King Lear
I and my hundred knights.
REGAN.
Not altogether so,
I look’d not for you yet, nor am provided
For your fit welcome. Give ear, sir, to my sister;
For those that mingle reason with your passion
Must be content to think you old, and so—
But she knows what she does.
LEAR.
Is this well spoken?
REGAN.
I dare avouch it, sir: what, fifty followers?
Is it not well? What should you need of more?
Yea, or so many, sith that both charge and danger
Speak ’gainst so great a number? How in one house
Should many people, under two commands,
Hold amity? ’Tis hard; almost impossible.
GONERIL.
Why might not you, my lord, receive attendance
From those that she calls servants, or from mine?
REGAN.
Why not, my lord? If then they chanc’d to slack ye,
We could control them. If you will come to me,—
For now I spy a danger,—I entreat you
To bring but five-and-twenty: to no more
Will I give place or notice.
LEAR.
I gave you all,—
REGAN.
And in good time you gave it.
LEAR.
Made you my guardians, my depositaries;
But kept a reservation to be followed
With such a number. What, must I come to you
With five-and-twenty, Regan, said you so?
REGAN.
And speak’t again my lord; no more with me.
LEAR.
Those wicked creatures yet do look well-favour’d
When others are more wicked; not being the worst
Stands in some rank of praise.
[_To Goneril._] I’ll go with thee:
Thy fifty yet doth double five-and-twenty,
And thou art twice her love.
GONERIL.
Hear me, my lord:
What need you five-and-twenty? Ten? Or five?
To follow in a house where twice so many
Have a command to tend you?
REGAN.
What need one?
LEAR.
O, reason not the need: our basest beggars
Are in the poorest thing superfluous:
Allow not nature more than nature needs,
Man’s life is cheap as beast’s. Thou art a lady;
If only to go warm were gorgeous,
Why, nature needs not what thou gorgeous wear’st
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
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
That all the world shall,—I will do such things,—
What they are yet, I know not; but they shall be
The terrors of the earth. You think I’ll weep;
No, I’ll not weep:— [_Storm and tempest._]
I have full cause of weeping; but this heart
Shall break into a hundred thousand flaws
Or ere I’ll weep.—O fool, I shall go mad!
[_Exeunt Lear, Gloucester, Kent and Fool._]
CORNWALL.
Let us withdraw; ’twill be a storm.
REGAN.
This house is little: the old man and his people
Cannot be well bestow’d.
GONERIL.
’Tis his own blame; hath put himself from rest
And must needs taste his folly.
REGAN.
For his particular, I’ll receive him gladly,
But not one follower.
GONERIL.
So am I purpos’d.
Where is my lord of Gloucester?
Enter Gloucester.
CORNWALL.
Followed the old man forth, he is return’d.
GLOUCESTER.
The King is in high rage.
CORNWALL.
Whither is he going?
GLOUCESTER.
He calls to horse; but will I know not whither.
CORNWALL.
’Tis best to give him way; he leads himself.
GONERIL.
My lord, entreat him by no means to stay.
GLOUCESTER.
Alack, the night comes on, and the high winds
Do sorely ruffle; for many miles about
There’s scarce a bush.
REGAN.
O, sir, to wilful men
The injuries that they themselves procure
Must be their schoolmasters. Shut up your doors.
He is attended with a desperate train,
And what they may incense him to, being apt
To have his ear abus’d, wisdom bids fear.
CORNWALL.
Shut up your doors, my lord; ’tis a wild night.
My Regan counsels well: come out o’ the storm.
[_Exeunt._]
ACT III
SCENE I. A Heath
A storm with thunder and lightning. Enter Kent and a Gentleman,
severally.
KENT.
Who’s there, besides foul weather?
GENTLEMAN.
One minded like the weather, most unquietly.
KENT.
I know you. Where’s the King?
GENTLEMAN.
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,
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
Keep their fur dry, unbonneted he runs,
And bids what will take all.
KENT.
But who is with him?
GENTLEMAN.
