King Lear
As flies to wanton boys are we to the gods,
They kill us for their sport.
EDGAR.
[_Aside._] How should this be?
Bad is the trade that must play fool to sorrow,
Angering itself and others. Bless thee, master!
GLOUCESTER.
Is that the naked fellow?
OLD MAN.
Ay, my lord.
GLOUCESTER.
Then prythee get thee away. If for my sake
Thou wilt o’ertake us hence a mile or twain,
I’ the way toward Dover, do it for ancient love,
And bring some covering for this naked soul,
Which I’ll entreat to lead me.
OLD MAN.
Alack, sir, he is mad.
GLOUCESTER.
’Tis the time’s plague when madmen lead the blind.
Do as I bid thee, or rather do thy pleasure;
Above the rest, be gone.
OLD MAN.
I’ll bring him the best ’parel that I have,
Come on’t what will.
[_Exit._]
GLOUCESTER.
Sirrah naked fellow.
EDGAR.
Poor Tom’s a-cold.
[_Aside._] I cannot daub it further.
GLOUCESTER.
Come hither, fellow.
EDGAR.
[_Aside._] And yet I must. Bless thy sweet eyes, they bleed.
GLOUCESTER.
Know’st thou the way to Dover?
EDGAR.
Both stile and gate, horseway and footpath. Poor Tom hath been
scared out of his good wits. Bless thee, good man’s son, from
the foul fiend! Five fiends have been in poor Tom at once; of
lust, as Obidicut; Hobbididence, prince of darkness; Mahu, of
stealing; Modo, of murder; Flibbertigibbet, of mopping and
mowing, who since possesses chambermaids and waiting women. So,
bless thee, master!
GLOUCESTER.
Here, take this purse, thou whom the heaven’s plagues
Have humbled to all strokes: that I am wretched
Makes thee the happier. Heavens deal so still!
Let the superfluous and lust-dieted man,
That slaves your ordinance, that will not see
Because he does not feel, feel your power quickly;
So distribution should undo excess,
And each man have enough. Dost thou know Dover?
EDGAR.
Ay, master.
GLOUCESTER.
There is a cliff, whose high and bending head
Looks fearfully in the confined deep:
Bring me but to the very brim of it,
And I’ll repair the misery thou dost bear
With something rich about me: from that place
I shall no leading need.
EDGAR.
Give me thy arm:
Poor Tom shall lead thee.
[_Exeunt._]
SCENE II. Before the Duke of Albany’s Palace
Enter Goneril, Edmund;
Oswald meeting them.
GONERIL.
Welcome, my lord. I marvel our mild husband
Not met us on the way. Now, where’s your master?
OSWALD.
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
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.
GONERIL.
[_To Edmund._] Then shall you go no further.
It is the cowish terror of his spirit,
That dares not undertake. He’ll not feel wrongs
Which tie him to an answer. Our wishes on the way
May prove effects. Back, Edmund, to my brother;
Hasten his musters and conduct his powers.
I must change names 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. [_Giving a favour._]
Wear this; spare speech;
Decline your head. This kiss, if it durst speak,
Would stretch thy spirits up into the air.
Conceive, and fare thee well.
EDMUND.
Yours in the ranks of death.
[_Exit Edmund._]
GONERIL.
My most dear Gloucester.
O, the difference of man and man!
To thee a woman’s services are due;
My fool usurps my body.
OSWALD.
Madam, here comes my lord.
[_Exit._]
Enter Albany.
GONERIL.
I have been worth the whistle.
ALBANY.
O Goneril!
You are not worth the dust which the rude wind
Blows in your face! I fear your disposition;
That nature which contemns its 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.
GONERIL.
No more; the text is foolish.
ALBANY.
Wisdom and goodness to the vile seem vile;
Filths savour but themselves. What have you done?
Tigers, not daughters, what have you perform’d?
A father, and a gracious aged man,
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 benefitted!
If that the heavens do not their visible spirits
Send quickly down to tame these vile offences,
It will come,
Humanity must perforce prey on itself,
Like monsters of the deep.
GONERIL.
Milk-liver’d man!
That bear’st a cheek for blows, a head for wrongs;
Who hast not in thy brows an eye discerning
Thine honour from thy suffering; that not know’st
Fools do those villains pity who are punish’d
Ere they have done their mischief. Where’s thy drum?
France spreads his banners in our noiseless land;
With plumed helm thy state begins to threat,
Whilst thou, a moral fool, sitt’st still, and criest
‘Alack, why does he so?’
ALBANY.
See thyself, devil!
Proper deformity seems not in the fiend
So horrid as in woman.
GONERIL.
O vain fool!
ALBANY.
Thou changed and self-cover’d thing, for shame!
Be-monster not thy feature! Were’t my fitness
To let these hands obey my blood,
They are apt enough to dislocate and tear
Thy flesh and bones. Howe’er thou art a fiend,
A woman’s shape doth shield thee.
GONERIL.
Marry, your manhood, mew!
Enter a Messenger.
ALBANY.
What news?
MESSENGER.
O, my good lord, the Duke of Cornwall’s dead;
Slain by his servant, going to put out
The other eye of Gloucester.
ALBANY.
Gloucester’s eyes!
MESSENGER.
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;
But not without that harmful stroke which since
Hath pluck’d him after.
