who's there? What is't you seek? . What are you there? Your names? . Poor Tom, that eats the swimming frog, the toad, the todpole, the wall-newt and the water; that in the fury of his heart, when the foul fiend rages, eats cow-dung for sallets, swallows the 1925 old rat and the ditch-dog, drinks the green mantle of the standing pool; who is whipp'd from tithing to tithing, and stock-punish'd and imprison'd; who hath had three suits to his back, six shirts to his body, horse to ride, and weapons to wear; 1930 But mice and rats, and such small deer, Have been Tom's food for seven long year. Beware my follower. Peace, Smulkin! peace, thou fiend! . What, hath your Grace no better company? . The prince of darkness is a gentleman! 1935 Modo he's call'd, and Mahu. . Our flesh and blood is grown so vile, my lord, That it doth hate what gets it. . Poor Tom 's acold. . Go in with me. My duty cannot suffer 1940 T' 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 ventur'd to come seek you out And bring you where both fire and food is ready. 1945 . First let me talk with this philosopher. What is the cause of thunder? . Good my lord, take his offer; go into th' house. . I'll talk a word with this same learned Theban. What is your study? 1950 . How to prevent the fiend and to kill vermin. . Let me ask you one word in private. . Importune him once more to go, my lord. His wits begin t' unsettle. . Canst thou blame him? 1955 His daughters seek his death. Ah, that good Kent! He said it would be thus- poor banish'd man! Thou say'st the King grows mad: I'll tell thee, friend, I am almost mad myself. I had a son, Now outlaw'd from my blood. He sought my life 1960 But lately, very late. I lov'd him, friend- No father his son dearer. True to tell thee, The grief hath craz'd my wits. What a night 's this! I do beseech your Grace- . O, cry you mercy, sir. 1965 Noble philosopher, your company. . Tom's acold. . In, fellow, there, into th' hovel; keep thee warm. . Come, let's in all. . This way, my lord. 1970 . With him! I will keep still with my philosopher. . Good my lord, soothe him; let him take the fellow. . Take him you on. . Sirrah, come on; go along with us. 1975 . Come, good Athenian. . No words, no words! hush. . Child Rowland to the dark tower came; His word was still Fie, foh, and fum! 1980 I smell the blood of a British man.
Exeunt.
Act III, Scene 5
Gloucester’s Castle.
Enter Cornwall and Edmund. . I will have my revenge ere I depart his house. . How, my lord, I may be censured, that nature thus gives way to 1985 loyalty, something fears me to think of. . I now perceive it was not altogether your brother's evil disposition made him seek his death; but a provoking merit, set awork by a reproveable badness in himself. . How malicious is my fortune that I must repent to be just! 1990 This is the letter he spoke of, which approves him an intelligent party to the advantages of France. O heavens! that this treason were not- or not I the detector! . Go with me to the Duchess. . If the matter of this paper be certain, you have mighty 1995 business in hand. . True or false, it hath made thee Earl of Gloucester. Seek out where thy father is, that he may be ready for our apprehension. . If I find him comforting the King, it will stuff his 2000 suspicion more fully.- I will persever in my course of loyalty, though the conflict be sore between that and my blood. . I will lay trust upon thee, and thou shalt find a dearer father in my love.
Exeunt.
Act III, Scene 6
A farmhouse near Gloucester’s Castle.
Enter Gloucester, Lear, Kent, Fool, and Edgar. . 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. . All the power of his wits have given way to his impatience. 2010 The gods reward your kindness!
Exit [Gloucester]. . Frateretto calls me, and tells me Nero is an angler in the lake of darkness. Pray, innocent, and beware the foul fiend. . Prithee, nuncle, tell me whether a madman be a gentleman or a 2015 yeoman. . A king, a king! . No, he's a yeoman that has a gentleman to his son; for he's a mad yeoman that sees his son a gentleman before him. . To have a thousand with red burning spits 2020 Come hizzing in upon 'em- . The foul fiend bites my back. . He's mad that trusts in the tameness of a wolf, a horse's health, a boy's love, or a whore's oath. . It shall be done; I will arraign them straight. 2025 Come, sit thou here, most learned justicer. Thou, sapient sir, sit here. Now, you she-foxes! . Look, where he stands and glares! Want'st thou eyes at trial, madam? Come o'er the bourn, Bessy, to me. 2030 . Her boat hath a leak, And she must not speak Why she dares not come over to thee. . The foul fiend haunts poor Tom in the voice of a nightingale. Hoppedance cries in Tom's belly for two white herring. Croak 2035 not, black angel; I have no food for thee. . How do you, sir? Stand you not so amaz'd. Will you lie down and rest upon the cushions? . I'll see their trial first. Bring in their evidence. Thou, robed man of justice, take thy place. 2040 And thou, his yokefellow of equity, Bench by his side. You are o' th' commission, Sit you too. . Let us deal justly. Sleepest or wakest thou, jolly shepherd? 2045 Thy sheep be in the corn; And for one blast of thy minikin mouth Thy sheep shall take no harm. Purr! the cat is gray. . Arraign her first. 'Tis Goneril. I here take my oath before 2050 this honourable assembly, she kicked the poor King her father. . Come hither, mistress. Is your name Goneril? . She cannot deny it. . Cry you mercy, I took you for a joint-stool. . And here's another, whose warp'd looks proclaim 2055 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? . Bless thy five wits! . O pity! Sir, where is the patience now 2060 That you so oft have boasted to retain? . My tears begin to take his part so much They'll mar my counterfeiting. . The little dogs and all, Tray, Blanch, and Sweetheart, see, they bark at me. 2065 . 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 lym, 2070 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. Do de, de, de. Sessa! Come, march to wakes and fairs and market 2075 towns. Poor Tom, thy horn is dry. . Then let them anatomize Regan. See what breeds about her heart. Is there any cause in nature that makes these hard hearts? You, sir- I entertain you for one of my hundred; only I do not like the fashion of your garments. You'll 2080 say they are Persian attire; but let them be chang'd. . Now, good my lord, lie here and rest awhile. . Make no noise, make no noise; draw the curtains. So, so, so. We'll go to supper i' th' morning. So, so, so. . And I'll go to bed at noon. 2085
Enter Gloucester. . Come hither, friend. Where is the King my master? . Here, sir; but trouble him not; his wits are gone. . Good friend, I prithee take him in thy arms. I have o'erheard a plot of death upon him. 2090 There is a litter ready; lay him in't And drive towards Dover, friend, where thou shalt meet Both welcome and protection. Take up thy master. If thou shouldst dally half an hour, his life, With thine, and all that offer to defend him, 2095 Stand in assured loss. Take up, take up! And follow me, that will to some provision Give thee quick conduct. . Oppressed nature sleeps. This rest might yet have balm'd thy broken senses, 2100 Which, if convenience will not allow, Stand in hard cure. Come, help to bear thy master. Thou must not stay behind. . Come, come, away!
Exeunt [all but Edgar]. . When we our betters see bearing our woes, We scarcely think our miseries our foes. Who alone suffers suffers most i' th' mind, Leaving free things and happy shows behind; But then the mind much sufferance doth o'erskip 2110 When grief hath mates, and bearing fellowship. How light and portable my pain seems now, When that which makes me bend makes the King bow, He childed as I fathered! Tom, away! Mark the high noises, and thyself bewray 2115 When false opinion, whose wrong thought defiles thee, In thy just proof repeals and reconciles thee. What will hap more to-night, safe scape the King! Lurk, lurk.
Act III, Scene 7
Gloucester’s Castle.
Enter Cornwall, Regan, Goneril, [Edmund the] Bastard, and Servants. . Post speedily to my lord your husband, show him this letter. The army of France is landed.- Seek out the traitor Gloucester.
[Exeunt some of the Servants.] . Hang him instantly. 2125 . Pluck out his eyes. . 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 2130 like. Our posts shall be swift and intelligent betwixt us. Farewell, dear sister; farewell, my Lord of Gloucester. How now? Where's the King? . My Lord of Gloucester hath convey'd him hence. Some five or six and thirty of his knights, 2135 Hot questrists 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. . Get horses for your mistress. 2140 . Farewell, sweet lord, and sister. . Edmund, farewell. Go seek the traitor Gloucester, Pinion him like a thief, bring him before us. Though well we may not pass upon his life 2145 Without the form of justice, yet our power Shall do a court'sy to our wrath, which men May blame, but not control. Who's there? the traitor? . Ingrateful fox! 'tis he. 2150 . Bind fast his corky arms. . What mean, your Graces? Good my friends, consider You are my guests. Do me no foul play, friends. . Bind him, I say.