None but the fool, who labours to out-jest
His heart-struck injuries.
KENT.
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;
Who have, as who have not, that their great stars
Throne’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;
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 scatter’d kingdom; who already,
Wise in our negligence, have secret feet
In some of our best ports, and are at point
To show their open banner.—Now to you:
If on my credit you dare build so far
To make your speed to Dover, you shall find
Some that will thank you making just report
Of how unnatural and bemadding sorrow
The King hath cause to plain.
I am a gentleman of blood and breeding;
And from some knowledge and assurance
Offer this office to you.
GENTLEMAN.
I will talk further with you.
KENT.
No, do not.
For confirmation that I am much more
Than my out-wall, open this purse, and take
What it contains. If you shall see Cordelia,
As fear not but you shall, show her this ring;
And she will tell you who your fellow is
That yet you do not know. Fie on this storm!
I will go seek the King.
GENTLEMAN.
Give me your hand: have you no more to say?
KENT.
Few words, but, to effect, more than all yet:
That, when we have found the King, in which your pain
That way, I’ll this; he that first lights on him
Holla the other.
[_Exeunt._]
SCENE II. Another part of the heath
Storm continues. Enter Lear
and Fool.
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 sulphurous 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’ the world!
Crack nature’s moulds, all germens spill at once,
That make ingrateful man!
FOOL.
O nuncle, court holy-water in a dry house is better than this
rain-water out o’ door. Good nuncle, in; and ask thy daughters
blessing: here’s a night pities neither wise men nor fools.
LEAR.
Rumble thy bellyful! Spit, fire! spout, rain!
Nor rain, wind, thunder, fire are my daughters;
I tax not you, you elements, with unkindness.
I never gave you kingdom, 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!
FOOL.
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.
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 glass.
LEAR.
No, I will be the pattern of all patience;
I will say nothing.
Enter Kent.
KENT.
Who’s there?
FOOL.
Marry, here’s grace and a codpiece; that’s a wise man and a
fool.
KENT.
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,
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.
LEAR.
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;
Thou perjur’d, and thou simular of virtue
That art incestuous. Caitiff, to 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
These dreadful summoners grace. I am a man
More sinn’d against than sinning.
KENT.
Alack, bareheaded!
Gracious my lord, hard by here is a hovel;
Some friendship will it lend you ’gainst the tempest:
Repose you there, whilst I to this hard house,—
More 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.
LEAR.
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.
Poor fool and knave, I have one part in my heart
That’s sorry yet for thee.
FOOL.
[_Singing._]
He that has and a little tiny wit,
With heigh-ho, the wind and the rain,
Must make content with his fortunes fit,
Though the rain it raineth every day.
LEAR.
True, boy. Come, bring us to this hovel.
[_Exeunt Lear and Kent._]
FOOL.
This is a brave night to cool a courtezan. I’ll speak a 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;
When every case in law is right;
No squire in debt, nor no poor knight;
When slanders do not live in tongues;
Nor cut-purses come not to throngs;
When usurers tell their gold i’ the field;
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.
This prophecy Merlin shall make; for I live before his time.
[_Exit._]
SCENE III. A Room in Gloucester’s Castle
Enter Gloucester and Edmund.
GLOUCESTER.
Alack, alack, Edmund, I like not this unnatural dealing. When I
desired their leave that I might pity him, they took from me the
use of mine own house; charged me on pain of perpetual displeasure,
neither to speak of him, entreat for him, or any way sustain him.
EDMUND.
Most savage and unnatural!
GLOUCESTER.
Go to; say you nothing. There is division between the Dukes,
and a worse matter than that: I have received a letter this
night;—’tis dangerous to be spoken;—I have locked the letter
in my closet: these injuries the King now bears will be revenged
home; there’s part of a power already footed: we must incline to
the King. I will look him, and privily relieve him: go you and
maintain talk with the Duke, that my charity be not of him
perceived: if he ask for me, I am ill, and gone to bed. If I
die for it, as no less is threatened me, the King my old master