King Lear (1982) - full transcript
King Lear, old and tired, divides his kingdom among his daughters, giving great importance to their protestations of love for him. When Cordelia, youngest and most honest, refuses to idly flatter the old man in return for favor, he banishes her and turns for support to his remaining daughters. But Goneril and Regan have no love for him and instead plot to take all his power from him. In a parallel, Lear's loyal courtier Gloucester favors his illegitimate son Edmund after being told lies about his faithful son Edgar. Madness and tragedy befall both ill-starred fathers.
[majestic music]
I thought the King had more
affected the Duke of Albany
than Cornwall.
It did always seem so to us,
but now in the division of the kingdom,
it appears not which of
the Dukes he values most,
for equalities are so weighed,
that curiosity in neither
can make choice of either's moiety.
Is not this your son, my lord?
His breeding, sir, hath been at my charge.
I have so often blushed
to acknowledge him,
that now I am brazed to it [laughs].
I cannot conceive you.
Sir, this young fellow's
mother could [laughs].
Whereupon she grew round-wombed,
and had indeed, sir, a son for her cradle
ere she had a husband
for her bed [laughs].
Do you smell a fault?
I cannot wish the fault undone,
the issue of it being so proper.
But I have sir, a son by order of law,
some year elder than this,
who yet is no dearer in my account.
Though this knave came
something saucily to the world
before he was sent for,
yet was his mother fair,
for there was good sport
at his making [laughs],
and the whoreson must be acknowledged.
Do you know this noble gentleman, Edmund?
No, my lord.
My Lord of Kent.
Remember him hereafter
as my honorable friend.
My services to your lordship.
I must love you, and
sue to know you better.
Sir, I shall study deserving.
And he hath been out nine years,
and away he shall again.
[footsteps clattering]
The King is coming.
Attend the lords of France
and Burgundy, Gloucester.
I shall, my liege.
Meantime we shall express
our darker purpose.
Give me the map there.
Know that we have divided
in three our kingdom,
and 'tis our fast intent
to shake all care and
business from our age,
conferring them on younger strengths,
while we unburdened crawl towards death.
Our son of Cornwall,
and you, our no less loving son of Albany,
we have this hour a constant will
to publish our daughters' several dowers,
that future strife may be prevented now.
The princes, France and Burgundy,
great rivals in our
youngest daughter's love,
long in our courts have
made their amorous sojourn,
and here are to be answered.
Tell me, my daughters,
since now we will divest us both of rule,
interest of territory,
cares of state,
which of you shall we
say doth love us most,
that we our largest bounty may extend
where nature doth with merit challenge?
Goneril,
our eldest-born, speak first.
Sir, I love you more than
word can wield the matter,
dearer than eyesight, space, and liberty,
beyond what can be valued, rich or rare,
no less than life,
with grace, health, beauty, honor,
as much as child e'er
loved, or father found,
a love that makes breath
poor, and speech unable,
beyond all manner of so much I love you.
What shall Cordelia speak?
Love, and be silent.
Of all these bounds,
even from this line to this,
with shadowy forests and
with champains riched,
with plenteous rivers
and wide-skirted meads,
we make thee lady.
To thine and Albany's issues
be this perpetual.
What says our second daughter,
our dearest Regan, wife of Cornwall?
Speak.
I am made of that self metal as my sister,
and prize me at her worth.
In my true heart I find she
names my very deed of love,
only she comes too short,
that I profess myself an
enemy to all other joys
which the most precious
square of sense possesses
and find I am alone felicitate
in your dear Highness' love.
Then poor Cordelia!
And yet not so,
since I am sure my love's
more ponderous than my tongue.
To thee and thine hereditary ever
remain this ample third
of our fair kingdom,
no less in space, validity, and pleasure,
than that conferred on Goneril.
Now, our joy,
although our last and least,
to whose young love the vines
of France and milk of Burgundy
strive to be interessed.
What can you say
to win a third more
opulent than your sisters'?
Speak.
Nothing, my lord.
Nothing?
Nothing.
Nothing will come of nothing,
speak again.
Unhappy that I am,
I cannot heave my heart into my mouth.
I love your Majesty according
to my bond, no more nor less--
How, how, Cordelia?
Amend your speech a little,
lest you may mar your fortunes.
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 honor you.
Why have my sisters' husbands,
if they say they love you all?
Happily, 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.
But goes thy heart with this?
Ay, my good lord.
So young, and so untender?
So young, my lord, and true.
Let it be so.
Thy truth then be thy dower.
For by the sacred radiance of the sun,
the mysteries of Hecat 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 forever.
The barbarous Scythian,
or he that makes his generation messes
to gorge his appetite,
shall to my bosom be as
well neighbored, pitied,
and relieved, as thou
my sometime daughter.
[Kent] Good my liege--
Peace, Kent!
Come not between the dragon and his wrath.
I loved her most,
and thought to set my
rest on her kind nursery.
Hence, and avoid my sight!
So be my grave my peace,
as here I give her
father's heart from her.
Call France.
Who stirs?
Call Burgundy,
Cornwall, Albany.
With my two daughters'
dowers digest this third.
Let pride, which she calls
plainness, marry her.
I do invest you jointly with 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 will retain the name,
and all the addition of a king,
the sway, revenue, execution of the rest,
beloved sons, be yours, which to confirm,
this coronet part between you--
Royal Lear,
whom I have ever honored as my king,
loved as my father, as my master followed,
as my great patron
thought on in my prayers--
The bow is bent and drawn,
make from the shaft.
Let it fall rather, though the fork invade
the region of my heart.
Be Kent unmannerly when Lear is mad.
What wouldst thou do, old man?
Think'st though that duty
shall have dread to speak
when power to flattery bows?
[gasps]
To plainness honor's bound,
when majesty falls to folly.
Reserve thy state,
and in my best consideration
check this hideous rashness.
Answer my life my judgment,
thy youngest daughter
does not love thee least,
nor are those empty-hearted
whose low sounds
reverb no hollowness.
Kent, on thy life, no more.
My life I never held but as a pawn
to wage against thine enemies,
nor feared to lose it,
thy safety being motive.
Out of my sight!
See better, Lear, and let me still remain
the true blank of thine eye.
Now, by Apollo--
Now, by Apollo, King, thou
swearest thy gods in vain.
O vassal!
Miscreant!
[Both] Dear sir, forbear.
Do!
Kill thy physician,
and thy fee bestow upon the foul disease.
Revoke thy gift,
or whilst I can vent
clamor from my throat,
I'll tell thee thou dost evil.
Hear me, recreant!
On thine allegiance,
hear me!
Since thou has sought to
make us break our vow,
which we durst never yet,
and by strained pride
to come betwixt our
sentence and our power,
which not our nature
nor our place can bear,
our potency made good,
take thine reward.
Five days we do allot thee
for provision to shield thee
from disasters of the world,
and on the sixth to turn thy
hated back upon our kingdom.
If, on the 10th day following,
thy banished trunk be
found in our dominion,
the moment is thy death.
Away!
By Jupiter,
this shall not be revoked.
Fare thee well, King.
Since thus thou wilt
appear, freedom lives hence,
and banishment is here.
The gods to their dear
shelter take thee, maid,
that justly think'st and
hast most rightly said!
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.
Here's France and Burgundy, my noble lord.
My Lord of Burgundy,
we first address toward you,
who with this king hath
rivaled for our daughter.
What in the least
will you require in
present dower with her,
or cease your quest of love?
Most royal Majesty,
I crave no more than hath
your Highness offered,
nor will you tender less.
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 this
little-seeming substance,
or all of it, with our displeasure pieced,
and nothing more, may
haply like your Grace,
she's there,
and she is yours.
I know no answer.
Will you, with these infirmities she owes,
unfriended, new adopted to our hate,
dowered with our curse, and
strangered with our oath,
take her, or leave her?
Pardon me, royal sir.
Election makes not up in such conditions.
Then leave her, sir,
for by the power that made
me, I tell you all her wealth.
For you, great King,
I would not from your
love make such a stray
to match you where I hate,
therefore beseech you to avert your liking
a more worthier way
than on a wretch whom nature is ashamed
almost to acknowledge hers.
This is most strange,
that she whom even but
now was your best object,
the argument of your
praise, balm of your age,
the best, the dearest,
should in this trice of time
commit a thing so monstrous
to dismantle so many folds of favor.
Sure, her offense must be
of such unnatural degree
that monsters it,
or your fore-vouched
affection fall into taint,
which to believe of her must be a faith
that reason without miracle
should never plant in me.
I yet beseech your Majesty,
if for I want that glib and oily art
to speak and purpose not,
since what I well intend,
I'll do it before I speak,
that you make known it is no vicious blot,
murder, or foulness,
no unchaste action or dishonored step,
that hath deprived me
of your grace and favor,
but even for want of that
for which I am richer,
a still-soliciting eye,
and such a tongue that
I am glad I have not,
though not to have it hath
lost me in your liking.
Better thou hadst not been born
than not to have pleased me better.
Is it but this,
a tardiness in nature that
often leaves the history unspoke
which it intends to do?
My Lord of Burgundy,
what say you to the lady?
Love's not love when it
is mingled with regards
that stands aloof from the entire point.
Will you have her?
She is herself a dowry.
Royal Majesty,
give but that portion
which yourself proposed,
and here I take Cordelia by the hand,
Duchess of Burgundy.
Nothing!
I have sworn.
I am firm.
I am sorry then you have so lost a father
that you must lose a husband.
Peace be with Burgundy!
Since that respects of
fortune are his love,
I shall not be his wife.
Fairest Cordelia,
that art most rich, being poor,
most choice, forsaken,
and most 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 dower-less daughter,
King, thrown to my chance,
is queen of us, of ours,
of our fair France.
Not all the dukes of waterish Burgundy
can buy this unprized precious maid of me.
Bid them farewell, Cordelia,
though unkind.
Thou losest here,
a better where to find.
Thou hast her, France, let her be thine,
for we 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.
Bid farewell to your sisters.
The 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.
Love well our father.
To your professed bosoms I commit him,
but yet, alas, as stood
I within his grace,
I would prefer him to a better place!
So farewell to you both.
Prescribe not us our duties.
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
want that you have wanted.
Time shall unfold what
plighted cunning hides.
Who covers faults, at
last with shame derides.
Well may you prosper!
Come, my fair Cordelia.
Sister, it is not little I have to say
of what most nearly appertains to us both.
I think our father will hence tonight.
That's most certain,
and with you.
Next month with us.
You see how full of changes his age is.
The observation we have
made on it hath been little.
He always loved our sister best,
with what poor judgment
he hath now cast her off
appears too grossly.
'Tis the infirmity of his age.
Yet he hath ever but
slenderly known himself.
The best and soundest of
his time hath been but rash.
Then must we look from his
age to receive not alone
the imperfections of
long-ingraffed condition,
but there with all the unruly waywardness
that infirm and choleric
years bring with them.
Such unconstant starts are
we likely to have of him
as this of Kent's banishment.
There is further
compliment of leave-taking
between France and him.
I pray you,
let's hit together.
If our father carry authority
with such disposition as he bears,
this last surrender of
his will but offend us.
We shall further think of it.
We must do something, and in the heat.
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 12 or 14
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?
With baseness?
Bastardy?
Base, base?
Who, in the lusty stealth of nature,
take more composition and
fierce quality than doth,
within a dull, stale, tired bed,
go to the creating a whole tribe of fops
got tween asleep and wake?
Well then, Legitimate Edgar,
I must have your land.
Our father's love is to the bastard Edmund
as to the legitimate.
Fine word, "legitimate"!
Well, my legitimate, if this letter speed,
and my invention thrive,
Edmund the base shall top the legitimate.
I grow.
I prosper.
Now gods, stand up for bastards!
Kent banished thus?
And France in choler parted?
And the King gone tonight,
proscribed his power,
confined to exhibition?
All this done upon the gad?
Edmund,
[paper rustles]
how now?
What news?
So please your lordship, none.
Why so earnestly seek you
to put up that letter?
[laughs] I know no news, my lord.
What paper were you reading?
Nothing, my lord.
No?
What needed then
that terrible dispatch
of it into your pocket?
The quality of nothing hath
not such need to hide itself.
Let's see.
Come, if it be nothing,
I shall not need spectacles.
[laughs] I beseech you, sir, pardon me.
It is a letter from my brother
that I have not all o'er-read,
and for so much as I have perused,
I find it not fit for your o'erlooking.
Give me the letter, sir.
I shall offend, either
to detain or give it.
The contents, as in part I
understand them, are to blame--
Let's see, let's see!
I hope, for my brother's justification,
he wrote this but as an
essay or taste of my virtue.
"This policy and reverence of age
"makes the world bitter"
[reading indistinctly].
[paper rustles]
"This policy and reverence of age
"makes the world bitter
to the best of our times,
"keeps our futures 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 should
sleep till I waked him,
"you should enjoy half
his revenue for ever,
"and live the beloved
of your brother, Edgar!"
[gasps]
Conspiracy?
"Sleep till I waked him,
"you should enjoy half his revenue."
My son Edgar!
Had he a hand to write this?
A heart and brain to breed it in?
When came this to you?
Who brought it?
It was not brought me, my lord,
there's the cunning of it.
I found it thrown in at
the casement of my closet.
You know the character
to be your brother's?
If the matter were good, my lord,
I durst swear it were his,
but in respect of that, I
would fain think it were not.
It is his.
It is his hand, my lord,
but I hope his heart
is not in the contents.
Has he never before sounded
you in this business?
Never, my lord.
But I have heard him oft
maintain it to be fit
that, sons at perfect age,
and fathers declined,
the father should be as ward to the son,
and the son manage his revenue.
O villain, villain!
His very opinion in the letter!
Abhorred villain!
Unnatural, detested, brutish villain!
Worse than brutish!
Go sirrah, seek him.
I'll apprehend him.
Abominable villain!
Where is he?
I do not well know, my lord.
If it shall please you
to suspend your indignation
against my brother
till you can derive better
testimony of his 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 honor,
and shake in pieces the
heart of his obedience.
I dare pawn down my life for him
that he hath writ this to feel
my affection to your honor,
and to no other pretense of danger.
Think you so?
If your honor 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 with no greater
delay than this very evening.
He cannot be such a monster.
Nor is not, sure.
To his father, who so tenderly
and entirely loves him.
Heaven and earth!
[sighs]
Seek him out, Edmund.
Wind me into him, I pray you.
Frame the business after your own wisdom.
I would unstate myself to
be in a due resolution.
I will seek him, sir, presently,
convey the business as I shall find means,
and acquaint you withal.
These late eclipses in the sun and moon
portend no good to us.
Though the wisdom of nature
can reason it thus and thus,
yet nature finds itself
scourged by the sequent effects.
Love cools, friendship
falls off, brothers divide.
In cities, mutinies,
in countries, discord,
in palaces, treason,
and the bond cracked
'twixt son and father.
This villain of mine comes
under the prediction,
there's son against father.
The King falls from bias of nature,
there's father against child.
[groans]
We have seen the best of our time.
Machinations, hollowness, treachery,
and all ruinous disorders
follow us disquietly to our graves.
Find out this villain, Edmund,
it shall lose thee nothing.
Do it carefully.
And the noble and
true-hearted Kent banished!
His offense,
honesty!
'Tis strange.
This is the excellent
foppery of the world,
that, when we are sick in fortune,
often the surfeits of our own behavior,
we make guilty of our disasters
the sun, the moon, and stars,
as if we were villains on necessity,
fools by heavenly compulsion,
knaves, thieves, and treachers
by spherical predominance.
Drunkards, liars, and adulterers
by an enforced obedience
of planetary influence,
and all that we are evil in,
by a divine thrusting on.
An admirable evasion of whore-master man,
to lay his goatish disposition
on the charge of a star!
My father compounded with my mother
under the Dragon's Tail,
and my nativity was under Ursa Major,
so that it follows I
am rough and lecherous.
I should have been that I am,
had the maidenliest star in the firmament
twinkled on my bastardizing.
Edgar,
pat he comes, like a
catastrophe of the old comedy.
My cue is villainous melancholy,
with a sigh like Tom o' Bedlam.
O,
these eclipses do portend these divisions!
[hums]
How now, brother Edmund?
What serious contemplation are you in?
I am thinking, brother,
of a prediction I read this other day,
what should follow these eclipses.
Do you busy yourself with that?
I promise you, the effects he
writes of succeed unhappily,
as of unnaturalness between
the child and the parent,
death, dearth, dissolutions
of ancient amities,
divisions in state,
menaces and maledictions
against king and nobles,
needless diffidences,
banishment of friends,
dissipation of cohorts, nuptial breaches,
and I know not what.