[Servants bind him.] . Hard, hard. O filthy traitor! . Unmerciful lady as you are, I am none. . To this chair bind him. Villain, thou shalt find-
[Regan plucks his beard.] . By the kind gods, 'tis most ignobly done 2160 To pluck me by the beard. . So white, and such a traitor! . Naughty lady, These hairs which thou dost ravish from my chin Will quicken, and accuse thee. I am your host. 2165 With robber's hands my hospitable favours You should not ruffle thus. What will you do? . Come, sir, what letters had you late from France? . Be simple-answer'd, for we know the truth. . And what confederacy have you with the traitors 2170 Late footed in the kingdom? . To whose hands have you sent the lunatic King? Speak. . I have a letter guessingly set down, Which came from one that's of a neutral heart, 2175 And not from one oppos'd. . Cunning. . And false. . Where hast thou sent the King? . To Dover. 2180 . Wherefore to Dover? Wast thou not charg'd at peril- . Wherefore to Dover? Let him first answer that. . I am tied to th' stake, and I must stand the course. . Wherefore to Dover, sir? . Because I would not see thy cruel nails 2185 Pluck out his poor old eyes; nor thy fierce sister In his anointed flesh stick boarish fangs. The sea, with such a storm as his bare head In hell-black night endur'd, would have buoy'd up And quench'd the steeled fires. 2190 Yet, poor old heart, he holp the heavens to rain. If wolves had at thy gate howl'd that stern time, Thou shouldst have said, 'Good porter, turn the key.' All cruels else subscrib'd. But I shall see The winged vengeance overtake such children. 2195 . See't shalt thou never. Fellows, hold the chair. Upon these eyes of thine I'll set my foot. . He that will think to live till he be old, Give me some help!- O cruel! O ye gods! . One side will mock another. Th' other too! 2200 . If you see vengeance- . Hold your hand, my lord! I have serv'd you ever since I was a child; But better service have I never done you Than now to bid you hold. 2205 . How now, you dog? . If you did wear a beard upon your chin, I'ld shake it on this quarrel. . What do you mean? . My villain! Draw and fight. 2210 . Nay, then, come on, and take the chance of anger. . Give me thy sword. A peasant stand up thus? She takes a sword and runs at him behind. . O, I am slain! My lord, you have one eye left To see some mischief on him. O! He dies. 2215 . Lest it see more, prevent it. Out, vile jelly! Where is thy lustre now? . All dark and comfortless! Where's my son Edmund? Edmund, enkindle all the sparks of nature To quit this horrid act. 2220 . Out, treacherous 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. . O my follies! Then Edgar was abus'd. 2225 Kind gods, forgive me that, and prosper him! . Go thrust him out at gates, and let him smell His way to Dover. How is't, my lord? How look you? . I have receiv'd a hurt. Follow me, lady. 2230 Turn out that eyeless villain. Throw this slave Upon the dunghill. Regan, I bleed apace. Untimely comes this hurt. Give me your arm.
Exit [Cornwall, led by Regan]. . I'll never care what wickedness I do, 2235 If this man come to good. . If she live long, And in the end meet the old course of death, Women will all turn monsters. . Let's follow the old Earl, and get the bedlam 2240 To lead him where he would. His roguish madness Allows itself to anything. . Go thou. I'll fetch some flax and whites of eggs To apply to his bleeding face. Now heaven help him!
Exeunt.
Act IV, Scene 1
The heath.
Enter Edgar. . Yet better thus, and known to be contemn'd, Than still contemn'd and flatter'd. To be worst, The lowest and most dejected thing of fortune, Stands still in esperance, lives not in fear. 2250 The lamentable change is from the best; The worst returns to laughter. Welcome then, Thou unsubstantial air that I embrace! The wretch that thou hast blown unto the worst Owes nothing to thy blasts. 2255
But who comes here? My father, poorly led? World, world, O world! But that thy strange mutations make us hate thee, Life would not yield to age. 2260 . O my good lord, I have been your tenant, and your father's tenant, These fourscore years. . Away, get thee away! Good friend, be gone. Thy comforts can do me no good at all; 2265 Thee they may hurt. . You cannot see your way. . 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 2270 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'ld say I had eyes again! . How now? Who's there? 2275 . O gods! Who is't can say 'I am at the worst'? I am worse than e'er I was. . 'Tis poor mad Tom. . And worse I may be yet. The worst is not So long as we can say 'This is the worst.' 2280 . Fellow, where goest? . Is it a beggarman? . Madman and beggar too. . He has some reason, else he could not beg. I' th' last night's storm I such a fellow saw, 2285 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. 2290 . How should this be? Bad is the trade that must play fool to sorrow, Ang'ring itself and others.- Bless thee, master! . Is that the naked fellow? . Ay, my lord. 2295 . 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. 2300 . Alack, sir, he is mad! . '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. . I'll bring him the best 'parel that I have, 2305 Come on't what will. Exit. . Sirrah naked fellow- . Poor Tom's acold. I cannot daub it further. . Come hither, fellow. . And yet I must.- Bless thy sweet eyes, they bleed. 2310 . Know'st thou the way to Dover? . Both stile and gate, horseway and footpath. Poor Tom hath been scar'd out of his good wits. Bless thee, good man's son, from the foul fiend! Five fiends have been in poor Tom at once: of lust, as Obidicut; Hobbididence, prince of dumbness; Mahu, of 2315 stealing; Modo, of murder; Flibbertigibbet, of mopping and mowing, who since possesses chambermaids and waiting women. So, bless thee, master! . Here, take this purse, thou whom the heavens' plagues Have humbled to all strokes. That I am wretched 2320 Makes thee the happier. Heavens, deal so still! Let the superfluous and lust-dieted man, That slaves your ordinance, that will not see Because he does not feel, feel your pow'r quickly; So distribution should undo excess, 2325 And each man have enough. Dost thou know Dover? . Ay, master. . There is a cliff, whose high and bending head Looks fearfully in the confined deep. Bring me but to the very brim of it, 2330 And I'll repair the misery thou dost bear With something rich about me. From that place I shall no leading need. . Give me thy arm. Poor Tom shall lead thee. 2335
Exeunt.
Act IV, Scene 2
Before the Duke of Albany’s Palace.
Enter Goneril and [Edmund the] Bastard. . Welcome, my lord. I marvel our mild husband Not met us on the way. Now, where's your master? 2340 . Madam, within, but never man so chang'd. I told him of the army that was landed: He smil'd 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 2345 When I inform'd him, then he call'd me sot And told me I had turn'd the wrong side out. What most he should dislike seems pleasant to him; What like, offensive. . Then shall you go no further. 2350 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 pow'rs. 2355 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. 2360 Spare speech. Decline your head. This kiss, if it durst speak, Would stretch thy spirits up into the air. Conceive, and fare thee well. . Yours in the ranks of death! Exit. 2365 . My most dear Gloucester! O, the difference of man and man! To thee a woman's services are due; My fool usurps my body. . Madam, here comes my lord. Exit. 2370
Enter Albany. . I have been worth the whistle. . O Goneril, You are not worth the dust which the rude wind Blows in your face! I fear your disposition. 2375 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. 2380 . No more! The text is foolish. . Wisdom and goodness to the vile seem vile; Filths savour but themselves. What have you done? Tigers, not daughters, what have you perform'd? A father, and a gracious aged man, 2385 Whose reverence even the head-lugg'd 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 benefited! If that the heavens do not their visible spirits 2390 Send quickly down to tame these vile offences, It will come, Humanity must perforce prey on itself, Like monsters of the deep. . Milk-liver'd man! 2395 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 punish'd Ere they have done their mischief. Where's thy drum? 2400 France spreads his banners in our noiseless land, With plumed helm thy state begins to threat, Whiles thou, a moral fool, sit'st still, and criest 'Alack, why does he so?' . See thyself, devil! 2405 Proper deformity seems not in the fiend So horrid as in woman. . O vain fool! . Thou changed and self-cover'd thing, for shame! Bemonster not thy feature! Were't my fitness 2410 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. . Marry, your manhood mew! 2415
Enter a Gentleman. . What news? . O, my good lord, the Duke of Cornwall 's dead, Slain by his servant, going to put out The other eye of Gloucester. 2420 . Gloucester's eyes? . A servant that he bred, thrill'd with remorse, Oppos'd against the act, bending his sword To his great master; who, thereat enrag'd, Flew on him, and amongst them fell'd him dead; 2425 But not without that harmful stroke which since Hath pluck'd him after. . This shows you are above, You justicers, that these our nether crimes So speedily can venge! But O poor Gloucester! 2430 Lost he his other eye? . Both, both, my lord. This letter, madam, craves a speedy answer. 'Tis from your sister. . One way I like this well; 2435 But being widow, and my Gloucester with her, May all the building in my fancy pluck Upon my hateful life. Another way The news is not so tart.- I'll read, and answer. Exit. . Where was his son when they did take his eyes? 2440 . Come with my lady hither. . He is not here. . No, my good lord; I met him back again. . Knows he the wickedness? . Ay, my good lord. 'Twas he inform'd against him, 2445 And quit the house on purpose, that their punishment Might have the freer course. . Gloucester, I live To thank thee for the love thou show'dst the King, And to revenge thine eyes. Come hither, friend. 2450 Tell me what more thou know'st.
Exeunt.
Act IV, Scene 3
The French camp near Dover.
Enter Kent and a Gentleman. . Why the King of France is so suddenly gone back know you the reason? 2455 . 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. . Who hath he left behind him general? 2460 . The Marshal of France, Monsieur La Far. . Did your letters pierce the Queen to any demonstration of grief? . Ay, sir. She took them, read them in my presence, And now and then an ample tear trill'd down 2465 Her delicate cheek. It seem'd she was a queen Over her passion, who, most rebel-like, Sought to be king o'er her. . O, then it mov'd her? . Not to a rage. Patience and sorrow strove 2470 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 play'd on her ripe lip seem'd not to know What guests were in her eyes, which parted thence 2475 As pearls from diamonds dropp'd. In brief, Sorrow would be a rarity most belov'd, If all could so become it. . Made she no verbal question? . Faith, once or twice she heav'd the name of father 2480 Pantingly forth, as if it press'd her heart; Cried 'Sisters, sisters! Shame of ladies! Sisters! Kent! father! sisters! What, i' th' storm? i' th' night? Let pity not be believ'd!' There she shook The holy water from her heavenly eyes, 2485 And clamour moisten'd. Then away she started To deal with grief alone. . It is the stars, The stars above us, govern our conditions; Else one self mate and mate could not beget 2490 Such different issues. You spoke not with her since? . No. . Was this before the King return'd? . No, since. . Well, sir, the poor distressed Lear's i' th' town; 2495 Who sometime, in his better tune, remembers What we are come about, and by no means Will yield to see his daughter. . Why, good sir? . A sovereign shame so elbows him; his own unkindness, 2500 That stripp'd her from his benediction, turn'd 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. 2505 . Alack, poor gentleman! . Of Albany's and Cornwall's powers you heard not? . 'Tis so; they are afoot. . Well, sir, I'll bring you to our master Lear And leave you to attend him. Some dear cause 2510 Will in concealment wrap me up awhile. When I am known aright, you shall not grieve Lending me this acquaintance. I pray you go Along with me. Exeunt.
