THE HISTORY OF KING LEAR - THE QUARTO TEXT

by Shakespeare · Cluster: Crown · Pride · Fortune’s Wheel

Abstract

The Quarto text of Shakespeare’s great tragedy: an aged king divides his kingdom by flattery, is cast out into the storm by ungrateful daughters, and descends into madness; themes of kingship, filial ingratitude, madness, nature, and order versus chaos.

Capitoli / Chapters

Connections

Topoi: World Upside Down, Fortune’s Wheel, Great Chain of Being Archetypes: King, Tragic Hero, Fool, Villain, Outsider Motifs: Storm, Nature, Madness (2), Eyes and Sight, Animals, Nakedness, Crown Themes & Concepts: Kingship and Legitimacy, Madness, Order vs Chaos, Natural Order, Justice Right and Wrong, Grief and Loss, Pride, Deception, Appearance vs Reality, Mortality, Humility, Fate and Free Will Forms & Genres: Tragedy, Verse Drama, Blank Verse Settings: Medieval England (2), Court Characters: King Lear, Cordelia, Goneril, Regan, Edmund, Edgar, Gloucester, Kent, Fool (2)

Testo integrale / Full text

Chi parla	Battuta
THE HISTORY OF KING	LEAR
THE QUARTO TEXT	King Lear first appeared in print in a quarto of 1608. A substantially different text appeared in the 1623 Folio. Until the first appearance of the Oxford text, editors, assuming that each of these early texts imperfectly represented a single play, conflated them. But research conducted mainly during the 1970s and 1980s confirms an earlier view that the 1608 quarto represents the play as Shakespeare originally wrote it, and the 1623 Folio as he substantially revised it. He revised other plays, too, but usually by making many small changes in the dialogue and adding or omitting passages, as in Hamlet, Troilus and Cressida, and Othello. For these plays we print the revised text in so far as it can be ascertained. But in King Lear revisions are not simply local but structural, too; conflation, as Harley Granville-Barker wrote, ‘may make for redundancy or confusion’, so we print an edited version of each text. The first, printed in the following pages, represents the play as Shakespeare first conceived it, probably before it was performed. The story of a king who, angry with the failure of his virtuous youngest daughter (Cordelia) to respond as he desires in a love-test, divides his kingdom between her two malevolent sisters (Gonoril and Regan), had been often told; Shakespeare would have come upon it in Holinshed’s Chronicles and in A Mirror for Magistrates while reading for his plays on English history. It is told also (though briefly) in Edmund Spenser’s Faerie Queene (Book 2, canto 10), and had been dramatized in a play of unknown authorship—The True Chronicle History of King Leir and his three daughters—published in 1605, but probably written some fifteen years earlier. This play particularly gave Shakespeare much, including suggestions for the characters of Lear’s loyal servant, Kent, and of Gonoril’s husband, Albany, and her steward, Oswald; for the storm; for Lear’s kneeling to Cordelia; and for many details of language. Nevertheless, his play is a highly original creation. Lear’s madness and the harrowing series of disasters in King Lear’s final stages are of Shakespeare’s invention, and he complicates the plot by adding the story (based on an episode of Sir Philip Sidney’s Arcadia) of Gloucester and his two sons, Edmund and Edgar. Edgar’s love and loyalty to the father who, failing to see the truth, has rejected him in favour of the villainous Edmund makes him a counterpart to Cordelia; and the horrific blinding of Gloucester brought about by Edmund creates a physical parallel to Lear’s madness which reaches its consummation in the scene (Sc. 20) at Dover Cliff when the mad and the blind old men commune together. The clear-eyed intensity of Shakespeare’s tragic vision in King Lear has been too much for some audiences, and Nahum Tate’s adaptation, which gave the play a happy ending, held the stage from 1681 to 1843; since then, increased understanding of Shakespeare’s stagecraft along with a greater seriousness in theatre audiences has assisted in the rehabilitation of a play that is now recognized as one of the profoundest of all artistic explorations of the human condition. In the text which follows, the Quarto scene numbers are followed by the equivalent Folio act and scene numbers in parentheses. There is no equivalent to Sc. 17 in the Folio.
THE PERSONS OF THE	PLAY LEAR, King of Britain GONORIL, Lear’s eldest daughter Duke of ALBANY, her husband REGAN, Lear’s second daughter Duke of CORNWALL, her husband CORDELIA, Lear’s youngest daughter Earl of KENT, later disguised as Caius Earl of GLOUCESTER EDGAR, elder son of Gloucester, later disguised as Tom o’ Bedlam EDMUND, bastard son of Gloucester
OLD	MAN, a tenant of Gloucester CURAN, Gloucester’s retainer Lear’s FOOL OSWALD, Gonoril’s steward Three SERVANTS of Cornwall DOCTOR, attendant on Cordelia Three CAPTAINS A HERALD A KNIGHT A MESSENGER Gentlemen, servants, soldiers, followers, trumpeters, others The History of King Lear Sc. 1
(didascalia)	Enter the Earl of Kent, the Duke of Gloucester, and Edmund the bastard
KENT	I thought the King had more affected the Duke of Albany than Cornwall.
GLOUCESTER	It did always seem so to us, but now in the division of the kingdoms it appears not which of the Dukes he values most; for equalities are so weighed that curiosity in neither can make choice of either’s moiety.
KENT	Is not this your son, my lord?
GLOUCESTER	His breeding, sir, hath been at my charge. I have so often blushed to acknowledge him that now I am brazed to it.
KENT	I cannot conceive you.
GLOUCESTER	Sir, this young fellow’s mother could, whereupon she grew round-wombed and had indeed, sir, a son for her cradle ere she had a husband for her bed. Do you smell a fault?
KENT	I cannot wish the fault undone, the issue of it being so proper.
GLOUCESTER	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 whoreson must be acknowledged. (To Edmund) Do you know this noble gentleman, Edmund?
EDMUND	No, my lord.
GLOUCESTER	(to Edmund) My lord of Kent. Remember him hereafter as my honourable friend.
EDMUND	(to Kent) My services to your lordship.
KENT	I must love you, and sue to know you better.
EDMUND	Sir, I shall study deserving.
GLOUCESTER	(to Kent) He hath been out nine years, and away he shall again.
(didascalia)	Sound a sennet
GLOUCESTER	The King is coming.
(didascalia)	Enter one bearing a coronet, then King Lear, then the Dukes of Albany and Cornwall; next Gonoril, Regan, Cordelia, with followers
LEAR	Attend my lords of France and Burgundy, Gloucester.
GLOUCESTER	I shall, my liege.
(didascalia)	Exit
LEAR	Meantime we will express our darker purposes. The map there. Know we have divided In three our kingdom, and ’tis our first intent To shake all cares and business off our state, Confirming them on younger years. The two great princes, France and Burgundy— Great rivals in our youngest daughter’s love— Long in our court have made their amorous sojourn, And here are to be answered. Tell me, my daughters, Which of you shall we say doth love us most, That we our largest bounty may extend Where merit doth most challenge it? Gonoril, our eldest born, speak first.
GONORIL	Sir, I do love you more than words can wield the matter; Dearer than eyesight, space, or liberty; Beyond what can be valued, rich or rare; No less than life; with grace, health, beauty, honour; As much as child e’er loved, or father, friend; A love that makes breath poor and speech unable. Beyond all manner of so much I love you.
CORDELIA	(aside) What shall Cordelia do? Love and be silent.
LEAR	(to Gonoril) Of all these bounds even from this line to this, With shady forests and wide skirted meads, 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.
REGAN	Sir, I am made Of the self-same mettle that my sister is, And prize me at her worth. In my true heart I find she names my very deed of love— Only she came short, that I profess Myself an enemy to all other joys Which the most precious square of sense possesses, And find I am alone felicitate In your dear highness’ love.
CORDELIA	(aside) Then poor Cordelia— And yet not so, since I am sure my love’s More richer than my tongue.
LEAR	(to Regan) To thee and thine hereditary ever Remain this ample third of our fair kingdom, No less in space, validity, and pleasure Than that confirmed on Gonoril. (To Cordelia) But now our joy, Although the last, not least in our dear love: What can you say to win a third more opulent Than your sisters?
CORDELIA	Nothing, my lord.
LEAR	How? Nothing can come of nothing. Speak again.
CORDELIA	Unhappy that I am, I cannot heave My heart into my mouth. I love your majesty According to my bond, nor more nor less.
LEAR	Go to, go to, mend your speech a little Lest it may mar your fortunes.
CORDELIA	Good my lord, You have begot me, bred me, loved 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.
LEAR	But goes this with thy heart?
CORDELIA	Ay, good my lord.
LEAR	So young and so untender?
CORDELIA	So young, my lord, and true.
LEAR	Well, let it be so. Thy truth then he thy dower; For by the sacred radiance of the sun, The mysteries of Hecate and the night, By all the operation of the orbs 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, Or he that makes his generation Messes to gorge his appetite, Shall be as well neighboured, pitied, and relieved As thou, my sometime daughter.
KENT	Good my +liege-
LEAR	Peace, Kent. Come not between the dragon and his wrath. I loved her most, and thought to set my rest
(didascalia)	On her kind nursery. To Cordelia Hence, and avoid
LEAR	my sight!— So be my grave my peace as here I give Her father’s heart from her. Call France. Who stirs? Call Burgundy.
(didascalia)	Exit one or more
LEAR	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, Pre-eminence, and all the large effects That troop with majesty. Ourself by monthly course, With reservation of an hundred knights By you to be sustained, shall our abode Make with you by due turns. Only we still retain The name and all the additions to a king. The sway, revenue, execution of the rest, Beloved sons, be yours; which to confirm, This crownet part betwixt you.
KENT	Royal Lear, Whom I have ever honoured as my king, Loved as my father, as my master followed, As my great patron thought on in my prayers—
LEAR	The bow is bent and drawn; make from the shaft.
KENT	Let it fall rather, though the fork invade The region of my heart. Be Kent unmannerly When Lear is mad. What wilt 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 stoops to folly. Reverse thy doom, And in thy best consideration check This hideous rashness. Answer my life my judgement, Thy youngest daughter does not love thee least, Nor are those empty-hearted whose low sound Reverbs no hollowness.
LEAR	Kent, on thy life, no more!
KENT	My life I never held but as a pawn To wage against thy enemies, nor fear to lose it, Thy safety being the motive.
LEAR	Out of my sight!
KENT	See better, Lear, and let me still remain The true blank of thine eye.
LEAR	Now, by Apollo-
KENT	Now, by Apollo, King, thou swear’st thy gods in vain.
(didascalia)	LEAR making to strike himl
KENT	Vassal, recreant!
KENT	Do, kill thy physician, And the fee bestow upon the foul disease. Revoke thy doom, or whilst I can vent clamour From my throat I’ll tell thee thou dost evil.
LEAR	Hear me; on thy allegiance hear me! Since thou hast sought to make us break our vow, Which we durst never yet, and with strayed 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: Four days we do allot thee for provision To shield thee from dis-eases of the world, And on the fifth to turn thy hated back Upon our kingdom. If on the next day following Thy banished trunk be found in our dominions, The moment is thy death. Away! By Jupiter, This shall not be revoked.
KENT	Why, fare thee well, King; since thus thou wilt appear, Friendship lives hence, and banishment is here. (To Cordelia) The gods to their protection take thee, maid, That rightly thinks, and hast most justly said. (To Gonoril and Regan) 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.
(didascalia)	Exit
(didascalia)	Enter the King of France and the Duke of
KENT	Burgundy, with the Duke of Gloucester
GLOUCESTER	Here’s France and Burgundy, my noble lord.
LEAR	My lord of Burgundy, We first address towards you, who with a king Hath rivalled for our daughter: what in the least Will you require in present dower with her Or cease your quest of love?
BURGUNDY	Royal majesty, I crave no more than what your highness offered; Nor will you tender less.
LEAR	Right noble Burgundy, When she was dear to us we did hold her so; But now her price is fallen. Sir, there she stands. If aught within that little seeming substance, Or all of it, with our displeasure pieced, And nothing else, may fitly like your grace, She’s there, and she is yours.
BURGUNDY	I know no answer.
LEAR	Sir, will you with those infirmities she owes, Unfriended, new-adopted to our hate, Covered with our curse and strangered with our oath, Take her or leave her?
BURGUNDY	Pardon me, royal sir. Election makes not up on such conditions.
LEAR	Then leave her, sir; for by the power that made me, I tell you all her wealth. (To France) For you, great King, I would not from your love make such a stray To match you where I hate, therefore beseech you To avert your liking a more worthier way Than on a wretch whom nature is ashamed Almost to acknowledge hers.
FRANCE	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 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-vouched affections Fall’n into taint; which to believe of her Must be a faith that reason without miracle Could never plant in me.
CORDELIA	(to Lear) I yet beseech your majestyIf for I want that glib and oily art To speak and purpose not—since what I well intend, I’ll do’t before I speak—that you acknow It is no vicious blot, murder, or foulness, No unclean action or dishonoured step That hath deprived me of your grace and favour, But even the want of that for which I am rich— 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.
LEAR	Go to, go to. Better thou hadst not been born than not to have pleased me better.
FRANCE	Is it no more but this—a tardiness in nature, That often leaves the history unspoke That it intends to do?—My lord of Burgundy, What say you to the lady? Love is not love When it is mingled with respects that stands Aloof from the entire point. Will you have her? She is herself a dower.
BURGUNDY	Royal Lear, Give but that portion which yourself proposed, And here I take Cordelia by the hand, Duchess of Burgundy—
LEAR	Nothing. I have sworn.
BURGUNDY	(to Cordelia) I am sorry, then, you have so lost a father That you must lose a husband.
CORDELIA	Peace be with Burgundy; since that respects Of fortune are his love, I shall not be his wife.
FRANCE	Fairest Cordelia, that art most rich, being poor; Most choice, forsaken; and most loved, despised: Thee and thy virtues here I seize upon. 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 inflamed respect.— Thy dowerless daughter, King, thrown to my chance, Is queen of us, of ours, and our fair France. Not all the dukes in wat’rish Burgundy Shall buy this unprized precious maid of me.— Bid them farewell, Cordelia, though unkind. Thou losest here, a better where to find.
LEAR	Thou hast her, France. Let her be thine, for we 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 and Burgundy, then
(didascalia)	Albany, Cornwall, Gloucester, Edmund,
LEAR	and followers
FRANCE	(to Cordelia) Bid farewell to your sisters.
CORDELIA	Ye jewels of our father, with washed eyes Cordelia leaves you. I know you what you are, And like a sister am most loath to call Your faults as they are named. Use well our father. 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.
GONORIL	Prescribe not us our duties.
REGAN	Let your study Be to content your lord, who hath received you At fortune’s alms. You have obedience scanted, And well are worth the worst that you have wanted.
CORDELIA	Time shall unfold what pleated cunning hides. Who covers faults, at last shame them derides. Well may you prosper.
FRANCE	Come, fair Cordelia.
(didascalia)	Exeunt France and Cordelia
GONORIL	Sister, it is not a little I have to say of what most nearly appertains to us both. I think our father will hence tonight.
REGAN	That’s most certain, and with you. Next month with us.
GONORIL	You see how full of changes his age is. The observation we have made of it hath not been little. He always loved our sister most, and with what poor judgement he hath now cast her off appears too gross.
REGAN	’Tis the infirmity of his age; yet he hath ever but slenderly known himself.
GONORIL	The best and soundest of his time hath been but rash; then must we look to receive from his age not alone the imperfection of long-engrafted condition, but therewithal unruly waywardness that infirm and choleric years bring with them.
REGAN	Such unconstant starts are we like to have from him as this of Kent’s banishment.
GONORIL	There is further compliment of leave-taking between France and him. Pray, let’s hit together. If our father carry authority with such dispositions as he bears, this last surrender of his will but offend us.
REGAN	We shall further think on’t.
GONORIL	We must do something, and l’th’ heat. Exeunt Sc. 2
(didascalia)	Enter Edmund the bastard
EDMUND	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 moonshines 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, base bastardy’, Who in the lusty stealth of nature take More composition and fierce quality Than doth within a stale, dull-eyed bed go To the creating a whole tribe of fops Got ’tween a sleep and wake? Well then, Legitimate Edgar, I must have your land. Our father’s love is to the bastard Edmund As to the legitimate. Well, my legitimate, if This letter speed and my invention thrive, Edmund the base shall to th’ legitimate. I grow, I prosper. Now gods, stand up for bastards!
(didascalia)	Enter the Duke of Gloucester. Edmund reads a letter
GLOUCESTER	Kent banished thus, and France in choler parted, And the King gone tonight, subscribed his power, Confined to exhibition—all this done Upon the gad?—Edmund, how now? What news?
EDMUND	So please your lordship, none.
GLOUCESTER	Why so earnestly seek you to put up that letter?
EDMUND	I know no news, my lord.
GLOUCESTER	What paper were you reading?
EDMUND	Nothing., my lord.
GLOUCESTER	No? What needs 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.
EDMUND	I beseech you, sir, pardon me. It is a letter from my brother that I have not all o’er-read; for so much as I have perused, I find it not fit for your liking.
GLOUCESTER	Give me the letter, sir.