How long have you been
a sectary astronomical?
Come, come!
When saw you my father last?
The night gone by.
Spake you with him?
Ay, two hours together.
Parted you in good terms?
Found you no displeasure in
him by word nor countenance?
None at all.
Bethink yourself wherein
you may have offended him,
and at my entreaty forbear his presence
until some little time hath qualified
the heat of his displeasure,
which at this instant so rageth in him
that with the mischief of your person
it would scarcely allay.
Some villain hath done me wrong.
That's my fear.
I pray you have a continent forbearance
till the speed of his rage goes slower,
and, as I say, retire
with me to my lodgings,
from whence I will fitly bring
you to hear my lord speak.
Pray ye, go!
There's my key.
[key jangles]
If you do stir abroad, go armed.
Armed, brother?
Brother, I advise you to the best.
I am no honest man if there be
any good meaning toward you.
I have told you what
I have seen and heard,
but faintly, nothing like the
image and the horror of it.
Pray you, away!
Shall I hear from you anon?
I do serve you in this business.
A credulous father and a brother noble
whose nature is so far from doing harms
that he suspects none,
on whose foolish honesty
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.
Did my father strike my gentleman
for chiding of his fool?
Ay, madam.
By day and night, he wrongs me!
Every hour he flashes into
one gross crime or other
that sets us all at odds.
I'll not endure it.
His knights grow riotous,
and himself upbraids us 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.
[trumpets blaring]
He's coming, madam, I hear him.
Put on what weary negligence you please,
you and your fellows.
I'd have it come to question.
If he distaste it, let him to my 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 have said.
Well, madam.
And let his knights have
colder looks among you.
What grows of it, no matter.
Advise your fellows so.
I would breed from hence
occasions, and I shall,
that I may speak.
I'll write straight to my
sister to hold my very course.
Prepare for dinner.
If but as well I other accents borrow,
that can my speech defuse,
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,
so may it come, thy
master, whom thou lovest,
shall find thee full of labors.
Let me not stay a jot for dinner.
[stick bangs]
Go get it ready.
[groans]
How now?
What art thou?
A man, sir.
What dost thou profess?
What wouldst thou with us?
I do profess to be no less than I seem,
to serve him truly that
will put me in trust,
love him that is honest,
to converse with him that
is wise and says little,
to fear judgment,
to fight when I cannot choose,
and to eat no fish.
What art thou?
A very honest-hearted fellow,
and as poor as the King.
If thou be'st as poor for a
subject as he is for a king,
thou art poor enough.
[laughs]
What wouldst thou?
Service.
Who wouldst thou serve?
You.
Dost though know me, fellow?
No, sir, but you have
that in your countenance
that I would fain call master.
What's that?
Authority.
What services canst thou do?
Oh, 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.
How old are thou?
Not so young, sir, to
love a woman for singing,
nor so old to dote on her for anything.
[laughs]
I have years on my back 48.
Follow me, thou shalt serve me.
If I like thee no worse after dinner,
I shall not part from thee before.
Dinner, ho, ho, ho, ho,
-dinner!
-[laughing]
Where's my knave?
My fool?
Go you and call my fool hither.
You, you, sirrah, where's my daughter?
So please you.
What says the fellow there?
Call the clotpoll back.
Where's my fool,
ho, ho, ho?
I think the world is asleep.
[laughs]
How now?
Where's that mongrel?
He says, my lord, your
daughter is not well.
Why came not the slave back
to me when I called him?
Sir, he answered me in the
roundest manner, he would not.
He would not?
My lord, I know not what the matter is,
but to my judgment your
Highness is not entertained
with that ceremonious
affection as you were wont.
There's a great abatement of kindness
appears as well in the general dependents
as in the Duke himself
also and your daughter.
Nah, sayest thou so?
I beseech you'll pardon me,
my lord, if I be mistaken,
for my duty cannot be silent
when I think your Highness wronged.
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 the very pretense
and purpose of unkindness.
I will look further into it.
But where's my fool?
I've not seen him this two days.
Since my young lady's
going into France, sir,
the fool hath much pined away--
No more of that,
I've noted it well.
Go you, tell my daughter
I would speak with her.
Go you, and call hither my fool.
O, you, sir, you!
[stick bangs]
Come you hither, sir.
Who am I, sir?
My lady's father.
"My lady's father"?
My lord's knave!
You whoreson dog, you slave, you cur!
I am none of these, my lord,
I beseech your pardon.
Do you bandy looks with me, you rascal?
[stick slaps]
I'll not be strucken, my lord.
Nor tripped neither, you
base football player!
I thank thee, fellow.
Thou serv'st me, and I'll love thee.
Come sir, arise,
away!
No!
I will teach you differences.
Away, away!
Have you wisdom?
You'll measure your lubber's
length again, tarry, but away!
Go to!
-[yells]
-Hey, hey, hey,
-hey, hey!
-[stick thwacks]
Whoo-hoo!
[laughs]
Now, my friendly knave, I thank thee.
Here's earnest of thy service.
Let me hire him too.
Here's my coxcomb.
[laughs]
How now, my pretty knave?
How dost thou?
Sirrah, you were best take my coxcomb.
Why, fool?
Why?
For taking one's part that's out of favor.
Nay, and thou canst not
smile as the wind sits,
thou'lt catch cold shortly.
There, take my coxcomb!
Why, this fellow, he's
banished two on's daughters,
and did the third a
blessing against his will.
If thou follow him, thou
must needs wear my coxcomb.
How now, nuncle?
Would I had two coxcombs
and two daughters!
Why, boy?
If I gave them all me living,
I'll keep me coxcombs
meself, there's mine!
Beg another of thy daughters--
Take heed, sirrah, the whip.
[yells]
Truth's a dog must to kennel.
He must be whipped out when Lady the brach
may stand by the fire and stink.
A pestilent gall to me!
Sirrah, I'll teach thee a speech.
Do, boy.
Mark it, nuncle.
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 lest than thou throwest,
leave thy drink and thy whore,
and keep in-a-door,
and thou shalt have more
than two 10s to a score.
[laughs]
This is nothing, fool.
Then 'tis like the breath
of an unfeed lawyer,
you gave me nothing for it.
[laughs]
Why can you make no
use of nothing, nuncle?
Why, no, boy.
Nothing can be made out of nothing boy.
Well prithee tell him,
so much the rent of his land comes to,
he'll not believe a fool.
A bitter fool!
Dost know the difference, my boy,
between a bitter fool and a sweet one?
No, lad, teach me.
That lord that counseled
thee to give away thy land,
come place him here by me,
and do thou for him stand,
the sweet and bitter fool
will presently appear,
the one in motley here,
the other found out there.
Dost thou call me fool, boy?
All thy other titles thou hast given away,
that thou wast born with.
This is not altogether fool, my lord.
No faith, no lords and
great men will not let me.
If I had a monopoly out,
they'd have part on't.
And the ladies too,
they'll not let me have
all the fool to meself,
they'll be snatching.
[yells]
[laughs]
Nuncle,
give me an egg, and I'll
give thee two crowns.
What two crowns shall they be?
When I've cut the egg in the
middle and eat up the meat,
the two crowns of the egg.
When thou clovest thy crown in the middle
and gavest away both parts,
thou borest thine ass on
thy back o'er the dirt.
Thou hadst little wit in thy bald crown
than thy gavest thy golden one away.
If I speak like meself in this,
let him be whipped that first finds it so.
♪ Fools had ne'er less grace in a year ♪
♪ For wise men are grown foppish ♪
♪ They know not how their wits to wear ♪
♪ Their manners are so apish ♪
When was thou wont to be
so full of songs, sirrah?
I have used it, nuncle,
ever since thou mad'st
thy daughters thy mothers
[growls]
for when thou gavest them the rod,
and put'st down thine own breeches,
♪ Then they for sudden joy did weep ♪
♪ And I for sorrow sung ♪
♪ That such a king should play bo-peep ♪
♪ And go the fools among ♪
Oh, nuncle, prithee.
Keep a schoolmaster that
can teach thy fool to lie.
I fain learn to lie.
An your lie, sirrah,
we'll have you whipped.
I marvel what kin thou
and thy daughters are.
They'd have me whipped for speaking true,
thou'lt have me whipped for lying,
sometimes I'm whipped
for holding me peace.
I'd rather be any kind
of thing than a fool,
and yet I'd not be thee, nuncle.
Thou hast pared thy wit o' both sides
and left nothing in the middle.
Here comes one of the parings.
[laughs]
How now, daughter?
What makes that frontlet on?
You're too much of late in the frown.
Thou wast a pretty fellow
when thou hadst no need
to care for her frowning.
Now thou art an O without a figure.
I am better than thou art now.
I'm a fool, thou art nothing.
Oh yes, forsooth, I will hold me peace,
so your face bids me,
though you say nothing.
Mum, mum, mum, mum!
He that keeps nor crust nor crum,
weary of all, shall want some.
That's a sheal'd peascod.
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 to you,
to have found a safe redress,
but now grow fearful,
by what yourself, too
late, hath spoke and done,
that you protect their course,
and put it on by your allowance,
which if you should, the
fault would not scape censure,
nor the redresses sleep,
which in the tender of a wholesome weal,
might in their working
do you that offense,
which else were shame,
that then necessity will
call discreet proceeding.
-[groans]
-For you know, nuncle,
the hedge-sparrow fed the cuckoo so long
it had its head bit off by its young.
So out went the candle
and we were left darkling.
Are you our daughter?
-[laughs]
-I would you would make
good use of your good wisdom
whereof I know you are fraught,
and put away these dispositions
which of late transport you
from what you rightly are.
May not the ass know when
the cart draws a horse?
Oh, whoops, Jug, I love thee!
Does any here know me?
This is not Lear.
[laughs]
Does Lear walk thus?
Speak thus?
Where are his eyes?
[laughs] Either his notion weakens,
or his discernings are lethargied.
[laughs] Waking?
'Tis not so!
Who is it that will 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 [laughs].
They will make an obedient father.
Your name,
fair gentlewoman?
This admiration, sir,
is much o' the savor of
other your new pranks.
I do beseech you to
understand my purposes aright.
As you are old and
reverend, should be wise.
Here you do keep a hundred
knights and squires,
men, so disordered, so deboshed and bold,
that this our court,
infected with their manners,
shows like a riotous inn.
Epicurism and lust makes it
more like a brothel or a tavern
than a graced palace.
The shame itself doth
speak for instant remedy.
Be then designed by
her that else will take
the things she begs
a little to disquantity your train,
and the remainders that shall still depend
to be such men as may besort your age,
which know themselves, and you.
Darkness and devils!
Saddle my horses!
Call my train together!
Degenerate bastard, I'll not trouble thee,
yet have I left a daughter.
You strike my people,
and your disordered rabble
make servants of their betters.
Woe that too late repents!
O, sir, are you come?
Is it your will?
Speak, sir!
Prepare my horses.
Ingratitude, thou marble-hearted fiend.
More hideous when thou
showest thee in a child
than the sea monster!
Pray, sir, be patient.
Detested kite,
thou liest!
My train are men of
choice and rarest parts,
who all particulars of duty know
and with the most exact regard
support the worships of their name.
O this most small fault,
how ugly didst thou in Cordelia show!
Which, 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, Lear!
Beat at this gate that let thy folly in
and thy dear judgment out!
Go, go, my people.
My lord, I am as
guiltless as I am ignorant
of what hath moved you.
It may be so, my lord.
Hear, Nature, hear!
Dear goddess, hear!
Suspend thy purpose,
if thou didst intend to
make this creature fruitful.
Into her womb convey sterility.
Dry up in her the organs of increase.
And from her derogate body never
spring a babe to honor her!
If she must teem, create
her child of spleen,
that it may live and be a twart
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 how sharper
than a serpent's tooth it is
to have a thankless child.
Away,
away!
Now, gods that we adore,
wherefore comes this?
Never afflict yourself to know more of it,
but let his disposition have
that scope as dotage gives it.
What,
50 of my followers at a
clap within a fortnight?
What's the matter, sir?
I'll tell thee.
Life and death I am ashamed
that thou hast power
to shake my manhood thus,
that these hot tears, which
break from me perforce,
should make thee worth them.
Blasts and fogs upon thee!
The untented woundings of a father's curse
pierce every sense about thee!
Old fond eyes [inhales],
beweep this cause again,
I'll pluck ye out,
and cast you, with the
waters that you lose,
to temper clay.
[yells]
Is it come to this?
Let it be so.
I have another daughter,
who 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 that shape
which thou dost think I
have cast off for ever.
[footsteps stomping]
Do you mark that?
I cannot be so partial, Goneril,
to the great love I bear you--
Oh, pray you, content.
What, Oswald, ho!
You, sir, more knave than fool,
after your master!
Nuncle Lear, nuncle Lear,
tarry, take the fool with thee.
A fox when one has caught
her, and such a daughter,
should sure to the slaughter,
if my cap would buy a halter.
And so the fool follows after.
This man hath had good counsel!
A hundred knights?
[laughs]
'Tis politic and safe
to let him keep at
point a hundred knights,
yes, that on every dream,
each buzz, each fancy,
each complaint, dislike,
he may enguard his dotage in their powers
and hold our lives in mercy.
Oswald, I say!
Well, you may fear too far--
[gasps]
Safer than trust too far.
Let me still take away the harms I fear,
not fear still to be taken.
I know his heart.
What he hath uttered
I have writ my sister.
If she sustain him and
his hundred knights,
when I have shown the unfitness.
How now, Oswald?
What, have you writ that
letter to my sister?
Aye, madam.
Take you some company, and away to horse!
Inform her full of my particular fear,
and thereto add such reasons of your own
as may compact it more.
Get you gone, and hasten your return.
No, no, my lord!
This milky gentleness and course of yours,
though I condemn not, yet, under pardon,
you are much more attacked
for want of wisdom
than praised for harmful mildness.
How far your eyes may
pierce I cannot tell.
Striving to do better,
oft we mar what's well.
Nay then.
Oh, well.
The event.
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.
I will not sleep, my lord,
till I have delivered your letter.
If a man's brains were in his heels,
were it not in danger of kibes?
Ay, boy.
Then prithee be merry.
Thy wit shall not go slip-shod.
Ha, ha, ha!
Shalt see thy other daughter
will use thee kindly,
for though she's as like this
as a crab's like an apple,
yet I can tell what I can tell.
What canst tell, boy?
She will taste as like this
as a crab does to a crab.
Canst tell why one's nose
stands in the middle on's face?
No.
To keep his eyes on
either side of his nose,
that what a man cannot
smell out, he may spy into.
I did her wrong.
Canst tell how an oyster makes his shell?
No, no, no, no.
No, nor I neither,
but I can tell why a snail has a house.
Why?
Put his head in.
Not to give it away to his daughters,
and leave his horns without a case.
I shall forget my nature.
So kind a father!
Be my horses ready?
Thy asses are gone about them.
The reason why the seven
stars are no more than seven
is a pretty reason.
Because they're not eight?
Yes.
Yes indeed.
Thou'd make a good fool.
To tak't again perforce!
Monster ingratitude!
If thou wert my fool, nuncle,
I'd have thee beaten for
being old before thy time.
How's that?
Thou shouldst not have been
old till thou hadst been wise.
O, let me not be mad,
not mad, sweet heaven, keep me in temper.
I would not be mad!
How now?
Are the horses ready?
Ready, my lord.
Come, boy.
She that's a maid now, and
laughs at my departure,
shall not be a maid long,
unless things be cut shorter.
Save thee, Curan.
And you, sir.
Oh,
I've been with your father,
given him notice that the Duke of Cornwall
and Regan his Duchess will
be here with him this night.
How comes that?
Nay, I know not.
You have heard of the news abroad?
Not I.
Pray you, what are they?
You heard of no likely wars toward
'twixt Dukes of Cornwall and Albany?
Not a word.
You may do, then, in time.
Fare you well, sir.
The Duke be here tonight?
The better.
Best.
This weaves itself
perforce into my business.
My father hath set guard
to take my brother,
and I have one thing,
of a queasy question,
which I must act.
Briefness and fortune, work!
Brother, a word!
Descend!
Brother, I say!
Come on.
My father watches.
O sir, fly this place!
Intelligence is given where you are hid.
You have now the good
advantage of the night.
Have you not spoken 'gainst
the Duke of Cornwall?
He's coming hither now, in
the night, in the haste,
and Regan with him.
Have you nothing said upon his party
against the Duke of Albany?
Advise yourself.
I am sure on't,
-not a word.
-Shhh!
I hear my father coming.
Pardon me.