Act IV, Scene 4
The French camp.
Enter, with Drum and Colours, Cordelia, Doctor, and Soldiers. . Alack, 'tis he! Why, he was met even now As mad as the vex'd sea, singing aloud, Crown'd with rank fumiter and furrow weeds, With harlocks, hemlock, nettles, cuckoo flow'rs, Darnel, and all the idle weeds that grow 2520 In our sustaining corn. A century send forth. Search every acre in the high-grown field And bring him to our eye. What can man's wisdom In the restoring his bereaved sense? 2525 He that helps him take all my outward worth. . 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 2530 Will close the eye of anguish. . All blest secrets, All you unpublish'd virtues of the earth, Spring with my tears! be aidant and remediate In the good man's distress! Seek, seek for him! 2535 Lest his ungovern'd rage dissolve the life That wants the means to lead it.
Enter Messenger. . News, madam. The British pow'rs are marching hitherward. 2540 . '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. 2545 No blown ambition doth our arms incite, But love, dear love, and our ag'd father's right. Soon may I hear and see him!
Exeunt.
Act IV, Scene 5
Gloucester’s Castle.
Enter Regan and [Oswald the] Steward. . But are my brother's pow'rs set forth? . Ay, madam. . Himself in person there? . Madam, with much ado. Your sister is the better soldier. 2555 . Lord Edmund spake not with your lord at home? . No, madam. . What might import my sister's letter to him? . I know not, lady. . Faith, he is posted hence on serious matter. 2560 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 2565 The strength o' th' enemy. . I must needs after him, madam, with my letter. . Our troops set forth to-morrow. Stay with us. The ways are dangerous. . I may not, madam. 2570 My lady charg'd my duty in this business. . 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. 2575 . Madam, I had rather- . I know your lady does not love her husband; I am sure of that; and at her late being here She gave strange eyeliads and most speaking looks To noble Edmund. I know you are of her bosom. 2580 . I, madam? . I speak in understanding. Y'are! I know't. Therefore I do advise you take this note. My lord is dead; Edmund and I have talk'd, And more convenient is he for my hand 2585 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. 2590 If you do chance to hear of that blind traitor, Preferment falls on him that cuts him off. . Would I could meet him, madam! I should show What party I do follow. . Fare thee well. Exeunt. 2595
Act IV, Scene 6
The country near Dover.
Enter Gloucester, and Edgar [like a Peasant]. . When shall I come to th' top of that same hill? . You do climb up it now. Look how we labour. . Methinks the ground is even. . Horrible steep. 2600 Hark, do you hear the sea? . No, truly. . Why, then, your other senses grow imperfect By your eyes' anguish. . So may it be indeed. 2605 Methinks thy voice is alter'd, and thou speak'st In better phrase and matter than thou didst. . Y'are much deceiv'd. In nothing am I chang'd But in my garments. . Methinks y'are better spoken. 2610 . 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 sampire- dreadful trade! 2615 Methinks he seems no bigger than his head. The fishermen that walk upon the beach Appear like mice; and yond tall anchoring bark, Diminish'd to her cock; her cock, a buoy Almost too small for sight. The murmuring surge 2620 That on th' unnumb'red idle pebble chafes Cannot be heard so high. I'll look no more, Lest my brain turn, and the deficient sight Topple down headlong. . Set me where you stand. 2625 . Give me your hand. You are now within a foot Of th' extreme verge. For all beneath the moon Would I not leap upright. . Let go my hand. Here, friend, is another purse; in it a jewel 2630 Well worth a poor man's taking. Fairies and gods Prosper it with thee! Go thou further off; Bid me farewell, and let me hear thee going. . Now fare ye well, good sir. . With all my heart. 2635 . . Why I do trifle thus with his despair Is done to cure it. . O you mighty gods! He kneels. This world I do renounce, and, in your sights, Shake patiently my great affliction off. 2640 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. 2645 He falls . . Gone, sir, farewell.- 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, 2650 By this had thought been past.- Alive or dead? Ho you, sir! friend! Hear you, sir? Speak!- Thus might he pass indeed. Yet he revives. What are you, sir? . Away, and let me die. 2655 . Hadst thou been aught but gossamer, feathers, air, So many fadom down precipitating, Thou'dst shiver'd like an egg; but thou dost breathe; Hast heavy substance; bleed'st not; speak'st; art sound. Ten masts at each make not the altitude 2660 Which thou hast perpendicularly fell. Thy life is a miracle. Speak yet again. . But have I fall'n, or no? . From the dread summit of this chalky bourn. Look up a-height. The shrill-gorg'd lark so far 2665 Cannot be seen or heard. Do but look up. . Alack, I have no eyes! Is wretchedness depriv'd that benefit To end itself by death? 'Twas yet some comfort When misery could beguile the tyrant's rage 2670 And frustrate his proud will. . Give me your arm. Up- so. How is't? Feel you your legs? You stand. . Too well, too well. . This is above all strangeness. 2675 Upon the crown o' th' cliff what thing was that Which parted from you? . A poor unfortunate beggar. . As I stood here below, methought his eyes Were two full moons; he had a thousand noses,Horns whelk'd and wav'd like the enridged sea. 2680 It was some fiend. Therefore, thou happy father, Think that the clearest gods, who make them honours Of men's impossibility, have preserv'd thee. . I do remember now. Henceforth I'll bear Affliction till it do cry out itself 2685 'Enough, enough,' and die. That thing you speak of, I took it for a man. Often 'twould say 'The fiend, the fiend'- he led me to that place. . Bear free and patient thoughts. Enter Lear, mad, . 2690 But who comes here? The safer sense will ne'er accommodate His master thus. . No, they cannot touch me for coming; I am the King himself. 2695 . O thou side-piercing sight! . Nature 's 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 piece of toasted cheese will do't. There's my gauntlet; I'll prove it 2700 on a giant. Bring up the brown bills. O, well flown, bird! i' th' clout, i' th' clout! Hewgh! Give the word. . Sweet marjoram. . Pass. . I know that voice. 2705 . Ha! Goneril with a white beard? They flatter'd 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' too was no good divinity. When the rain came to wet me once, and the wind to make me chatter; when the thunder would 2710 not peace at my bidding; there I found 'em, there I smelt 'em out. Go to, they are not men o' their words! They told me I was everything. 'Tis a lie- I am not ague-proof. . The trick of that voice I do well remember. Is't not the King? 2715 . Ay, every inch a king! When I do stare, see how the subject quakes. I pardon that man's life. What was thy cause? Adultery? Thou shalt not die. Die for adultery? No. 2720 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. 2725 To't, luxury, pell-mell! for I lack soldiers. Behold yond simp'ring dame, Whose face between her forks presageth snow, That minces virtue, and does shake the head To hear of pleasure's name. 2730 The fitchew nor the soiled horse goes to't With a more riotous appetite. Down from the waist they are Centaurs, Though women all above. But to the girdle do the gods inherit, 2735 Beneath is all the fiend's. There's hell, there's darkness, there's the sulphurous pit; burning, scalding, stench, consumption. Fie, fie, fie! pah, pah! Give me an ounce of civet, good apothecary, to sweeten my imagination. There's money for thee. 2740 . O, let me kiss that hand! . Let me wipe it first; it smells of mortality. . O ruin'd piece of nature! This great world Shall so wear out to naught. Dost thou know me? . I remember thine eyes well enough. Dost thou squiny at me? 2745 No, do thy worst, blind Cupid! I'll not love. Read thou this challenge; mark but the penning of it. . Were all the letters suns, I could not see one. . I would not take this from report. It is, And my heart breaks at it. 2750 . Read. . What, with the case of eyes? . 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. 2755 . I see it feelingly. . What, art mad? A man may see how the world goes with no eyes. Look with thine ears. See how yond justice rails upon yond simple thief. Hark in thine ear. Change places and, handy-dandy, which is the justice, which is the thief? Thou hast seen a 2760 farmer's dog bark at a beggar? . Ay, sir. . And 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! 2765 Why dost thou lash that whore? Strip thine own back. Thou hotly lusts to use her in that kind For which thou whip'st her. The usurer hangs the cozener. Through tatter'd clothes small vices do appear; Robes and furr'd gowns hide all. Plate sin with gold, 2770 And the strong lance of justice hurtless breaks; Arm it in rags, a pygmy's straw does pierce it. None does offend, none- I say none! I'll able 'em. Take that of me, my friend, who have the power To seal th' accuser's lips. Get thee glass eyes 2775 And, like a scurvy politician, seem To see the things thou dost not. Now, now, now, now! Pull off my boots. Harder, harder! So. . O, matter and impertinency mix'd! Reason, in madness! 2780 . If thou wilt weep my fortunes, 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 wawl and cry. I will preach to thee. Mark. 2785 . Alack, alack the day! . 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. I'll put't in proof, 2790 And when I have stol'n upon these sons-in-law, Then kill, kill, kill, kill, kill, kill!
Enter a Gentleman [with Attendants]. . O, here he is! Lay hand upon him.- Sir, Your most dear daughter- 2795 . No rescue? What, a prisoner? I am even The natural fool of fortune. Use me well; You shall have ransom. Let me have a surgeon; I am cut to th' brains. . You shall have anything. 2800 . No seconds? All myself? Why, this would make a man a man of salt, To use his eyes for garden waterpots, Ay, and laying autumn's dust. . Good sir- 2805 . I will die bravely, like a smug bridegroom. What! I will be jovial. Come, come, I am a king; My masters, know you that? . You are a royal one, and we obey you. . Then there's life in't. Nay, an you get it, you shall get it 2810 by running. Sa, sa, sa, sa!