EDMUND	I shall offend either to detain or give it. The contents, as in part I understand them, are to blame.
GLOUCESTER	Let’s see, let’s see.
EDMUND	I hope for my brother’s justification he wrote this but as an assay or taste of my virtue. He gives Gloucester a letter
GLOUCESTER	(reads) ‘This policy 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 enjoy half his revenue for ever and live the beloved of your brother, Edgar.’ Hum, conspiracy! ‘Slept 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?
EDMUND	It was not brought me, my lord, there’s the cunning of it. I found it thrown in at the casement of my closet.
GLOUCESTER	You know the character to be your brother’s?
EDMUND	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.
GLOUCESTER	It is his.
EDMUND	It is his hand, my lord, but I hope his heart is not in the contents.
GLOUCESTER	Hath he never heretofore sounded you in this business? 70
EDMUND	Never, my lord; but I have often heard him maintain it to be fit that, sons at perfect age and fathers declining, his father should be as ward to the son, and the son manage the revenue.
GLOUCESTER	O villain, villain—his very opinion in the tetter! Abhorred villain, unnatural, detested, brutish villain—worse than brutish! Go, sir, seek him, ay, apprehend him. Abominable villain! Where is he?
EDMUND	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 this intent, you should 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 he hath wrote this to feel my affection to your honour, and to no further pretence of danger.
GLOUCESTER	Think you so?
EDMUND	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.
GLOUCESTER	He cannot be such a monster.
EDMUND	Nor is pilot, sure.
GLOUCESTER	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 your business after your own wisdom. I would unstate myself to be in a due resolution.
EDMUND	I shall seek him, sir, presently, convey the business as I shall see means, and acquaint you withal.
GLOUCESTER	These late eclipses in the sun and moon portend no good to us. Though the wisdom of nature can reason thus and thus, yet nature finds itself scourged by the sequent effects. Love cools, friendship falls off, brothers divide; in cities mutinies, in countries discords, palaces treason, the bond cracked between son and father. Find out this villain, Edmund; it shall lose thee nothing. Do it carefully. And the noble and true-hearted Kent banished, his offence honesty! Strange, strange! Exit
EDMUND	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 by necessity, fools by heavenly compulsion, knaves, thieves, and treacherers 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 stars! 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. Fut! I should have been that I am had the maidenliest star of the firmament twinkled on my bastardy. Edgar …
(didascalia)	Enter Edgar
EDMUND	and on’s cue out he comes, like the catastrophe of the old comedy; mine is villainous melancholy, with a sigh like them of Bedlam.—O, these eclipses do portend these divisions.
EDGAR	How now, brother Edmund, what serious contemplation are you in?
EDMUND	I am thinking, brother, of a prediction I read this other day, what should follow these eclipses.
EDGAR	Do you busy yourself about that?
EDMUND	I promise you, the effects he writ 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.
EDGAR	How long have you been a sectary astronomical?
EDMUND	Come, come, when saw you my father last?
EDGAR	Why, the night gone by.
EDMUND	Spake you with him?
EDGAR	Two hours together.
EDMUND	Parted you in good terms? Found you no displeasure in him by word or countenance?
EDGAR	None at all.
EDMUND	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 scarce allay.
EDGAR	Some villain hath done me wrong.
EDMUND	That’s my fear, 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.
EDGAR	Shall I hear from you anon?
EDMUND	I do serve you in this business.
(didascalia)	Exit Edgar
EDMUND	A credulous father, and a brother noble, Whose nature is so far from doing harms That he suspects none; on whose foolish honesty 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.
(didascalia)	Exit
EDMUND	Sc. 3
(didascalia)	Enter Gonoril and Oswald, her gentleman
GONORIL	Did my father strike my gentleman For chiding of his fool?
OSWALD	Yes, madam.
GONORIL	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.
(didascalia)	Hunting horns within
OSWALD	He’s coming, madam. I hear him.
GONORIL	Put on what weary negligence you please, You and your fellow servants. I’d have it come in question. If he dislike it, let him to our sister, Whose mind and mine I know in that are one, Not to be overruled. 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 used With checks as flatteries, when they are seen abused. Remember what I tell you.
OSWALD	Very well, madam.
GONORIL	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, That I may speak. I’ll write straight to my sister To hold my very course. Go prepare for dinner.
(didascalia)	Exeunt severally
GONORIL	Sc. 4
(didascalia)	Enter the Earl of Kent, disguised
KENT	If but as well I other accents borrow That can my speech diffuse, my good intent May carry through itself to that full issue For which I razed my likeness. Now, banished Kent, If thou canst serve where thou dost stand condemned, Thy master, whom thou lov’st, shall find thee full of labour.
(didascalia)	Enter King Lear and servants from hunting
LEAR	Let me not stay a jot for dinner. Go get it ready.
(didascalia)	Exit one
LEAR	(To Kent) How now, what art thou?
KENT	A man, sir.
LEAR	What dost thou profess? What wouldst thou with us?
KENT	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 judgement, to fight when I cannot choose, and to eat no fish.
LEAR	What art thou?
KENT	A very honest-hearted fellow, and as poor as the King.
LEAR	If thou be as poor for a subject as he is for a king, thou’rt poor enough. What wouldst thou?
KENT	Service.
LEAR	Who wouldst thou serve?
KENT	You.
LEAR	Dost thou know me, fellow?
KENT	No, sir, but you have that in your countenance which I would fain call master.
LEAR	What’s that?
KENT	Authority.
LEAR	What services canst do?
KENT	I can keep honest counsel, ride, run, mar a curious tale in telling it, and deliver a plain message bluntly. That which ordinary men are fit for I am qualified in; and the best of me is diligence.
LEAR	How old art thou?
KENT	Not so young to love a woman for singing, nor so old to dote on her for anything. I have years on my back forty-eight.
LEAR	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.
(didascalia)	Exit one
(didascalia)	Enter Oswald the steward
LEAR	You, sirrah, where’s my daughter?
OSWALD	So please you—
(didascalia)	Exit
LEAR	What says the fellow there? Call the clotpoll back.
(didascalia)	Exeunt Servant and Kent
LEAR	Where’s my fool? Ho, I think the world’s asleep.
(didascalia)	Enter the Earl of Kent and a Servant
LEAR	How now, where’s that mongrel?
KENT	He says, my lord, your daughter is not well.
LEAR	Why came not the slave back to me when I called him?
SERVANT	Sir, he answered me in the roundest manner he would not.
LEAR	A would not?
SERVANT	My lord, I know not what the matter is, but to my judgement your highness is not entertained with that ceremonious affection as you were wont. There’s a great abatement appears as well in the general dependants as in the Duke himself also, and your daughter.
LEAR	Ha, sayst thou so?
SERVANT	I beseech you pardon me, my lord, if I be mistaken, for my duty cannot be silent when I think your highness wronged.
LEAR	Thou but rememberest me of mine own conception. I have perceived a most faint neglect of late, which I have rather blamed as mine own jealous curiosity than as a very pretence and purport of unkindness. I will look further into’t. But where’s this fool? I have not seen him these two days.
SERVANT	Since my young lady’s going into France, sir, the fool hath much pined away.
(didascalia)	LEAR No more of that, I have noted it. Go you and tell my daughter I would speak with her. Exit one Go you, call hither my fool. Exit one
(didascalia)	Enter Oswald the steward crossing the stage
SERVANT	O you, sir, you, sir, come you hither. Who am I, sir?
OSWALD	My lady’s father.
LEAR	My lady’s father? My lord’s knave, you whoreson dog, you slave, you cur!
OSWALD	I am none of this, my lord, I beseech you pardon me.
LEAR	Do you bandy looks with me, you rascal?
(didascalia)	Lear strikes him
OSWALD	I’ll not be struck, my lord—
KENT	(tripping him) Nor tripped neither, you base football player.
LEAR	(to Kent) I thank thee, fellow. Thou serv’st me, and I’ll love thee.
KENT	(to Oswald) Come, sir, I’ll teach you differences. Away, away. If you will measure your lubber’s length again, tarry; but away if you have wisdom.
(didascalia)	Exit Oswald
LEAR	Now, friendly knave, I thank thee.
(didascalia)	Enter Lear’s Fool
LEAR	There’s earnest of thy service. He gives Kent money
FOOL	Let me hire him, too. (To Kent) Here’s my coxcomb.
LEAR	How now, my pretty knave, how dost thou?
FOOL	(to Kent) Sirrah, you were best take my coxcomb.
KENT	Why, fool?
FOOL	Why, for taking one’s part that’s out of favour. Nay, an thou canst not smile as the wind sits, thou’lt catch cold shortly. There, take my coxcomb. Why, this fellow hath banished two on’s daughters and done the third a blessing against his will. If thou follow him, thou must needs wear my coxcomb. (To Lear) How now, nuncle? Would I had two coxcombs and two daughters.
LEAR	Why, my boy?
FOOL	If I gave them my living I’d keep my coxcombs myself. There’s mine; beg another off thy daughters.
LEAR	Take heed, sirrah—the whip.
FOOL	Truth is a dog that must to kennel. He must be whipped out when Lady the brach may stand by the fire and stink.
LEAR	A pestilent gall to me!
(didascalia)	FOOL to Kent Sirrah, I’ll teach thee a speech.
LEAR	Do.
FOOL	Mark it, uncle. 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, 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.
LEAR	This is nothing, fool.
FOOL	Then, like the breath of an unfee’d lawyer, you gave me nothing for’t. Can you make no use of nothing, uncle?
LEAR	Why no, boy. Nothing can be made out of nothing.
FOOL	(to Kent) Prithee, tell him so much the rent of his land comes to. He will not believe a fool. 130
LEAR	A bitter fool.
FOOL	Dost know the difference, my boy, between a bitter fool and a sweet fool?
LEAR	No, lad. Teach me.
(didascalia)	FOOL sings
LEAR	That lord that counselled thee To give away thy land, Come, place him here by me; Do thou for him stand. The sweet and bitter fool Will presently appear, The one in motley here, The other found out there.
LEAR	Dost thou call me fool, boy?
FOOL	All thy other titles thou hast given away. That thou wast born with.
KENT	(to Lear) This is not altogether fool, my lord.
FOOL	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 snatching. Give me an egg, nuncle, and I’ll give thee two crowns.
LEAR	What two crowns shall they be?
FOOL	Why, after I have cut the egg in the middle and eat up the meat, the two crowns of the egg. When thou clovest thy crown i‘th’ middle and gavest away both parts, thou borest thy ass o’th’ back o’er the dirt. Thou hadst little wit in thy bald crown when thou gavest thy golden one away. If I speak like myself in this, let him be whipped that first finds it so.
(didascalia)	Sings
FOOL	Fools had ne’er less wit in a year, For wise men are grown foppish. They know not how their wits do wear, Their manners are so apish.
LEAR	When were you wont to be so full of songs, sirrah?
FOOL	I have used it, nuncle, ever since thou madest thy daughters thy mother; for when thou gavest them the rod and puttest down thine own breeches,
(didascalia)	Sings
FOOL	Then they for sudden joy did weep, And I for sorrow sung, That such a king should play bo-peep And go the fools among. Prithee, nuncle, keep a schoolmaster that can teach thy fool to lie. I would fain learn to lie.
LEAR	An you lie, we’ll have you whipped.
FOOL	I marvel what kin thou and thy daughters are. They’ll have me whipped for speaking true, thou wilt have me whipped for lying, and sometime I am whipped for holding my peace. I had rather be any kind of thing than a fool; and yet I would not be thee, nuncle. Thou hast pared thy wit o’ both sides and left nothing in the middle.
(didascalia)	Enter Gonoril
FOOL	Here comes one of the parings.
LEAR	How now, daughter, what makes that frontlet on? Methinks you are too much o’ late i’th’ frown.
(didascalia)	FOOL Thou wast a pretty fellow when thou hadst no need to care for her frown. Now thou art an O without a figure. I am better than thou art, now. I am a fool; thou art nothing. To Gonoril Yes, forsooth, I will hold my tongue; so your face bids me, though you say nothing.
(didascalia)	Sings
LEAR	Mum, mum. He that keeps neither crust nor crumb, Weary of all, shall want some. That’s a shelled peascod.
GONORIL	(to Lear) Not only, sir, this your all-licensed fool, But other of your insolent retinue Do hourly carp and quarrel, breaking forth In rank and not-to-be-endured riots. Sir, 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 Would not scape censure, nor the redress sleep Which in the tender of a wholesome weal Might in their working do you that offence, That else were shame, that then necessity Must call discreet proceedings.
FOOL	(to Lear) For, you trow, nuncle,
(didascalia)	Sings
FOOL	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.
LEAR	(to Gonoril) Are you our daughter?
GONORIL	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.
(didascalia)	FOOL May not an ass know when the cart draws the horse? Sings ‘Whoop, jug, I love thee!’
LEAR	Doth any here know me? Why, this is not Lear. Doth Lear walk thus, speak thus? Where are his eyes? Either his notion weakens, or his discernings Are lethargied. Sleeping or waking, ha? Sure, ’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 I had daughters.
FOOL	Which they will make an obedient father.
LEAR	(to Gonoril) Your name, fair gentlewoman?
GONORIL	Come, sir, This admiration is much of the savour Of other your new pranks. I do beseech you Understand my purposes aright, As you are old and reverend, should be wise. Here do you keep a hundred knights and squires, Men so disordered, so debauched and bold That this our court, infected with their manners, Shows like a riotous inn, epicurism And lust make more like to a tavern, or brothel, Than a great palace. The shame itself doth speak For instant remedy. Be thou desired, By her that else will take the thing she begs, A little to disquantity your train, And the remainder that shall still depend To be such men as may besort your age, That know themselves and you.
LEAR	Darkness and devils! Saddle my horses, call my train together!—
(didascalia)	Exit one or more
LEAR	Degenerate bastard, I’ll not trouble thee. Yet have I left a daughter.
GONORIL	You strike my people, and your disordered rabble Make servants of their betters.
(didascalia)	Enter the Duke of Albany
LEAR	We that too late repent‘s—O sir, are you come? Is it your will that we—prepare my horses.
(didascalia)	Exit one or more
LEAR	Ingratitude, thou marble-hearted fiend, More hideous when thou show’st thee in a child Than the sea-monster—(to Gonoril) detested kite, thou liest. My train are men of choice and rarest parts, That all particulars of duty know, And in the most exact regard support The worships of their name. O most small fault, How ugly didst thou in Cordelia show, That, like an engine, wrenched my frame of nature From the fixed place, drew from my heart all love, And added to the gall! O Lear, Lear! Beat at this gate that let thy folly in And thy dear judgement out.—Go, go, my people!
ALBANY	My lord, I am guiltless as I am ignorant.
LEAR	It may be so, my lord. Hark, nature, hear: Dear goddess, suspend thy purpose if Thou didst intend to make this creature fruitful. Into her womb convey sterility. 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 disnatured torment to her. 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— That she may feel How sharper than a serpent’s tooth it is To have a thankless child.—Go, go, my people!
(didascalia)	Exeunt Lear, Kent, Fool, and servants
ALBANY	Now, gods that we adore, whereof comes this?
GONORIL	Never afflict yourself to know the cause, But let his disposition have that scope That dotage gives it.
(didascalia)	Enter King Lear and his Fool
LEAR	What, fifty of my followers at a clap?
(didascalia)	Within a fortnight?
ALBANY	What is the matter, sir?
LEAR	I’ll tell thee. (To Gonoril) Life and death! I am ashamed That thou hast power to shake my manhood thus, That these hot tears, that break from me perforce And should make thee—worst blasts and fogs upon thee! Untented woundings of a father’s curse Pierce every sense about thee! Old fond eyes, Beweep this cause again I’ll pluck you out And cast you, with the waters that you make, To temper clay. Yea, Is’t come to this? Yet have I left a daughter Whom, I am sure, is kind and comfortable. 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.
(didascalia)	Exit
GONORIL	Do you mark that, my lord?
ALBANY	I cannot be so partial, Gonoril, To the great love I bear you—
GONORIL	Come, sir, no more.— You, more knave than fool, after your master!
FOOL	Nuncle Lear, nuncle Lear, tarry, and 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. So, the fool follows after.
(didascalia)	Exit
GONORIL	What, Oswald, ho!
(didascalia)	Enter Oswald
OSWALD	Here, madam.
GONORIL	What, have you writ this letter to my sister?
OSWALD	Yes, madam.
GONORIL	Take you some company, and away to horse. Inform her full of my particular fears, And thereto add such reasons of your own As may compact it more. Get you gone, And after, your retinue.
(didascalia)	Exit Oswald
GONORIL	Now, my lord, This milky gentleness and course of yours, Though I dislike not, yet under pardon You’re much more ataxed for want of wisdom Than praised for harmful mildness.
ALBANY	How far your eyes may pierce I cannot tell. Striving to better aught, we mar what’s well.
GONORIL	Nay, then—
ALBANY	Well, well, the event. Exeunt Sc. 5
(didascalia)	Enter King Lear, the Earl of Kent disguised, and Lear’s Fool
(didascalia)	LEAR to Kent 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 before you.
KENT	I will not sleep, my lord, till I have delivered your letter.