In cunning I must draw my sword upon you.
Draw, seem to defend
yourself, now quit you well.
-[swords clang]
-Ha!
Yield!
Come before my father.
Light, ho.
Fly, brother.
Torches, torches!
So, farewell.
[sword clatters]
Some blood drawn on me would beget opinion
of my more fierce endeavor.
[gasps]
I have seen drunkards do
more than this in sport.
[yells]
Father, father!
Stop, stop!
No help?
Now, Edmund,
where's the villain?
Here stood he in the dark,
his sharp sword out,
mumbling of wicked charms,
conjuring the moon to
stand auspicious mistress.
But where is he?
Look sir, I bleed.
Where is the villain, Edmund?
Fled this way, sir.
When by no means he could--
Pursue him, ho!
Go after.
By no means what?
Persuade me to the
murder of your lordship.
Oh, strong and fastened villain.
Would he deny his letter?
I never got him.
[trumpets blaring]
Hark, the Duke's trumpet!
I know not why he comes.
All ports I'll bar, the
villain shall not scape.
The Duke must grant me that,
and of my land, loyal and natural boy,
I'll work the means to make thee capable.
How now, my noble friend?
Since I came hither,
which I can call but now,
I've heard strange news.
If it be true all
vengeance comes too short
which can pursue the offender.
How dost, my lord?
O madam, my old heart is
cracked, it's cracked.
What did my father's
godson seek your life?
He whom my father named?
Your Edgar?
Dear, dear lady, shame would have it hid!
Was he not companion
with the riotous knights
that tend upon my father?
I know not, madam.
'Tis too bad, too bad.
Yes, madam, he was of that consort.
No marvel then though
he were ill affected.
'Tis they have put him on
to the old man's death,
to have the expense 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.
Nor I, assure thee, Regan.
Edmund, I hear that you
have shown your father
a childlike office.
It was my duty, sir.
He did bewray his practice,
and received this hurt you
see, striving to apprehend him.
Is he pursued?
Ay, my good lord.
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 shall we much need,
you we first seize on.
I shall serve you, sir,
truly, however else.
For him I thank your Grace.
You know not why we came to visit you.
Thus out of season,
threading 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 best thought it
fit to answer from home.
The several messengers
from hence attend dispatch.
Our good old friend,
lay comforts to your bosom,
and bestow your needful
counsel to our businesses,
which craves the instant use.
I serve you, madam.
Your Graces are right welcome.
[footsteps thudding]
Good dawning to thee, friend.
Art of this house?
Ay.
Where may we set our horses?
In the mire.
Prithee, if thou lov'st me, tell me.
I love thee not.
Why then, I care not for thee.
If I had thee in Lipsbury Pinfold,
I'd make thee care for me.
Why dost thy use me thus?
I know thee not.
Oh, fellow, I know thee.
What dost thou know me for?
A knave.
A rascal.
An eater of broken meats.
A base, proud, shallow,
beggarly, three-suited,
hundred-pound, filthy,
worsted-stocking knave.
A lily-livered, action-taking, whoreson,
glass-gazing, super-serviceable,
finical rogue.
One-trunk-inheriting slave.
One that wouldst be a bawd
in way of good service,
and art nothing but the
composition of knave, coward,
beggar, pander, and the son
and heir of a mongrel bitch.
And one whom I will beat
into clamorous whining,
if thou denyest the least
syllable of thy addition.
Why, what a monstrous fellow art thou,
thus to rail upon one that
is neither known of thee,
nor knows thee!
And what a brazen-faced varlet art thou,
to deny thou knowest me!
Is it not two days since
I tripped up thy heels
and beat thee before the King?
Draw, you rogue!
[stick bangs]
For though it be night,
yet the moon shines.
I'll make a sop o' the moonshine of you,
you whoreson cullionly barber-monger!
Draw!
-[stick bangs]
-Away!
I have nothing to do with thee.
-[stick bangs]
-Draw, you rascal!
You come with letters against the King,
and take Vanity the puppet's part
against the royalty of her
father, hmm? [stick bangs]
Draw, you rascal [stick bangs],
or I'll so carbonado your shanks!
Draw, you rogue, come your ways!
Help, ho!
Murder!
-Help!
-Strike, you slave!
Stand, you rogue!
Stand, you neat slave!
Strike!
-[yells]
-Help, ho!
Murder!
-Murder!
-How now?
What's the matter?
-Parts.
-With you, goodman boy,
if you please, I'll flesh you.
-Weapons, arms?
-Come on, young master!
Ha!
What's the matter here?
Keep peace, upon your lives!
He dies that strikes again.
What's the matter?
The messengers from our
sister and the King.
What's your difference?
Speak.
I am scarce in breath, my lord.
No marvel, you've so bestirred your valor.
You cowardly rascal,
nature disclaims in thee.
A tailor made thee.
Thou art a strange fellow.
A tailor make a man?
Yeah, a tailor, sir.
Stone-cutter or a painter
could not have made him so ill,
though they been but two
hours at the trade [snorts].
Speak yet, how grew your quarrel?
This ancient ruffian, sir,
whose life I have spared
at suit of his gray beard--
Thou whoreson zed!
Thou unnecessary letter!
My lord, if you'll give me leave,
I'll tread this unbolted
villain into mortar
and daub the wall of a jakes with him.
Peace, sirrah!
You beastly knave,
know you no reverence?
Oh yes, sir, but anger hath a privilege.
Why art thou angry?
That such a slave as
this should wear a sword,
who wears no honesty.
Such smiling rogues as these,
renege, affirm, and
turn their halcyon beaks
with every gale and vary of their master,
knowing naught, like dogs, but following.
A plague upon your epileptic visage!
Smile you my speeches, as I were a fool?
Goose, if I had you upon Sarum Plain,
I'd drive ye cackling home to Camelot.
What art thou mad, old fellow?
How fell you out?
Say that.
No contraries hold more antipathy
than I and such a knave.
Why dost thou call him knave?
What is his fault?
His countenance likes me not.
No more perchance does
mine, nor his, nor hers.
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 [snorts].
[laughs]
This is some fellow,
who having been praised for bluntness,
doth affect a saucy roughness,
and constrains the garb
quite from his nature.
He cannot flatter, he!
An honest mind and plain,
he must speak truth!
And they will take it,
so, if not, he's plain.
These kind of knaves I know
which in this plainness
harbor more craft and more corrupter ends
than 20 silly-ducking observants
that stretch their duties nicely.
Oh, sir, in good faith, in sincere verity,
under the allowance of your great aspect,
whose influence,
like the wreath of radiant fire
on flickering Phoebus' front.
What mean'st by this?
To go out of my dialect,
which you discommend so much.
I know, sir, I am no flatterer.
He that 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 it.
What was the offense you gave him?
I never gave him any.
It pleased the King his master
very late to strike at me,
upon his misconstruction.
When he, compact, and
flattering his displeasure,
tripped me behind.
Being down, insulted,
railed, and put upon him
such a deal of man as 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.
None of these rogues and
cowards but Ajax is their fool.
Fetch forth the stocks!
You stubborn ancient knave,
you reverent braggart.
We'll teach you.
Sir, I'm too old to learn.
Call not your stocks for me.
I serve the King,
on whose employment I was sent to you.
You shall do small respect,
show too bold malice
against the grace and person
of my master, stocking his messenger.
Fetch forth the stocks!
As I have life and honor,
there shall he sit till noon.
'Til noon?
'Till night, my lord, and all night too!
Why madam, if I were your father's dog,
you should not use me so.
Sir, being his knave, I will.
This is a fellow of the selfsame color
our sister speaks of.
Come, bring away the stocks!
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
contemnedest wretches
for pilferings and most common
trespasses are punished with.
The King must take it ill that he,
so lightly valued in his messenger,
should have him thus restrained.
I'll answer that.
My sister may receive it much more worse,
to have her gentleman abused, assaulted,
for following her affairs.
Put in his legs.
[stocks bang]
Come, my good lord,
away.
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.
Pray do not, sir.
I've watched and traveled hard.
Some time I shall sleep out,
the rest I'll whistle.
A good man's fortune
may grow out at heels.
Give you good morrow!
The Duke's to blame in this.
'Twill be ill taken.
Good King, that must
approve the common saw,
thou out of heaven's benediction comest
to the warm sun!
Approach, thou beacon to this under globe,
that by thy comfortable beams
I may peruse this letter.
[paper rustles]
Nothing almost sees miracles but misery.
I know 'tis from Cordelia,
who hath most fortunately been informed
of my obscured course.
[paper rustles]
"And shall find time
from this enormous state
"seeking to give losses their remedies."
All weary and o'erwatched.
Take vantage, heavy eyes,
not to behold this shameful lodging.
[sighs]
Fortune, good night.
Smile once more,
turn thy wheel.
[panting]
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.
Whiles I may scape, I
will preserve myself,
and am bethought to take the
basest and most poorest shape
that ever penury, in contempt
of man, brought near to beast.
My face I'll grime with filth,
blanket my loins, elf
all my hairs in knots,
and with presented
nakedness outface the winds
and persecutions of the sky.
The country gives me proof and
precedent of Bedlam beggars,
who, with roaring voices,
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,
sheepcotes, and mills,
sometime with lunatic bans,
sometime with prayers,
enforce their charity.
"Poor Turlygod!
"Poor Tom!"
That's something yet!
Edgar, I nothing am.
[footsteps thudding]
'Tis strange that they
should so depart from home,
and not send back my messenger.
As I learned,
the night before there
was no purpose in them
of this remove.
Hail to thee, noble master!
Ha!
Mak'st thou this shame thy pastime?
No, my lord.
[laughs] He wears cruel garters.
Horses are tied by the head,
dogs and bears by the neck,
monkeys by the loins, and men by the legs.
When a man's over-lusty at legs,
he wears wooden nether-stocks.
What's he that hath so
much thy place mistook
to set thee here?
It is both he and she,
your son and daughter.
No.
Yes.
No, I say.
I say yea.
No, no, they would not!
Yes, they have.
By Jupiter, I swear no!
By Juno, I swear ay!
They durst not do it.
They could not, would not do it.
'Tis worse than murder
to do upon respect such violent outrage.
Resolve me, with all modest haste,
which way thou mightst deserve
or they employ this usage,
coming from us.
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 Goneril
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 which
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 the shame
which here it suffers.
Winter's not gone yet, if
the wild geese fly that way.
Fathers that wear rags do
make their children blind,
but fathers that bear bags
shall see their children kind.
Fortune, that arrant whore,
ne'er turns the key for the poor.
But for all this,
thou shalt have as many
dolours for thy daughters
as thou canst tell in a year.
O, how this mother swells
up toward my heart!
Hysterica passio!
Down, thou climbing sorrow,
thy element's below!
Where is this daughter?
With the Earl, sir, here within.
Follow me not.
Stay here.
Made you no more offense
but what you speak of?
None.
How chance the King comes
with so small a number?
[laughs]
Thou hadst been set in the
stocks for that question,
thou'dst well deserved it.
Why, fool?
We'll set thee to school to an ant,
to teach thee there's no
laboring in the winter.
All that follow their
noses are led by the eyes
but blind men,
and there's not a nose among 20
but can tell him that's stinking.
Let go thy hold when a great
wheel runs down a hill,
lest it break thy neck with following,
but the great one that goes upwards,
let him draw thee after.
When a wise man gives thee better counsel,
give me mine again.
And I've none but knaves follow
it, since a fool gives it.
Where learned you this, fool?
Not in the stocks, fool.
[footsteps pounding]
Deny to speak with me?
They are sick, they are weary?
They've traveled all the night?
Mere fetches.
The images of revolt and flying off!
Fetch me a better answer.
My dear lord, you know the
fiery quality of the Duke.
How unremovable and fixed
he is in his own course.
Vengeance, plague, death, confusion!
Fiery?
What quality?
Why Gloucester, Gloucester,
I would speak with the Duke
of Cornwall and his wife.
Well, my good lord, I
have informed them so.
Informed them?
Dost understand me, man?
Ay, my good lord.
The King would speak with Cornwall.
The dear father would
with his daughter speak,
commands their service.
Are they informed of this?
My breath and blood!
Fiery?
The fiery Duke?
Tell the hot Duke that,
no, but not yet.
May be he is not well.
Infirmity doth still neglect all office
to which 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 a 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.
Go tell the Duke and 's wife
I'd 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.
I would have all well betwixt you.
O me,
my heart,
my rising heart!
But down!
Cry to it, nuncle, as the
cockney did to the eels
when she put 'em in the paste alive.
She knapped 'em o' the
coxcombs with a stick
and cried "Down, wantons, down!"
It was her brother that in
pure kindness to his horse,
buttered his hay.
[footsteps pounding]
Good morrow to you both.
Hail to your Grace!
I'm glad to see your Highness.
Regan, I think you are.
I know what reason I have to think so.
If though shouldst not be glad,
I would divorce me from thy mother's tomb,
sepulchring an adultress.
[foot stamps]
O, are you free?
Some other time for that.
Beloved Regan, thy sister's naught.
O Regan, she hath tied
sharp-toothed unkindness,
like a vulture, here!
I can scarce speak to thee.
Thou'lt not believe with
how depraved a quality,
O Regan!
I pray you, sir, take patience.
I have hope you less know
how to value her desert
than she to scant her duty.
Say, how is that?
I cannot think my sister in the least
would fail in her obligation.
If, sir, perchance she
have restrained the riots
of your followers,
'tis on such ground,
and to such wholesome end,
that clears her from all blame.
My curses on her!
O, sir, you are old!
Nature in you stands on the
very verge of her confine.
You should be ruled and
led by some discretion
that discerns your state
better than you yourself.
Therefore I pray you that to
my sister you do make return.
[inhales]
Say you have wronged her, sir.
Ask her forgiveness?
Do you but mark how
this becomes the house.
"Dear daughter, I confess that I am old.
"Age is unnecessary.
"On my knees I beg that you'll
vouchsafe me raiment, bed,
"and food."
Good sir, no more of
these unsightly tricks.
Return you to my sister.
Never, Regan!
She hath abated me of half my train.
Looked black upon me,
struck me with her
tongue, most serpent-like,
about the very heart.
All the stor'd vengeances of heaven
fall on her ingrateful top!
Strike her young bones, you
talking airs, with lameness!
-Fie, sir, fie!
-Your nimble lightnings,
dart your blinding flames
into her scornful eyes!
Infect her beauty, you fen-sucked fogs,
drawn by the powerful sun,
to fall and blast her pride!
O the blest gods!
So will you wish on me
when the rash mood is on.
Never, Regan,
thou shalt not have our curse.
Thy tender-hefted nature
shall not give thee o'er to harshness.
Her eyes are fierce,
but thine do comfort, and not burn.
'Tis not in thee to grudge my pleasures,
to cut off my train,
to bandy hasty words,
to scant my sizes,
and, in conclusion, to oppose
the bolt against my coming in.
Thou better knowest the offices of nature,
bond of childhood,
effects of courtesy,
dues of gratitude.
Thy half o' the kingdom
hast thou not forgot,
wherein I thee endowed.
Good sir, to the purpose.
Who put my man in the stocks?
[trumpet blares]
What trumpet's that?
I know it as my sister's.
This approves her letter,
she will soon be here.
Is your lady come?
This is a slave,
whose easy-borrowed pride
dwells in the fickle
grace of her he follows.
Out, varlet, from my sight.
What means your Grace?
How came my man in the stocks, Regan?
I have good hope thou didst not know on't.
Who comes here?
O heavens!
If you do love old men,
if your sweet sway allow obedience,
if you yourselves are old,
make it your cause!
Send down, and take my part!
Art not ashamed to look upon this beard?
O Regan, will you take her by the hand?
Why not by the hand, sir?
How have I offended?
All's not offense that indiscretion finds
and dotage terms so--
O
sides, you are too tough!
Will you yet hold?
How came my man in the stocks?
I set him there, sir,
but his own disorders deserved
much less advancement.
You?
Did you?
I pray you, father, being weak, seem so.
If, till the expiration of a 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.
Return to her, and 50 men dismissed?
No, rather I abjure all roofs,
and seek to wage against
the enmity of the air,
to be a comrade with the wolf and owl,
necessity's sharp pinch!
Return with her?
Why, the hot-blooded France,
who 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 that detested groom.
At your choice, sir.
I prithee, daughter, do not make me mad.
I'll no more trouble
you, my child, farewell.
We'll no more meet, no
more see one another.
[sighs] And yet thou art my
flesh, my blood, my daughter,
or rather a disease that's in my flesh,
which I must needs call mine.
Thou art a boil, a plague sore,
an embossed carbuncle
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.