Exit running. [Attendants follow.] . A sight most pitiful in the meanest wretch, Past speaking of in a king! Thou hast one daughter Who redeems nature from the general curse 2815 Which twain have brought her to. . Hail, gentle sir. . Sir, speed you. What's your will? . Do you hear aught, sir, of a battle toward? . Most sure and vulgar. Every one hears that 2820 Which can distinguish sound. . But, by your favour, How near's the other army? . Near and on speedy foot. The main descry Stands on the hourly thought. 2825 . I thank you sir. That's all. . Though that the Queen on special cause is here, Her army is mov'd on. . I thank you, sir
Exit [Gentleman]. . You ever-gentle gods, take my breath from me; Let not my worser spirit tempt me again To die before you please! . Well pray you, father. . Now, good sir, what are you? 2835 . A most poor man, made tame to fortune's blows, Who, by the art of known and feeling sorrows, Am pregnant to good pity. Give me your hand; I'll lead you to some biding. . Hearty thanks. 2840 The bounty and the benison of heaven To boot, and boot!
Enter [Oswald the] Steward. . A proclaim'd prize! Most happy! That eyeless head of thine was first fram'd flesh 2845 To raise my fortunes. Thou old unhappy traitor, Briefly thyself remember. The sword is out That must destroy thee. . Now let thy friendly hand Put strength enough to't. 2850
[Edgar interposes.] . Wherefore, bold peasant, Dar'st thou support a publish'd traitor? Hence! Lest that th' infection of his fortune take Like hold on thee. Let go his arm. 2855 . Chill not let go, zir, without vurther 'cagion. . Let go, slave, or thou diest! . Good gentleman, go your gait, and let poor voke pass. An chud ha' bin zwagger'd out of my life, 'twould not ha' bin zo long as 'tis by a vortnight. Nay, come not near th' old man. Keep out, 2860 che vore ye, or Ise try whether your costard or my ballow be the harder. Chill be plain with you. . Out, dunghill!
They fight. . Chill pick your teeth, zir. Come! No matter vor your foins. 2865
[Oswald falls.] . Slave, thou hast slain me. Villain, take my purse. If ever thou wilt thrive, bury my body, And give the letters which thou find'st about me To Edmund Earl of Gloucester. Seek him out 2870 Upon the British party. O, untimely death! Death!
He dies. . I know thee well. A serviceable villain, As duteous to the vices of thy mistress As badness would desire. 2875 . What, is he dead? . Sit you down, father; rest you. Let's see his pockets; these letters that he speaks of May be my friends. He's dead. I am only sorry He had no other deathsman. Let us see. 2880 Leave, gentle wax; and, manners, blame us not. To know our enemies' minds, we'ld rip their hearts; Their papers, is more lawful. Reads the letter. 'Let our reciprocal vows be rememb'red. You have many opportunities to cut him off. If your will want not, time and 2885 place will be fruitfully offer'd. There is nothing done, if he return the conqueror. Then am I the prisoner, and his bed my jail; from the loathed warmth whereof deliver me, and supply the place for your labour. 'Your (wife, so I would say) affectionate servant, 'Goneril.' 2890 O indistinguish'd space of woman's will! A plot upon her virtuous husband's life, And the exchange my brother! Here in the sands Thee I'll rake up, the post unsanctified Of murtherous lechers; and in the mature time 2895 With this ungracious paper strike the sight Of the death-practis'd Duke, For him 'tis well That of thy death and business I can tell. . The King is mad. How stiff is my vile sense, That I stand up, and have ingenious feeling 2900 Of my huge sorrows! Better I were distract. So should my thoughts be sever'd from my griefs, And woes by wrong imaginations lose The knowledge of themselves.
A drum afar off. . Give me your hand. Far off methinks I hear the beaten drum. Come, father, I'll bestow you with a friend. Exeunt.
Act IV, Scene 7
A tent in the French camp.
Enter Cordelia, Kent, Doctor, and Gentleman. . O thou good Kent, how shall I live and work 2910 To match thy goodness? My life will be too short And every measure fail me. . To be acknowledg'd, madam, is o'erpaid. All my reports go with the modest truth; Nor more nor clipp'd, but so. 2915 . Be better suited. These weeds are memories of those worser hours. I prithee put them off. . Pardon, dear madam. Yet to be known shortens my made intent. 2920 My boon I make it that you know me not Till time and I think meet. . Then be't so, my good lord. How, does the King? . Madam, sleeps still. . O you kind gods, 2925 Cure this great breach in his abused nature! Th' untun'd and jarring senses, O, wind up Of this child-changed father! . So please your Majesty That we may wake the King? He hath slept long. 2930 . Be govern'd by your knowledge, and proceed I' th' sway of your own will. Is he array'd?
Enter Lear in a chair carried by Servants. . Ay, madam. In the heaviness of sleep We put fresh garments on him. 2935 . Be by, good madam, when we do awake him. I doubt not of his temperance. . Very well.
Music. . Please you draw near. Louder the music there! 2940 . O my dear father, restoration hang Thy medicine on my lips, and let this kiss Repair those violent harms that my two sisters Have in thy reverence made! . Kind and dear princess! 2945 . Had you not been their father, these white flakes Had challeng'd pity of them. Was this a face To be oppos'd against the warring winds? To stand against the deep dread-bolted thunder? In the most terrible and nimble stroke 2950 Of quick cross lightning? to watch- poor perdu!- With this thin helm? Mine enemy's dog, Though he had bit me, should have stood that night Against my fire; and wast thou fain, poor father, To hovel thee with swine and rogues forlorn, 2955 In short and musty straw? Alack, alack! 'Tis wonder that thy life and wits at once Had not concluded all.- He wakes. Speak to him. . Madam, do you; 'tis fittest. . How does my royal lord? How fares your Majesty? 2960 . You do me wrong to take me out o' th' grave. Thou art a soul in bliss; but I am bound Upon a wheel of fire, that mine own tears Do scald like molten lead. . Sir, do you know me? 2965 . You are a spirit, I know. When did you die? . Still, still, far wide! . He's scarce awake. Let him alone awhile. . Where have I been? Where am I? Fair daylight, I am mightily abus'd. I should e'en die with pity, 2970 To see another thus. I know not what to say. I will not swear these are my hands. Let's see. I feel this pin prick. Would I were assur'd Of my condition! . O, look upon me, sir, 2975 And hold your hands in benediction o'er me. No, sir, you must not kneel. . Pray, do not mock me. I am a very foolish fond old man, Fourscore and upward, not an hour more nor less; 2980 And, to deal plainly, I fear I am not in my perfect mind. Methinks I should know you, and know this man; Yet I am doubtful; for I am mainly ignorant What place this is; and all the skill I have 2985 Remembers not these garments; nor I know not Where I did lodge last night. Do not laugh at me; For (as I am a man) I think this lady To be my child Cordelia. . And so I am! I am! 2990 . Be your tears wet? Yes, faith. I pray weep not. If you have poison for me, I will drink it. I know you do not love me; for your sisters Have, as I do remember, done me wrong. You have some cause, they have not. 2995 . No cause, no cause. . Am I in France? . In your own kingdom, sir. . Do not abuse me. . Be comforted, good madam. The great rage 3000 You see is kill'd in him; and yet it is danger To make him even o'er the time he has lost. Desire him to go in. Trouble him no more Till further settling. . Will't please your Highness walk? 3005 . You must bear with me. Pray you now, forget and forgive. I am old and foolish.
Exeunt. Manent Kent and Gentleman. . Holds it true, sir, that the Duke of Cornwall was so slain? . Most certain, sir. 3010 . Who is conductor of his people? . As 'tis said, the bastard son of Gloucester. . They say Edgar, his banish'd son, is with the Earl of Kent in Germany. . Report is changeable. 'Tis time to look about; the powers of 3015 the kingdom approach apace. . The arbitrement is like to be bloody. Fare you well, sir. . My point and period will be throughly wrought, Or well or ill, as this day's battle's fought. Exit. 3020
Act V, Scene 1
The British camp near Dover.
Enter, with Drum and Colours, Edmund, Regan, Gentleman, and Soldiers. . Know of the Duke if his last purpose hold, Or whether since he is advis'd by aught To change the course. He's full of alteration And self-reproving. Bring his constant pleasure. 3025
[Exit an Officer.] . Our sister's man is certainly miscarried. . Tis to be doubted, madam. . Now, sweet lord, You know the goodness I intend upon you. 3030 Tell me- but truly- but then speak the truth- Do you not love my sister? . In honour'd love. . But have you never found my brother's way To the forfended place? 3035 . That thought abuses you. . I am doubtful that you have been conjunct And bosom'd with her, as far as we call hers. . No, by mine honour, madam. . I never shall endure her. Dear my lord, 3040 Be not familiar with her. . Fear me not. She and the Duke her husband! Enter, with Drum and Colours, Albany, Goneril, Soldiers. . I had rather lose the battle than that sister 3045 Should loosen him and me. . Our very loving sister, well bemet. Sir, this I hear: the King is come to his daughter, With others whom the rigour of our state Forc'd to cry out. Where I could not be honest, 3050 I never yet was valiant. For this business, It toucheth us as France invades our land, Not bolds the King, with others whom, I fear, Most just and heavy causes make oppose. . Sir, you speak nobly. 3055 . Why is this reason'd? . Combine together 'gainst the enemy; For these domestic and particular broils Are not the question here. . Let's then determine 3060 With th' ancient of war on our proceeding. . I shall attend you presently at your tent. . Sister, you'll go with us? . No. . 'Tis most convenient. Pray you go with us. 3065 . O, ho, I know the riddle.- I will go. enter Edgar . . If e'er your Grace had speech with man so poor, Hear me one word. . I'll overtake you.- Speak. 3070
Exeunt [all but Albany and Edgar]. . Before you fight the battle, ope this letter. If you have victory, let the trumpet sound For him that brought it. Wretched though I seem, I can produce a champion that will prove 3075 What is avouched there. If you miscarry, Your business of the world hath so an end, And machination ceases. Fortune love you! . Stay till I have read the letter. . I was forbid it. 3080 When time shall serve, let but the herald cry, And I'll appear again. . Why, fare thee well. I will o'erlook thy paper.