(didascalia)	Exit
FOOL	If a man’s brains were in his heels, were’t not in danger of kibes?
LEAR	Ay, boy.
FOOL	Then, I prithee, be merry: thy wit shall ne’er go slipshod.
LEAR	Ha, ha, ha!
FOOL	Shalt see thy other daughter will use thee kindly, for though she’s as like this as a crab is like an apple, yet I con what I can tell.
LEAR	Why, what canst thou tell, my boy?
FOOL	Why, to keep his eyes on either side ’s nose, that what a man cannot smell out, a may spy into.
LEAR	I did her wrong.
FOOL	Canst tell how an oyster makes his shell?
LEAR	No.
FOOL	Nor I neither; but I can tell why a snail has a house.
LEAR	Why?
FOOL	Why, to put his head in, not to give it away to his daughter and leave his horns without a case.
LEAR	I will forget my nature. So kind a father! Be my horses ready?
FOOL	Thy asses are gone about them. The reason why the seven stars are no more than seven is a pretty reason.
LEAR	Because they are not eight.
FOOL	Yes. Thou wouldst make a good fool.
LEAR	To take’t again perforce—monster ingratitude!
FOOL	If thou wert my fool, nuncle, I’d have thee beaten for being old before thy time.
LEAR	How’s that?
FOOL	Thou shouldst not have been old before thou hadst been wise.
LEAR	O, let me not be mad, sweet heaven! I would not be mad. Keep me in temper. I would not be mad.
(didascalia)	Enter a Servant
LEAR	Are the horses ready?
SERVANT	Ready, my lord.
LEAR	(to Fool) Come, boy. Exeunt Lear and Servant
FOOL	She that is maid now, and laughs at my departure, Shall not be a maid long, except things be cut shorter.
(didascalia)	Exit
FOOL	Sc. 6
(didascalia)	Enter Edmund the bastard, and Curan, meeting
EDMUND	Save thee, Curan.
CURAN	And you, sir. I have been with your father, and given him notice that the Duke of Cornwall and his duchess will be here with him tonight.
EDMUND	How comes that?
CURAN	Nay, I know not. You have heard of the news abroad?—I mean the whispered ones, for there are yet but ear-bussing arguments.
EDMUND	Not. I pray you, what are they?
CURAN	Have you heard of no likely wars towards twixt the two Dukes of Cornwall and Albany?
EDMUND	Not a word.
CURAN	You may then in time. Fare you well, sir.
(didascalia)	Exit
EDMUND	The Duke be here tonight! The better, best. This weaves itself perforce into my business.
(didascalia)	Enter Edgar at a window above
EDMUND	My father hath set guard to take my brother, And I have one thing of a queasy question Which must ask briefness. Wit and fortune help!— Brother, a word. Descend, brother, I say.
(didascalia)	Edgar climbs down
EDMUND	My father watches. O, 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 aught? He’s coming hither now, in the night, i’th’ haste, And Regan with him. Have you nothing said Upon his party against the Duke of Albany? Advise you—
EDGAR	I am sure on’t, not a word.
EDMUND	I hear my father coming. Pardon me. In cunning I must draw my sword upon you. Seem to defend yourself. Now, quit you well. (Calling) Yield, come before my father. Light here, here! (To Edgar) Fly, brother, fly! (Calling) Torches, torches! (To Edgar) So, farewell.
(didascalia)	Exit Edgar
EDMUND	Some blood drawn on me would beget opinion Of my more fierce endeavour. He wounds his arm I have seen Drunkards do more than this in sport. (Calling) Father, father! Stop, stop! Ho, help!
(didascalia)	Enter the Duke of Gloucester and others
GLOUCESTER	Now, Edmund, where is the villain?
EDMUND	Here stood he in the dark, his sharp sword out, Warbling of wicked charms, conjuring the moon To stand ’s auspicious mistress.
GLOUCESTER	But where is he?
EDMUND	Look, sir, I bleed.
GLOUCESTER	Where is the villain, Edmund?
EDMUND	Fled this way, sir, when by no means he could—
GLOUCESTER	Pursue him, go after.
(didascalia)	Exeunt others
GLOUCESTER	By no means what?
EDMUND	Persuade me to the murder of your lordship, But that I told him the revengive gods ’Gainst parricides did all their thunders bend, Spoke with how manifold and strong a bond The child was bound to the father. Sir, in fine, Seeing how loathly opposite I stood To his unnatural purpose, with fell motion, With his prepared sword he charges home My unprovided body, lanced mine arm; But when he saw my best alarumed spirits Bold in the quarrel’s rights, roused to the encounter, Or whether ghasted by the noise I made
(didascalia)	Or I know not,
EDMUND	But suddenly he fled.
GLOUCESTER	Let him fly far, Not in this land shall he remain uncaught, And found, dispatch. The noble Duke my master, My worthy arch and patron, comes tonight. By his authority I will proclaim it That he which finds him shall deserve our thanks, Bringing the murderous caitiff to the stake; He that conceals him, death.
EDMUND	When I dissuaded him from his intent And found him pitched to do it, with curst speech I threatened to discover him. He replied, ‘Thou unpossessing bastard, dost thou think If I would stand against thee, could the reposure Of any trust, virtue, or worth in thee Make thy words faithed? No, what I should deny— As this I would, ay, though thou didst produce My very character—I’d turn it all To thy suggestion, plot, and damned pretence, And thou must make a dullard of the world If they not thought the profits of my death Were very pregnant and potential spurs To make thee seek it.’
GLOUCESTER	Strong and fastened villain! Would he deny his letter? I never got him.
(didascalia)	Trumpets within
GLOUCESTER	Hark, the Duke’s trumpets. I know not why he comes. 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 note of him—and of my land, Loyal and natural boy, I’ll work the means To make thee capable.
(didascalia)	Enter the Duke
GLOUCESTER	of Cornwall and Regan
CORNWALL	How now, my noble friend? Since I came hither, Which I can call but now, I have heard strange news.
REGAN	If it be true, all vengeance comes too short Which can pursue the offender. How dost, my lord?
GLOUCESTER	Madam, my old heart is cracked, is cracked.
REGAN	What, did my father’s godson seek your life? He whom my father named, your Edgar?
GLOUCESTER	Ay, lady, lady; shame would have it hid.
REGAN	Was he not companion with the riotous knights That tend upon my father?
GLOUCESTER	I know not, madam. ’Tis too bad, too bad.
EDMUND	Yes, madam, he was.
REGAN	No marvel, then, though he were ill affected. ’Tis they have put him on the old man’s death, To have the spoil and waste of his revenues. I have this present evening from my sister Been well informed of them, and with such cautions That if they come to sojourn at my house I’ll not be there.
CORNWALL	Nor I, assure thee, Regan. Edmund, I heard that you have shown your father A childlike office.
EDMUND	’Twas my duty, sir.
GLOUCESTER	(to Cornwall) He did betray his practice, and received This hurt you see striving to apprehend him.
CORNWALL	Is he pursued?
GLOUCESTER	Ay, my good lord.
CORNWALL	If he be taken, he shall never more Be feared 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. You we first seize on.
EDMUND	I shall serve you truly, However else.
GLOUCESTER	(to Cornwall) For him I thank your grace.
CORNWALL	You know not why we came to visit you—
REGAN	This out-of-season threat’ning dark-eyed 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 least thought it fit 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.
GLOUCESTER	I serve you, madam. Your graces are right welcome.
(didascalia)	Exeunt
GLOUCESTER	Sc. 7
(didascalia)	Enter the Earl of Kent, disguised, at one door, and Oswald the steward, at another door
OSWALD	Good even to thee, friend. Art of the house?
KENT	Ay.
OSWALD	Where may we set our horses?
KENT	I’th’ mire.
OSWALD	Prithee, if thou love me, tell me.
KENT	I love thee not.
OSWALD	Why then, I care not for thee.
KENT	If I had thee in Lipsbury pinfold I would make thee care for me.
OSWALD	Why dost thou use me thus? I know thee not.
KENT	Fellow, I know thee.
OSWALD	What dost thou know me for?
KENT	A knave, a rascal, an eater of broken meats, a base, proud, shallow, beggarly, three-suited, hundred-pound, filthy worsted-stocking knave; a lily-livered, action-taking knave; a whoreson, glass-gazing, superfinical rogue; 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, whom I will beat into clamorous whining if thou deny the least syllable of the addition.
OSWALD	What a monstrous fellow art thou, thus to rail on one that’s neither known of thee nor knows thee!
KENT	What a brazen-faced varlet art thou, to deny thou knowest me! Is it two days ago since I beat thee and tripped up thy heels before the King? Draw, you rogue; for though it be night, the moon shines.
(didascalia)	He draws his sword
KENT	I’ll make a sop of the moonshine o’ you. Draw, you whoreson, cullionly barber-monger, draw!
OSWALD	Away. I have nothing to do with thee.
KENT	Draw, you rascal. You bring letters against the King, and 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!
OSWALD	Help, ho, murder, help!
KENT	Strike, you slave! Stand, rogue! Stand, you neat slave, strike!
OSWALD	Help, ho, murder, help!
(didascalia)	Enter Edmund the bastard with his rapier drawn, then the Duke of Gloucester, then the Duke of Cornwall and Regan the Duchess
(didascalia)	EDMUND parting them How now, what’s the matter?
KENT	With you, goodman boy. An you please come, I’ll flesh you. Come on, young master.
GLOUCESTER	Weapons? Arms? What’s the matter here?
CORNWALL	Keep peace, upon your lives. He dies that strikes again. What’s the matter?
REGAN	The messengers from our sister and the King.
CORNWALL	(to Kent and Oswald) What’s your difference? Speak.
OSWALD	I am scarce in breath, my lord.
KENT	No marvel, you have so bestirred your valour, you cowardly rascal. Nature disclaims in thee; a tailor made thee.
CORNWALL	Thou art a strange fellow—a tailor make a man?
KENT	Ay, a tailor, sir. A stone-cutter or a painter could not have made him so ill though he had been but two hours at the trade.
GLOUCESTER	Speak yet; how grew your quarrel?
OSWALD	This ancient ruffian, sir, whose life I have spared at suit of his grey beard—
KENT	Thou whoreson Z, thou unnecessary letter—(to Cornwall) my lord, if you’ll give me leave I will tread this unboulted villain into mortar and daub the walls of a jakes with him. (To Oswald) Spare my grey beard, you wagtail?
CORNWALL	Peace, sir. You beastly knave, have you no reverence?
KENT	Yes, sir, but anger has a privilege.
CORNWALL	Why art thou angry?
KENT	That such a slave as this should wear a sword, That wears no honesty. Such smiling rogues As these, like rats, oft bite those cords in twain Which are too entrenched to 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 With every gale and vary of their masters, Knowing naught, like dogs, but following. (To Oswald) A plague upon your epileptic visage! Smile you my speeches as I were a fool? Goose, an I had you upon Sarum Plain I’d send you cackling home to Camelot.
CORNWALL	What, art thou mad, old fellow?
(didascalia)	GLOUCESTER to Kent How fell you out? Say that.
KENT	No contraries hold more antipathy Than I and such a knave.
CORNWALL	Why dost thou call him knave? What’s his offence?
KENT	His countenance likes me not.
CORNWALL	No more perchance does mine, or his, or hers.
KENT	Sir, ’tis my occupation to be plain: I have seen better faces in my time Than stands on any shoulder that I see Before me at this instant.
CORNWALL	This is a fellow Who, having been praised for bluntness, doth affect A saucy roughness, and constrains the garb Quite from his nature. He cannot flatter, he. He must be plain, he must speak truth. An they will take’t, so; if not, he’s plain. These kind of knaves I know, which in this plainness Harbour more craft and more corrupter ends Than twenty silly-ducking observants That stretch their duties nicely.
KENT	Sir, in good sooth, or in sincere verity, Under the allowance of your grand aspect, Whose influence, like the wreath of radiant fire In flickering Phoebus’ front—
CORNWALL	What mean’st thou by this?
KENT	To go out of my dialect, which you discommend so much. I know, sir, I am no flatterer. He that beguiled you in a plain accent was a plain knave, which for my part I will not be, though I should win your displeasure to entreat me to’t.
CORNWALL	(to Oswald) What’s the offence you gave him?
OSWALD	I never gave him any. It pleased the King his master very late To strike at me upon his misconstruction, When he, conjunct, and flattering his displeasure, Tripped me behind; being down, insulted, railed, And put upon him such a deal of man that That worthied him, got praises of the King For him attempting who was self-subdued, And in the fleshment of this dread exploit Drew on me here again.
KENT	None of these rogues and cowards But Ajax is their fool.
(didascalia)	CORNWALL calling Bring forth the stocks, ho!—
KENT	You stubborn, ancient knave, you reverend braggart, We’ll teach you.
KENT	I am too old to learn. Call not your stocks for me. I serve the King, On whose employments I was sent to you. You should do small respect, show too bold malice Against the grace and person of my master, Stocking his messenger.
(didascalia)	CORNWALL calling Fetch forth the stocks!—
KENT	As I have life and honour, there shall he sit till noon.
REGAN	Till noon?—till night, my lord, and all night too.
KENT	Why, madam, if I were your father’s dog You could not use me so.
REGAN	Sir, being his knave, I will.
(didascalia)	Stocks brought out
CORNWALL	This is a fellow of the selfsame nature Our sister speaks of.—Come, bring away the stocks.
GLOUCESTER	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 purposed low correction Is such as basest and contemnèd wretches For pilf’rings and most common trespasses Are punished with. The King must take it ill That he’s so slightly valued in his messenger, Should have him thus restrained.
CORNWALL	I’ll answer that.
REGAN	My sister may receive it much more worse To have her gentlemen abused, assaulted, For following her affairs. Put in his legs. They put Kent in the stocks Come, my good lord, away!
(didascalia)	Exeunt all but Gloucester and Kent
GLOUCESTER	I am sorry for thee, friend. ’Tis the Duke’s pleasure, Whose disposition, all the world well knows, Will not be rubbed nor stopped. I’ll entreat for thee.
KENT	Pray you, do not, sir. I have watched and travelled 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.
GLOUCESTER	The Duke’s to blame in this; ’twill be ill took.
(didascalia)	Exit
KENT	Good King, that must approve the common say: Thou out of heaven’s benediction com’st To the warm sun.
(didascalia)	He takes out a letter
KENT	Approach, thou beacon to this under globe, That by thy comfortable beams I may Peruse this letter. Nothing almost sees miracles But misery. I know ’tis from Cordelia, Who hath now fortunately been informed Of my obscured course, and shall find time For this enormous state, seeking to give Losses their remedies. All weary and overwatched, Take vantage, heavy eyes, not to behold This shameful lodging. Fortune, good night; Smile; once more turn thy wheel. He sleeps
(didascalia)	Enter Edgar
EDGAR	I heard myself proclaimed, And by the happy hollow of a tree Escaped the hunt. No port is free, no place That guard and most unusual vigilance Does not attend my taking. While 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, Blanket my loins, elf all my hair with knots, And with presented nakedness outface The wind and persecution of the sky. The country gives me proof and precedent Of Bedlam beggars who with roaring voices Strike in their numbed and mortified bare arms Pins, wooden pricks, nails, sprigs of rosemary, And with this horrible object from low farms, Poor pelting villages, sheep-cotes and mills Sometime with lunatic bans, sometime with prayers Enforce their charity. ‘Poor Tuelygod, Poor Tom!’ That’s something yet. Edgar I nothing am.
(didascalia)	Exit
(didascalia)	Enter King Lear, his Fool, and a Knight
LEAR	’Tis strange that they should so depart from home And not send back my messenger.
KNIGHT	As I learned, The night before there was no purpose Of his remove.
KENT	(waking) Hail to thee, noble master.
LEAR	How! Mak’st thou this shame thy pastime?
FOOL	Ha, ha, look, he wears cruel garters! Horses are tied by the heads, 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 wooden nether-stocks.
LEAR	(to Kent) What’s he that hath so much thy place mistook To set thee here?
KENT	It is both he and she: Your son and daughter.
LEAR	No.
KENT	Yes.
LEAR	No, I say.
KENT	I say yea.
LEAR	No, no, they would not.
KENT	Yes, they have.
LEAR	By Jupiter, I swear no. They durst not do‘t, They would not, could not do’t. ’Tis worse than murder, To do upon respect such violent outrage. Resolve me with all modest haste which way Thou mayst deserve or they propose this usage, Coming from us.
KENT	My lord, when at their home I did commend your highness’ letters to them, Ere I was risen from the place that showed My duty kneeling, came there a reeking post Stewed in his haste, half breathless, panting forth From Gonoril, his mistress, salutations, Delivered letters spite of intermission, Which presently they read, on whose contents They summoned up their meiny, straight took horse, Commanded me to follow and attend The leisure of their answer, gave me cold looks; And meeting here the other messenger, Whose welcome I perceived had poisoned mine— Being the very fellow that of late Displayed so saucily against your highness— Having more man than wit about me, drew. He raised the house with loud and coward cries. Your son and daughter found this trespass worth This shame which here it suffers.
LEAR	O, how this mother swells up toward my heart! Histerica passio, down, thou climbing sorrow; Thy element’s betow.—Where is this daughter?