Not altogether so.
I looked not for you yet,
nor am provided for your fit welcome.
Give ear, sir, to my sister.
For those that mingle
reason with your passion
must be content to think you old,
and so,
but she knows what she does.
Is this well spoken?
I dare avouch it, sir.
What, 50 followers?
Is it not well?
What should you need of more?
Yea, or so many,
sith that both charge
and danger speak 'gainst
so great a number?
How in one house
should many people, under
two commands, hold amity?
'Tis hard,
almost impossible.
Why might not you, my lord,
receive attendance from those
that she calls servants,
or from mine?
Why not, my lord?
If then they chanced to slack
ye, we could control them.
If you will come to me,
for now I spy a danger,
I do entreat you, bring but five-and-20.
To no more will I give place or notice.
I gave you all.
And in good time you gave it!
Made you my guardians, my depositaries,
but kept a reservation to be
followed by such a number.
What,
must I come to you with
five-and-20, Regan?
Said you so?
And speak't again, my lord.
No more with me.
Those wicked creatures
yet do look more favored
when others are more wicked.
Not being worst stands
in some rank of praise.
I'll go with thee.
Thy 50 yet doth double five-and-20,
and thou art twice her love.
Hear me, my lord.
What need you five-and-20, 10, or five,
to follow in a house where twice so many
have a command to tend you?
What need one?
O, reason not the need!
Our basest beggars are in the
poorest things superfluous.
Allow not nature more than nature needs,
man's life is cheap as beast's.
Thou art a lady.
If only to go warm were gorgeous,
why, nature needs not
what thou gorgeous wear'st
which scarcely keeps thee warm.
But for true need,
o heavens give me that
patience, patience I need!
You see me here, you gods, a poor old man,
as full of grief as age, wretched in both.
If it be you that stirs
these daughters' hearts
against their father,
fool me not so much to bear it tamely,
touch me with noble anger,
and let not women's weapons, water drops,
stain my man's cheeks!
No, you unnatural hags!
I will have such revenges on you both
as all the world shall,
[feet stamping]
I shall do such things.
What they are yet, I know not,
but they shall be the
terrors of the earth!
You think I'll weep.
No, I'll not weep.
I have full cause for weeping,
but this heart shall break
into a hundred thousand flaws
or ere I'll weep.
[thunder rumbles]
O fool,
I shall go mad!
[thunder roars]
Let us withdraw,
'twill be a storm.
This house is little.
The old man and his people
cannot be well bestowed.
'Tis his own blame hath
put himself from rest
and must needs taste his folly.
For his particular,
I'll receive him gladly,
but not one follower.
So am I purposed.
Where is my Lord of Gloucester?
Followed the old man forth.
[footsteps thudding]
He's returned.
The King is in high rage.
Whither is he going?
He calls to horse,
but will I know not whither.
'Tis best to give him
way, he leads himself.
Hear me, my lord.
Entreat him by no means to stay.
Alas the night comes on,
and the high winds do sorely ruffle.
For many miles about
there's scarce a bush.
O, sir, to wilful men
the injuries that they themselves procure
must be their schoolmasters.
Shut up your doors.
He's 'tended by a desperate train,
and what they may incense him to,
being apt to have his ear abused,
wisdom bids fear.
Shut up your doors, my
lord, 'tis a wild night.
My Regan counsels well.
Come, out of the storm.
[thunder rumbles]
[thunder roars]
Who's there, besides foul weather?
[Gent] One's minded like
the weather, most unquietly.
Where's the King?
Contending with the fretful elements,
bids the wind blow the earth into the sea,
or swell the curled waters 'bove the main,
that things might change or cease--
Sir, I do know you,
and dare upon the warrant of my note
commend a dear thing to you.
There is division,
although as yet the face of it
is 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, sir, 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 has cause to plain.
I am a gentleman of blood and breeding,
and from some knowledge and assurance
offer this office to you.
I will talk further with you--
No sir, no, do not.
For confirmation that I am
much more than my outwall,
open this purse and take what it contains.
If you should see Cordelia,
as fear not but you shall,
show her this ring,
and she will tell you who that fellow is
that yet you do not know.
Fie on this storm!
Now go seek the King.
Blow, winds, and crack your cheeks!
Rage!
Blow!
You cataracts and hurricanoes,
spout till you have drenched our steeples,
drowned the cocks!
You sulphurous and
thought-executing fires,
vaunt-couriers of
oak-cleaving thunderbolts,
[thunder roars]
singe my white head!
And you, all-shaking thunder,
strike flat the thick
rotundity of the world,
crack Nature's molds,
all germains spill at once,
that make ingrateful man!
Nuncle!
Court holy water in a dry house
is better than this
rain water out o' door.
Good nuncle, in, ask
thy daughters' blessing!
Here's a night pities
neither wise men nor fools.
Rumble thy bellyful!
Spit fire, spout rain!
[thunder roars]
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.
Then let fall your horrible pleasure.
Here I stand
your slave,
a poor, infirm, weak,
and despised old man.
And yet I call you servile ministers,
that will with two pernicious daughters
join your high-engendered
battles 'gainst a head
so old and white as this!
[laughs]
O!
'Tis foul!
He that has a house to put his head in
has a good head-piece.
No, I will be the pattern of all patience.
I will say
nothing.
[Kent] Who's there?
Marry, here's grace and a codpiece.
That's a wise man and a fool.
[Kent] Alas, sir, are you here?
Things that love night love
not such nights as these.
The wrathful skies gallow the
very wanderers of the night
and make them keep their caves.
Since I was man, such sheets of fire,
such bursts of horrid thunder,
such groans of roaring wind and rain,
I never remember to have heard.
Man's nature cannot carry
the affliction nor the fear.
Let the great gods,
that keep this dreadful
puddle o'er our heads,
find out their enemies now.
Tremble, thou wretch,
that hath within thee undivulged crimes
unwhipped of justice.
-[thunder roars]
-Hide thee,
thou bloody hand,
thou perjured, and thou
simular man of virtue
that art incestuous.
Caitiff, to pieces shake,
that under covert and convenient seeming,
hath practiced on man's life.
Close pent-up guilt,
rive your concealing continents,
and cry these dreadful summoners grace.
I am a man more sinned
against than sinning.
Alack, bareheaded?
Gracious my lord, hard by here is a hovel,
some friendship will it lend
you 'gainst the tempest.
And repose you there,
while I to this hard house,
more harder than the
stones whereof 'tis raised,
which even but now, demanding after you,
denied me to come in,
return, and force their scanted courtesy.
[pants]
My wits begin to turn.
Come on, my boy.
[sniffs]
How dost, my boy?
Art cold?
I'm cold myself.
Where is this straw, my fellow?
[thunder rumbles]
The art of our necessities is strange,
that can make vile things precious.
Come,
your hovel.
Poor fool and knave,
I have one part in my heart
that's sorry yet for thee.
♪ He that hath and a little tiny wit ♪
♪ With a hey, ho, the wind and the rain ♪
♪ And must make content
with his fortunes fit ♪
♪ For the rain it raineth every day ♪
True, my good boy.
Come,
bring us to your hovel.
Here's a brave night to cool a courtesan.
I'll speak a prophecy ere I go.
When priests are more in word than matter,
when brewers mar their malt with water,
when nobles are their tailors' tutors,
no heretics burned, but wenches suitors,
then shall the realm of Albion
come to great confusion.
When every case in law is right,
no squire in debt nor no poor knight,
when slanders do not live in tongues,
nor cutpurses come not to throngs,
when usurers tell their gold in the field,
and bawds and whores do churches build,
then comes the time,
who lives to see it,
when going shall be used with feet.
And this prophesy Merlin shall make,
for I live before his time.
Alack, alack, Edmund, I like
not this unnatural dealing!
When I desired their leave
that I might pity him,
they took from me the
use of mine own house,
charged me on pain of
perpetual displeasure
neither to speak of him, entreat for him,
or in any way sustain him.
Most savage and unnatural--
Ssh, go to, say you nothing!
There is division between the Dukes,
and a worse matter than that.
I have received a letter this night,
'tis dangerous to be spoken,
I have locked the letter in my closet.
These injuries the King now
bears will be revenged home.
There's part of a power already footed,
we must incline to the King.
I will look him and privily relieve him.
Go you and maintain talk with the Duke,
that my charity be not of him perceived.
If he ask for me, I am
ill and gone to bed.
If I die for it,
as no less is threatened me,
the King my old master must be relieved.
There are strange things toward, Edmund.
Pray you be careful.
[thunder roars]
[grunts]
Here is the place, my lord.
Good my lord, enter.
The tyranny of the open night's too rough
for nature to endure.
Let me alone.
No good my lord, enter here.
Wilst break my heart?
I'd rather break mine own.
Good my lord, enter.
Thou think'st 'tis much
that this contentious storm
invades us to the skin.
So 'tis to thee,
but where the greater malady is 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' the mouth.
When the mind's free, the body's delicate.
The tempest in my mind
doth from my senses take all feeling else
save what beats there.
Filial ingratitude!
Is it not as this mouth
would tear this hand
for lifting food to it?
But I will punish home!
No, I will weep no more.
Such a night
to shut me out!
Pour on, I will endure.
Such a night as this!
O Regan, Goneril!
Thy old kind father, whose
frank heart gave all!
O, that way madness lies.
Let me shun that!
No more of that.
Good my lord, enter here.
Prithee
go in thyself,
take thine own ease.
This tempest will not give me leave
to ponder on things would hurt me more.
But I'll go in.
In, boy.
Go first.
You houseless poverty.
Nay,
get thee in.
I'll pray,
and then I'll sleep.
[thunder roars]
Poor naked wretches,
wheresoe'er you are,
that bide the pelting
of this pitiless storm,
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--
[Edgar] Fathom and a
half, fathom and a half!
Poor Tom!
[Fool] Nuncle, come not in here!
Help me, help me!
Here, give me me thy hand.
Who's there?
[Fool] It's a spirit!
He says his name's poor Tom.
[Kent] What art thou that dost
grumble there in the straw?
Come forth.
[screams]
Away!
The foul fiend follows me!
Through the sharp hawthorn
blows the cold wind.
Humh!
Go to thy cold bed, and warm thee.
Didst thou give all to thy daughters,
and art thou come to this?
Who gives anything to poor Tom?
Whom the foul fiend hath led
through fire and through flame,
through ford and whirlpool,
o'er bog and quagmire,
laid knives under his pillow
and halters in his pew,
set ratsbane by his porridge,
made him proud of heart,
to ride on a bay trotting
horse over four-inched bridges,
to course his own shadow for a traitor.
[yells]
Bless thy five wits!
Tom's acold.
[yells]
Do de, do de, do de.
Do de do.
Bless thee from whirlwinds,
star-blasting and taking!
Do poor Tom some charity,
whom the foul fiend vexes.
-[laughs]
-There could I have him now,
and there, and there,
and there [clamoring]!
-[hands slapping]
-What,
has his daughters
brought him to this pass?
[wails]
Couldst thou save nothing?
Wouldst though give 'em all?
Nay, he reserved a blanket,
else had we been all shamed.
Now all the plagues that
in the pendulous air
hang fated o'er men's faults
light on thy daughters!
He hath no daughters, sir.
Death, traitor!
Nothing could have subdued
nature to such a lowness
but his unkind daughters.
[mewls]
Is it the fashion that discarded fathers
should have this little
mercy on their flesh?
[yells]
Judicious punishment!
'Twas this flesh begot those
-pelican daughters.
-Pillicock sat
on Pillicock, Pillicock, Pillicock!
Cold night will turn us
all to fools and madmen.
Take heed o' the foul fiend,
obey thy parents,
keep thy words justly,
swear not, commit not
with a man's sworn spouse,
set not thy sweet heart on proud array.
Tom's acold.
[wails]
What hast thou been?
A serving man,
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 wak'd to do it.
[laughs]
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 rustling of silks
betray thy poor heart to woman.
Keep thy foot out of brothels,
thy hand out of plackets,
thy pen from lender's books,
and defy the foul fiend.
Still through the hawthorn
blows the cold wind [yells],
say suum, mun, mun, hey.
Dolphin my boy,
right here, sessa, let him trot by.
[wails]
[thunder roars]
Thou wert better in a grave
than to answer with thy uncovered body
this extremity of the skies.
Is man no more than this?
Consider him well.
Thou ow'st the worm no silk,
the beast no hide,
the sheep no wool,
the cat no perfume.
[laughs]
Here's three on's are sophisticated!
Thou art the thing itself,
unaccommodated man
no more but such a poor, bare,
forked animal as thou art.
Off, off, you lendings!
Come, unbutton here.
-[yelling and groaning]
-[Fool] Be contended!
'Tis a naughty night to swim in.
Now a little fire in a dark field
were like an old lecher's heart,
a small spark, the rest on's body cold.
[groaning]
Look, look here comes a walking fire.
This is the foul fiend Flibbertigibbet.
He begins at curfew,
and walks till the first cock.
He gives the web and the pin,
squints the eye,
and makes the harelip,
mildews the white wheat,
and hurts the poor creature of earth.
-[wails]
-How fares your Grace?
What's he?
Who's there?
What is't you seek?
[Gloucester] What are you there?
Your names?
Poor Tom, that eats the
swimming frog, the toad,
the tadpole, the wall newt and the water,
that in a fury of his heart,
when the foul fiend rages,
eats cow dung for sallets,
swallows the old rat and the ditch-dog,
drinks the green mantle
of the standing pool,
that is whipped from tithing to tithing,
and stock-punished and imprisoned,
that 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,
have been Tom's food for seven long year.
Beware my follower.
Peace, Smulkin!
[wails]
Peace, thou fiend!
-[wails]
-What hath your Grace
no better company?
The prince of darkness is a gentleman!
Modo he's called,
and Madhu.
[mewls]
Our flesh and blood, my
lord, is grown so vile,
that it doth hate what gets it.
Poor Tom's acold.
-[wails]
-Go in with me.
My duty cannot suffer to obey
in all your daughters' hard commands.
Though their injunction be to bar my doors
yet have I ventured to come seek you out
and bring you where both
fire and food is ready.
First let me talk with this philosopher.
[whimpers]
What is the cause of thunder?
Good my lord, take his
offer, go into the house!
[groans]
I'll talk a word with
this same learned Theban.
What is thy study?
How to prevent the foul
fiend and to kill vermin.
[wails]
Let me ask you one word in private.
Importune him once more to go, my lord.
His wits begin to unsettle.
Canst thou blame him?
His daughters seek his death.
Oh that good Kent, he
said it would be thus,
poor banished man!
Thou sayest the King grows mad,
I'll tell thee, friend,
I am almost mad myself.
I had a son, now outlawed from my blood.
He 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!
I do beseech your Grace.
-O, cry you mercy.
-[screeches]
Noble philosopher, your company.
Tom is acold.
This way, my lord, in there, fellow.
-[clamoring]
-Keep thee warm.
Good my lord, soothe him,
let him take the fellow.
-[clamoring]
-Take him you on.
This way, this way
sirrah, go along with us.
-[yelling]
-No words, no words!
Hush.
Child Rowland to the dark tower came,
his word was still fie, foh, and fum!
I smell the blood of a British man.
I will have my revenge
ere I depart this house.
How, my lord, I may be censured,
that nature thus gives way to loyalty,
something fears me to think of.
[thunder roars]
I now perceive it was not altogether
your brother's evil disposition
that made him seek his death,
but a provoking merit,
set awork by a reprovable
badness in himself.
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 this treason were not,
or not I the detector!
Go with me to the Duchess.
If the matter of this paper be certain,
you have mighty business in hand.
True or false, it hath made
thee Earl of Gloucester.
Seek out where thy father is,
that he may be ready for our apprehension.
I will persever in my course of loyalty,
though the conflict be sore
between that and my blood.
I will lay trust upon thee,
and thou shalt find a
dearer father in my love.
Here is better than the open air,
take it thankfully.
I will piece out the comfort
with what addition I can.
I will not be long from you.
All the power of his wits
have given way to his impatience.
The gods reward your kindness!
Frateretto calls me,
and tells me Nero is an angler
in the lake of darkness.
Pray, innocent, and beware the foul fiend.
Prithee, nuncle,
tell me whether a madman
be a gentleman or a yeoman.
A king, a king!
No, he's a yeoman that has
a gentleman to his son,
for he's a mad yeoman
that sees his son a gentleman before him.
To have a thousand with red burning spits
come hizzing in upon 'em--
The foul fiend bites my back.
He's mad that trusts in
the tameness of a wolf,
or horses health, a boy's
love, or a whore's oath.
It shall be done.
I will arraign them straight.