Exit [Edgar].
Enter Edmund. . The enemy 's in view; draw up your powers. Here is the guess of their true strength and forces By diligent discovery; but your haste Is now urg'd on you. . We will greet the time. Exit. 3090 . To both these sisters have I sworn my love; Each jealous of the other, as the stung Are of the adder. Which of them shall I take? Both? one? or neither? Neither can be enjoy'd, If both remain alive. To take the widow 3095 Exasperates, makes mad her sister Goneril; And hardly shall I carry out my side, Her husband being alive. Now then, we'll use His countenance for the battle, which being done, Let her who would be rid of him devise 3100 His speedy taking off. As for the mercy Which he intends to Lear and to Cordelia- The battle done, and they within our power, Shall never see his pardon; for my state Stands on me to defend, not to debate. Exit. 3105
Act V, Scene 2
A field between the two camps. Alarum within.
Enter, with Drum and Colours, the Powers of France over the stage, Cordelia with her Father in her hand, and exeunt. Enter Edgar and Gloucester. . Here, father, take the shadow of this tree For your good host. Pray that the right may thrive. If ever I return to you again, I'll bring you comfort. 3110 . Grace go with you, sir!
Exit [Edgar].
Alarum and retreat within. Enter Edgar, . Away, old man! give me thy hand! away! King Lear hath lost, he and his daughter ta'en. 3115 Give me thy hand! come on! . No further, sir. A man may rot even here. . What, in ill thoughts again? Men must endure Their going hence, even as their coming hither; Ripeness is all. Come on. 3120 . And that's true too. Exeunt.
Act V, Scene 3
The British camp, near Dover.
Enter, in conquest, with Drum and Colours, Edmund; Lear and Cordelia as prisoners; Soldiers, Captain. . Some officers take them away. Good guard Until their greater pleasures first be known That are to censure them. 3125 . We are not the first Who with best meaning have incurr'd the worst. For thee, oppressed king, am I cast down; Myself could else outfrown false Fortune's frown. Shall we not see these daughters and these sisters? 3130 . No, no, no, no! Come, let's away to prison. We two alone will sing like birds i' th' cage. When thou dost ask me blessing, I'll kneel down And ask of thee forgiveness. So we'll live, And pray, and sing, and tell old tales, and laugh 3135 At gilded butterflies, and hear poor rogues Talk of court news; and we'll talk with them too- Who loses and who wins; who's in, who's out- And take upon 's the mystery of things, As if we were God's spies; and we'll wear out, 3140 In a wall'd prison, packs and sects of great ones That ebb and flow by th' moon. . Take them away. . Upon such sacrifices, my Cordelia, The gods themselves throw incense. Have I caught thee? 3145 He that parts us shall bring a brand from heaven And fire us hence like foxes. Wipe thine eyes. The goodyears shall devour 'em, flesh and fell, Ere they shall make us weep! We'll see 'em starv'd first. Come. Exeunt . 3150 . Come hither, Captain; hark. Take thou this note . Go follow them to prison. One step I have advanc'd thee. If thou dost As this instructs thee, thou dost make thy way To noble fortunes. Know thou this, that men 3155 Are as the time is. To be tender-minded Does not become a sword. Thy great employment Will not bear question. Either say thou'lt do't, Or thrive by other means. . I'll do't, my lord. 3160 . About it! and write happy when th' hast done. Mark- I say, instantly; and carry it so As I have set it down. . I cannot draw a cart, nor eat dried oats; If it be man's work, I'll do't. Exit. 3165
Flourish. Enter Albany, Goneril, Regan, Soldiers. . Sir, you have show'd to-day your valiant strain, And fortune led you well. You have the captives Who were the opposites of this day's strife. We do require them of you, so to use them 3170 As we shall find their merits and our safety May equally determine. . Sir, I thought it fit To send the old and miserable King To some retention and appointed guard; 3175 Whose age has charms in it, whose title more, To pluck the common bosom on his side And turn our impress'd lances in our eyes Which do command them. With him I sent the Queen, My reason all the same; and they are ready 3180 To-morrow, or at further space, t' appear Where you shall hold your session. At this time We sweat and bleed: the friend hath lost his friend; And the best quarrels, in the heat, are curs'd By those that feel their sharpness. 3185 The question of Cordelia and her father Requires a fitter place. . Sir, by your patience, I hold you but a subject of this war, Not as a brother. 3190 . That's as we list to grace him. Methinks our pleasure might have been demanded Ere you had spoke so far. He led our powers, Bore the commission of my place and person, The which immediacy may well stand up 3195 And call itself your brother. . Not so hot! In his own grace he doth exalt himself More than in your addition. . In my rights 3200 By me invested, he compeers the best. . That were the most if he should husband you. . Jesters do oft prove prophets. . Holla, holla! That eye that told you so look'd but asquint. 3205 . Lady, I am not well; else I should answer From a full-flowing stomach. General, Take thou my soldiers, prisoners, patrimony; Dispose of them, of me; the walls are thine. Witness the world that I create thee here 3210 My lord and master. . Mean you to enjoy him? . The let-alone lies not in your good will. . Nor in thine, lord. . Half-blooded fellow, yes. 3215 . Let the drum strike, and prove my title thine. . Stay yet; hear reason. Edmund, I arrest thee On capital treason; and, in thine attaint, This gilded serpent . For your claim, fair sister, 3220 I bar it in the interest of my wife. 'Tis she is subcontracted to this lord, And I, her husband, contradict your banes. If you will marry, make your loves to me; My lady is bespoke. 3225 . An interlude! . Thou art arm'd, Gloucester. Let the trumpet sound. If none appear to prove upon thy person Thy heinous, manifest, and many treasons, There is my pledge ! I'll prove it on thy 3230 heart, Ere I taste bread, thou art in nothing less Than I have here proclaim'd thee. . Sick, O, sick! . If not, I'll ne'er trust medicine. 3235 . There's my exchange . What in the world he is That names me traitor, villain-like he lies. Call by thy trumpet. He that dares approach, On him, on you, who not? I will maintain 3240 My truth and honour firmly. . A herald, ho! . A herald, ho, a herald! . Trust to thy single virtue; for thy soldiers, All levied in my name, have in my name 3245 Took their discharge. . My sickness grows upon me. . She is not well. Convey her to my tent.
Come hither, herald. Let the trumpet sound, 3250 And read out this. . Sound, trumpet! A trumpet sounds. . 'If any man of quality or degree within the lists of the army will maintain upon Edmund, supposed Earl of Gloucester, that he is a manifold traitor, let him appear by the third sound 3255 of the trumpet. He is bold in his defence.' . Sound! First trumpet. . Again! Second trumpet. . Again! Third trumpet.
Trumpet answers within.
Enter Edgar, armed, at the third sound, a Trumpet before him. . Ask him his purposes, why he appears Upon this call o' th' trumpet. . What are you? Your name, your quality? and why you answer 3265 This present summons? . Know my name is lost; By treason's tooth bare-gnawn and canker-bit. Yet am I noble as the adversary I come to cope. 3270 . Which is that adversary? . What's he that speaks for Edmund Earl of Gloucester? . Himself. What say'st thou to him? . Draw thy sword, That, if my speech offend a noble heart, 3275 Thy arm may do thee justice. Here is mine. Behold, it is the privilege of mine honours, My oath, and my profession. I protest- Maugre thy strength, youth, place, and eminence, Despite thy victor sword and fire-new fortune, 3280 Thy valour and thy heart- thou art a traitor; False to thy gods, thy brother, and thy father; Conspirant 'gainst this high illustrious prince; And from th' extremest upward of thy head To the descent and dust beneath thy foot, 3285 A most toad-spotted traitor. Say thou 'no,' This sword, this arm, and my best spirits are bent To prove upon thy heart, whereto I speak, Thou liest. . In wisdom I should ask thy name; 3290 But since thy outside looks so fair and warlike, And that thy tongue some say of breeding breathes, What safe and nicely I might well delay By rule of knighthood, I disdain and spurn. Back do I toss those treasons to thy head; 3295 With the hell-hated lie o'erwhelm thy heart; Which- for they yet glance by and scarcely bruise- This sword of mine shall give them instant way Where they shall rest for ever. Trumpets, speak!
Alarums. Fight. [Edmund falls.] . Save him, save him! . This is mere practice, Gloucester. By th' law of arms thou wast not bound to answer An unknown opposite. Thou art not vanquish'd, But cozen'd and beguil'd. 3305 . Shut your mouth, dame, Or with this paper shall I stop it. - . Hold, sir. Thou worse than any name, read thine own evil. No tearing, lady! I perceive you know it. 3310 . Say if I do- the laws are mine, not thine. Who can arraign me for't? . Most monstrous! Know'st thou this paper? . Ask me not what I know. Exit. 3315 . Go after her. She's desperate; govern her.