KENT	With the Earl, sir, within.
LEAR	Follow me not; stay there.
(didascalia)	Exit
KNIGHT	(to Kent) Made you no more offence than what you speak of?
KENT	No. How chance the King comes with so small a train?
FOOL	An thou hadst been set in the stocks for that question, thou hadst well deserved it.
KENT	Why, fool?
FOOL	We’ll set thee to school to an ant, to teach thee there’s no labouring in the winter. All that follow their noses are led by their eyes but blind men, and there’s not a nose among a hundred 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 up the hill, let him draw thee after. 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.
(didascalia)	Sings
FOOL	That sir that serves for gain And follows but for form, Will pack when it begin to rain, 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, pardie.
KENT	Where learnt you this, fool?
FOOL	Not in the stocks.
(didascalia)	Enter King Lear and the Duke of Gloucester
LEAR	Deny to speak with me? They’re sick, they’re weary? They travelled hard tonight?—mere insolence, Ay, the images of revolt and flying off. Fetch me a better answer.
GLOUCESTER	My dear lord, You know the fiery quality of the Duke, How unremovable and fixed he is In his own course.
LEAR	Vengeance, death, plague, confusion! What ‘fiery quality’? Why, Gloucester, Gloucester, I’d Speak with the Duke of Cornwall and his wife.
GLOUCESTER	Ay, my good lord.
LEAR	The King would speak with Cornwall; the dear father Would with his daughter speak, commands, tends service. ‘Fiery’? The Duke?—tell the hot Duke that Lear— No, but not yet. Maybe he is not well. Infirmity doth still neglect all office Whereto our health is bound. We are not ourselves When nature, being oppressed, commands the mind To suffer with the body. I’ll forbear, And am fallen out with my more headier will, To take the indisposed and sickly fit For the sound man.—Death on my state, Wherefore should he sit here? This act persuades me That this remotion of the Duke and her Is practice only. Give me my servant forth. Tell the Duke and ’s wife I’ll speak with them, Now, presently. Bid them come forth and hear me, Or at their chamber door I’ll beat the drum Till it cry sleep to death.
GLOUCESTER	I would have all well Betwixt you.
(didascalia)	Exit
LEAR	O, my heart, my heart!
FOOL	Cry to it, nuncle, as the cockney did to the eels when she put ‘em i’th’ paste alive. She rapped ‘em o’th’ coxcombs with a stick, and cried ‘Down, wantons, down!’ ’Twas her brother that, in pure kindness to his horse, buttered his hay.
(didascalia)	Enter the Duke of Cornwall and Regan, the Duke of Gloucester, and others
LEAR	Good morrow to you both.
CORNWALL	Hail to your grace.
(didascalia)	Kent here set at liberty
REGAN	I am glad to see your highness.
LEAR	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 shrine, Sepulchring an adultress. (To Kent) Yea, are you free? Some other time for that.—Belovèd Regan, Thy sister is naught. O, Regan, she hath tied Sharp-toothed unkindness like a vulture here. I can scarce speak to thee. Thou’lt not believe Of how deplored a quality—O, Regan!
REGAN	I pray you, sir, take patience. I have hope You less know how to value her desert Than she to slack her duty.
LEAR	My curses on her.
REGAN	O sir, you are old. Nature in you stands on the very verge Of her confine. You should be ruled and led By some discretion that discerns your state Better than you yourself. Therefore I pray That to our sister you do make return; Say you have wronged her, sir.
LEAR	Ask her forgiveness? Do you mark how this becomes the house?
(didascalia)	Kneeling ‘Dear daughter, I confess that I am old.
LEAR	Age is unnecessary. On my knees I beg That you’ll vouchsafe me raiment, bed, and food.’
REGAN	Good sir, no more. These are unsightly tricks. Return you to my sister.
(didascalia)	LEAR rising No, Regan.
REGAN	She hath abated me of half my train, Looked black upon me, struck me with her tongue Most serpent-like upon the very heart. All the stored vengeances of heaven fall On her ungrateful top! Strike her young bones, You taking airs, with lameness!
CORNWALL	Fie, fie, sir.
LEAR	You nimble lightnings, dart your blinding flames Into her scornful eyes. Infect her beauty, You fen-sucked fogs drawn by the pow’rful sun To fall and blast her pride.
REGAN	O, the blest gods! So will you wish on me when the rash mood—
LEAR	No, Regan. Thou shalt never have my curse. Thy tender-hested 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, 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. Thy half of the kingdom hast thou not forgot, Wherein I thee endowed.
REGAN	Good sir, to th’ purpose.
LEAR	Who put my man i’th’ stocks?
(didascalia)	Trumpets within
CORNWALL	What trumpet’s that?
(didascalia)	Enter Oswald the steward
REGAN	I know’t, my sister’s. This approves her letters That she would soon be here. (To Oswald) Is your lady come?
LEAR	This is a slave whose easy-borrowed pride Dwells in the fickle grace of her a follows.
(didascalia)	He strikes Oswald
LEAR	Out, varlet, from my sight!
CORNWALL	What means your grace?
(didascalia)	Enter Gonoril
GONORIL	Who struck my servant? Regan, I have good hope Thou didst not know on’t.
LEAR	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. (To Gonoril) Art not ashamed to look upon this beard? O Regan, wilt thou take her by the hand?
GONORIL	Why not by the hand, sir? How have I offended? All’s not offence that indiscretion finds And dotage terms so.
LEAR	O sides, you are too tough! Will you yet hold?—How came my man i’th’ stocks?
CORNWALL	I set him there, sir; but his own disorders Deserved much less advancement.
LEAR	You? Did you?
REGAN	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 Which shall be needful for your entertainment.
LEAR	Return to her, and fifty men dismissed? No, rather I abjure all roofs, and choose To be a comrade with the wolf and owl, To wage against the enmity of the air Necessity’s sharp pinch. Return with her? Why, the hot-blood in 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? Persuade me rather to be slave and sumpter To this detested groom.
GONORIL	At your choice, sir.
LEAR	Now I prithee, daughter, do not make me mad. I will not trouble thee, my child. Farewell. 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 lies within my flesh, Which I must needs call mine. Thou art a boil, A plague-sore, an embossed carbuncle 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. I can be patient, I can stay with Regan, I and my hundred knights.
REGAN	Not altogether so, sir. I look 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 are old, and so— But she knows what she does.
LEAR	Is this well spoken now?
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 Speaks ‘gainst so great a number? How in a house Should many people under two commands Hold amity? ’Tis hard, almost impossible.
GONORIL	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 chanced to slack you, 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 seem well favoured When others are more wicked. Not being the worst Stands in some rank of praise. (To Gonoril) I’ll go with thee. Thy fifty yet doth double five-and-twenty, And thou art twice her love.
GONORIL	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 needs 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, wearest, 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 fellow, 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. O, 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.
(didascalia)	Storm within
LEAR	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!
(didascalia)	Exeunt Lear, Gloucester, Kent, Knight, and Fool
CORNWALL	Let us withdraw. ’Twill be a storm.
REGAN	This house is little. The old man and his people Cannot be well bestowed.
GONORIL	’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.
CORNWALL	So am I purposed. Where is my lord of Gloucester?
REGAN	Followed the old man forth.
(didascalia)	Enter the Duke of Gloucester
REGAN	He is returned.
GLOUCESTER	The King is in high rage, and will I know not whither.
REGAN	’Tis good to give him way. He leads himself.
GONORIL	(to Gloucester) My lord, entreat him by no means to stay.
GLOUCESTER	Alack, the night comes on, and the bleak winds Do sorely rustle. For many miles about There’s not 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 abused, wisdom bids fear.
CORNWALL	Shut up your doors, my lord. ‘Tis a wild night. My Regan counsels well. Come out o’th’ storm. Exeunt Sc. 8
(didascalia)	Storm. Enter the Earl of Kent disguised, and First Gentleman, at several doors
KENT	What’s here, beside foul weather?
FIRST GENTLEMAN	One minded like the weather, Most unquietly.
KENT	I know you. Where’s the King?
FIRST GENTLEMAN	Contending with the fretful element; Bids the wind blow the earth into the sea Or swell the curled waters ’bove the main, That things might change or cease; tears his white hair, Which the impetuous blasts, with eyeless rage, Catch in their fury and make nothing of; Strives in his little world of man to outstorm The to-and-fro-conflicting wind and rain. This night, wherein the cub-drawn bear would couch, The lion and the belly-pinched wolf Keep their fur dry, unbonneted he runs, And bids what will take all.
KENT	But who is with him?
FIRST GENTLEMAN	None but the fool, who labours to outjest His heart-struck injuries.
KENT	Sir, I do know you, And dare upon the warrant of my art Commend a dear thing to you. There is division, Although as yet the face of it be covered With mutual cunning, ’twixt Albany and Cornwall; But true it is. From France there comes a power Into this scattered kingdom, who already, Wise in our negligence, have secret feet In some of our best ports, and are at point To show their open banner. Now to you: If on my credit you dare build so far To make your speed to Dover, you shall find Some that will thank you, making just report Of how unnatural and bemadding sorrow The King hath cause to plain. I am a gentleman of blood and breeding, And from some knowledge and assurance offer This office to you.
FIRST GENTLEMAN	I will talk farther with you.
KENT	No, do not. For confirmation that I am much more Than my out-wall, open this purse, and take What it contains. If you shall see Cordelia— As fear not but you shall—show her this ring And she will tell you who your fellow is, That yet you do not know. Fie on this storm! I will go seek the King.
FIRST GENTLEMAN	Give me your hand. Have you no more to say?
KENT	Few words, but to effect More than all yet: that when we have found the King— In which endeavour I’ll this way, you that— He that first lights on him holla the other.
(didascalia)	Exeunt severally
KENT	Sc. 9
(didascalia)	Storm. Enter King Lear and his Fool
LEAR	Blow, wind, and crack your cheeks! Rage, blow, You cataracts and hurricanoes, spout Till you have drenched the steeples, drowned the cocks! You sulphurous and thought-executing fires, Vaunt-couriers to oak-cleaving thunderbolts, Singe my white head; and thou all-shaking thunder, Smite flat the thick rotundity of the world, Crack nature’s mould, all germens spill at once That make ingrateful man.
FOOL	O nuncle, court holy water in a dry house is better than this rain-water out o’ door. Good nuncle, in, and ask thy daughters blessing. Here’s a night pities neither wise man nor fool.
LEAR	Rumble thy bellyful; spit, fire; spout, rain. Nor rain, wind, thunder, fire are my daughters. I tax not you, you elements, with unkindness. I never gave you kingdom, called you children. You owe me no subscription. Why then, let fall Your horrible pleasure. Here I stand your slave, A poor, infirm, weak and despised old man, But yet I call you servile ministers, That have with two pernicious daughters joined Your high engendered battle ‘gainst a head So old and white as this. O, ’tis foul!
FOOL	He that has a house to put his head in has a good headpiece.
(didascalia)	Sings
FOOL	The codpiece that will house Before the head has any, The head and he shall louse, So beggars marry many. The man that makes his toe What he his heart should make Shall have a corn cry woe, And turn his sleep to wake— for there was never yet fair woman but she made mouths in a glass.
LEAR	No, I will be the pattern of all patience.
(didascalia)	He sits. Enter the Earl of Kent disguised
LEAR	I will say nothing.
KENT	Who’s there?
FOOL	Marry, here’s grace and a codpiece—that’s a wise man and a fool.
KENT	(to Lear) Alas, sir, sit you here? Things that love night Love not such nights as these. The wrathful skies Gallow the very wanderers of the dark And makes them keep their caves. Since I was man Such sheets of fire, such bursts of horrid thunder, Such groans of roaring wind and rain I ne’er Remember to have heard. Man’s nature cannot carry The affliction nor the force.
LEAR	Let the great gods, That keep this dreadful pother o’er our heads, Find out their enemies now. Tremble, thou wretch That hast within thee undivulgèd crimes Unwhipped of justice; hide thee, thou bloody hand, Thou perjured and thou simular man of virtue That art incestuous; caitiff, in pieces shake, That under covert and convenient seeming Hast practised on man’s life; Close pent-up guilts, rive your concealed centres And cry these dreadful summoners grace. I am a man more sinned against than sinning.
KENT	Alack, bare-headed? Gracious my lord, hard by here is a hovel. Some friendship will it lend you ‘gainst the tempest. Repose you there whilst I to this hard house- More hard than is the stone whereof ’tis raised, Which even but now, demanding after you, Denied me to come in—return and force Their scanted courtesy.
LEAR	My wit begins to turn. (To Fool) Come on, my boy. How dost, my boy? Art cold? I am cold myself.—Where is this straw, my fellow? The art of our necessities is strange, That can make vile things precious. Come, your hovel.— Poor fool and knave, I have one part of my heart That sorrows yet for thee.
(didascalia)	FOOL sings
LEAR	He that has a little tiny wit, With heigh-ho, the wind and the rain, Must make content with his fortunes fit, For the rain it raineth every day.
LEAR	True, my good boy. (To Kent) Come, bring us to this hovel. Exeunt Sc. 10
(didascalia)	Enter the Duke of Gloucester and Edmund the bastard, with lights
GLOUCESTER	Alack, alack, Edmund, I like not this Unnatural dealing. When I desired their leave That I might pity him, they took from me The use of mine own house, charged me on pain Of their displeasure neither to speak of him, Entreat for him, nor any way sustain him.
EDMUND	Most savage and unnatural!
GLOUCESTER	Go to, say you nothing. There’s a division betwixt the Dukes, and a worse matter than that. I have received a letter this night—‘tis dangerous to be spoken—I have locked the letter in my closet. These injuries the King now bears will be revenged home. There’s part of a power already landed. We must incline to the King. I will seek him and privily relieve him. Go you and maintain talk with the Duke, that my charity be not of him perceived. If he ask for me, I am ill and gone to bed. Though I die for’t—as no less is threatened me—the King my old master must be relieved. There is some strange thing toward. Edmund, pray you be careful. Exit
EDMUND	This courtesy, forbid thee, shall the Duke Instantly know, and of that letter too. This seems a fair deserving, and must draw me That which my father loses: no less than all. The younger rises when the old do fall. Exit Sc. 11
(didascalia)	Storm. Enter King Lear, the Earl of Kent disguised, and Lear’s Fool
KENT	Here is the place, my lord. Good my lord, enter. The tyranny of the open night’s too rough For nature to endure.
LEAR	Let me alone.
KENT	Good my lord, enter here.
LEAR	Wilt break my heart?
KENT	I had rather break mine own. Good my lord, enter.
LEAR	Thou think‘st ’tis much that this contentious storm Invades us to the skin. So ‘tis to thee; But where the greater malady is fixed, The lesser is scarce felt. Thou’dst shun a bear, But if thy flight lay toward the roaring sea Thou‘dst meet the bear i’th’ mouth. When the mind’s free, The body’s delicate. This tempest in my mind Doth from my senses take all feeling else Save what beats there: filial ingratitude. Is it not as this mouth should tear this hand For lifting food to’t? But I will punish sure. No, I will weep no more.— In such a night as this! O Regan, Gonoril, Your old kind father, whose frank heart gave you all— O, that way madness lies. Let me shun that. No more of that.
KENT	Good my lord, enter.
LEAR	Prithee, go in thyself. Seek thy own ease. This tempest will not give me leave to ponder On things would hurt me more; but I’ll go in.
(didascalia)	Exit Fool
LEAR	Poor naked wretches, wheresoe‘er you are, That bide the pelting of this pitiless night, How shall your houseless heads and unfed sides, Your looped and windowed raggedness, defend you From seasons such as these? O, I have ta’en Too little care of this. Take physic, pomp, Expose thyself to feel what wretches feel, That thou mayst shake the superflux to them And show the heavens more just.
(didascalia)	Enter Lear’s Fool
FOOL	Come not in here, nuncle; here’s a spirit. Help me, help me!
KENT	Give me thy hand. Who’s there?
FOOL	A spirit. He says his name’s Poor Tom.
KENT	What art thou that dost grumble there in the straw? Come forth.
(didascalia)	Enter Edgar as a Bedlam beggar
EDGAR	Away, the foul fiend follows me. Through the sharp hawthorn blows the cold wind. Go to thy cold bed and warm thee.
LEAR	Hast thou given all to thy two daughters, And art thou come to this?
EDGAR	Who gives anything to Poor Tom, whom the foul fiend hath led through fire and through ford and whirlypool, o’er bog and quagmire; that has laid knives under his pillow and halters in his pew, set ratsbane by his potage, made him proud of heart to ride on a bay trotting-horse over four-inched bridges, to course his own shadow for a traitor. Bless thy five wits, Tom’s a-cold! Bless thee from whirlwinds, star-blasting, and taking. Do Poor Tom some charity, whom the foul fiend vexes. There could I have him, now, and there, and there again.
LEAR	What, has his daughters brought him to this pass? (To Edgar) Couldst thou save nothing? Didst thou give them all?
FOOL	Nay, he reserved a blanket, else we had been all shamed.
LEAR	(to Edgar) Now all the plagues that in the pendulous air Hang fated o’er men’s faults fall on thy daughters!
KENT	He hath no daughters, sir.