Come,
sit thou here, most learned justicer.
Thou, sapient sir, sit there.
Now, you she-foxes!
Look where he stands and glares!
Want'st thou eyes at trial, madam?
[laughs]
Come o'er the bourn, Bessy, to me.
Her boat hath a leak,
and she must not speak why she
dare not come over to thee.
The foul fiend haunts Tom in
the voice of a nightingale.
Hoppedance cries in Tom's
belly for two white herrings.
Croak not, black angel.
I have no food for thee.
How do you, sir?
Stand you not so amazed.
[grunts]
Will you lie down and
rest upon the cushions--
I'll see their trial first.
Bring in their evidence.
Thou robed man of justice, take thy place.
And thou, his yokefellow of
equity, bench by his side.
You are o' the commission, sit you too.
Let us deal justly.
Arraign her first.
'Tis Goneril.
I here take my oath before
this honorable assemblage,
she kicked the poor King her father.
Come hither, mistress.
Is your name Goneril?
She cannot deny it.
Cry you mercy, I took
you for a joint-stool.
[laughs]
And there's another,
whose warped looks proclaim
what store her heart is made upon.
Stop her there!
Arms, arms, sword, fire!
Corruption in the place!
False justicer, why
dist thou let her scape?
Bless thy wits!
-[yelps]
-O pity!
Sir, where is the patience now
that you so oft have boasted to retain?
My tears begin to take his part so much
they'll mar my counterfeiting.
[yelps]
The little dogs and all,
Trey, Blanch, and Sweetheart,
see, they bark at me.
Tom will throw his head at them.
Avaunt, you curs!
[grunts]
Then let them anatomize Regan.
[thunder roars]
See what breeds about her heart.
Is there any cause in nature
that make these hard hearts?
You, sir, I entertain
for one of my hundred.
Only I do not like the
fashion of your garments.
You'll say they are Persian,
but let them be changed.
[chomping]
Now good my lord, lie
here and rest awhile.
Make no noise,
make no noise,
draw the curtains.
So,
so,
[thunder roars]
We'll go to supper in the morning.
And I'll go to bed at noon.
Come hither, friend.
Where is the King my master?
Here, sir, but trouble him
not, his wits are gone.
Good friend, I prithee
take him in they arms.
I have o'er heard a
plot of death upon him.
There is a litter ready,
lay him in't and drive
toward Dover, friend,
where thy 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.
Oppressed nature sleeps.
This rest might yet have
balmed thy broken sinews,
which, if convenience will not allow,
stand in hard cure.
Come, help to bear thy master.
Come, thou must not stay behind.
Psst.
[grunts]
[Gloucester] Come, away.
Away.
[thunder roars]
When we our betters see bearing our woes,
we scarcely think our miseries our foes.
Who alone suffers
suffers most in the 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.
[fire crackles]
He childed as I fathered!
[sighs]
Tom, away!
[thunder roars]
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.
[blows]
Post speedily to my lord your husband,
show him this letter.
The army of France is landed.
Seek out the traitor Gloucester.
Hang him instantly.
Pluck out his eyes [laughs].
Leave him to my displeasure.
Edmund, keep you our sister company.
The revenges we are bound to take
upon your treacherous father
are not fit for your beholding.
Advise the Duke where you're going,
to a most festinate preparation.
We are bound to the like.
Our posts shall be swift
and intelligent betwixt us.
Farewell, dearest sister.
Farewell my Lord of Gloucester.
How now, where's the King?
My Lord of Gloucester
hath conveyed him hence.
Some five or six and 30 of his knights,
hot questrists after
him, met him at a gate,
who, with some other of
the lord's dependents,
are gone with him toward Dover,
where they boast to
have well-armed friends.
Get horses for your mistress.
Farewell, sweet lord, and sister.
Go seek the traitor Gloucester,
pinion him like a thief,
bring him before us.
Though well we may not pass upon his life
without the form of justice,
yet our power shall do
a courtesy to our wrath,
which men may blame, but not control.
Who's there?
The traitor?
Ingrateful fox!
'Tis he.
Bind fast his corky arms.
What means your Graces?
Good my friends, consider
you are my guests.
Should do me no foul play, friends.
Bind him, I say.
Hard,
hard.
O filthy traitor!
[Gloucester] Unmerciful lady as you are,
I am none.
Villain, thou shalt find--
[Gloucester] [yells] By the kind gods,
'tis most ignobly done
to pluck me by the beard.
So white, and such a traitor!
Naughty lady,
these hairs which thou
dost ravage from my chin
will quicken and accuse thee.
I'm your host.
With robber's hands my hospitable favors
you should not ruffle thus.
What will you do.
Come, sir,
what letters had you late from France?
Be simple-answered, for we know the truth.
And what confederacy have you
with the traitors late
footed in the kingdom?
To whose hands have you
sent the lunatic King?
Speak.
[Gloucester] I have a
letter guessingly set down,
that came from one that's
of a neutral heart,
and not from one opposed.
Cunning.
And false.
Where hast thou sent the King?
[Gloucester] To Dover.
Wherefore to Dover?
Wast thou not charged at peril--
Wherefore to Dover?
Let him first answer that.
[Gloucester] I am tied to the stake,
and I must stand the course [sobs].
Wherefore to Dover?
[Gloucester] Because I would
not see thy cruel nails
pluck out his poor old eyes,
nor thy fierce sister
in his anointed flesh
rest boarish fangs.
But I shall see the winged
vengeance overtake such children.
See it shalt thou never.
Fellows, hold the chair.
Upon these eyes of thine I'll set my foot.
[Gloucester] He that will
think to live till he be old,
give me some help!
[screams]
O cruel!
O ye gods!
[screams]
One side will mock the other.
Th'other too!
[screams]
If you see vengeance--
Hold your hand, my lord!
[yells]
I have served you ever
since I was a child,
but better service have I never given you
than now to bid you hold.
How now, you dog?
-[growling]
-If you did wear
a beard upon your chin,
I'd shake it on this quarrel.
What do you mean?
My villain!
Then come then, and take
the chance of anger.
Give me thy sword.
[clamoring]
A peasant stand up thus?
[screams]
-[thuds]
-[Servant] I am slain!
My lord, you have one eye left
to see some mischief on him.
[thuds]
Lest it see more,
prevent it.
[screams]
Out!
[screams]
Vile jelly!
[whimpers]
Where is thy luster now?
[gurgling]
[Gloucester] All dark
and comfortless! [sobs]
Where's my son Edmund?
Edmund, enkindle all the sparks of nature
to quit this horrid act.
Out, treacherous villain!
Thou call'st upon him that hates thee.
It was he that made the
overtures of thy treason to us,
who is too good
to pity thee.
[groans]
[Gloucester] O my follies!
Then Edgar was abused.
Kind gods, forgive me
that and prosper him!
[sobs]
Go,
thrust him out at gate.
Let him smell his way to Dover.
[laughs]
How is't you, my lord?
How look you?
I've received a hurt.
Follow me, lady.
Turn out that eyeless villain.
Throw this slave upon the dunghill.
Regan, I bleed apace.
Untimely comes this hurt.
Give me your arm.
I'll never care what wickedness I do,
if this man come to good.
If she live long,
and in the end meet the
old course of death,
women will all turn monsters.
[mewls]
[groans]
I'll get some flax and whites of eggs
to apply to his bleeding face.
Now heaven help him!
[groans]
[birds cawing]
Yet better thus,
and known to be contemned,
than still contemned and flattered.
To be worst,
the lowest and most
dejected thing of fortune,
stands still in esperance,
lives not in fear.
The lamentable change is from the best.
[blows]
The worst returns to laughter.
Welcome then thou unsubstantial
air that I embrace.
The wretch that thou
hast blown unto the worst
owes nothing to thy blasts.
But who comes here?
[whimpering]
My father,
poorly led?
World, world, o world!
But that thy strange
mutations make us hate thee,
life would not yield to age.
O my good lord,
I've been your tenant,
and your father's tenant,
these forescore years.
Away, get thee away!
Good friend, be gone.
Thy comforts can do me no good at all.
Thee they may hurt.
But you cannot see your way.
I have no way, and therefore want no eyes.
I stumbled when I saw.
Full oft 'tis seem our means secure us,
and our mere defects
prove our commodities.
[sobs]
O dear son Edgar,
the food of thy abused father's wrath.
Might I but live to see thee in my touch
I'ld say I had eyes again.
How now?
Who's there?
O gods!
Who is't can say, "I am at the worst"?
I am worse than e'er I was [sobs].
'Tis poor mad Tom.
And worse I may be yet.
The worst is not so long as we
can say, "This is the worst."
Fellow, where goest?
Is it a beggarman?
Madman and beggar too.
He 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.
[sobs]
As flies to wanton boys
are we to the gods.
They kill us for their sport.
How should this be?
Bad is the trade that
must play fool to sorrow,
angering itself and others.
Bless thee, master!
Is it the naked fellow?
Ay, my lord.
Then prithee get thee gone.
If for my sake thou wilt o'ertake us hence
a mile or twain either way toward Dover,
do it for ancient love,
and bring some covering
for this naked soul,
which I'll entreat to lead me.
Alack, sir, he is mad!
'Tis the time's plague
when madmen lead the blind.
Do as I bid thee,
or rather do thy pleasure.
Above the rest, be gone.
I'll get him the best apparel that I have,
come on't what will.
[Gloucester] Sirrah!
Naked fellow!
Poor Tom's acold.
I cannot daub it further.
[Gloucester] Come hither, fellow.
And yet I must.
Bless thy sweet eyes, they bleed.
[sobs]
[Gloucester] Dost thou
know the way to Dover?
Both stile and gate,
horse-way and footpath.
Poor Tom hath been scared
out of his good wits.
Bless thee good man's
son, from the foul fiend!
Five fiends have been in
poor Tom at once [sobs].
Of lust,
as Obidicut, Hobbididence,
prince of dumbness,
Mahu of murder,
Modo of stealing,
Flibbertigibbet of mopping
and mowing [screams],
who since possesses
chambermaids and waiting women.
[screeches]
So bless thee master.
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 slaves your ordinance,
who 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?
[sobs] Ay, master.
There is a cliff,
whose high and bending
head looks fearfully
in the confined deep.
Bring me but to the very brim of it,
and I'll repair the misery thou dost bear
with something rich about me.
From that place I shall no leading need.
Give me thy hand.
[panting]
Poor Tom shall lead thee.
Welcome, my lord.
I marvel our mild husband
not met us on the way.
Now, where's your master?
Madam, within, but never a 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 most he should dislike
seems pleasant to him.
What like, offensive.
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 mistresses command.
Wear this.
Spare speech.
Decline your head.
This kiss,
if it durst speak,
would stretch thy spirits up into the air.
[sighs]
Conceive, and fare thee well.
Yours in the ranks of death!
[laughs]
My most dear Gloucester!
O, the difference of man and man.
To thee a woman's services are due.
My fool usurps my body.
Madam, here comes my lord.
I have been worth the whistle.
O Goneril,
you are not worth the dust
which the rude wind blows in your face!
I fear your disposition.
That nature which condemns its origin
cannot be bordered certain in itself.
She that herself will sliver and disbranch
from her material sap,
perforce must wither
and come to deadly use.
No more, the text is foolish!
Wisdom and goodness to the vile seem vile.
Filths savor but themselves.
What have you done?
Tigers, not daughters,
what have you performed?
A father, and a gracious aged man,
who's 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 benefited.
Yet if the heavens do
not their visible spirits
send quickly down to
tame these vile offenses,
it will come.
Humanity must perforce prey on itself,
like monsters of the deep.
Milk-livered man, that
bear'st a cheek for blows,
a head for wrongs,
who hast not in thy brows
an eye discerning thine
honor from thy suffering,
that not knowest 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
state begins to threat,
whilst thou, a moral fool,
sit'st still, and criest
"Alack, why does he so?"
See thyself, devil!
Proper deformity shows not in the fiend
so horrid as in woman.
O vain fool!
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.
However, thou art a fiend, a
woman's shape doth shield thee.
Marry, your manhood, mew.
What news?
O, my good lord, the
Duke of Cornwall's dead,
slain by his servant,
going to put out the
other eye of Gloucester.
Gloucester's eyes?
A servant that he bred,
thrilled 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.
This shows you are above, you justicers,
that these are nether crimes
so speedily can venge!
O poor Gloucester, lost he his other eye?
Both, both my lord.
This letter, madam,
craves a speedy answer.
'Tis from your sister.
One way I like this well,
but being widow, and
my Gloucester with her,
may all the building of my fancy
pluck upon my hateful life.
Another way the news is not so tart.
I'll read, and answer.
Where was his son when
they did take his eyes?
Come with my lady hither.
He's not here.
No, my good lord, I met him back again.
Knows he the wickedness?
Ay, my good lord.
'Twas he informed against him,
and quit the house on purpose,
that their punishment might
have the freer course.
Gloucester, I live to thank thee
for the love thou show'dst the King,
and to revenge thine eyes.
Come hither, friend, tell
me what more thou know'st.
Alack, 'tis he.
Why he was met even now
as mad as the vexed sea,
singing aloud, crowned with
rank fumiter and furrow weeds,
with hardocks, hemlock,
nettles, cuckoo flowers,
darnel, and all the idle weeds
that grow in our sustaining corn.
A century send forth.
Search every acre in the high-grown field
and bring him to our eye.
What can man's wisdom in the
restoring his bereaved sense?
He that helps him take
all my outward worth.
There is means, madam.
Our foster nurse of nature is
repose, the which he lacks.
That to provoke in him are
many simples operative,
whose power will close the eye of anguish.
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.
News, madam.
The British powers are
marching hitherward.
'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 importunate
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.
But are my brother's powers set forth?
Ay, madam.
Himself in person there?
Madam, with much ado.
Your sister is the better soldier.
Lord Edmund spoke not
to your lord at home?
No, madam.
What might import my
sister's letter to him?
I know not, lady.
Faith, he's 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 of the enemy.
I must needs after him,
madam, with my letter.
Our troops set forth tomorrow.
Stay with us.
The ways are dangerous.
I may not, madam.
My lady charged my duty in this business--
Why should she write to Edmund?
Might not you transport
her purposes by word?
Belike some things,
I know not what.
I'll love thee much, let
me unseal the letter.
Madam, I had rather--
I know your lady does
not love her husband,
I'm sure of that.
And at her late being here,
she gave strange eyeliads
and most speaking looks to noble Edmund.
I know you are of her bosom.
-I--
-I speak in understanding.
You are, I know't.
Therefore I do advise thee 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 call her wisdom to her.
And so farewell.
If you do chance to hear
of that blind traitor,
preferment falls on him that cuts him off.
Would I could meet him, madam.
I should show what party I do follow.
Fare thee well.
When shall I come to the top
of that same hill?
You do climb up it now.
Look how we labor.
Methinks the ground is even.
Horrible steep.
Hark, do you hear the sea?
No, truly.
Why then, your other senses grow imperfect
by your eyes' anguish.
So may it be indeed.
Methinks thy voice is altered,
and thou speak'st in
better phrase and matter
than thou didst.
You are much deceived.
In nothing am I changed
but in my garments.
Methinks y'are better spoken.
Come on, sir,
here's the place.
Stand still.
How fearful and dizzy it is
to cast one's eyes so low.
The crows and choughs
that wing the midway air
show scarce so gross as beetles.
Halfway down hangs one
that gathers sampire,
dreadful trade!
Methinks he seems no bigger than his head.
The fishermen that walk upon
the beach appear like mice,
and yond tall anchoring bark,
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 so high.
Oh I'll look no more,
lest my brain turn,
and the deficient sight
topple down headlong.
Set me where you stand.
Give me your hand.
You are now within a foot
of the extreme verge.
For all beneath the moon
would I not leap upright.
Let go of my hand.
Here, friend, is another purse.
In it a jewel well worth
a poor man's taking.
Fairies and gods prosper it with thee.
Go then further off.
Bid me farewell, and
let me hear thee going.
Now fare ye well, good sir.
With all my heart.
Why I do trifle thus with his
despair is done to cure it.
O you mighty gods!
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.
Gone, sir, farewell.
[screams]
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.
Alive or dead?
Ho you, sir!
Friend!
Hear you, sir?
Speak!
Thus might he pass indeed.
[groans]
Yet he revives.
What are you, sir?
Away, and let me die.
Hadst thou been aught but
gossamer, feathers, air,
so many fathoms down precipitating,
thou'dst shivers like an egg,
but thou dost breathe,
hast heavy substance,
bleed'st not, speak'st, art sound.
10 masts at each make not the altitude
which thou hast perpendicularly fell.