[Exit an Officer.] . What, you have charg'd me with, that have I done, And more, much more. The time will bring it out. 'Tis past, and so am I.- But what art thou 3320 That hast this fortune on me? If thou'rt noble, I do forgive thee. . Let's exchange charity. I am no less in blood than thou art, Edmund; If more, the more th' hast wrong'd me. 3325 My name is Edgar and thy father's son. The gods are just, and of our pleasant vices Make instruments to scourge us. The dark and vicious place where thee he got Cost him his eyes. 3330 . Th' hast spoken right; 'tis true. The wheel is come full circle; I am here. . Methought thy very gait did prophesy A royal nobleness. I must embrace thee. Let sorrow split my heart if ever I 3335 Did hate thee, or thy father! . Worthy prince, I know't. . Where have you hid yourself? How have you known the miseries of your father? . By nursing them, my lord. List a brief tale; 3340 And when 'tis told, O that my heart would burst! The bloody proclamation to escape That follow'd me so near (O, our lives' sweetness! That with the pain of death would hourly die Rather than die at once!) taught me to shift 3345 Into a madman's rags, t' assume a semblance That very dogs disdain'd; and in this habit Met I my father with his bleeding rings, Their precious stones new lost; became his guide, Led him, begg'd for him, sav'd him from despair; 3350 Never (O fault!) reveal'd myself unto him Until some half hour past, when I was arm'd, Not sure, though hoping of this good success, I ask'd his blessing, and from first to last Told him my pilgrimage. But his flaw'd heart 3355 (Alack, too weak the conflict to support!) 'Twixt two extremes of passion, joy and grief, Burst smilingly. . This speech of yours hath mov'd me, And shall perchance do good; but speak you on; 3360 You look as you had something more to say. . If there be more, more woful, hold it in; For I am almost ready to dissolve, Hearing of this. . This would have seem'd a period 3365 To such as love not sorrow; but another, To amplify too much, would make much more, And top extremity. Whilst I was big in clamour, came there a man, Who, having seen me in my worst estate, 3370 Shunn'd my abhorr'd society; but then, finding Who 'twas that so endur'd, with his strong arms He fastened on my neck, and bellowed out As he'd burst heaven; threw him on my father; Told the most piteous tale of Lear and him 3375 That ever ear receiv'd; which in recounting His grief grew puissant, and the strings of life Began to crack. Twice then the trumpets sounded, And there I left him tranc'd. . But who was this? 3380 . Kent, sir, the banish'd Kent; who in disguise Followed his enemy king and did him service Improper for a slave.
Enter a Gentleman with a bloody knife. . Help, help! O, help! 3385 . What kind of help? . Speak, man. . What means that bloody knife? . 'Tis hot, it smokes. It came even from the heart of- O! she's dead! 3390 . Who dead? Speak, man. . Your lady, sir, your lady! and her sister By her is poisoned; she hath confess'd it. . I was contracted to them both. All three Now marry in an instant. 3395
Enter Kent. . Here comes Kent. . Produce their bodies, be they alive or dead.
This judgement of the heavens, that makes us tremble 3400 Touches us not with pity. O, is this he? The time will not allow the compliment That very manners urges. . I am come To bid my king and master aye good night. 3405 Is he not here? . Great thing of us forgot! Speak, Edmund, where's the King? and where's Cordelia?
Seest thou this object, Kent? 3410 . Alack, why thus? . Yet Edmund was belov'd. The one the other poisoned for my sake, And after slew herself. . Even so. Cover their faces. 3415 . I pant for life. Some good I mean to do, Despite of mine own nature. Quickly send (Be brief in't) to the castle; for my writ Is on the life of Lear and on Cordelia. Nay, send in time. 3420 . Run, run, O, run! . To who, my lord? Who has the office? Send Thy token of reprieve. . Well thought on. Take my sword; Give it the Captain. 3425 . Haste thee for thy life. . He hath commission from thy wife and me To hang Cordelia in the prison and To lay the blame upon her own despair That she fordid herself. 3430 . The gods defend her! Bear him hence awhile.
[Edmund is borne off.]
Enter Lear, with Cordelia [dead] in his arms, [Edgar, Captain, and others following]. . Howl, howl, howl, howl! O, you are men of stone. Had I your tongues and eyes, I'ld use them so 3435 That heaven's vault should crack. She's gone for ever! I know when one is dead, and when one lives. She's dead as earth. Lend me a looking glass. If that her breath will mist or stain the stone, Why, then she lives. 3440 . Is this the promis'd end? . Or image of that horror? . Fall and cease! . This feather stirs; she lives! If it be so, It is a chance which does redeem all sorrows 3445 That ever I have felt. . O my good master! . Prithee away! . 'Tis noble Kent, your friend. . A plague upon you, murderers, traitors all! 3450 I might have sav'd her; now she's gone for ever! Cordelia, Cordelia! stay a little. Ha! What is't thou say'st, Her voice was ever soft, Gentle, and low- an excellent thing in woman. I kill'd the slave that was a-hanging thee. 3455 . 'Tis true, my lords, he did. . Did I not, fellow? I have seen the day, with my good biting falchion I would have made them skip. I am old now, And these same crosses spoil me. Who are you? 3460 Mine eyes are not o' th' best. I'll tell you straight. . If fortune brag of two she lov'd and hated, One of them we behold. . This' a dull sight. Are you not Kent? . The same- 3465 Your servant Kent. Where is your servant Caius? . He's a good fellow, I can tell you that. He'll strike, and quickly too. He's dead and rotten. . No, my good lord; I am the very man- . I'll see that straight. 3470 . That from your first of difference and decay Have followed your sad steps. . You're welcome hither. . Nor no man else! All's cheerless, dark, and deadly. Your eldest daughters have fordone themselves, 3475 And desperately are dead. . Ay, so I think. . He knows not what he says; and vain is it That we present us to him. . Very bootless. 3480
Enter a Captain. . Edmund is dead, my lord. . That's but a trifle here. You lords and noble friends, know our intent. What comfort to this great decay may come 3485 Shall be applied. For us, we will resign, During the life of this old Majesty, To him our absolute power; you to your rights; With boot, and such addition as your honours 3490 Have more than merited.- All friends shall taste The wages of their virtue, and all foes The cup of their deservings.- O, see, see! . And my poor fool is hang'd! No, no, no life! Why should a dog, a horse, a rat, have life, 3495 And thou no breath at all? Thou'lt come no more, Never, never, never, never, never! Pray you undo this button. Thank you, sir. Do you see this? Look on her! look! her lips! Look there, look there! He dies. 3500 . He faints! My lord, my lord! . Break, heart; I prithee break! . Look up, my lord. . Vex not his ghost. O, let him pass! He hates him That would upon the rack of this tough world 3505 Stretch him out longer. . He is gone indeed. . The wonder is, he hath endur'd so long. He but usurp'd his life. . Bear them from hence. Our present business 3510 Is general woe. Friends of my soul, you twain Rule in this realm, and the gor'd state sustain. . I have a journey, sir, shortly to go. My master calls me; I must not say no. 3515 . The weight of this sad time we must obey, Speak what we feel, not what we ought to say. The oldest have borne most; we that are young Shall never see so much, nor live so long.
When King Lear asks his three daughters how much they love him in order to divide his kingdom, he falls for Regan and Goneril’s flattery, but banishes Cordelia for her honest answer. As conflicts arise once Lear begins to descend into madness, and the nobleman Gloucester worries about his two sons Edgar and Edmund, the British throne hangs in the balance. The Shakescleare version of King Lear includes the original text alongside a complete modern English translation, which can help you unlock the meaning of its most important quotes, such as “Nothing can come of nothing” and “How sharper than a serpent’s tooth it is / To have a thankless child.”
Act 1, Scene 1
Act 1, scene 2, act 1, scene 3, act 1, scene 4, act 1, scene 5, act 2, scene 1, act 2, scene 2, act 2, scene 3, act 2, scene 4, act 3, scene 1, act 3, scene 2, act 3, scene 3, act 3, scene 4, act 3, scene 5, act 3, scene 6, act 3, scene 7, act 4, scene 1, act 4, scene 2, act 4, scene 3, act 4, scene 4, act 4, scene 5, act 4, scene 6, act 4, scene 7, act 5, scene 1, act 5, scene 2, act 5, scene 3.
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King Lear - Act 1, scene 2
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Act 1, scene 2.
Edmund, the earl of Gloucester’s illegitimate son, plots to displace his legitimate brother, Edgar, as Gloucester’s heir by turning Gloucester against Edgar. He tricks Gloucester into thinking Edgar seeks Gloucester’s life.
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THE TRUE HISTORY OF THE LIFE AND DEATH OF KING LEAR & HIS THREE DAUGHTERS
The true history of the life and death of king lear and his three daughters.
15 Nov 25 – 4 Jan 26 Upstairs Theatre
ANCHOR_LABEL
By William Shakespeare Directed by Eamon Flack
Venue Upstairs Theatre
Dates 15 Nov 25 – 4 Jan 26
Approximate running times of each production are uploaded to the production page as soon as that information becomes available. During the rehearsal period running times are liable to change given the extensive workshopping and development each production undergoes before it reaches the stage.
Content warnings will also be uploaded to each production page as they are advised.
Should you wish to speak to a member of staff regarding running times, content warnings or any other show related queries, our box office can be contacted on 02 9699 3444 .
Belvoir’s Chair’s Circle
Shakespeare’s greatest play, in an energised, classic Belvoir production, featuring the grit and power of Colin Friels .
It’s time to retire. Lear has a plan – he’ll divide the kingdom between his three daughters, they’ll work in harmony with each other, he’ll live with them, there will be a seamless transition of power, and all will be well.
The universe doesn’t work that way.
A play of what happens when the trappings of privilege, education, and civilisation are stripped away, and we have to look the human specimen square in the mirror.
Colin’s been building to this role for years, and in an age when sclerotic old orders threaten to take the world down with them, it’s time Belvoir had a go at this astonishing play. Every page explodes with possibility. We’ve used a version of one of its original titles, which gives you a sense of the play’s real scope of interest. Colin will be a fascinating and potent Lear – this will be unforgettable. – Eamon
Performance Times
Upcoming performances, weekly times.