LEAR	Death, traitor! Nothing could have subdued nature To such a lowness but his unkind daughters. (To Edgar) Is it the fashion that discarded fathers Should have thus little mercy on their flesh? Judicious punishment: ’twas this flesh begot Those pelican daughters.
EDGAR	Pillicock sat on pillicock’s hill; a lo, lo, lo.
FOOL	This cold night will turn us all to fools and madmen.
EDGAR	Take heed o’th’ foul fiend; obey thy parents; keep thy word justly; swear not; commit not with man’s sworn spouse: set not thy sweet heart on proud array. Tom’s a-cold.
LEAR	What hast thou been?
EDGAR	A servingman, proud in heart and mind, that curled my hair, wore gloves in my cap, served the lust of my mistress’ heart, and did the act of darkness with her; swore as many oaths as I spake words, and broke them in the sweet face of heaven; one that slept in the contriving of lust, and waked to do it. Wine loved I deeply, dice dearly, and in woman out-paramoured the Turk. False of heart, light of ear, bloody of hand; hog in sloth, fox in stealth, wolf in greediness, dog in madness, lion in prey. Let not the creaking of shoes nor the rustlings of silks betray thy poor heart to women. Keep thy foot out of brothel, thy hand out of placket, thy pen from lender’s book, and defy the foul fiend. Still through the hawthorn blows the cold wind. Heigh no nonny. Dolphin, my boy, my boy! Cease, let him trot by.
LEAR	Why, thou wert better in thy grave than to answer with thy uncovered body this extremity of the skies. Is man no more but this? Consider him well. Thou owest the worm no silk, the beast no hide, the sheep no wool, the cat no perfume. Here’s three on ’s are sophisticated; thou art the thing itself. Unaccommodated man is no more but such a poor, bare, forked animal as thou art. Off, off, you lendings! Come on, be true.
FOOL	Prithee, nuncle, be content. This is a naughty night to swim in. Now a little fire in a wild field were like an old lecher’s heart—a small spark, all the rest on ’s body cold. Look, here comes a walking fire.
(didascalia)	Enter the Duke of Gloucester with a torch
EDGAR	This is the foul fiend Flibbertigibbet. He begins at curfew and walks till the first cock. He gives the web and the pin, squinies the eye, and makes the harelip; mildews the white wheat, and hurts the poor creature of earth.
(didascalia)	Sings
EDGAR	Swithin footed thrice the wold, A met the night mare and her nine foal; Bid her alight And her troth plight, And aroint thee, witch, aroint thee!
KENT	(to Lear) How fares your grace?
LEAR	What’s he?
KENT	(to Gloucester) Who’s there? What is’t you seek?
GLOUCESTER	What are you there? Your names?
EDGAR	Poor Tom, that eats the swimming frog, the toad, the tadpole, the wall-newt and the water; that in the fury of his heart, when the foul fiend rages, eats cowdung for salads, swallows the old rat and the ditch-dog, drinks the green mantle of the standing pool; who is whipped from tithing to tithing, and stock-punished, and imprisoned; who hath had three suits to his back, six shirts to his body, Horse to ride, and weapon to wear. But mice and rats and such small deer Hath been Tom’s food for seven long year- Beware my follower. Peace, Smolking; peace, thou fiend!
GLOUCESTER	(to Lear) What, hath your grace no better company?
EDGAR	The Prince of Darkness is a gentleman; Modo he’s called, and Mahu—
GLOUCESTER	(to Lear) Our flesh and blood is grown so vile, my lord, That it doth hate what gets it.
EDGAR	Poor Tom’s a-cold.
GLOUCESTER	(to Lear) Go in with me. My duty cannot suffer To obey in all your daughters’ hard commands. Though their injunction be to bar my doors And let this tyrannous night take hold upon you, Yet have I ventured to come seek you out And bring you where both food and fire is ready.
LEAR	First let me talk with this philosopher. (To Edgar) What is the cause of thunder?
KENT	My good lord, Take his offer; go into the house.
LEAR	I’ll talk a word with this most learnèd Theban. (To Edgar) What is your study?
EDGAR	How to prevent the fiend, and to kill vermin.
LEAR	Let me ask you one word in private. They converse apart
KENT	(to Gloucester) Importune him to go, my lord. His wits begin to unsettle.
GLOUCESTER	Canst thou blame him? His daughters seek his death. O, that good Kent, He said it would be thus, poor banished man! Thou sayst the King grows mad; I’ll tell thee, friend, I am almost mad myself. I had a son, Now outlawed from my blood; a sought my life But lately, very late. I loved him, friend; No father his son dearer. True to tell thee, The grief hath crazed my wits. What a night’s this! (To Lear) I do beseech your grace—
LEAR	O, cry you mercy. (To Edgar) Noble philosopher, your company.
EDGAR	Tom’s a-cold.
GLOUCESTER	In, fellow, there in t’hovel; keep thee warm.
LEAR	Come, let’s in all.
KENT	This way, my lord.
LEAR	With him! I will keep still with my philosopher.
KENT	(to Gloucester) Good my lord, soothe him; let him take the fellow.
GLOUCESTER	Take him you on.
(didascalia)	KENT to Edgar
GLOUCESTER	Sirrah, come on. Go along with us.
LEAR	(to Edgar) Come, good Athenian.
GLOUCESTER	No words, no words. Hush.
EDGAR	Child Roland to the dark tower come, His word was still ‘Fie, fo, and fum; I smell the blood of a British man.’
(didascalia)	Exeunt
EDGAR	Sc. 12
(didascalia)	Enter the Duke of Cornwall and Edmund the bastard
CORNWALL	I will have my revenge ere I depart the house. EDMUND How, my lord, I may be censured, that nature thus gives way to loyalty, something fears me to think of.
CORNWALL	I now perceive it was not altogether your brother’s evil disposition made him seek his death, but a provoking merit set a-work by a reprovable badness in himself.
EDMUND	How malicious is my fortune, that I must repent to be just! This is the letter he spoke of, which approves him an intelligent party to the advantages of France. O heavens, that his treason were not, or not I the detector!
CORNWALL	Go with me to the Duchess.
EDMUND	If the matter of this paper be certain, you have mighty business in hand.
CORNWALL	True or false, it hath made thee Earl of Gloucester. Seek out where thy father is, that he may be ready for our apprehension.
(didascalia)	EDMUND aside If I find him comforting the King, it will stuff his suspicion more fully. (To Cornwall) I will persever in my course of loyalty, though the conflict be sore between that and my blood.
CORNWALL	I will lay trust upon thee, and thou shalt find a dearer father in my love. Exeunt Sc. 13
(didascalia)	Enter the Duke of Gloucester and King Lear, the Earl of Kent disguised, Lear’s Fool, and Edgar as a Bedlam beggar
GLOUCESTER	Here is better than the open air; take it thankfully. I will piece out the comfort with what addition I can. I will not be long from you.
(didascalia)	KENT All the power of his wits have given way to impatience; the gods discern your kindness! Exit Gloucester
EDGAR	Frateretto calls me, and tells me Nero is an angler in the lake of darkness. Pray, innocent; beware the foul fiend.
FOOL	(to Lear) Prithee, nuncle, tell me whether a madman be a gentleman or a yeoman.
LEAR	A king, a king! To have a thousand With red burning spits come hissing in upon them!
EDGAR	The foul fiend bites my back.
FOOL	(to Lear) He’s mad that trusts in the tameness of a wolf, a horse’s health, a boy’s love, or a whore’s oath.
LEAR	It shall be done. I will arraign them straight.
(didascalia)	To Edgar Come, sit thou here, most learned justicer.
(didascalia)	To Fool Thou sapient sir, sit here.—No, you she-
LEAR	foxes—
EDGAR	Look where he stands and glares. Want’st thou eyes at troll-madam?
(didascalia)	Sings Come o’er the burn, Bessy, to me.
(didascalia)	FOOL sings
EDGAR	Her boat hath a leak, And she must not speak Why she dares not come over to thee.
EDGAR	The foul fiend haunts Poor Tom in the voice of a nightingale. Hoppedance cries in Tom’s belly for two white herring. Croak not, black angel: I have no food for thee.
KENT	(to Lear) How do you, sir? Stand you not so amazed. Will you lie down and rest upon the cushions?
LEAR	I’ll see their trial first. Bring in the evidence.
(didascalia)	To Edgar Thou robed man of justice, take thy place;
(didascalia)	To Fool And thou, his yokefellow of equity,
(didascalia)	Bench by his side. To Kent You are o’th’
LEAR	commission, Sit you, too.
EDGAR	Let us deal justly.
(didascalia)	Sings
EDGAR	Sleepest or wakest thou, jolly shepherd? Thy sheep be in the corn, And for one blast of thy minikin mouth Thy sheep shall take no harm. Purr, the cat is grey.
LEAR	Arraign her first. ’Tis Gonoril. I here take my oath before this honourable assembly she kicked the poor King her father.
FOOL	Come hither, mistress. Is your name Gonoril?
LEAR	She cannot deny it.
FOOL	Cry you mercy, I took you for a join-stool.
LEAR	And here’s another, whose warped looks proclaim What store her heart is made on. Stop her there. Arms, arms, sword, fire, corruption in the place! False justicer, why hast thou let her scape?
EDGAR	Bless thy five wits.
KENT	(to Lear) O pity! Sir, where is the patience now That you so oft have boasted to retain?
EDGAR	(aside) My tears begin to take his part so much They’ll mar my counterfeiting.
LEAR	The little dogs and all, Tray, Blanch, and Sweetheart—see, they bark at me.
EDGAR	Tom will throw his head at them.—Avaunt, you curs! Be thy mouth or black or white, Tooth that poisons if it bite, Mastiff, greyhound, mongrel grim, Hound or spaniel, brach or him, Bobtail tyke or trundle-tail, Tom will make them weep and wail; For with throwing thus my head, Dogs leap the hatch, and all are fled. Loudla, doodla! Come, march to wakes and fairs And market towns. Poor Tom, thy horn is dry.
LEAR	Then let them anatomize Regan; see what breeds about her heart. Is there any cause in nature that makes this hardness? (To Edgar) You, sir, I entertain you for one of my hundred, only I do not like the fashion of your garments. You’ll say they are Persian attire; but let them be changed.
KENT	Now, good my lord, lie here a while.
LEAR	Make no noise, make no noise. Draw the curtains. So, so, so. We’ll go to supper i’th’ morning. So, so, so. He sleeps. Enter the Duke of Gloucester
GLOUCESTER	(to Kent) Come hither, friend. Where is the King my master?
KENT	Here, sir, but trouble him not; his wits are gone.
GLOUCESTER	Good friend, I prithee take him in thy arms. I have o’erheard a plot of death upon him. 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, Stand in assured loss. Take up, take up, And follow me, that will to some provision Give thee quick conduct.
KENT	(to Lear) Oppressed nature sleeps. This rest might yet have balmed thy broken sinews Which, if convenience will not allow, Stand in hard cure. (To Fool) Come, help to bear thy master. Thou must not stay behind.
GLOUCESTER	Come, come away.
(didascalia)	Exeunt all but Edgar
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 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 When false opinion, whose wrong thoughts defile thee, In thy just proof repeals and reconciles thee. What will hap more tonight, safe scape the King! Lurk, lurk.
(didascalia)	Exit
EDGAR	Sc. 14
(didascalia)	Enter the Duke of Cornwall and Regan, and Gonoril and Edmund the bastard, and Servants
CORNWALL	(to Gonoril) Post speedily to my lord your husband. Show him this letter. The army of France is landed. (To Servants) Seek out the villain Gloucester.
(didascalia)	Exeunt some
REGAN	Hang him instantly.
GONORIL	Pluck out his eyes.
CORNWALL	Leave him to my displeasure.— Edmund, keep you our sister company. The revenges we are bound to take upon your traitorous father are not fit for your beholding. Advise the Duke where you are going, to a most festinate preparation; we are bound to the like. Our posts shall be swift, and intelligence betwixt us.— Farewell, dear sister. Farewell, my lord of Gloucester.
(didascalia)	Enter Oswald the steward
CORNWALL	How now, where’s the King?
OSWALD	My lord of Gloucester hath conveyed him hence. Some five- or six-and-thirty of his knights, Hot questants after him, met him at gate, Who, with some other of the lord’s dependants, Are gone with him towards Dover, where they boast To have well-armed friends.
CORNWALL	Get horses for your mistress. Exit Oswald
GONORIL	Farewell, sweet lord, and sister.
CORNWALL	Edmund, farewell. Exeunt Gonoril and Edmund (To Servants) Go seek the traitor Gloucester. Pinion him like a thief; bring him before us.
(didascalia)	Exeunt other Servants
CORNWALL	Though we may not pass upon his life Without the form of justice, yet our power Shall do a curtsy to our wrath, which men May blame but not control. Who’s there—the traitor?
(didascalia)	Enter the Duke of Gloucester brought in by two or
CORNWALL	three
REGAN	Ingrateful fox, ’tis he.
CORNWALL	(to Servants) Bind fast his corky arms.
GLOUCESTER	What means your graces? Good my friends, consider You are my guests. Do me no foul play, friends.
CORNWALL	(to Servants) Bind him, I say—
REGAN	Hard, hard! O filthy traitor!
GLOUCESTER	Unmerciful lady as you are, I am true.
CORNWALL	(to Servants) To this chair bind him. (To Gloucester) Villain, thou shalt find— Regan plucks Gloucester’s beard
GLOUCESTER	By the kind gods, ’tis most ignobly done, To pluck me by the beard.
REGAN	So white, and such a traitor!
GLOUCESTER	Naughty lady, These hairs which thou dost ravish from my chin Will quicken and accuse thee. I am your host. With robbers’ hands my hospitable favours You should not ruffle thus. What will you do?
CORNWALL	Come, sir, what letters had you late from France?
REGAN	Be simple, answerer, for we know the truth.
CORNWALL	And what confederacy have you with the traitors Late footed in the kingdom?
REGAN	To whose hands You have sent the lunatic King. Speak.
GLOUCESTER	I have a letter guessingly set down, Which came from one that’s of a neutral heart, And not from one opposed.
CORNWALL	Cunning.
REGAN	And false.
CORNWALL	Where hast thou sent the King?
GLOUCESTER	To Dover.
REGAN	Wherefore to Dover? Wast thou not charged at peril—
CORNWALL	Wherefore to Dover? Let him first answer that.
GLOUCESTER	I am tied to th’ stake, and I must stand the course.
REGAN	Wherefore to Dover, sir?
GLOUCESTER	Because I would not see thy cruel nails Pluck out his poor old eyes, nor thy fierce sister In his anointed flesh rash boarish fangs. The sea, with such a storm as his bowed head In hell-black night endured, would have buoyed up And quenched the stellèd fires. Yet, poor old heart, He holped the heavens to rage. If wolves had at thy gate howled that dern time, Thou shouldst have said ‘Good porter, turn the key; All cruels I’ll subscribe.’ But I shall see The winged vengeance overtake such children.
CORNWALL	See’t shalt thou never.—Fellows, hold the chair.— Upon those eyes of thine I’ll set my foot.
GLOUCESTER	He that will think to live till he be old Give me some help!—O cruel! O ye gods!
(didascalia)	Cornwall pulls out one of Gloucester’s eyes and
(didascalia)	stamps on it
REGAN	(to Cornwall) One side will mock another; t’other, too.
CORNWALL	(to Gloucester) If you see vengeance—
SERVANT	Hold your hand, my lord. I have served you ever since I was a child, But better service have I never done you Than now to bid you hold.
REGAN	How now, you dog!
SERVANT	If you did wear a beard upon your chin
(didascalia)	I’d shake it on this quarrel. To Cornwall What do
SERVANT	you mean?
CORNWALL	My villein!
SERVANT	Why then, come on, and take the chance of anger. They draw and fight
(didascalia)	REGAN to another Servant
SERVANT	Give me thy sword. A peasant stand up thus! She takes a sword and runs at him behind
SERVANT	(to Gloucester) O, I am slain, my lord! Yet have you one eye left To see some mischief on him.
(didascalia)	Regan stabs him again
SERVANT	O! He dies
CORNWALL	Lest it see more, prevent it. Out, vile jelly!
(didascalia)	He pulls out Gloucester’s other eye
CORNWALL	Where is thy lustre now?
GLOUCESTER	All dark and comfortless. Where’s my son Edmund? Edmund, enkindle all the sparks of nature To quite this horrid act.
REGAN	Out, villain! Thou call’st on him that hates thee. It was he That made the overture of thy treasons to us, Who is too good to pity thee.
GLOUCESTER	O, my follies! Then Edgar was abused. Kind gods, forgive me that, and prosper him!
REGAN	(to Servants) Go thrust him out at gates, and let him smell His way to Dover. (To Cornwall) How is’t, my lord? How look you?
CORNWALL	I have received a hurt. Follow me, lady. (To Servants) Turn out that eyeless villain. Throw this slave Upon the dunghill.
(didascalia)	Exit one or more with Gloucester
(didascalia)	and the body
CORNWALL	Regan, I bleed apace. Untimely comes this hurt. Give me your arm.