Thy life's a miracle.
Speak yet again.
Have I fallen or no?
From the dread summit
of this chalky bourn.
Look up a height.
The shrill-gorged lark cannot
be seen or heard so far.
Do but look up.
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.
Ah give me your arm.
Up.
[groans]
So.
How is't?
Feel you your legs?
You stand.
Too well, too well.
This is above all strangeness.
Upon the crown of the cliff,
what thing was that which parted from you?
A poor unfortunate beggar.
As I stood here below, methought his eyes
were two full moons.
He had a thousand noses,
horns whelked and waved
like the enridged sea.
It was some fiend.
Therefore, thou happy father,
think that the clearest gods
who make them honors of
men's impossibilities
have preserved thee.
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 'twould say, "The fiend, the fiend,"
he led me to that place.
Bear free
-and patient thoughts.
-[trumpets blare]
Who comes here?
[laughs]
No,
they cannot touch me for coining.
I am the King himself.
O thou side-piercing sight!
Nature's above art in that respect.
[hands slapping]
There's your press money.
That fellow handles his
bow like a crow-keeper.
Draw me a clothier's yard.
Look, look, a mouse!
See, see, this piece of
toasted cheese will do it.
[gurgles]
[growls]
[sniffs]
[laughs]
[sighs]
[yells]
There's my gauntlet.
I'll prove it on a giant.
Bring up the brown bills.
O,
well flown, bird!
I' the clout, i' the clout!
[hisses]
Give the word.
Sweet marjoram.
Pass.
I know that voice.
Ha!
Goneril with a white beard?
[yells]
[laughs]
They flattered me like a dog,
told me I had white hairs in my beard
before the black ones were there.
To say "ay" and "no" to everything I said.
"Ay" and "no" too was no good divinity.
When the rain came
to wet me once,
and the wind to make me chatter,
when the thunder would
not peace at my bidding,
there I found 'em,
there I smelt 'em out.
Go to, they're not men of their words.
They told me I was everything.
'Tis a lie [gurgles].
I'm not ague-proof.
The trick of that voice
I do well remember.
Is it not the King?
Ay,
every inch a king.
When I do stare,
see how the subject quakes.
I pardon that man's life.
What was thy cause?
Adultery?
[laughs]
Thou shalt not die.
Die for adultery?
No.
The wren goes to't,
the small gilded fly
does lecher in my sight.
Let copulation thrive,
for Gloucester's bastard
son was kinder to his father
than were my daughters got
'tween the lawful sheets.
To't,
luxury,
pell-mell!
For I lack soldiers.
Behold yond simpering 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 are Centaurs,
though women all above.
But to the girdle do the gods inherit,
beneath is all the fiends.
There's hell, there's darkness,
there is the sulphurous pit,
burning, scalding, stench consumption.
Fie, fie, fie!
[growls]
Give me an ounce of
civet, good apothecary,
sweeten my imagination.
There's money for thee.
Oh let me kiss that hand.
Let me wipe it first.
[hisses]
It smells of mortality.
O ruined piece of nature.
This great world shall
so wear out to naught.
Dost though know me?
I remember thine eyes well enough.
[screams]
[laughs]
Dost squiny at me?
No, no, do thy worst, blind Cupid.
I'll not love.
[shrieks]
Read thou this challenge,
mark but the penning of it.
[laughs]
Were all thy letters suns,
I could not see.
I would not take this from report.
It is, and my heart breaks at it.
Read.
What, with the case of eyes?
Yea, o, ho, you're there with me.
No eyes in your head,
no money in your purse?
[laughs]
Your eyes are in a heavy
case, your purse in a light.
Yet you may see how this world goes.
I see it feelingly.
What, art mad?
A man may see how this
world goes with no eyes.
Look with thine ears.
See how yond justice rails
on yond simple thief.
Hark in thine ear.
Change places or a handy-dandy,
which is the justice, which is the thief?
Thou hast seen a farmer's
dog bark at a beggar?
Ay, sir.
And the creature run from the cur?
There thou mightst behold
the great image of authority,
a dog's obeyed in office.
[woofs]
[laughs]
Thou rascal beadle,
hold thy bloody hand!
Why dost thou lash that whore?
Thou hotly lusts to use her in that kind
for which thou whip'st her.
The usurer hangs the cozener.
Through tattered clothes
small vices do appear.
Robes and furred gowns hide all.
Plate sin with gold,
and the strong lance of
justice hurtless breaks.
Arm it in rags, a pygmy's
straw does pierce it.
None does offend, none I say none.
I'll able 'em.
Take this of me, my friend,
who have the power to
seal the accuser's lips.
[whimpering]
Get thee glass eyes
and, like a scurvy politician,
seem to see the things
thou dost not [laughs].
Now, now, now, now, now!
Pull off my boots.
Harder,
harder!
[coughs]
So.
O, matter and impertinency mixed!
Reason in madness.
[sobs]
If thou wilt weep my
fortunes, take my eyes.
I know thee well enough,
thy name is Gloucester.
Thou must be patient.
We came crying hither.
Thou know'st the first
time that we smell the air
we wawl and cry.
I will preach to thee.
Mark.
Alack, alack the day!
When we are born,
we cry that we are come to
this great stage of fools.
This is a good block.
It were a delicate stratagem
to shoe a troop of horse with felt.
I'll put it in proof,
and when I've stolen
upon these son-in-laws,
-then kill, kill, kill!
-O, here he is!
Lay a hand upon him.
Sir.
Your most dear daughter--
No rescue?
What, a prisoner?
I am even the natural fool of fortune.
Use me well.
You shall have ransom.
Let me have surgeons.
I'm cut to the brains.
You shall have anything.
No seconds?
All myself?
Why, this would make a man a man of salt,
to use his eyes for garden waterpots,
ay, and laying autumn's dust.
Good sir.
I will die bravely,
like a smug bridegroom.
What!
I will be jovial [laughs].
Come, come,
I am a king.
My masters,
know you that?
You are a royal one,
and we obey you.
Then
there's life in't.
And you shall get it,
you shall get it by running.
[laughs]
A sight most pitiful
in the meanest wretch,
past speaking of in a king!
Hail, gentle sir.
Sir, speed you.
What's your will?
Do you know aught, sir,
of a battle toward?
Most sure and vulgar.
Everyone hears that which
can distinguish sound.
But, by your favor, how
near's the other army?
Near and on speedy foot.
The main descry stands
on the hourly thought.
I thank you sir, that's all.
Though that the Queen on
special cause is here,
her army is moved on.
I thank you, sir.
You ever gentle gods,
take my breath from me.
Let not my worser spirit tempt me again
to die before you please.
Well pray you, father.
Now, good sir,
what are you?
A most poor man,
made tame to fortune's blows,
who, by the art of known
and feeling sorrows,
am pregnant to good pity.
Give me your arm.
I'll lead you to some biding.
Hearty thanks.
The bounty and the benison
of heaven to boot, and boot!
A proclaimed prize!
Most happy!
That eyeless head of thine
was first framed flesh
to raise my fortunes.
Thou old unhappy traitor,
briefly thyself remember.
The sword is out that must destroy thee.
O, let thy friendly hand
-put strength enough to't.
-Wherefore, bold peasant,
dar'st thou support a published traitor?
Hence!
Lest that the infection of his fortune
take like hold on thee.
Let go his arm.
Let go, slave,
or thou diest!
Out, dunghill!
[yells]
[clamoring]
[screams]
Slave, thou hast slain me.
Villain,
take my purse.
If ever thou wilt thrive,
bury my body,
and take the letters
which thou find'st about me
to Edmund Earl of Gloucester.
Seek him out
upon the English party.
O untimely death!
Death!
I know thee well.
A serviceable villain,
as duteous to the vices of thy mistress
as badness would desire.
What,
is he dead?
Let's see the letter that he
speaks of may be my friend.
Leave, gentle wax, and
manners, blame us not.
To know our enemies' minds,
we'd rip their hearts,
their papers is most lawful.
"Let our 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 labor.
"Your wife, so I would say,
affectionate servant, Goneril."
O indistinguished space of woman's will.
A plot upon her virtuous husband's life,
and the exchange of my brother.
The King is mad.
How stiff is my vile sense,
that I stand up and
have ingenious feelings
of my huge sorrow!
Better I were distract.
So should my thoughts be
severed from my griefs,
and woes by wrong imaginations
lose the knowledge of themselves.
[drum beating]
Give me your hand.
Far off methinks I hear the beaten drum.
Come, father,
I'll bestow you with a friend.
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.
To be acknowledged, madam, is o'erpaid.
All my reports go with the modest truth.
Nor more nor clipped, but so.
Be better suited.
These weeds are memories
of those worser hours.
I prithee put them off.
Pardon, dear madam.
Yet to be known shortens my made intent.
My boon I make it that you know me not.
Till time and I think meet.
Then be it so, my good lord.
How does the King?
Madam, sleeps still.
O you kind gods,
cure this great breach
in his abused nature.
The untuned and jarring senses,
O, wind up of this child-changed father!
So please your Majesty
that we may wake the King?
He hath slept long.
Be governed by your knowledge,
and proceed in the sway of your own will.
Is he arrayed?
Ay, madam.
In the heaviness of sleep we
put fresh garments on him.
Be by, good madam, when we do awake him,
I doubt not of his temperance.
Very well.
Please you draw near.
O my dear father.
Restoration hang thy medicine on my lips,
and let this kiss repair
those violent harms
that my two sisters have
in thy reverence made.
Kind and dear princess.
Had you not been their father,
these white flakes did
challenge pity of them.
Was this a face to be opposed
against the warring winds?
Mine enemy's dog, though he had bit me,
should have stood that
night against my fire.
And wast thou fain, poor father,
to hovel thee with swine
and rogues forlorn,
in short and musty straw?
Alack, alack!
'Tis wonder that thy life and wits at once
had not concluded all.
He wakes.
Speak to him.
Madam, do you, 'tis fittest.
How does my royal lord?
How fares your majesty?
You do me wrong to take
me out of the grave.
Thou art a soul in bliss,
but I am bound upon a wheel of fire,
which mine own tears do
scald like molten lead.
Sir,
do you know me?
You are a spirit, I know.
Where did you die?
Still, still, far wide!
He's scarce awake.
Let him alone a while.
Where have I been?
Where am I?
Fair daylight,
I'm mightily abused.
I would 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.
[gurgles]
I feel this pin prick.
Would I were assured of my condition!
O, look upon me, sir,
and hold your hand in benediction o'er me.
[grunts]
No, sir, you must not kneel.
Pray, do not mock me.
I am a very foolish fond old man,
fourscore and upward,
not an hour more or less,
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,
all my skill remembers not these garments,
nor I know not where I
did lodge last night.
[weeps]
Do not laugh at me.
For as I am a man,
I think this lady to be my child Cordelia.
[sobs] And so I am!
I am!
Be thy tears wet?
Yes, faith.
[sighs]
If you have poison for me,
I will drink it.
I know you do not love me.
For your sisters have, as
I remember, done me wrong.
You have some cause, they have not.
No cause.
Am I in France?
In your own kingdom, sir.
Do not abuse me.
Be comforted, good madam.
The great rage you see is killed in him,
and yet it is danger
to make him even o'er
the time he has lost.
[sniffs]
Will it please your Highness walk?
[grunts]
You must bear with me.
Pray you now,
forget and forgive.
I'm old and foolish.
Holds it true, sir,
that the Duke of Cornwall was so slain?
Most certain, sir.
Who is the conductor of his people?
As 'tis said, the bastard
son of Gloucester.
They say Edgar, his banished son,
is with the Earl of Kent in Germany.
Report is changeable.
'Tis time to look about,
the powers of the kingdom approach apace.
The arbitrement is like to be bloody.
Fare you well, sir.
My point and period will be truly wrought,
or well or ill, as this
day's battle is fought.
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?
In honored love.
But have you never found my brother's way
to the forfended place?
No, by mine honor, madam.
I never should endure her.
Dear my lord, be not familiar with her.
Fear me not.
She and the Duke her husband!
I had rather lose the battle
than that sister should loosen him and me.
Our very loving sister, well bemet.
Sir, this I hear.
The King is come to his
daughter with others
whom the rigor of our
state forced to cry out.
Where I could not be honest,
I never yet was valiant--
Why is this reasoned?
Combine together 'gainst the enemy.
For these domestic door particulars
are not the question here.
Well let's then determine
with the ancient of war
on our proceeding.
Sister, you'll go with us?
No.
'Tis most convenient.
I pray you'll go with us.
O, ho, I know the riddle.
I will go.
If e'er your Grace had
speech with man so poor,
hear me one word.
I'll overtake you.
Speak.
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 avouched there.
If you miscarry,
your business of the world hath so an end,
and machination ceases.
Fortune love you!
Stay till I have read the letter.
I was forbid it.
When time shall serve,
let but the herald cry,
and I'll appear again.
Oh, fare thee well.
I will look your paper.
The enemy's in view, draw up your powers.
Here is the guess of their
true strength and forces
by diligent discovery,
but your haste is now urged on you.
We will greet the time.
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 Goneril,
and hardly shall I carry out my side,
her husband being alive.
Now then,
we'll use his countenance for the battle,
which being done,
let her who would be rid of him
devise his speedy taking off.
As for the mercy which he
intends to Lear and to Cordelia,
the battle done, and
they within our power,
shall never see his pardon,
for my state stands on me
to defend, not to debate.
[trumpet blasts]
Away, old man, give me thy hand, away!
King Lear hath lost, he
and his daughter taken.
Give me thy hand!
Come on!
No further, sir.
A man may rot even here.
What?
In ill thoughts again?
Men must endure their going hence,
even as they're coming hither.
Ripeness is all.
Come on.
And that's true too.
Some officers take them away.
Good guard until their greater
pleasures first be known
that are to censure them.
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?
No, no, no, no!
Come, let's away to prison.
We two alone will sing
like birds i' the cage.
When thou dost ask me blessing,
I'll kneel down and ask
of thee forgiveness.
And 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 the great ones
that ebb and flow by the moon.
Take them away.
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 goodyears shall devour them,
flesh and fell,
ere they shall make us weep!
We'll see 'em starved first.
Come.
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.
I'll do it my lord.
About it, and write
happy when th'hast done.
Mark, I say, instantly,
and carry it so as I have set it down.
I cannot draw a cart, nor eat dried oats.
If it be man's work, I'll do it.
Sir, you have showed
today your valiant strain,
and fortune led you well.
You have the captives
who were the opposites
of this day's strife.
I do require them of you,
so to use them as we
shall find their merits
and our safety may equally determine.
Sir, I thought it fit
to send the old and miserable King
to some retention and appointed guard,
whose age had 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,
t'appear where you
shall hold your session.
Sir, by your patience,
I hold you but a subject of this war,
not as a brother.
That's as we list to grace him.
Methinks our pleasure
might have been demanded
ere you spoke so far.
He had led our powers,
bore the commission of
my place and person,
the which immediacy may well stand up
and call itself your brother.
Not so hot!
In his own grace he doth exalt himself
more than in your addition.
In my rights by me invested,
he compeers the best.
That were the most if
he should husband you.
Jesters do oft prove prophets.
Holla, holla!
That eye that told you
so looked but asquint.
Lady, I am not well,
else I should answer from
a full-flowing stomach.
General, take thou my
soldiers, prisoners, patrimony,
dispose of them, of
me, the walls is thine.
Witness the world that I create thee here
my lord and master.
Mean you to enjoy him?
The letter alone lies
not in your good will.
Nor in thine, lord.
Half-blooded fellow, yes.
Let the drum strike, and
prove my title thine.
Stay yet, hear reason.
Edmund, I arrest thee on capital treason,
and in thy attaint, this gilded serpent.
For your claim, fair sister,
I bar it in the interests of my wife.
'Tis she is subcontracted to this lord,
and I, her husband, contradict your banes.
If you would marry, make your love to me,
my lady is bespoke.
An interlude!
Thou art armed, Gloucester.
Let the trumpet sound.
If none appear to prove upon thy person
thy heinous, manifest, and many treasons,
there is my pledge!
I'll make it on thy
heart, ere I taste bread,
thou art in nothing less than
I have here proclaimed thee.
Sick,
O, sick!
If not, I'll ne'er trust medicine.
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 honor firmly.
A herald, ho!
Trust to thy single
virtue, for thy soldiers,
all levied in my name, have in
my name took their discharge.
My sickness grows upon me.
She is not well.
Convey her to my tent.
Come hither, herald.
Let the trumpet sound, and read out this.