Except 18 Nov at 7:30pm
Except 19 Nov at 7:30pm & no performance on 24 Dec & 31 Dec
No performance on 25 Dec & 1 Jan
No performance on 26 Dec
No 2pm performance on 15 Nov
Except 16 Nov at 6:30pm & 4 Jan at 2pm
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With 4-play packages starting from $190 plus a range of ticket types and concessions, there is a package to suit everyone !
General release tickets on sale Tuesday 11th February 2025
William Shakespeare
Eamon Flack is the Artistic Director of Belvoir St Theatre in Sydney. He is a director, writer, dramaturg and script developer for stage and screen. Eamon was born in Singapore and grew up in Singapore, Darwin, Cootamundra and Brisbane. He has a BA (English and History) from the University of Queensland, and trained as an actor […]
Eamon Flack
Eamon Flack is the Artistic Director of Belvoir St Theatre in Sydney. He is a director, writer, dramaturg and script developer for stage and screen.
Eamon was born in Singapore and grew up in Singapore, Darwin, Cootamundra and Brisbane. He has a BA (English and History) from the University of Queensland, and trained as an actor at WAAPA from 2001 to 2003. He has worked around Australia and internationally, from the Tiwi Islands to Sri Lanka and the UK. He has led Belvoir’s new work development in various guises since 2006, and has commissioned and developed many of the company’s most acclaimed new works over the last 15 years.
His productions of The Glass Menagerie , Angels in America and Counting and Cracking won the Helpmann Awards for Best Play in 2015, 2016, and 2019.
His key directing credits include: Counting and Cracking (with Associate Director S. Shakthidharan, winner of the Helpmann Award for Best Direction of a Play and nominated for the Sydney Theatre Award Best Direction of the Mainstage Production), The Jungle and the Sea (co-directed with S. Shakthidharan, winner of Best New Work and Best Production at the Sydney Theatre Awards), Angels in America , The Glass Menagerie , Into the Woods , Tommy Murphy’s Packer & Sons , Rita Kalnejais’s Babyteeth , Alana Valentine’s Wayside Bride (co-directed with Hannah Goodwin), Tom Wright’s adaptation of Brecht’s Life of Galileo , Eamon’s own adaptations of Hendrik Ibsen’s Ghosts and Chekhov’s The Cherry Orchard and Ivanov (Sydney Theatre Awards Best Production and Best Director), as well as The Rover , The Blind Giant is Dancing , As You Like It , and Beckett’s The End . His other directing credits include A Midsummer Night’s Dream (Bob Presents/B Sharp) and Wulamanayuwi and the Seven Pamanui by Jason de Santis (Darwin Festival).
His writing and adaptation credits include: Associate Writer of S. Shakthidharan’s Counting and Cracking (winner of the Nick Enright Prize for Playwriting at the NSW Premier’s Literary Awards, the Victorian Literary Prize and the Victorian Premier’s Award for Drama, Helpmann for Best New Work), co-writer with S. Shakthidharan of The Jungle and the Sea (Winner, Best New Work, Sydney Theatre Awards 2022); a stage adaptation of Christina Stead’s The Man Who Loved Children; Chekhov’s The Cherry Orchard and Ivanov, Gorky’s Summerfolk, Sophocles’ Antigone and Ibsen’s Ghosts; co-adapter with Leah Purcell of Ruby Langford Ginibi’s memoir Don’t Take Your Love To Town; and co-deviser of Beautiful One Day with artists from ILBIJERRI, version 1.0, and the community of Palm Island.
For orchestral concert he has adapted and directed A Midsummer Night’s Dream alongside Mendelssohn’s score for the Sydney Symphony Orchestra and Belvoir St Theatre conducted by Simone Young, and directed and co-created Beethoven and Bridgetower with Anna Goldsworthy, Rita Dove and Richard Tognetti for the Australian Chamber Orchestra.
A cast of 12 including
For Belvoir, Tom’s credits include The Master & Margarita, Tell Me I’m Here, My Brilliant Career, Ghosts, Jasper Jones, Mortido, Mother Courage and Her Children, and Small and Tired. Tom’s other theatre credits include 1984, Hay Fever, Spring Awakening (Sydney Theatre Company); The Mousetrap (John Frost/Crossroads Live national tour); The Wider Earth (Queensland Theatre Company/Sydney Festival and 2022 Tour); Cock (Melbourne Theatre Company/La Boite); Romeo and Juliet (State Theatre Company […]
For Belvoir, Tom’s credits include The Master & Margarita, Tell Me I’m Here, My Brilliant Career , Ghosts, Jasper Jones , Mortido, Mother Courage and Her Children, and Small and Tired . Tom’s other theatre credits include 1984 , Hay Fever , Spring Awakening (Sydney Theatre Company); The Mousetrap (John Frost/Crossroads Live national tour); The Wider Earth (Queensland Theatre Company/Sydney Festival and 2022 Tour); Cock (Melbourne Theatre Company/La Boite); Romeo and Juliet (State Theatre Company of South Australia); Moth (Malthouse Theatre/Arena Theatre Company); Romeo and Juliet (Bell Shakespeare); Land & Sea (Brink Productions). His screen work includes Bump on Stan and Hamlet for Bell Shakespeare/ABC Splash Content. Tom’s performance in Something Natural But Very Childish (La Mama) garnered him a Green Room Award for Best Male Performer in Independent Theatre. He is a graduate of the Victorian College of the Arts.
Charlotte is a recent NIDA graduate, who has since gone on to work in theatre and film. Her theatre credits include playing Drury in Goldilocks, Lady Anne in Richard III and Dunyasha in The Cherry Orchard for NIDA, and her film credits include The Dressmaker by Jocelyn Moorhouse, Nitram by Justin Kurzel and Respect the […]
Charlotte Friels
Charlotte is a recent NIDA graduate, who has since gone on to work in theatre and film. Her theatre credits include playing Drury in Goldilocks, Lady Anne in Richard III and Dunyasha in The Cherry Orchard for NIDA, and her film credits include The Dressmaker by Jocelyn Moorhouse, Nitram by Justin Kurzel and Respect the Kink .
Colin Friels
Raj Labade will star as ‘Sebastian’ in the highly anticipated Amazon Prime series, The Office: Australia. In 2023, Raj worked in the STC/State Theatre production Dictionary of Lost Words, and Griffin Theatre production Sex Magick, as well as the SBS series Appetite. In 2022, Raj starred in the Belvoir production Tell Me I’m Here, the […]
Raj Labade will star as ‘Sebastian’ in the highly anticipated Amazon Prime series, The Office: Australia . In 2023, Raj worked in the STC/State Theatre production Dictionary of Lost Words , and Griffin Theatre production Sex Magick , as well as the SBS series Appetite . In 2022, Raj starred in the Belvoir production Tell Me I’m Here , the acclaimed Belvoir 25a production Never Closer and Performing Lines’ Mary Stuart .. At 17, Raj began his professional career as ‘Lewis’ in the Netflix feature film Back of the Net and, at 18, was accepted into the illustrious Bachelor of Fine Arts (Acting) course at the Western Australian Academy of Performing Arts (WAAPA). Whilst at WAAPA, Raj was the recipient of multiple prestigious awards; the 2020 Speech and Drama Teachers Association Poetry Prize, the 2021 Vice Chancellor’s Shakespeare Award of ‘Best Production’ for his performance of Hamlet and the 2021 Leslie Anderson Award for Best Graduating Actor in his final showcase performance. In 2023, Raj was named one of the Casting Guild of Australia’s Rising Stars.
Charles Wu is one of Australia’s most exciting actors of stage and screen. Charles graduated from NIDA in 2014 and is well known for his work on popular series Doctor Doctor. Charles’ other television credits include Summer Love, The Letdown, Harrow, Here Come the Habibs, and Secret City. He was also seen in feature film […]
Charles Wu is one of Australia’s most exciting actors of stage and screen. Charles graduated from NIDA in 2014 and is well known for his work on popular series Doctor Doctor . Charles’ other television credits include Summer Love, The Letdown, Harrow, Here Come the Habibs , and Secret City . He was also seen in feature film Australia Day , and web series Liberty Street .
Charles’s theatre credits include The Cherry Orchard alongside Pamela Rabe, An Enemy of the People, Jasper Jones , Samson , The Overcoat: A Musical (Belvoir), The Lifespan of a Fact, Mosquitoes, The Resistible Rise of Arturo Ui, Three Sisters, Chimerica (Sydney Theatre Company), The Rise and Fall of Little Voice (Darlinghurst Theatre), Golden Blood (Griffin Theatre), and Torch the Place for which he won a Green Room award for Best Actor(Melbourne Theatre Company). Charles was most recently seen on stage in Bernhardt/Hamlet as ‘Edmond Rostand’ for the Melbourne Theatre Company.
Elements of Production in Performance (Outcomes P2.6, P3.1, P3.2)
Theatrical Traditions and Performance Styles (Outcomes P2.6, P3.1, P3.2)
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Deborah GalanoS
Deborah was last at Belvoir in Company B’s Greek Tragedy. Other theatre credits include: Wicked Sisters (Griffin), Lady Tabouli (National Theatre Of Parramatta/Sydney Festival), Gods Of Strangers (State Theatre Company South Australia), The God Committee, Heartbreak Kid (Ensemble/tours), The Shearston Shift (Sydney Theatre Company/Australian People’s Theatre/tours), I’m With Her, The Mystery of Love & Sex (Darlinghurst Theatre Company), Metamorphoses (Apocalypse/Old Fitz), Unfinished Works, Homesick (Bontom), Seagull (Secret House), Mum’s The Word (Burberry Productions/Australian tours/SOH Playhouse/Glen Street), Dropped (The Goods Theatre Company/Old Fitz), House of Ramon Iglesia (MopHead/Old Fitz), A Kind of Alaska, Suddenly Last Summer, Hotel Hibiscus (NIDA company), Antigone (Sport For Jove), Boswell for the Defence (Sydney Festival), Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? (theatrongroup). Television credits: Children’s Hospital, My Place, Police Rescue, G.P., Pulse, Rake, Redfern Now (ABC), Camp (NBC/Matchbox), Murder Call (Nine Network), A Country Practice, All Saints, Home and Away (Seven Network). Film credits: Chasing Comets, Balls, Boys From The Bush, Cavity, Inside Out, No Worries, The Premonition, and Razzle Dazzle. A NIDA, Trinity College London, and Sydney University graduate, Deborah’s been nominated for several Sydney Theatre Awards, and is a proud MEAA Member since 1990.