(didascalia)	Exeunt Cornwall and Regan
SECOND SERVANT	I’ll never care what wickedness I do If this man come to good.
THIRD SERVANT	If she live long And in the end meet the old course of death, Women will all turn monsters.
SECOND SERVANT	Let’s follow the old Earl and get the bedlam To lead him where he would. His roguish madness Allows itself to anything.
THIRD SERVANT	Go thou. I’ll fetch some flax and whites of eggs To apply to his bleeding face. Now heaven help him!
(didascalia)	Exeunt severally
THIRD SERVANT	Sc. 15
(didascalia)	Enter Edgar as a Bedlam beggar
EDGAR	Yet better thus and known to be contemned Than still contemned and flattered. To be worst, The low’st and most dejected thing of fortune, Stands still in esperance, lives not in fear. The lamentable change is from the best; The worst returns to laughter.
(didascalia)	Enter the Duke of Gloucester led by an Old Man
EDGAR	Who’s here? My father, parti-eyed? World, world, O world! But that thy strange mutations make us hate thee, Life would not yield to age.
(didascalia)	Edgar stands aside
OLD MAN	(to Gloucester) O my good lord, I have been your tenant and your father’s tenant This fourscore—
GLOUCESTER	Away, get thee away, good friend, be gone. Thy comforts can do me no good at all; Thee they may hurt.
OLD MAN	Alack, sir, you cannot see your way.
GLOUCESTER	I have no way, and therefore want no eyes. I stumbled when I saw. Full oft ’tis seen Our means secure us, and our mere defects Prove our commodities. Ah dear son Edgar, The food of thy abused father’s wrath— Might I but live to see thee in my touch I’d say I had eyes again.
OLD MAN	How now? Who’s there?
EDGAR	(aside) O gods! Who is’t can say ‘I am at the worst? I am worse than e’er I was.
OLD MAN	’Tis poor mad Tom.
EDGAR	(aside) And worse I may be yet. The worst is not As long as we can say ‘This is the worst.’
OLD MAN	(to Edgar) Fellow, where goest?
GLOUCESTER	Is it a beggarman?
OLD MAN	Madman and beggar too.
GLOUCESTER	A has some reason, else he could not beg. In the last night’s storm I such a fellow saw, Which made me think a man a worm. My son Came then into my mind, and yet my mind Was then scarce friends with him. I have heard more since. As flies to wanton boys are we to th’ gods; They kill us for their sport.
EDGAR	(aside) How should this be? Bad is the trade that must play fool to sorrow, Ang’ring itself and others.
(didascalia)	He comes forward
EDGAR	Bless thee, master.
GLOUCESTER	Is that the naked fellow?
OLD MAN	Ay, my lord.
GLOUCESTER	Then prithee, get thee gone. If for my sake Thou wilt o‘ertake us hence a mile or twain I’th’ way toward Dover, do it for ancient love, And bring some covering for this naked soul, Who I’ll entreat to lead me.
OLD MAN	Alack, sir, he is mad.
GLOUCESTER	’Tis the time’s plague when madmen lead the blind. Do as I bid thee; or rather do thy pleasure. Above the rest, be gone.
OLD MAN	I’ll bring him the best ’parel that I have, Come on’t what will. Exit
GLOUCESTER	Sirrah, naked fellow!
EDGAR	Poor Tom’s a-cold. I cannot dance it farther.
GLOUCESTER	Come hither, fellow.
EDGAR	Bless thy sweet eyes, they bleed.
GLOUCESTER	Know’st thou the way to Dover?
EDGAR	Both stile and gate, horseway and footpath. Poor Tom hath been scared out of his good wits. Bless thee, goodman, from the foul fiend. Five fiends have been in Poor Tom at once, as Obidicut of lust, Hobbididence prince of dumbness, Mahu of stealing, Modo of murder, Flibbertigibbet of mocking and mowing, who since possesses chambermaids and waiting-women. So bless thee, master.
GLOUCESTER	Here, take this purse, thou whom the heavens’ plagues Have humbled to all strokes. That I am wretched Makes thee the happier. Heavens deal so still. Let the superfluous and lust-dieted man That stands your ordinance, that will not see Because he does not feel, feel your power quickly. So distribution should undo excess, And each man have enough. Dost thou know Dover?
EDGAR	Ay, master.
GLOUCESTER	There is a cliff whose high and bending head Looks saucily in the confined deep. Bring me but to the very brim of it And I’ll repair the misery thou dost bear With something rich about me. From that place I shall no leading need.
EDGAR	Give me thy arm. Poor Tom shall lead thee.
(didascalia)	Exit Edgar guiding Gloucester
EDGAR	Sc. 16
(didascalia)	Enter at one door Gonoril and Edmund the bastard
GONORIL	Welcome, my lord. I marvel our mild husband Not met us on the way.
(didascalia)	Enter at another door Oswald the steward
GONORIL	Now, where’s your master?
OSWALD	Madam, within; but never man so changed. I told him of the army that was landed; He smiled at it. I told him you were coming; His answer was ‘The worse.’ Of Gloucester’s treachery And of the loyal service of his son When I informed him, then he called me sot, And told me I had turned the wrong side out. What he should most defy seems pleasant to him; What like, offensive.
GONORIL	(to Edmund) Then shall you go no further. It is the cowish terror of his spirit That dares not undertake. He’ll not feel wrongs Which tie him to an answer. Our wishes on the way May prove effects. Back, Edmund, to my brother. Hasten his musters and conduct his powers. I must change arms at home, and give the distaff Into my husband’s hands. This trusty servant Shall pass between us. Ere long you are like to hear, If you dare venture in your own behalf, A mistress’s command. Wear this. Spare speech. Decline your head. This kiss, if it durst speak, Would stretch thy spirits up into the air.
(didascalia)	she kisses him
GONORIL	Conceive, and fare you well.
EDMUND	Yours in the ranks of death.
GONORIL	My most dear Gloucester.
(didascalia)	Exit Edmund
GONORIL	To thee a woman’s services are due; My foot usurps my body.
OSWALD	Madam, here comes my lord.
(didascalia)	Exit
(didascalia)	Enter the Duke of Albany
GONORIL	I have been worth the whistling.
ALBANY	O Gonoril, You are not worth the dust which the rude wind Blows in your face. I fear your disposition. That nature which contemns it origin Cannot be bordered certain in itself. She that herself will sliver and disbranch From her material sap perforce must wither, And come to deadly use.
GONORIL	No more. The text is foolish.
ALBANY	Wisdom and goodness to the vile seem vile; Filths savour but themselves. What have you done? Tigers, not daughters, what have you performed? A father, and a gracious, aged man, Whose reverence even the head-lugged bear would lick, Most barbarous, most degenerate, have you madded. Could my good-brother suffer you to do it— A man, a prince by him so benefacted? If that the heavens do not their visible spirits Send quickly down to tame these vile offences, It will come, Humanity must perforce prey on itself, Like monsters of the deep.
GONORIL	Milk-livered man, That bear‘st a cheek for blows, a head for wrongs; Who hast not in thy brows an eye discerning Thine honour from thy suffering; that not know’st Fools do those villains pity who are punished Ere they have done their mischief: where’s thy drum? France spreads his banners in our noiseless land, With plumed helm thy flaxen biggin threats, Whiles thou, a moral fool, sits still and cries ‘Alack, why does he so?’
ALBANY	See thyself, devil. Proper deformity shows not in the fiend So horrid as in woman.
GONORIL	O vain fool! 60
ALBANY	Thou changed and self-covered thing, for shame Bemonster not thy feature. Were’t my fitness To let these hands obey my blood, They are apt enough to dislocate and tear Thy flesh and bones. Howe’er thou art a fiend, A woman’s shape doth shield thee.
GONORIL	Marry your manhood, mew—
(didascalia)	Enter Second Gentleman
ALBANY	What news?
(didascalia)	SECOND GENTLEMAN
ALBANY	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?
(didascalia)	FSECOND GENTLEMAN
ALBANY	A servant that he bred, thralled with remorse, Opposed against the act, bending his sword To his great master, who thereat enraged Flew on him, and amongst them felled him dead, But not without that harmful stroke which since Hath plucked him after.
ALBANY	This shows you are above, You justicers, that these our nether crimes So speedily can venge. But O, poor Gloucester! Lost he his other eye?
(didascalia)	SECOND GENTLEMAN Both, both, my lord. 80
ALBANY	(To Gonoril) This letter, madam, craves a speedy answer. ’Tis from your sister.
GONORIL	(aside) One way I like this well; But being widow, and my Gloucester with her, May all the building on my fancy pluck Upon my hateful life. Another way The news is not so took.—I’ll read and answer. Exit
ALBANY	Where was his son when they did take his eyes?
(didascalia)	ECONDGENTLEMAN
ALBANY	Come with my lady hither.
ALBANY	He is not here.
(didascalia)	ECONDGENTLEMAN
ALBANY	No, my good lord; I met him back again.
ALBANY	Knows he the wickedness? 90
(didascalia)	ECONDGENTLEMAN
ALBANY	Ay, my good lord; ’twas he informed against him, And quit the house on purpose that their punishment Might have the freer course.
ALBANY	Gloucester, I live To thank thee for the love thou showed’st the King, And to revenge thy eyes.—Come hither, friend Tell me what more thou knowest. Exeunt Sc. 17
(didascalia)	Enter the Earl of Kent disguised, and First Gentleman
KENT	Why the King of France is so suddenly gone back know you no reason?
(didascalia)	FIRST GENTLEMAN
KENT	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?
(didascalia)	IRST NTLEMAN
KENT	The Maréchal of France, Monsieur la Far.
KENT	Did your letters pierce the Queen to any demonstration of grief? II
(didascalia)	IRST ENTLEMAN
KENT	Ay, sir. She took them, read them in my presence, And now and then an ample tear trilled down Her delicate cheek. It seemed she was a queen Over her passion who, most rebel-like, Sought to be king o’er her.
KENT	O, then it moved her.
(didascalia)	IRSTGENTLEMAN
KENT	Not to a rage. Patience and sorrow strove Who should express her goodliest. You have seen Sunshine and rain at once; her smiles and tears Were like, a better way. Those happy smilets That played on her ripe lip seemed not to know What guests were in her eyes, which parted thence As pearls from diamonds dropped. In brief, Sorrow would be a rarity most beloved If all could so become it.
KENT	Made she no verbal question?
(didascalia)	IRST ENTLEMAN
KENT	Faith, once or twice she heaved the name of ‘father’ Pantingly forth as if it pressed her heart, Cried ‘Sisters, sisters, shame of ladies, sisters, Kent, father, sisters, what, i‘th’ storm, i’th’ night, Let piety not be believed!’ There she shook The holy water from her heavenly eyes And clamour mastered, then away she started To deal with grief alone.
KENT	It is the stars, The stars above us govern our conditions, Else one self mate and make could not beget Such different issues. You spoke not with her since?
(didascalia)	IRST ENTLEMAN No.
KENT	Was this before the King returned?
(didascalia)	IRST ENTLEMAN No, since.
KENT	Well, sir, the poor distressed Lear’s i’th’ town, Who sometime in his better tune remembers What we are come about, and by no means Will yield to see his daughter.
(didascalia)	IRST NTLEMAN Why, good sir?
KENT	A sovereign shame so elbows him: his own unkindness, That stripped her from his benediction, turned her To foreign casualties, gave her dear rights To his dog-hearted daughters—these things sting His mind so venomously that burning shame Detains him from Cordelia.
(didascalia)	IRST ENTLEMAN Alack, poor gentleman!
KENT	Of Albany’s and Cornwall’s powers you heard not?
(didascalia)	IRST ENTLEMAN ’Tis so; they are afoot.
KENT	Well, sir, I’ll bring you to our master Lear, And leave you to attend him. Some dear cause Will in concealment wrap me up a while. When I am known aright you shall not grieve Lending me this acquaintance. I pray you go Along with me. Exeunt Sc. 18
(didascalia)	Enter Queen Cordelia, a Doctor, and others
CORDELIA	Alack, ’tis he! Why, he was met even now, As mad as the racked sea, singing aloud, Crowned with rank fumitor and furrow-weeds, With burdocks, hemlock, nettles, cuckoo-flowers, Darnel, and all the idle weeds that grow In our sustaining corn. The centuries send forth. Search every acre in the high-grown field, And bring him to our eye.
(didascalia)	Exit one or more
CORDELIA	What can man’s wisdom In the restoring his bereaved sense, He that can help him Take all my outward worth.
DOCTOR	There is means, madam. Our foster-nurse of nature is repose, The which he lacks. That to provoke in him Are many simples operative, whose power Will close the eye of anguish.
CORDELIA	All blest secrets, All you unpublished virtues of the earth, Spring with my tears, be aidant and remediate In the good man’s distress!—Seek, seek for him, Lest his ungoverned rage dissolve the life That wants the means to lead it.
(didascalia)	Enter a Messenger
MESSENGER	News, madam. The British powers are marching hitherward.
CORDELIA	’Tis known before; our preparation stands In expectation of them.—O dear father, It is thy business that I go about; Therefore great France My mourning and important tears hath pitied. No blown ambition doth our arms incite, But love, dear love, and our aged father’s right. Soon may I hear and see him! Exeunt Sc. 19
(didascalia)	Enter Regan and Oswald, Gonoril’s steward
REGAN	But are my brother’s powers set forth?
OSWALD	Ay, madam.
REGAN	Himself in person?
OSWALD	Madam, with much ado. Your sister is the better soldier.
REGAN	Lord Edmund spake not with your lord at home?
OSWALD	No, madam.
REGAN	What might import my sister’s letters to him?
OSWALD	I know not, lady.
REGAN	Faith, he is posted hence on serious matter. It was great ignorance, Gloucester’s eyes being out, To let him live. Where he arrives he moves All hearts against us. Edmund, I think, is gone, In pity of his misery, to dispatch His ‘nighted life, moreover to descry The strength o’th’ army.
OSWALD	I must needs after with my letters, madam.
REGAN	Our troop sets forth tomorrow. Stay with us. The ways are dangerous.
OSWALD	I may not, madam. My lady charged my duty in this business.
REGAN	Why should she write to Edmund? Might not you Transport her purposes by word? Belike— Something, I know not what. I’ll love thee much: Let me unseal the letter.
OSWALD	Madam, I’d rather—
REGAN	I know your lady does not love her husband. I am sure of that, and at her late being here She gave strange oeillades and most speaking looks To noble Edmund. I know you are of her bosom.
OSWALD	I, madam?
REGAN	I speak in understanding, for I know’t. Therefore I do advise you take this note. My lord is dead. Edmund and I have talked, And more convenient is he for my hand Than for your lady’s. You may gather more. If you do find him, pray you give him this, And when your mistress hears thus much from you, I pray desire her call her wisdom to her. So, farewell. If you do chance to hear of that blind traitor, Preferment falls on him that cuts him off.
OSWALD	Would I could meet him, madam. I would show What lady I do follow.
REGAN	Fare thee well. Exeunt severally Sc. 20
(didascalia)	Enter Edgar disguised as a peasant, with a staff, guiding the blind Duke of Gloucester
GLOUCESTER	When shall we come to th’ top of that same hill?
EDGAR	You do climb up it now. Look how we labour.
GLOUCESTER	Methinks the ground is even.
EDGAR	Horrible steep. Hark, do you hear the sea?
GLOUCESTER	No, truly.
EDGAR	Why, then your other senses grow imperfect By your eyes’ anguish.
GLOUCESTER	So may it be indeed. Methinks thy voice is altered, and thou speak’st With better phrase and matter than thou didst.
EDGAR	You’re much deceived. In nothing am I changed But in my garments.
GLOUCESTER	Methinks you’re better spoken.
EDGAR	Come on, sir, here’s the place. Stand still. How fearful And dizzy ’tis to cast one’s eyes so low! The crows and choughs that wing the midway air Show scarce so gross as beetles. Halfway down Hangs one that gathers samphire, dreadful trade! Methinks he seems no bigger than his head. The fishermen that walk upon the beach Appear like mice, and yon tall anchoring barque Diminished to her cock, her cock a buoy Almost too small for sight. The murmuring surge That on the unnumbered idle pebble chafes Cannot be heard, it’s so high. I’ll look no more, Lest my brain turn and the deficient sight Topple down headlong.
GLOUCESTER	Set me where you stand.
EDGAR	Give me your hand. You are now within a foot Of th’extreme verge. For all beneath the moon Would I not leap upright.
GLOUCESTER	Let go my hand. Here, friend, ’s another purse; in it a jewel Well worth a poor man’s taking. Fairies and gods Prosper it with thee! Go thou farther off. Bid me farewell, and let me hear thee going.
EDGAR	Now fare you well, good sir. He stands aside
GLOUCESTER	With all my heart.
EDGAR	(aside) Why I do trifle thus with his despair Is done to cure it.
GLOUCESTER	O you mighty gods, He kneels This world I do renounce, and in your sights Shake patiently my great affliction off! If I could bear it longer, and not fall To quarrel with your great opposeless wills, My snuff and loathed part of nature should Burn itself out. If Edgar live, O bless him!— Now, fellow, fare thee well.