"If any man of quality or degree
"within the lists of the army
will maintain upon Edmund,
"supposed Earl of Gloucester,
"that he is a manifold traitor,
"let him appear by the
third sound of the trumpet.
"He is bold in his defense."
Sound!
[trumpet blares]
Again!
[trumpet blares]
Again!
[trumpet blares]
Ask him his purposes,
and why he appears upon
this call of the trumpet.
What are you?
Your name?
Your quality?
And why you answer this present summons?
Know my name is lost.
By treason's tooth
bare-gnawn and canker-bit.
Yet am I noble as the
adversary I come to cope.
Which is that adversary?
What's he that speaks for
Edmund Earl of Gloucester?
Himself.
What say'st thou to him?
Draw thy sword,
that if my speech offend a noble heart,
thy arm may do thee justice.
Here is mine.
Behold, it is the
privilege of mine honors,
my oath and my profession.
I protest, Maugre thy
strength, youth, place,
and eminence, despite thy victor
sword and fire-new fortune,
thy valor and thy heart,
thou art a traitor,
false to thy gods, thy
brother, and thy father,
conspirant 'gainst this
high illustrious prince,
and from the extremest upward of thy head,
to the descent and dust below thy foot,
a most toad-spotted traitor.
Say thou "no,"
this sword, this arm, and my best spirits
are bent to prove upon thy
heart, whereto I speak,
thou liest.
In wisdom I should ask thy name.
But since thy outside
looks so fair and warlike,
and that thy tongue some
say of breeding breathes,
what safe and nicely I might well delay
by rule of knighthood,
I disdain and spurn.
Back do I toss those treasons to thy head,
with the hell-hated lie
o'erwhelm thy heart,
which for they yet glance
by and scarcely bruise,
this sword of mine shall
give them instant way
where they shall rest for ever.
Trumpets, speak!
[trumpets blare]
Fight.
[swords clang]
[thuds]
[shouts]
[shouts]
[shouts]
[clamoring]
Save him, save him!
[sobs]
This is practice, Gloucester.
By the laws of war, thou
wast not bound to answer
an unknown opposite.
Thou art not vanquished,
but cozened and beguiled.
Shut your mouth, dame,
[paper rustling]
or with this paper shall I stop it.
Hold, sir.
Thou worse than any name,
read thine own evil.
No tearing, lady!
I perceive you know it.
Say if I do, the laws are mine, not thine.
Who can arraign me for it?
Most monstrous!
O knows't thou this paper?
Ask me not what I know.
[yells]
Go after her.
She's desperate.
Govern her.
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.
But what art thou that
hast this fortune on me?
If thou art noble, I do forgive thee.
I am no less in blood
than thou art, Edmund.
If more, the more thou hast wronged me.
My name is Edgar and thy father's son.
The gods are just,
and of our pleasant vices
make instruments to plague us.
The dark and vicious place
where thee he got cost him his eyes.
Th'hast spoken right, 'tis true.
The wheel is come full circle,
I am here.
Methought thy very gait did
prophesy a royal nobleness.
I must embrace thee.
Let sorrow split my heart
if ever I did hate thee
or thy father!
Worthy prince, I know't.
Where have you hid yourself?
How have you known the
miseries of your father?
By nursing them, my lord.
List a brief tale, 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 hourly would die,
rather than die at once,
led me to move 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,
their precious stones new lost.
Became his guide, led him, begged for him,
saved him from despair.
Never, O fault, 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 told him all my pilgrimage.
But his flawed heart,
alack, too weak the conflict to support,
twixt two extremes of
passion, joy and grief,
burst smilingly.
Help, help, O, help!
What kind of help?
Speak, man.
What means this bloody knife?
'Tis hot,
it smokes,
it came even from the heart of,
she's dead!
Who dead?
Speak, man?
Your lady, sir, your lady!
And her sister by her is
poisoned, she confesses it.
I was contracted to them both.
All three now marry in an instant.
Produce their bodies,
be they alive or dead.
This judgment of the heavens,
which makes us tremble,
touches us not with pity.
Here comes Kent.
O, is this he?
The time will not allow the compliment
which very manners urges.
I am come to bid my King
and master aye good night.
Is he not here?
Great thing of us forgot.
Speak, Edmund, where's the King?
And where's Cordelia?
Edmund was beloved.
The one the other poisoned for my sake,
and after slew herself.
I pant for life.
Some good I mean to do,
despite of mine own nature.
Quickly send, be brief
in it, to the castle,
for my writ is on the life
of Lear and on Cordelia.
Nay, send in time.
Run, run, run--
To who, my lord?
Who has the office?
Send thy token of reprieve.
Well thought on.
Take my sword.
Give it to the Captain.
Haste thee for thy life.
He hath commission from thy wife and me
to hang Cordelia in the prison
and to lay the blame upon her own despair
that she fordid herself.
The gods defend her.
Bear him hence awhile.
Howl,
howl,
howl,
howl!
O, you are men of stones.
Had I your tongues and eyes,
I'd 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.
Lend me a looking glass.
If that her breath
should mist or stain the stone,
why then she lives.
Is this the promised end?
Or image of that horror?
Fall and cease!
This feather stirs, she lives!
If it be so,
it is a chance which
does redeem all sorrows
that ever I have felt.
O my good master!
Prithee away!
'Tis noble Kent, your friend.
A plague upon you,
murderers, traitors, all!
I might have saved her,
now she's gone for ever!
Cordelia,
Cordelia, stay a little.
Ha!
What is't thou say'st?
Her voice was ever soft, gentle, and low,
an excellent thing in a woman.
[hands slapping]
I killed the slave that
was a hanging thee.
'Tis true, my lords, he did.
Did I not, fellow?
I have known the day, with
my good biting falchion,
I'd have made 'em skip.
[pants]
I'm old now,
and these same crosses spoil me.
Who are you?
Mine eyes are not o' the
best, I'll tell you straight.
If fortune brag of two
she loved and hated,
one of them we behold.
This is a dull sight.
Are you not Kent?
The same.
Your servant, Kent.
Where is your servant, Caius?
He's a good fellow.
He'll strike, and quickly too.
He's dead and rotten.
No, my good lord,
I am the very man.
I'll see that straight.
That from your first
of difference and decay
have followed your sad steps.
You're welcome hither.
Nor no man else!
All's cheerless, dark, and deadly.
Your eldest daughters
have fordone themselves,
and desperately are dead.
Ay, so I think.
He knows not what he says,
and vain is it that we present us to him.
Very bootless [weeps].
Edmund is dead, my lord.
That's but a trifle here.
You lords and noble
friends, know our intent.
What comfort to this great
decay may come shall be applied.
[hand slapping]
For us, we will resign.
During the life of this old Majesty,
to him our absolute power,
you to your rights, with boot,
and such addition as your
honors have more than merited.
All friends shall taste
the wages of their virtue,
and all foes the cup of their deservings.
[sobs]
My poor fool is hanged!
No,
no,
no life.
Why should a dog,
a horse,
a rat,
have life,
and thou no breath at all?
Thou'lt come no more.
Never,
never,
never,
never!
[gasps]
Pray you undo this button.
[growls]
Thank you, sir.
Do you see this?
Look on her!
Look!
Her lips!
Look there,
look there!
He faints!
My lord, my lord!
Break, heart, I prithee break!
Look up, my lord.
Vex not his ghost.
O let him pass!
He hates him that would upon
the rack of this tough world
stretch him out longer.
He is gone indeed.
The wonder is, he hath endured so long.
He but usurped his life.
Bear them from hence.
Our present business is general woe.
Friends of my soul,
you twain rule in this realm,
and the gor'd state sustain.
I have a journey, sir, shortly to go.
My master calls me,
I must not say no.
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.
[drum beats]
I thought the King had more
affected the Duke of Albany
than Cornwall.
It did always seem so to us,
but now in the division of the kingdom,
it appears not which of
the Dukes he values most,
for equalities are so weighed,
that curiosity in neither
can make choice of either's moiety.
Is not this your son, my lord?
His breeding, sir, hath been at my charge.
I have so often blushed
to acknowledge him,
that now I am brazed to it [laughs].
I cannot conceive you.
Sir, this young fellow's
mother could [laughs].
Whereupon she grew round-wombed,
and had indeed, sir, a son for her cradle
ere she had a husband
for her bed [laughs].
Do you smell a fault?
I cannot wish the fault undone,
the issue of it being so proper.
But I have sir, a son by order of law,
some year elder than this,
who yet is no dearer in my account.
Though this knave came
something saucily to the world
before he was sent for,
yet was his mother fair,
for there was good sport
at his making [laughs],
and the whoreson must be acknowledged.
Do you know this noble gentleman, Edmund?
No, my lord.
My Lord of Kent.
Remember him hereafter
as my honorable friend.
My services to your lordship.
I must love you, and
sue to know you better.
Sir, I shall study deserving.
And he hath been out nine years,
and away he shall again.
[footsteps clattering]
The King is coming.
Attend the lords of France
and Burgundy, Gloucester.
I shall, my liege.
Meantime we shall express
our darker purpose.
Give me the map there.
Know that we have divided
in three our kingdom,
and 'tis our fast intent
to shake all care and
business from our age,
conferring them on younger strengths,
while we unburdened crawl towards death.
Our son of Cornwall,
and you, our no less loving son of Albany,
we have this hour a constant will
to publish our daughters' several dowers,
that future strife may be prevented now.
The princes, France and Burgundy,
great rivals in our
youngest daughter's love,
long in our courts have
made their amorous sojourn,
and here are to be answered.
Tell me, my daughters,
since now we will divest us both of rule,
interest of territory,
cares of state,
which of you shall we
say doth love us most,
that we our largest bounty may extend
where nature doth with merit challenge?
Goneril,
our eldest-born, speak first.
Sir, I love you more than
word can wield the matter,
dearer than eyesight, space, and liberty,
beyond what can be valued, rich or rare,
no less than life,
with grace, health, beauty, honor,
as much as child e'er
loved, or father found,
a love that makes breath
poor, and speech unable,
beyond all manner of so much I love you.
What shall Cordelia speak?
Love, and be silent.
Of all these bounds,
even from this line to this,
with shadowy forests and
with champains riched,
with plenteous rivers
and wide-skirted meads,
we make thee lady.
To thine and Albany's issues
be this perpetual.
What says our second daughter,
our dearest Regan, wife of Cornwall?
Speak.
I am made of that self metal as my sister,
and prize me at her worth.
In my true heart I find she
names my very deed of love,
only she comes too short,
that I profess myself an
enemy to all other joys
which the most precious
square of sense possesses
and find I am alone felicitate
in your dear Highness' love.
Then poor Cordelia!
And yet not so,
since I am sure my love's
more ponderous than my tongue.
To thee and thine hereditary ever
remain this ample third
of our fair kingdom,
no less in space, validity, and pleasure,
than that conferred on Goneril.
Now, our joy,
although our last and least,
to whose young love the vines
of France and milk of Burgundy
strive to be interessed.
What can you say
to win a third more
opulent than your sisters'?
Speak.
Nothing, my lord.
Nothing?
Nothing.
Nothing will come of nothing,
speak again.
Unhappy that I am,
I cannot heave my heart into my mouth.
I love your Majesty according
to my bond, no more nor less--
How, how, Cordelia?
Amend your speech a little,
lest you may mar your fortunes.
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 honor you.
Why have my sisters' husbands,
if they say they love you all?
Happily, 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.
But goes thy heart with this?
Ay, my good lord.
So young, and so untender?
So young, my lord, and true.
Let it be so.
Thy truth then be thy dower.
For by the sacred radiance of the sun,
the mysteries of Hecat 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 forever.
The barbarous Scythian,
or he that makes his generation messes
to gorge his appetite,
shall to my bosom be as
well neighbored, pitied,
and relieved, as thou
my sometime daughter.
[Kent] Good my liege--
Peace, Kent!
Come not between the dragon and his wrath.
I loved her most,
and thought to set my
rest on her kind nursery.
Hence, and avoid my sight!
So be my grave my peace,
as here I give her
father's heart from her.
Call France.
Who stirs?
Call Burgundy,
Cornwall, Albany.
With my two daughters'
dowers digest this third.
Let pride, which she calls
plainness, marry her.
I do invest you jointly with 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 will retain the name,
and all the addition of a king,
the sway, revenue, execution of the rest,
beloved sons, be yours, which to confirm,
this coronet part between you--
Royal Lear,
whom I have ever honored as my king,
loved as my father, as my master followed,
as my great patron
thought on in my prayers--
The bow is bent and drawn,
make from the shaft.
Let it fall rather, though the fork invade
the region of my heart.
Be Kent unmannerly when Lear is mad.
What wouldst thou do, old man?
Think'st though that duty
shall have dread to speak
when power to flattery bows?
[gasps]
To plainness honor's bound,
when majesty falls to folly.
Reserve thy state,
and in my best consideration
check this hideous rashness.
Answer my life my judgment,
thy youngest daughter
does not love thee least,
nor are those empty-hearted
whose low sounds
reverb no hollowness.
Kent, on thy life, no more.
My life I never held but as a pawn
to wage against thine enemies,
nor feared to lose it,
thy safety being motive.
Out of my sight!
See better, Lear, and let me still remain
the true blank of thine eye.
Now, by Apollo--
Now, by Apollo, King, thou
swearest thy gods in vain.
O vassal!
Miscreant!
[Both] Dear sir, forbear.
Do!
Kill thy physician,
and thy fee bestow upon the foul disease.
Revoke thy gift,
or whilst I can vent
clamor from my throat,
I'll tell thee thou dost evil.
Hear me, recreant!
On thine allegiance,
hear me!
Since thou has sought to
make us break our vow,
which we durst never yet,
and by strained pride
to come betwixt our
sentence and our power,
which not our nature
nor our place can bear,
our potency made good,
take thine reward.
Five days we do allot thee
for provision to shield thee
from disasters of the world,
and on the sixth to turn thy
hated back upon our kingdom.
If, on the 10th day following,
thy banished trunk be
found in our dominion,
the moment is thy death.
Away!
By Jupiter,
this shall not be revoked.
Fare thee well, King.
Since thus thou wilt
appear, freedom lives hence,
and banishment is here.
The gods to their dear
shelter take thee, maid,
that justly think'st and
hast most rightly said!
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.
Here's France and Burgundy, my noble lord.
My Lord of Burgundy,
we first address toward you,
who with this king hath
rivaled for our daughter.
What in the least
will you require in
present dower with her,
or cease your quest of love?
Most royal Majesty,
I crave no more than hath
your Highness offered,
nor will you tender less.
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 this
little-seeming substance,
or all of it, with our displeasure pieced,
and nothing more, may
haply like your Grace,
she's there,
and she is yours.
I know no answer.
Will you, with these infirmities she owes,
unfriended, new adopted to our hate,
dowered with our curse, and
strangered with our oath,
take her, or leave her?
Pardon me, royal sir.
Election makes not up in such conditions.
Then leave her, sir,
for by the power that made
me, I tell you all her wealth.
For you, great King,
I would not from your
love make such a stray
to match you where I hate,
therefore beseech you to avert your liking
a more worthier way
than on a wretch whom nature is ashamed
almost to acknowledge hers.
This is most strange,
that she whom even but
now was your best object,
the argument of your
praise, balm of your age,
the best, the dearest,
should in this trice of time
commit a thing so monstrous
to dismantle so many folds of favor.
Sure, her offense must be
of such unnatural degree
that monsters it,
or your fore-vouched
affection fall into taint,
which to believe of her must be a faith
that reason without miracle
should never plant in me.
I yet beseech your Majesty,
if for I want that glib and oily art
to speak and purpose not,
since what I well intend,
I'll do it before I speak,
that you make known it is no vicious blot,
murder, or foulness,
no unchaste action or dishonored step,
that hath deprived me
of your grace and favor,
but even for want of that
for which I am richer,
a still-soliciting eye,
and such a tongue that
I am glad I have not,
though not to have it hath
lost me in your liking.
Better thou hadst not been born
than not to have pleased me better.
Is it but this,
a tardiness in nature that
often leaves the history unspoke
which it intends to do?
My Lord of Burgundy,
what say you to the lady?
Love's not love when it
is mingled with regards
that stands aloof from the entire point.
Will you have her?
She is herself a dowry.
Royal Majesty,
give but that portion
which yourself proposed,
and here I take Cordelia by the hand,
Duchess of Burgundy.
Nothing!
I have sworn.
I am firm.
I am sorry then you have so lost a father
that you must lose a husband.
Peace be with Burgundy!
Since that respects of
fortune are his love,
I shall not be his wife.
Fairest Cordelia,
that art most rich, being poor,
most choice, forsaken,
and most 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 dower-less daughter,
King, thrown to my chance,
is queen of us, of ours,
of our fair France.