ALBANY.
This shows you are above,
You justicers, that these our nether crimes
So speedily can venge! But, O poor Gloucester!
Lost he his other eye?
MESSENGER.
Both, both, my lord.
This letter, madam, craves a speedy answer;
’Tis from your sister.
GONERIL.
[_Aside._] One way I like this well;
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._]
ALBANY.
Where was his son when they did take his eyes?
MESSENGER.
Come with my lady hither.
ALBANY.
He is not here.
MESSENGER.
No, my good lord; I met him back again.
ALBANY.
Knows he the wickedness?
MESSENGER.
Ay, my good lord. ’Twas he inform’d against him;
And quit the house on purpose, that their punishment
Might have the freer course.
ALBANY.
Gloucester, I live
To thank thee for the love thou show’dst the King,
And to revenge thine eyes. Come hither, friend,
Tell me what more thou know’st.
[_Exeunt._]
SCENE III. The French camp near Dover
Enter Kent and a Gentleman.
KENT.
Why the King of France is so suddenly gone back, know you no
reason?
GENTLEMAN.
Something he left imperfect in the state, which since his coming
forth is thought of, which imports to the kingdom so much fear
and danger that his personal return was most required and
necessary.
KENT.
Who hath he left behind him general?
GENTLEMAN.
The Mareschal of France, Monsieur La Far.
KENT.
Did your letters pierce the queen to any demonstration of grief?
GENTLEMAN.
Ay, sir; she took them, read them in my presence;
And now and then an ample tear trill’d down
Her delicate cheek. It seem’d she was a queen
Over her passion; who, most rebel-like,
Sought to be king o’er her.
KENT.
O, then it mov’d her.
GENTLEMAN.
Not to a rage: patience and sorrow strove
Who should express her goodliest. You have seen
Sunshine and rain at once: her smiles and tears
Were like a better day. Those happy smilets
That play’d on her ripe lip seem’d not to know
What guests were in her eyes; which parted thence
As pearls from diamonds dropp’d. In brief,
Sorrow would be a rarity most belov’d,
If all could so become it.
KENT.
Made she no verbal question?
GENTLEMAN.
Faith, once or twice she heav’d the name of ‘father’
Pantingly forth, as if it press’d her heart;
Cried ‘Sisters, sisters! Shame of ladies! sisters!
Kent! father! sisters! What, i’ the storm? i’ the night?
Let pity not be believ’d!’ There she shook
The holy water from her heavenly eyes,
And clamour master’d her: then away she started
To deal with grief alone.
KENT.
It is the stars,
The stars above us govern our conditions;
Else one self mate and make could not beget
Such different issues. You spoke not with her since?
GENTLEMAN.
No.
KENT.
Was this before the King return’d?
GENTLEMAN.
No, since.
KENT.
Well, sir, the poor distressed Lear’s i’ the town;
Who sometime, in his better tune, remembers
What we are come about, and by no means
Will yield to see his daughter.
GENTLEMAN.
Why, good sir?
KENT.
A sovereign shame so elbows him. His own unkindness,
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.
GENTLEMAN.
Alack, poor gentleman!
KENT.
Of Albany’s and Cornwall’s powers you heard not?
GENTLEMAN.
’Tis so; they are afoot.
KENT.
Well, sir, I’ll bring you to our master Lear
And leave you to attend him. Some dear cause
Will in concealment wrap me up awhile;
When I am known aright, you shall not grieve
Lending me this acquaintance.
I pray you, go along with me.
[_Exeunt._]
SCENE IV. The French camp. A Tent
Enter with drum and colours, Cordelia, Physician
and Soldiers.
CORDELIA.
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-flowers,
Darnel, and all the idle weeds that grow
In our sustaining corn. A century send forth;
Search every acre in the high-grown field,
And bring him to our eye.
[_Exit an Officer._]
What can man’s wisdom
In the restoring his bereaved sense,
He that helps him take all my outward worth.
PHYSICIAN.
There is means, madam:
Our foster nurse of nature is repose,
The which he lacks; that to provoke in him
Are many simples operative, whose power
Will close the eye of anguish.
CORDELIA.
All bless’d 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;
Lest his ungovern’d rage dissolve the life
That wants the means to lead it.
Enter a Messenger.
MESSENGER.
News, madam;
The British powers are marching hitherward.
CORDELIA.
’Tis known before. Our preparation stands
In expectation of them. O dear father,
It is thy business that I go about;
Therefore great France
My mourning and important tears hath pitied.
No blown ambition doth our arms incite,
But love, dear love, and our ag’d father’s right:
Soon may I hear and see him!
[_Exeunt._]
SCENE V. A Room in Gloucester’s Castle
Enter Regan and Oswald.
REGAN.
But are my brother’s powers set forth?
OSWALD.
Ay, madam.
REGAN.
Himself in person there?
OSWALD.
Madam, with much ado.
Your sister is the better soldier.
REGAN.
Lord Edmund spake not with your lord at home?
OSWALD.
No, madam.
REGAN.
What might import my sister’s letter to him?
OSWALD.
I know not, lady.
REGAN.
Faith, he is posted hence on serious matter.
It was great ignorance, Gloucester’s eyes being out,
To let him live. Where he arrives he moves
All hearts against us. Edmund, I think, is gone