EDGAR	Gone, sir. Farewell. Gloucester falls forward (Aside) And yet I know not how conceit may rob The treasury of life, when life itself Yields to the theft. Had he been where he thought, By this had thought been past.—Ative or dead? (To Gloucester) Ho you, sir; hear you, sir? Speak. (Aside) Thus might he pass indeed. Yet he revives. (To Gloucester) What are you, sir?
GLOUCESTER	Away, and let me die.
EDGAR	Hadst thou been aught but goss‘mer, feathers, air, So many fathom down precipitating Thou hadst shivered like an egg. But thou dost breathe, Hast heavy substance, bleed’st not, speak’st, art sound. Ten masts a-length make not the altitude Which thou hast perpendicularly fell. Thy life’s a miracle. Speak yet again.
GLOUCESTER	But have I fallen, or no?
EDGAR	From the dread summit of this chalky bourn. Look up a-height. The shrill-gorged lark so far Cannot be seen or heard. Do but look up.
GLOUCESTER	Alack, I have no eyes. Is wretchedness deprived that benefit To end itself by death? ’Twas yet some comfort When misery could beguile the tyrant’s rage And frustrate his proud will.
EDGAR	Give me your arm. Up. So, how now? Feel you your legs? You stand.
GLOUCESTER	Too well, too well.
EDGAR	This is above all strangeness. Upon the crown of the cliff what thing was that Which parted from you?
GLOUCESTER	A poor unfortunate beggar.
EDGAR	As I stood here below, methoughts his eyes Were two full moons. A had a thousand noses, Horns whelked and waved like the enridged sea. It was some fiend. Therefore, thou happy father, Think that the clearest gods, who made their honours Of men’s impossibilities, have preserved thee.
GLOUCESTER	I do remember now. Henceforth I’ll bear Affliction till it do cry out itself ‘Enough, enough,’ and die. That thing you speak of, I took it for a man. Often would it say ‘The fiend, the fiend!’ He led me to that place.
EDGAR	Bear free and patient thoughts.
(didascalia)	Enter King Lear mad, crowned with weeds and
(didascalia)	flowers
EDGAR	But who comes here? The safer sense will ne’er accommodate His master thus.
LEAR	No, they cannot touch me for coining. I am the King himself.
EDGAR	O thou side-piercing sight!
LEAR	Nature is above art in that respect. There’s your press-money. That fellow handles his bow like a crow-keeper. Draw me a clothier’s yard. Look, look, a mouse! Peace, peace, this toasted cheese will do it. There’s my gauntlet. I’ll prove it on a giant. Bring up the brown bills. O, well flown, bird, in the air. Hal Give the word.
EDGAR	Sweet marjoram.
LEAR	Pass.
GLOUCESTER	I know that voice.
LEAR	Ha, Gonorill Ha, Regan! They flattered me like a dog, and told me I had white hairs in my beard ere the black ones were there. To say ‘ay’ and ‘no’ to everything I said ‘ay’ and ‘no’ to was no good divinity. When the rain came to wet me once, and the wind to make me chatter, when the thunder would not peace at my bidding, there I found them, there I smelt them out. Go to, they are not men of their words. They told me I was everything; ’tis a lie, I am not ague-proof.
GLOUCESTER	The trick of that voice I do well remember. Is’t not the King?
LEAR	Ay, every inch a king.
(didascalia)	Gloucester kneels
LEAR	When I do stare, see how the subject quakes! I pardon that man’s life. What was thy cause? Adultery? Thou shalt not die for adultery. No, the wren goes to‘t, and the small gilded fly Does lecher in my sight. Let copulation thrive, for Gloucester’s bastard son Was kinder to his father than my daughters Got ’tween the lawful sheets. To‘t, luxury, pell-mell, For I lack soldiers. Behold yon simp’ring dame, Whose face between her forks presageth snow, That minces virtue, and does shake the head To hear of pleasure’s name: The fitchew nor the soiled horse goes to’t With a more riotous appetite. Down from the waist They’re centaurs, though women all above. But to the girdle do the gods inherit; Beneath is all the fiend’s. There’s hell, there’s darkness, There’s the sulphury pit, burning, scalding, Stench, consummation. Fie, fie, fie; pah, pah! Give me an ounce of civet, good apothecary, To sweeten my imagination. There’s money for thee.
GLOUCESTER	O, let me kiss that hand!
LEAR	Here, wipe it first; it smells of mortality.
GLOUCESTER	O ruined piece of nature! This great world Shall so wear out to naught. Do you know me?
LEAR	I remember thy eyes well enough. Dost thou squiny on me? No, do thy worst, blind Cupid, I’ll not love. Read thou that challenge. Mark the penning of’t.
GLOUCESTER	Were all the letters suns, I could not see one.
EDGAR	(aside) I would not take this from report; it is, And my heart breaks at it.
LEAR	(to Gloucester) Read.
GLOUCESTER	What—with the case of eyes?
LEAR	O ho, are you there with me? No eyes in your head, nor no money in your purse? Your eyes are in a heavy case, your purse in a light; yet you see how this world goes.
GLOUCESTER	I see it feelingly.
LEAR	What, art mad? A man may see how the world goes with no eyes; look with thy ears. See how yon justice rails upon yon simple thief. Hark in thy ear: handy-dandy, which is the thief, which is the justice? Thou hast seen a farmer’s dog bark at a beggar?
GLOUCESTER	Ay, sir.
LEAR	An the creature run from the cur, there thou mightst behold the great image of authority. A dog’s obeyed in office. Thou rascal beadle, hold thy bloody hand. Why dost thou lash that whore? Strip thine own back. Thy blood as hotly lusts to use her in that kind For which thou whip’st her. The usurer hangs the cozener. Through tattered rags small vices do appear; Robes and furred gowns hides all. Get thee glass eyes, And, like a scurvy politician, seem To see the things thou dost not. No tears, now. Pull off my boots. Harder, harder! So.
EDGAR	(aside) O, matter and impertinency mixed— Reason in madness!
LEAR	If thou wilt weep my fortune, take my eyes. I know thee well enough: thy name is Gloucester. Thou must be patient. We came crying hither. Thou know’st the first time that we smell the air We wail and cry. I will preach to thee. Mark me.
GLOUCESTER	Alack, alack, the day!
(didascalia)	LEAR removing his crown of weeds
GLOUCESTER	When we are born, we cry that we are come To this great stage of fools. This’ a good block. It were a delicate stratagem to shoe A troop of horse with felt; and when I have stole upon These son-in-laws, then kill, kill, kill, kill, kill, kill!
(didascalia)	Enter three Gentlemen
(didascalia)	FIRST GENTLEMAN
GLOUCESTER	O, here he is. Lay hands upon him, sirs. (To Lear) Your most dear—
LEAR	No rescue? What, a prisoner? I am e’en The natural fool of fortune. Use me well. You shall have ransom. Let me have a surgeon; I am cut to the brains.
(didascalia)	FIRST GENTLEMAN You shall have anything.
LEAR	No seconds? All myself? Why, this would make a man a man of salt, To use his eyes for garden water-pots, Ay, and laying autumn’s dust.
(didascalia)	FIRST GENTLEMAN Good sir—
LEAR	I will die bravely, like a bridegroom. What, I will be jovial. Come, come, I am a king, my masters, know you that?
(didascalia)	FIRST GENTLEMAN
LEAR	You are a royal one, and we obey you.
LEAR	Then there’s life in’t. Nay, an you get it, you shall get it with running.
(didascalia)	Exit running, pursued by two Gentlemen
(didascalia)	FIRST GENTLEMAN
LEAR	A sight most pitiful in the meanest wretch, Past speaking in a king. Thou hast one daughter Who redeems nature from the general curse Which twain hath brought her to.
EDGAR	Hail, gentle sir.
(didascalia)	FIRST GENTLEMAN Sir, speed you. What’s your will?
EDGAR	Do you hear aught of a battle toward?
(didascalia)	FIRST GENTLEMAN
EDGAR	Most sure and vulgar, everyone hears that That can distinguish sense.
EDGAR	But, by your favour, How near’s the other army?
(didascalia)	FIRST GENTLEMAN
EDGAR	Near and on speedy foot, the main; descriers Stands on the hourly thoughts.
EDGAR	I thank you, sir. That’s all.
(didascalia)	FIRST GENTLEMAN
EDGAR	Though that the Queen on special cause is here, Her army is moved on.
EDGAR	I thank you, sir. Exit Gentleman
GLOUCESTER	You ever gentle gods, take my breath from me. Let not my worser spirit tempt me again To die before you please.
EDGAR	Well pray you, father.
GLOUCESTER	Now, good sir, what are you?
EDGAR	A most poor man, made lame by 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.
(didascalia)	GLOUCESTER rising Hearty thanks.
EDGAR	The bounty and the benison of heaven To send thee boot to boot.
(didascalia)	Enter Oswald the steward
OSWALD	A proclaimed prize! Most happy! That eyeless head of thine was first framed flesh To raise my fortunes. Thou most unhappy traitor, Briefly thyself remember. The sword is out That must destroy thee.
GLOUCESTER	Now let thy friendly hand Put strength enough to’t.
OSWALD	(to Edgar) Wherefore, bold peasant, Durst thou support a published traitor? Hence, Lest the infection of his fortune take Like hold on thee. Let go his arm.
EDGAR	‘Chill not let go, sir, without ’cagion.
OSWALD	Let go, slave, or thou diest.
EDGAR	Good gentleman, go your gate. Let poor volk pass. An ‘chud have been swaggered out of my life, it would not have been so long by a vortnight. Nay, come not near the old man. Keep out, ’che vor’ ye, or I’ll try whether your costard or my baton be the harder; I’ll be plain with you.
OSWALD	Out, dunghill! They fight
EDGAR	’Chill pick your teeth, sir. Come, no matter for your foins.
(didascalia)	Edgar knocks him down
OSWALD	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 Upon the British party. O untimely death! Death! He dies
EDGAR	I know thee well—a serviceable villain, As duteous to the vices of thy mistress As badness would desire.
GLOUCESTER	What, is he dead?
EDGAR	Sit you down, father. Rest you. Gloucester sits Let’s see his pockets. These letters that he speaks of May be my friends. He’s dead; I am only sorrow He had no other deathsman. Let us see. Leave, gentle wax; and manners, blame us not. To know our enemies’ minds we’d rip their hearts; Their papers is more lawful. He reads a letter ‘Let your reciprocal vows be remembered. You have many opportunities to cut him off. If your will want not, time and place will be fruitfully offered. 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—your affectionate servant, and for you her own for venture, Gonoril.’ O indistinguished space of woman’s wit— 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 murderous lechers, and in the mature time With this ungracious paper strike the sight Of the death-practised Duke. For him ’tis well That of thy death and business I can tell. [Exit with the body]
GLOUCESTER	The King is mad. How stiff is my vile sense, That I stand up and have ingenious feeling Of my huge sorrows! Better I were distraught; So should my thoughts be fenced from my griefs, And woes by wrong imaginations lose The knowledge of themselves. A drum afar off. [Enter Edgar]
EDGAR	Give me your hand. Far off methinks I hear the beaten drum. Come, father, I’ll bestow you with a friend.
(didascalia)	Exit Edgar guiding Gloucester
(didascalia)	Sc. 21 Soft music. Enter Queen Cordelia, and the Earl of Kent, disguised
CORDELIA	O thou good Kent, How shall I live and work to match thy goodness? My life will be too short, and every measure fail me.
KENT	To be acknowledged, madam, is o’erpaid. All my reports go with the modest truth, Nor more, nor clipped, but so.
CORDELIA	Be better suited. These weeds are memories of those worser hours. I prithee put them off.
KENT	Pardon me, dear madam. Yet to be known shortens my made intent. My boon I make it that you know me not Till time and I think meet.
CORDELIA	Then be’t so, my good lord. [Enter the Doctor and First Gentleman] How does the King?
DOCTOR	Madam, sleeps still.
CORDELIA	O you kind gods, Cure this great breach in his abused nature; The untuned and hurrying senses O wind up Of this child-changed father!
DOCTOR	So please your majesty That we may wake the King? He hath slept long.
CORDELIA	Be governed by your knowledge, and proceed I’th’ sway of your own will. Is he arrayed? [FIRST GENTLEMAN] Ay, madam. In the heaviness of his sleep We put fresh garments on him. [DOCTOR] Good madam, be by when we do awake him. I doubt not of his temperance.
CORDELIA	Very well.
DOCTOR	Please you draw near. Louder the music there! King Lear is [discovered] asleep
CORDELIA	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!
KENT	Kind and dear princess!
CORDELIA	Had you not been their father, these white flakes Had challenged pity of them. Was this a face To be exposed against the warring winds, To stand against the deep dread-bolted thunder In the most terrible and nimble stroke Of quick cross-lightning, to watch—poor perdu— With this thin helm? Mine injurer’s mean‘st 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 In short and musty straw? Alack, alack, ’Tis wonder that thy life and wits at once Had not concluded all! (To the Doctor) He wakes. Speak to him.
DOCTOR	Madam, do you; ’tis fittest.
CORDELIA	(to Lear) How does my royal lord? How fares your majesty?
LEAR	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.
CORDELIA	Sir, know me.
LEAR	You’re a spirit, I know. Where did you die?
CORDELIA	(to the Doctor) Still, still far wide!
DOCTOR	He’s scarce awake. Let him alone a while.
LEAR	Where have I been? Where am I? Fair daylight? I am mightily abused. I should e’en die with pity 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 assured Of my condition.
CORDELIA	(kneeling) O look upon me, sir, And hold your hands in benediction o’er me. No, sir, you must not kneel.
LEAR	Pray do not mock. I am a very foolish, fond old man, Fourscore and upward, 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 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.
CORDELIA	And so I am.
LEAR	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.
CORDELIA	No cause, no cause.
LEAR	Am I in France?
KENT	In your own kingdom, sir.
LEAR	Do not abuse me.
DOCTOR	Be comforted, good madam. The great rage You see is cured 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.
CORDELIA	(to Lear) Will’t please your highness walk?
LEAR	You must bear with me. Pray now, forget and forgive. I am old And foolish. Exeunt all but Kent and [First] Gentleman [FIRST] GENTLEMAN Holds it true, sir, that the Duke Of Cornwall was so slain?
KENT	Most certain, sir. [FIRST] GENTLEMAN Who is conductor of his people?
KENT	As ’tis said, The bastard son of Gloucester. [FIRST] GENTLEMAN They say Edgar, His banished son, is with the Earl of Kent In Germany.
KENT	Report is changeable. ’Tis time to look about. The powers of the kingdom 90 Approach apace. [FIRST] GENTLEMAN The arbitrement is Like to be bloody. Fare you well, sir. Exit
KENT	My point and period will be throughly wrought, Or well or ill, as this day’s battle’s fought. Exit Sc. 22
(didascalia)	Enter Edmund, Regan, and their powers
EDMUND	Know of the Duke if his last purpose hold, Or whether since he is advised by aught To change the course. He’s full of abdication And self-reproving. Bring his constant pleasure.
(didascalia)	Exit one or more
REGAN	Our sister’s man is certainly miscarried.
EDMUND	’Tis to be doubted, madam.
REGAN	Now, sweet lord, You know the goodness I intend upon you. Tell me but truly—but then speak the truth- Do you not love my sister?
EDMUND	Ay: honoured love.
REGAN	But have you never found my brother’s way To the forfended place?
EDMUND	That thought abuses you.
REGAN	I am doubtful That you have been conjunct and bosomed with her, As far as we call hers.
EDMUND	No, by mine honour, madam.
REGAN	I never shall endure her. Dear my lord, Be not familiar with her.
EDMUND	Fear me not. She and the Duke her husband—
(didascalia)	Enter the Duke of Albany and Gonoril with troops
GONORIL	(aside) I had rather lose the battle than that sister Should loosen him and me.
ALBANY	(to Regan) Our very loving sister, well bemet, For this I hear: the King is come to his daughter, With others whom the rigour of our state Forced to cry out. Where I could not be honest I never yet was valiant. For this business, It touches us as France invades our land; Yet bold’s the King, with others whom I fear. Most just and heavy causes make oppose.
EDMUND	Sir, you speak nobly.
REGAN	Why is this reasoned? 30
GONORIL	Combine together ’gainst the enemy; For these domestic poor particulars Are not to question here.
ALBANY	Let us then determine with the ensign of war On our proceedings.
EDMUND	I shall attend you Presently at your tent. [Exit with his powers]
REGAN	Sister, you’ll go with us?
GONORIL	No.
REGAN	’Tis most convenient. Pray you go with us.
GONORIL	[aside] O ho, I know the riddle! (To Regan) I will go.
(didascalia)	Enter Edgar disguised as a peasant
EDGAR	(to Albany) If e’er your grace had speech with man so poor, 40 Hear me one word.
ALBANY	(to the others) I’ll overtake you.
(didascalia)	Exeunt all but Albany and Edgar
ALBANY	Speak.
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 What is avouchèd there. If you miscarry, Your business of the world hath so an end. Fortune love you—
ALBANY	Stay till I have read the letter.
EDGAR	I was forbid it. 50 When time shall serve, let but the herald cry, And I’ll appear again.