Darryl Maximilian Robinson Presents King Lear Speech Video At LA's
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King Lear, London
ENGL 3135 King Lear
COMMENTS
King Lear Monologues: Read Top Monologues From King Lear
The King Lear monologues below are extracts from the full modern King Lear ebook, along with a modern English translation. Reading through the original King Lear monologues followed by a modern version and should help you to understand what each King Lear monologue is about: "Blow, Winds and Crack Your Cheeks" (Spoken by King Lear, Act 3 ...
All speeches (lines) for Lear in "King Lear" :|: Open Source Shakespeare
Speeches (Lines) for Learin "King Lear"Total: 188. Speeches (Lines) for Lear. in "King Lear". Attend the lords of France and Burgundy, Gloucester. Meantime we shall express our darker purpose. Give me the map there. Know we have divided... With shadowy forests and with champains rich'd,...
'O, Reason Not The Need': King Lear Monologue Analysis
Spoken by Lear, Act 2, Scene 4. O, reason not the need! Our basest beggars. Are in the poorest thing superfluous. Man's life is cheap as beast's. Thou art a lady: Which scarcely keeps thee warm. But, for true need-. You heavens, give me that patience, patience I need!
Monologues from King Lear · Shakespeare's Monologues
Making it easier to find monologues since 1997. A complete database of Shakespeare's Monologues. All of them. The monologues are organized by play, then categorized by comedy, history and tragedy. You can browse and/or search. Each monologue entry includes the character's name, the first line of the speech, whether it is verse or prose, and shows the act, scene & line number.
SCENE II. Another part of the heath. Storm still
Another part of the heath. Storm still. Blow, winds, and crack your cheeks! rage! blow! You cataracts and hurricanoes, spout Till you have drench'd our steeples, drown'd 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 ...
King Lear
King Lear - Act 1, scene 1
All speeches (lines) and cues for Lear in "King Lear" :|: Open Source
Speeches (Lines) for Lear. in "King Lear". (stage directions). Enter one bearing a coronet; then Lear; then the Dukes of Albany and Cornwall; next, Goneril, Regan, Cordelia, with Followers. Lear. Attend the lords of France and Burgundy, Gloucester. (stage directions). Exeunt [Gloucester and Edmund].
in "King Lear"
Speeches (Lines) for Edgarin "King Lear"Total: 98. Speeches (Lines) for Edgar. in "King Lear". Edmund. This is the excellent foppery of the world, that, when we are. thrusting on. An admirable evasion of whore-master man, to lay. his goatish disposition to the charge of a star! My father.
King Lear
King Lear - Entire Play
Blow, Winds And Crack Your Cheeks: King Lear Monologue
Spoken by Lear, King Lear, Act 3, Scene 2. Blow, winds, and crack your cheeks! rage! blow! Till you have drench'd our steeples, drown'd the cocks! Singe my white head! And thou, all-shaking thunder, That makes ingrateful man! Rumble thy bellyful! Spit, fire! spout, rain! Nor rain, wind, thunder, fire are my daughters.
King Lear
I love your Majesty. According to my bond; no more nor less. Lear: How, how, Cordelia? Mend your speech a little, Lest it may mar your fortunes. Cordelia: Good my lord, You have begot me, bred me, lov'd me; I. Return those duties back as are right fit, Obey you, love you, and most honour you.
King Lear Act 1, Scene 1 Translation
King Lear Act 1, Scene 1 Translation | Shakescleare, by ...
'Unhappy That Am I, I Cannot Heave:' Monologue Analysis
'Unhappy That Am I, I Cannot Heave:' Monologue Analysis
SCENE II. The Earl of Gloucester's castle.
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
King Lear Act 4, Scene 6 Translation
King Lear Act 4, Scene 6 Translation | Shakescleare, by ...
King Lear (complete text) :|: Open Source Shakespeare
King Lear (complete text)
King Lear Translation
King Lear Shakescleare Translation
King Lear
Act 5, scene 1. Scene 1. Synopsis: Albany joins his forces with Regan's (led by Edmund) to oppose the French invasion. Edgar, still in disguise, approaches Albany with the letter plotting Albany's death, and promises to produce a champion to maintain the authenticity of the letter in a trial by combat. Edmund then enters and, when alone ...
King Lear
King Lear - Wikipedia ... King Lear
King Lear
Dying, Edmund confesses that he has ordered the deaths of Cordelia and Lear. Before they can be rescued, Lear brings in Cordelia's body and then he himself dies. Act 1, scene 1 King Lear, intending to divide his power and kingdom among his three daughters, demands public professions of their love. His youngest daughter, Cordelia, refuses.
The True History of The Life and Death of King Lear and His Three
OF KING LEAR AND HIS THREE DAUGHTERS. 15 Nov 25 - 4 Jan 26 Upstairs Theatre. Subscribe. THE TRUE HISTORY OF THE LIFE AND DEATH ... Whilst at WAAPA, Raj was the recipient of multiple prestigious awards; the 2020 Speech and Drama Teachers Association Poetry Prize, ...
IMAGES
VIDEO
COMMENTS
The King Lear monologues below are extracts from the full modern King Lear ebook, along with a modern English translation. Reading through the original King Lear monologues followed by a modern version and should help you to understand what each King Lear monologue is about: "Blow, Winds and Crack Your Cheeks" (Spoken by King Lear, Act 3 ...
Speeches (Lines) for Learin "King Lear"Total: 188. Speeches (Lines) for Lear. in "King Lear". Attend the lords of France and Burgundy, Gloucester. Meantime we shall express our darker purpose. Give me the map there. Know we have divided... With shadowy forests and with champains rich'd,...
Spoken by Lear, Act 2, Scene 4. O, reason not the need! Our basest beggars. Are in the poorest thing superfluous. Man's life is cheap as beast's. Thou art a lady: Which scarcely keeps thee warm. But, for true need-. You heavens, give me that patience, patience I need!
Making it easier to find monologues since 1997. A complete database of Shakespeare's Monologues. All of them. The monologues are organized by play, then categorized by comedy, history and tragedy. You can browse and/or search. Each monologue entry includes the character's name, the first line of the speech, whether it is verse or prose, and shows the act, scene & line number.
Another part of the heath. Storm still. Blow, winds, and crack your cheeks! rage! blow! You cataracts and hurricanoes, spout Till you have drench'd our steeples, drown'd 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 ...
King Lear - Act 1, scene 1
Speeches (Lines) for Lear. in "King Lear". (stage directions). Enter one bearing a coronet; then Lear; then the Dukes of Albany and Cornwall; next, Goneril, Regan, Cordelia, with Followers. Lear. Attend the lords of France and Burgundy, Gloucester. (stage directions). Exeunt [Gloucester and Edmund].
Speeches (Lines) for Edgarin "King Lear"Total: 98. Speeches (Lines) for Edgar. in "King Lear". Edmund. This is the excellent foppery of the world, that, when we are. thrusting on. An admirable evasion of whore-master man, to lay. his goatish disposition to the charge of a star! My father.
King Lear - Entire Play
Spoken by Lear, King Lear, Act 3, Scene 2. Blow, winds, and crack your cheeks! rage! blow! Till you have drench'd our steeples, drown'd the cocks! Singe my white head! And thou, all-shaking thunder, That makes ingrateful man! Rumble thy bellyful! Spit, fire! spout, rain! Nor rain, wind, thunder, fire are my daughters.
I love your Majesty. According to my bond; no more nor less. Lear: How, how, Cordelia? Mend your speech a little, Lest it may mar your fortunes. Cordelia: Good my lord, You have begot me, bred me, lov'd me; I. Return those duties back as are right fit, Obey you, love you, and most honour you.
King Lear Act 1, Scene 1 Translation | Shakescleare, by ...
'Unhappy That Am I, I Cannot Heave:' Monologue Analysis
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
King Lear Act 4, Scene 6 Translation | Shakescleare, by ...
King Lear (complete text)
King Lear Shakescleare Translation
Act 5, scene 1. Scene 1. Synopsis: Albany joins his forces with Regan's (led by Edmund) to oppose the French invasion. Edgar, still in disguise, approaches Albany with the letter plotting Albany's death, and promises to produce a champion to maintain the authenticity of the letter in a trial by combat. Edmund then enters and, when alone ...
King Lear - Wikipedia ... King Lear
Dying, Edmund confesses that he has ordered the deaths of Cordelia and Lear. Before they can be rescued, Lear brings in Cordelia's body and then he himself dies. Act 1, scene 1 King Lear, intending to divide his power and kingdom among his three daughters, demands public professions of their love. His youngest daughter, Cordelia, refuses.
OF KING LEAR AND HIS THREE DAUGHTERS. 15 Nov 25 - 4 Jan 26 Upstairs Theatre. Subscribe. THE TRUE HISTORY OF THE LIFE AND DEATH ... Whilst at WAAPA, Raj was the recipient of multiple prestigious awards; the 2020 Speech and Drama Teachers Association Poetry Prize, ...