ALBANY	Why, fare thee well. I will o’erlook the paper. Exit Edgar
(didascalia)	Enter Edmund
EDMUND	The enemy’s in view; draw up your powers. 55 He [offers] Albany a paper Here is the guess of their great strength and forces By diligent discovery; but your haste Is now urged on you.
ALBANY	We will greet the time. Exit
EDMUND	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 enjoyed If both remain alive. To take the widow Exasperates, makes mad, her sister Gonoril, 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 that would be rid of him devise His speedy taking off. As for his 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 Sc. 23
(didascalia)	Alarum. The powers of France pass over the stage led by Queen Cordelia with her father in her hand. Then enter Edgar disguised as a peasant, guiding the blind Duke of Gloucester
EDGAR	Here, father, take the shadow of this bush For your good host; pray that the right may thrive. If ever I return to you again I’ll bring you comfort. Exit
GLOUCESTER	Grace go with you, sir.
(didascalia)	Alarum and retreat. Enter Edgar
EDGAR	Away, old man. Give me thy hand. Away. King Lear hath lost, he and his daughter ta’en. Give me thy hand. Come on.
GLOUCESTER	No farther, sir. A man may rot even here.
EDGAR	What, in ill thoughts again? Men must endure Their going hence even as their coming hither. Ripeness is all. Come on. Exit Edgar guiding Gloucester Sc. 24
(didascalia)	Enter Edmund with King Lear and Queen Cordelia prisoners, a Captain, and soldiers
EDMUND	Some officers take them away. Good guard Until their greater pleasures best be known That are to censure them.
CORDELIA	(to Lear) We are not the first Who with best meaning have incurred 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?
LEAR	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 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 In a walled prison packs and sects of great ones That ebb and flow by th’ moon.
EDMUND	(to soldiers) Take them away.
LEAR	(to Cordelia) Upon such sacrifices, my Cordelia, The gods themselves throw incense. Have I caught thee? He that parts us shall bring a brand from heaven And fire us hence like foxes. Wipe thine eyes. The goodyear shall devour ‘em, flesh and fell, Ere they shall make us weep. We’ll see ’em starve first. Come.
(didascalia)	Exeunt all but Edmund and the Captain
EDMUND	Come hither, captain. Hark. Take thou this note. Go follow them to prison. One step I have advanced thee; if thou dost As this instructs thee, thou dost make thy way To noble fortunes. Know thou this: that men 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.
CAPTAIN	I’ll do’t, my lord.
EDMUND	About it, and write ‘happy’ when thou hast done. Mark, I say, instantly, and carry it so As I have set it down.
CAPTAIN	I cannot draw a cart, Nor eat dried oats. If it be man’s work, I’ll do’t. Exit Enter the Duke of Albany, the two ladies Gonoril and Regan, [another Captain,] and others
ALBANY	(to Edmund) Sir, you have showed today your valiant strain, And fortune led you well. You have the captives That were the opposites of this day’s strife. We do require then of you, so to use them As we shall find their merits and our safety May equally determine.
EDMUND	Sir, I thought it fit To send the old and miserable King To some retention and appointed guard, Whose age has charms in it, whose title more, To pluck the common bosom on his side And turn our impressed lances in our eyes Which do command them. With him I sent the Queen, My reason all the same, and they are ready Tomorrow, or at further space, to 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 cursed By those that feel their sharpness. The question of Cordelia and her father Requires a fitter place.
ALBANY	Sir, by your patience, I hold you but a subject of this war, Not as a brother.
REGAN	That’s as we list to grace him. Methinks our pleasure should have been demanded Ere you had spoke so far. He led our powers, Bore the commission of my place and person, The which immediate may well stand up And call itself your brother.
GONORIL	Not so hot. In his own grace he doth exalt himself More than in your advancement.
REGAN	In my right By me invested, he compeers the best.
GONORIL	That were the most if he should husband you.
REGAN	Jesters do oft prove prophets.
GONORIL	Holla, holla— That eye that told you so looked but asquint.
REGAN	Lady, I am not well, else I should answer From a full-flowing stomach. (To Edmund) General, Take thou my soldiers, prisoners, patrimony. Witness the world that I create thee here My lord and master.
GONORIL	Mean you to enjoy him, then?
ALBANY	The let-alone lies not in your good will.
EDMUND	Nor in thine, lord.
ALBANY	Half-blooded fellow, yes.
EDMUND	Let the drum strike and prove my title good.
ALBANY	Stay yet, hear reason. Edmund, I arrest thee On capital treason, and in thine attaint This gilded serpent. (To Regan) For your claim, fair sister, I bar it in the interest of my wife. ’Tis she is subcontracted to this lord, And I, her husband, contradict the banns. If you will marry, make your love to me. My lady is bespoke.—Thou art armed, Gloucester. If none appear to prove upon thy head Thy heinous, manifest, and many treasons, [He throws down a glove] There is my pledge. I’ll prove it on thy heart, Ere I taste bread, thou art in nothing less Than I have here proclaimed thee.
REGAN	Sick, O sick!
GONORIL	(aside) If not, I’ll ne’er trust poison.
EDMUND	(to Albany, [throwing down a glove]) 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 My truth and honour firmly.
ALBANY	A herald, ho!
EDMUND	A herald, ho, a herald!
ALBANY	Trust to thy single virtue, for thy soldiers, All levied in my name, have in my name Took their discharge.
REGAN	This sickness grows upon me.
ALBANY	She is not well. Convey her to my tent.
(didascalia)	Exit one or more with Regan
ALBANY	[Enter a Herald and a trumpeter] Come hither, herald. Let the trumpet sound, And read out this.
SECOND CAPTAIN	Sound, trumpet! Trumpeter sounds
HERALD	(reads) ‘If any man of quality or degree in the host of the army will maintain upon Edmund, supposed Earl of Gloucester, that he’s a manifold traitor, let him appear at the third sound of the trumpet. He is bold in his defence.’
EDMUND	Sound! (Trumpeter sounds) Again!
(didascalia)	Enter Edgar, armed, at the third sound, a trumpeter before him
ALBANY	(to the Herald) Ask him his purposes, why he appears Upon this call o’th’ trumpet.
HERALD	(to Edgar) What are you? Your name and quality, and why you answer This present summons?
EDGAR	O, know my name is lost, By treason’s tooth bare-gnawn and canker-bit. Yet ere I move’t, where is the adversary I come to cope withal?
ALBANY	Which is that adversary?
EDGAR	What’s he that speaks for Edmund, Earl of Gloucester?
EDMUND	Himself. What sayst thou to him?
EDGAR	Draw thy sword, That if my speech offend a noble heart Thy arm may do thee justice. Here is mine. He draws his sword Behold, it is the privilege of my tongue, My oath, and my profession. I protest, Maugre thy strength, youth, place, and eminence, Despite thy victor-sword and fire-new fortune, 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 feet 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.
EDMUND	In wisdom I should ask thy name, But since thy outside looks so fair and warlike, And that thy tongue some say of breeding breathes, My right of knighthood I disdain and spurn. Here do I toss those treasons to thy head, With the hell-hated lie o’erturn 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! [Flourish.] They fight. Edmund is vanquished [ALL] Save him, save him!
GONORIL	This is mere practice, Gloucester. By the law of arms thou art not bound to answer An unknown opposite. Thou art not vanquished, But cozened and beguiled.
ALBANY	Stop your mouth, dame, Or with this paper shall I stopple it. Thou worse than anything, read thine own evil. Nay, no tearing, lady. I perceive you know’t.
GONORIL	Say if I do, the laws are mine, not thine. Who shall arraign me for’t?
ALBANY	Most monstrous! Know’st thou this paper?
GONORIL	Ask me not what I know.
(didascalia)	Exit
ALBANY	Go after her. She’s desperate. Govern her.
(didascalia)	Exit one or more
EDMUND	What you have charged me with, that have I done, And more, much more. The time will bring it out. ’Tis past, and so am I. (To Edgar) But what art thou, That hast this fortune on me? If thou beest noble, I do forgive thee.
EDGAR	Let’s exchange charity. I am no less in blood than thou art, Edmund. If more, the more ignobly thou hast wronged me. [He takes off his helmet] 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.
EDMUND	Thou hast spoken truth. The wheel is come full circled. I am here.
ALBANY	(to Edgar) Methought thy very gait did prophesy A royal nobleness. I must embrace thee. Let sorrow split my heart if I did ever hate Thee or thy father.
EDGAR	Worthy prince, I know’t.
ALBANY	Where have you hid yourself? How have you known the miseries of your father?
EDGAR	By nursing them, my lord. List a brief tale, And when ‘tis told, O that my heart would burst! The bloody proclamation to escape That followed 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 Into a madman’s rags, to assume a semblance That very dogs disdained; and in this habit Met I my father with his bleeding rings, The precious stones new-lost; became his guide, Led him, begged for him, saved him from despair; Never—O father!—revealed myself unto him Until some half hour past, when I was armed. Not sure, though hoping, of this good success, I asked his blessing, and from first to last Told him my pilgrimage; but his flawed heart— Alack, too weak the conflict to support— ’Twixt two extremes of passion, joy and grief, Burst smilingly.
EDMUND	This speech of yours hath moved me, And shall perchance do good. But speak you on— You look as you had something more to say.
ALBANY	If there be more, more woeful, hold it in, For I am almost ready to dissolve, Hearing of this.
EDGAR	This would have seemed a period 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 in a man Who, having seen me in my worst estate, Shunned my abhorred society; but then, finding Who ’twas that so endured, 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 That ever ear received, 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 tranced.
ALBANY	But who was this?
EDGAR	Kent, sir, the banished Kent, who in disguise Followed his enemy king, and did him service Improper for a slave.
(didascalia)	Enter [Second] Gentleman with a bloody knife
EDGAR	FSECONDl GENTLEMEN Help, help!
ALBANY	What kind of help? What means that bloody knife?
(didascalia)	SECOND GENTLEMAN It’s hot, it smokes. It came even from the heart of—
ALBANY	Who, man? Speak. [SECOND] GENTLEMAN Your lady, sir, your lady; and her sister By her is poisonèd—she hath confessed it.
EDMUND	I was contracted to them both; all three Now marry in an instant.
ALBANY	Produce their bodies, be they alive or dead. This justice of the heavens, that makes us tremble, Touches us not with pity.
(didascalia)	Enter Kent as himself
EDGAR	Here comes Kent, sir.
ALBANY	O, ’tis he; the time will not allow The compliment that very manners urges.
KENT	I am come To bid my king and master aye good night. Is he not here?
ALBANY	Great thing of us forgot!— Speak, Edmund; where’s the King, and where’s Cordelia? The bodies of Gonoril and Regan are brought in Seest thou this object, Kent?
KENT	Alack, why thus?
EDMUND	Yet Edmund was beloved. The one the other poisoned for my sake, And after slew herself.
ALBANY	Even so.—Cover their faces.
EDMUND	I pant for life. Some good I mean to do, Despite of my own nature. Quickly send, Be brief in’t, to th’ castle; for my writ Is on the life of Lear and on Cordelia. Nay, send in time.
ALBANY	Run, run, O run!
EDGAR	To who, my lord? Who hath the office? Send Thy token of reprieve.
EDMUND	Well thought on! Take my sword. The captain, Give it the captain.
ALBANY	Haste thee for thy life.
(didascalia)	Exit [Second Captain]
EDMUND	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.
ALBANY	The gods defend her!—Bear him hence a while.
(didascalia)	Exeunt some with Edmund
(didascalia)	Enter King Lear with Queen Cordelia in his arms,
ALBANY	[followed by the Second Captain]
LEAR	Howl, howl, howl, howl! O, you are men of stones. Had I your tongues and eyes, I would use them so 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. [He lays her down] Lend me a looking-glass. If that her breath will mist or stain the stone, Why, then she lives.
KENT	Is this the promised end?
EDGAR	Or image of that horror?
ALBANY	Fall and cease.
LEAR	This feather stirs. She lives. If it be so, It is a chance which does redeem all sorrows That ever I have felt.
KENT	[kneeling] Ah, my good master!
LEAR	Prithee, away.
EDGAR	w’Tis noble Kent, your friend.
LEAR	A plague upon you, murderous traitors all. I might have saved her; now she’s gone for ever.— Cordelia, Cordelia: stay a little. Ha? What is’t thou sayst?—Her voice was ever soft, Gentle, and low, an excellent thing in women.— I killed the slave that was a-hanging thee. [SECOND] CAPTAIN ’Tis true, my lords, he did.
LEAR	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. (To Kent) Who are you? Mine eyes are not o’ the best, I’ll tell you straight.
KENT	If fortune bragged of two she loved or hated, One of them we behold.
LEAR	Are not you Kent?
KENT	The same, your servant Kent. Where is your servant Caius?
LEAR	He’s a good fellow, I can tell you that. He’ll strike, and quickly too. He’s dead and rotten.
KENT	No, my good lord, I am the very man—
LEAR	I’ll see that straight.
KENT	That from your first of difference and decay Have followed your sad steps.
LEAR	You’re welcome hither.
KENT	Nor no man else. All’s cheerless, dark, and deadly. Your eldest daughters have fordone themselves, And desperately are dead.
LEAR	So think I, too.
ALBANY	He knows not what he sees; and vain it is That we present us to him.
EDGAR	Very bootless.
(didascalia)	Enter another Captain
EDGAR	[THIRD] CAPTAIN (to Albany) Edmund is dead, my lord.
ALBANY	That’s but a trifle here.— You lords and noble friends, know our intent. What comfort to this great decay may come Shall be applied; for us, we will resign During the life of this old majesty To him our absolute power; (to Edgar and Kent) you to your rights, With boot and such addition as your honours Have more than merited. All friends shall taste The wages of their virtue, and all foes The cup of their deservings.—O see, see!
LEAR	And my poor fool is hanged. No, no life. Why should a dog, a horse, a rat have life, And thou no breath at all? O, thou wilt come no more. Never, never, never.—Pray you, undo This button. Thank you, sir. O, O, O, O!
EDGAR	He faints. (To Lear) My lord, my lord!
LEAR	Break, heart, I prithee break.
EDGAR	Look up, my lord.
KENT	Vex not his ghost. O, let him pass. He hates him That would upon the rack of this tough world Stretch him out longer. [Lear dies]
EDGAR	O, he is gone indeed.
KENT	The wonder is he hath endured so long. He but usurped his life.
ALBANY	(to attendants) Bear them from hence. Our present business Is to general woe. (To Kent and Edgar) Friends of my soul, you twain Rule in this kingdom, and the gored state sustain.
KENT	I have a journey, sir, shortly to go: My master calls, and I must not say no.
ALBANY	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.
(didascalia)	Exeunt carrying the bodies
BY WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE AND	THOMAS MIDDLETON
WE	know no more of Timon of Athens than we can deduce from the text printed in the 1623 Folio. Some episodes, such as the emblematic opening dialogue featuring a Poet and a Painter, are elegantly finished, but the play has more unpolished dialogue and loose ends of plot than usual: for example, the episode (3.6) in which Alcibiades pleads for a soldier’s life is only tenuously related to the main structure; and the final stretch of action seems imperfectly worked out. Various theories of collaboration and revision have been advanced to explain the play’s peculiarities. During the 1970s and 1980s strong linguistic and other evidence was adduced in support of the belief that it is a product of collaboration between Shakespeare and Thomas Middleton, a dramatist born in 1580 and educated at Queen’s College, Oxford, who was writing for the stage by 1602 and was to develop into a great playwright. The major passages for which Middleton seems to have taken prime responsibility are Act 1. Scene 2; all of Act 3 except for parts of Scene 7; and the closing episode (4.3.460-537) of Act 4. The theory of collaboration explains some features of the text—Middleton’s verse, for example, was less regular than Shakespeare’s. There is no record of early performance; the play is conjecturally assigned to 1605-6. The story of Timon was well known and had been told in an anonymous play which seems to have been acted at one of the Inns of Court in 1602 or 1603. The classical sources of Timon’s story are a brief, anecdotal passage in Plutarch’s Life of Mark Antony, and a Greek dialogue by Lucian, who wrote during the second century AD, the former was certainly known to the authors of Timon of Athens; the latter influences them directly or indirectly. Plutarch records two epitaphs, one written by Timon himself, which recur, conflated as one epitaph, almost word for word in the play. In Lucian, as in the play, Timon is a misanthrope because his friends flattered and sponged on him in prosperity but abandoned him in poverty. The first part of the play dramatizes this process; in the second part, as in Lucian, Timon finds gold and suddenly becomes attractive again to his old friends. Timon of Athens is an exceptionally schematic play falling into two sharply contrasting parts, the second a kind of mirror image of the first. Many of the characters are presented two-dimensionally, as if the dramatists were more concerned with the play’s pattern of ideas than with psychological realism. The overall tone is harsh and bitter; there are passages of magnificent invective along with brilliant satire, but there is also tenderness in the portrayal of Timon’s servants, especially his ‘one honest man’, Flavius. In the play’s comparatively rare performances some adaptation has usually been found necessary; but the exceptionally long role of Timon offers great opportunities to an actor who can convey his vulnerability as well as his virulence, especially in the strange music of the closing scenes which suggests in him a vision beyond the ordinary.
THE PERSONS OF THE	PLAY

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