Not all the dukes of waterish Burgundy
can buy this unprized precious maid of me.
Bid them farewell, Cordelia,
though unkind.
Thou losest here,
a better where to find.
Thou hast her, France, let her be thine,
for we 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.
Bid farewell to your sisters.
The 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.
Love well our father.
To your professed bosoms I commit him,
but yet, alas, as stood
I within his grace,
I would prefer him to a better place!
So farewell to you both.
Prescribe not us our duties.
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
want that you have wanted.
Time shall unfold what
plighted cunning hides.
Who covers faults, at
last with shame derides.
Well may you prosper!
Come, my fair Cordelia.
Sister, it is not little I have to say
of what most nearly appertains to us both.
I think our father will hence tonight.
That's most certain,
and with you.
Next month with us.
You see how full of changes his age is.
The observation we have
made on it hath been little.
He always loved our sister best,
with what poor judgment
he hath now cast her off
appears too grossly.
'Tis the infirmity of his age.
Yet he hath ever but
slenderly known himself.
The best and soundest of
his time hath been but rash.
Then must we look from his
age to receive not alone
the imperfections of
long-ingraffed condition,
but there with all the unruly waywardness
that infirm and choleric
years bring with them.
Such unconstant starts are
we likely to have of him
as this of Kent's banishment.
There is further
compliment of leave-taking
between France and him.
I pray you,
let's hit together.
If our father carry authority
with such disposition as he bears,
this last surrender of
his will but offend us.
We shall further think of it.
We must do something, and in the heat.
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 12 or 14
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?
With baseness?
Bastardy?
Base, base?
Who, in the lusty stealth of nature,
take more composition and
fierce quality than doth,
within a dull, stale, tired bed,
go to the creating a whole tribe of fops
got tween asleep and wake?
Well then, Legitimate Edgar,
I must have your land.
Our father's love is to the bastard Edmund
as to the legitimate.
Fine word, "legitimate"!
Well, my legitimate, if this letter speed,
and my invention thrive,
Edmund the base shall top the legitimate.
I grow.
I prosper.
Now gods, stand up for bastards!
Kent banished thus?
And France in choler parted?
And the King gone tonight,
proscribed his power,
confined to exhibition?
All this done upon the gad?
Edmund,
[paper rustles]
how now?
What news?
So please your lordship, none.
Why so earnestly seek you
to put up that letter?
[laughs] I know no news, my lord.
What paper were you reading?
Nothing, my lord.
No?
What needed then
that terrible dispatch
of it into your pocket?
The quality of nothing hath
not such need to hide itself.
Let's see.
Come, if it be nothing,
I shall not need spectacles.
[laughs] I beseech you, sir, pardon me.
It is a letter from my brother
that I have not all o'er-read,
and for so much as I have perused,
I find it not fit for your o'erlooking.
Give me the letter, sir.
I shall offend, either
to detain or give it.
The contents, as in part I
understand them, are to blame--
Let's see, let's see!
I hope, for my brother's justification,
he wrote this but as an
essay or taste of my virtue.
"This policy and reverence of age
"makes the world bitter"
[reading indistinctly].
[paper rustles]
"This policy and reverence of age
"makes the world bitter
to the best of our times,
"keeps our futures 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 should
sleep till I waked him,
"you should enjoy half
his revenue for ever,
"and live the beloved
of your brother, Edgar!"
[gasps]
Conspiracy?
"Sleep till I waked him,
"you should enjoy half his revenue."
My son Edgar!
Had he a hand to write this?
A heart and brain to breed it in?
When came this to you?
Who brought it?
It was not brought me, my lord,
there's the cunning of it.
I found it thrown in at
the casement of my closet.
You know the character
to be your brother's?
If the matter were good, my lord,
I durst swear it were his,
but in respect of that, I
would fain think it were not.
It is his.
It is his hand, my lord,
but I hope his heart
is not in the contents.
Has he never before sounded
you in this business?
Never, my lord.
But I have heard him oft
maintain it to be fit
that, sons at perfect age,
and fathers declined,
the father should be as ward to the son,
and the son manage his revenue.
O villain, villain!
His very opinion in the letter!
Abhorred villain!
Unnatural, detested, brutish villain!
Worse than brutish!
Go sirrah, seek him.
I'll apprehend him.
Abominable villain!
Where is he?
I do not well know, my lord.
If it shall please you
to suspend your indignation
against my brother
till you can derive better
testimony of his 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 honor,
and shake in pieces the
heart of his obedience.
I dare pawn down my life for him
that he hath writ this to feel
my affection to your honor,
and to no other pretense of danger.
Think you so?
If your honor 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 with no greater
delay than this very evening.
He cannot be such a monster.
Nor is not, sure.
To his father, who so tenderly
and entirely loves him.
Heaven and earth!
[sighs]
Seek him out, Edmund.
Wind me into him, I pray you.
Frame the business after your own wisdom.
I would unstate myself to
be in a due resolution.
I will seek him, sir, presently,
convey the business as I shall find means,
and acquaint you withal.
These late eclipses in the sun and moon
portend no good to us.
Though the wisdom of nature
can reason it thus and thus,
yet nature finds itself
scourged by the sequent effects.
Love cools, friendship
falls off, brothers divide.
In cities, mutinies,
in countries, discord,
in palaces, treason,
and the bond cracked
'twixt son and father.
This villain of mine comes
under the prediction,
there's son against father.
The King falls from bias of nature,
there's father against child.
[groans]
We have seen the best of our time.
Machinations, hollowness, treachery,
and all ruinous disorders
follow us disquietly to our graves.
Find out this villain, Edmund,
it shall lose thee nothing.
Do it carefully.
And the noble and
true-hearted Kent banished!
His offense,
honesty!
'Tis strange.
This is the excellent
foppery of the world,
that, when we are sick in fortune,
often the surfeits of our own behavior,
we make guilty of our disasters
the sun, the moon, and stars,
as if we were villains on necessity,
fools by heavenly compulsion,
knaves, thieves, and treachers
by spherical predominance.
Drunkards, liars, and adulterers
by an enforced obedience
of planetary influence,
and all that we are evil in,
by a divine thrusting on.
An admirable evasion of whore-master man,
to lay his goatish disposition
on the charge of a star!
My father compounded with my mother
under the Dragon's Tail,
and my nativity was under Ursa Major,
so that it follows I
am rough and lecherous.
I should have been that I am,
had the maidenliest star in the firmament
twinkled on my bastardizing.
Edgar,
pat he comes, like a
catastrophe of the old comedy.
My cue is villainous melancholy,
with a sigh like Tom o' Bedlam.
O,
these eclipses do portend these divisions!
[hums]
How now, brother Edmund?
What serious contemplation are you in?
I am thinking, brother,
of a prediction I read this other day,
what should follow these eclipses.
Do you busy yourself with that?
I promise you, the effects he
writes of succeed unhappily,
as of unnaturalness between
the child and the parent,
death, dearth, dissolutions
of ancient amities,
divisions in state,
menaces and maledictions
against king and nobles,
needless diffidences,
banishment of friends,
dissipation of cohorts, nuptial breaches,
and I know not what.
How long have you been
a sectary astronomical?
Come, come!
When saw you my father last?
The night gone by.
Spake you with him?
Ay, two hours together.
Parted you in good terms?
Found you no displeasure in
him by word nor countenance?
None at all.
Bethink yourself wherein
you may have offended him,
and at my entreaty forbear his presence
until some little time hath qualified
the heat of his displeasure,
which at this instant so rageth in him
that with the mischief of your person
it would scarcely allay.
Some villain hath done me wrong.
That's my fear.
I pray you have a continent forbearance
till the speed of his rage goes slower,
and, as I say, retire
with me to my lodgings,
from whence I will fitly bring
you to hear my lord speak.
Pray ye, go!
There's my key.
[key jangles]
If you do stir abroad, go armed.
Armed, brother?
Brother, I advise you to the best.
I am no honest man if there be
any good meaning toward you.
I have told you what
I have seen and heard,
but faintly, nothing like the
image and the horror of it.
Pray you, away!
Shall I hear from you anon?
I do serve you in this business.
A credulous father and a brother noble
whose nature is so far from doing harms
that he suspects none,
on whose foolish honesty
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.
Did my father strike my gentleman
for chiding of his fool?
Ay, madam.
By day and night, he wrongs me!
Every hour he flashes into
one gross crime or other
that sets us all at odds.
I'll not endure it.
His knights grow riotous,
and himself upbraids us 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.
[trumpets blaring]
He's coming, madam, I hear him.
Put on what weary negligence you please,
you and your fellows.
I'd have it come to question.
If he distaste it, let him to my 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 have said.
Well, madam.
And let his knights have
colder looks among you.
What grows of it, no matter.
Advise your fellows so.
I would breed from hence
occasions, and I shall,
that I may speak.
I'll write straight to my
sister to hold my very course.
Prepare for dinner.
If but as well I other accents borrow,
that can my speech defuse,
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,
so may it come, thy
master, whom thou lovest,
shall find thee full of labors.
Let me not stay a jot for dinner.
[stick bangs]
Go get it ready.
[groans]
How now?
What art thou?
A man, sir.
What dost thou profess?
What wouldst thou with us?
I do profess to be no less than I seem,
to serve him truly that
will put me in trust,
love him that is honest,
to converse with him that
is wise and says little,
to fear judgment,
to fight when I cannot choose,
and to eat no fish.
What art thou?
A very honest-hearted fellow,
and as poor as the King.
If thou be'st as poor for a
subject as he is for a king,
thou art poor enough.
[laughs]
What wouldst thou?
Service.
Who wouldst thou serve?
You.
Dost though know me, fellow?
No, sir, but you have
that in your countenance
that I would fain call master.
What's that?
Authority.
What services canst thou do?
Oh, 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.
How old are thou?
Not so young, sir, to
love a woman for singing,
nor so old to dote on her for anything.
[laughs]
I have years on my back 48.
Follow me, thou shalt serve me.
If I like thee no worse after dinner,
I shall not part from thee before.
Dinner, ho, ho, ho, ho,
-dinner!
-[laughing]
Where's my knave?
My fool?
Go you and call my fool hither.
You, you, sirrah, where's my daughter?
So please you.
What says the fellow there?
Call the clotpoll back.
Where's my fool,
ho, ho, ho?
I think the world is asleep.
[laughs]
How now?
Where's that mongrel?
He says, my lord, your
daughter is not well.
Why came not the slave back
to me when I called him?
Sir, he answered me in the
roundest manner, he would not.
He would not?
My lord, I know not what the matter is,
but to my judgment your
Highness is not entertained
with that ceremonious
affection as you were wont.
There's a great abatement of kindness
appears as well in the general dependents
as in the Duke himself
also and your daughter.
Nah, sayest thou so?
I beseech you'll pardon me,
my lord, if I be mistaken,
for my duty cannot be silent
when I think your Highness wronged.
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 the very pretense
and purpose of unkindness.
I will look further into it.
But where's my fool?
I've not seen him this two days.
Since my young lady's
going into France, sir,
the fool hath much pined away--
No more of that,
I've noted it well.
Go you, tell my daughter
I would speak with her.
Go you, and call hither my fool.
O, you, sir, you!
[stick bangs]
Come you hither, sir.
Who am I, sir?
My lady's father.
"My lady's father"?
My lord's knave!
You whoreson dog, you slave, you cur!
I am none of these, my lord,
I beseech your pardon.
Do you bandy looks with me, you rascal?
[stick slaps]
I'll not be strucken, my lord.
Nor tripped neither, you
base football player!
I thank thee, fellow.
Thou serv'st me, and I'll love thee.
Come sir, arise,
away!
No!
I will teach you differences.
Away, away!
Have you wisdom?
You'll measure your lubber's
length again, tarry, but away!
Go to!
-[yells]
-Hey, hey, hey,
-hey, hey!
-[stick thwacks]
Whoo-hoo!
[laughs]
Now, my friendly knave, I thank thee.
Here's earnest of thy service.
Let me hire him too.
Here's my coxcomb.
[laughs]
How now, my pretty knave?
How dost thou?
Sirrah, you were best take my coxcomb.
Why, fool?
Why?
For taking one's part that's out of favor.
Nay, and thou canst not
smile as the wind sits,
thou'lt catch cold shortly.
There, take my coxcomb!
Why, this fellow, he's
banished two on's daughters,
and did the third a
blessing against his will.
If thou follow him, thou
must needs wear my coxcomb.
How now, nuncle?
Would I had two coxcombs
and two daughters!
Why, boy?
If I gave them all me living,
I'll keep me coxcombs
meself, there's mine!
Beg another of thy daughters--
Take heed, sirrah, the whip.
[yells]
Truth's a dog must to kennel.
He must be whipped out when Lady the brach
may stand by the fire and stink.
A pestilent gall to me!
Sirrah, I'll teach thee a speech.
Do, boy.
Mark it, nuncle.
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 lest than thou throwest,
leave thy drink and thy whore,
and keep in-a-door,
and thou shalt have more
than two 10s to a score.
[laughs]
This is nothing, fool.
Then 'tis like the breath
of an unfeed lawyer,
you gave me nothing for it.
[laughs]
Why can you make no
use of nothing, nuncle?
Why, no, boy.
Nothing can be made out of nothing boy.
Well prithee tell him,
so much the rent of his land comes to,
he'll not believe a fool.
A bitter fool!
Dost know the difference, my boy,
between a bitter fool and a sweet one?
No, lad, teach me.
That lord that counseled
thee to give away thy land,
come place him here by me,
and do thou for him stand,
the sweet and bitter fool
will presently appear,
the one in motley here,
the other found out there.
Dost thou call me fool, boy?
All thy other titles thou hast given away,
that thou wast born with.
This is not altogether fool, my lord.
No faith, no lords and
great men will not let me.
If I had a monopoly out,
they'd have part on't.
And the ladies too,
they'll not let me have
all the fool to meself,
they'll be snatching.
[yells]
[laughs]
Nuncle,
give me an egg, and I'll
give thee two crowns.
What two crowns shall they be?
When I've cut the egg in the
middle and eat up the meat,
the two crowns of the egg.
When thou clovest thy crown in the middle
and gavest away both parts,
thou borest thine ass on
thy back o'er the dirt.
Thou hadst little wit in thy bald crown
than thy gavest thy golden one away.
If I speak like meself in this,
let him be whipped that first finds it so.
♪ Fools had ne'er less grace in a year ♪
♪ For wise men are grown foppish ♪
♪ They know not how their wits to wear ♪
♪ Their manners are so apish ♪
When was thou wont to be
so full of songs, sirrah?
I have used it, nuncle,
ever since thou mad'st
thy daughters thy mothers
[growls]
for when thou gavest them the rod,
and put'st down thine own breeches,
♪ Then they for sudden joy did weep ♪
♪ And I for sorrow sung ♪
♪ That such a king should play bo-peep ♪
♪ And go the fools among ♪
Oh, nuncle, prithee.
Keep a schoolmaster that
can teach thy fool to lie.
I fain learn to lie.
An your lie, sirrah,
we'll have you whipped.
I marvel what kin thou
and thy daughters are.
They'd have me whipped for speaking true,
thou'lt have me whipped for lying,
sometimes I'm whipped
for holding me peace.
I'd rather be any kind
of thing than a fool,
and yet I'd not be thee, nuncle.
Thou hast pared thy wit o' both sides
and left nothing in the middle.
Here comes one of the parings.
[laughs]
How now, daughter?
What makes that frontlet on?
You're too much of late in the frown.
Thou wast a pretty fellow
when thou hadst no need
to care for her frowning.
Now thou art an O without a figure.
I am better than thou art now.
I'm a fool, thou art nothing.
Oh yes, forsooth, I will hold me peace,
so your face bids me,
though you say nothing.
Mum, mum, mum, mum!
He that keeps nor crust nor crum,
weary of all, shall want some.
That's a sheal'd peascod.
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 to you,
to have found a safe redress,
but now grow fearful,
by what yourself, too
late, hath spoke and done,
that you protect their course,
and put it on by your allowance,
which if you should, the
fault would not scape censure,
nor the redresses sleep,
which in the tender of a wholesome weal,
might in their working
do you that offense,
which else were shame,
that then necessity will
call discreet proceeding.
-[groans]
-For you know, nuncle,
the hedge-sparrow fed the cuckoo so long
it had its head bit off by its young.
So out went the candle
and we were left darkling.
Are you our daughter?
-[laughs]
-I would you would make
good use of your good wisdom
whereof I know you are fraught,
and put away these dispositions
which of late transport you
from what you rightly are.
May not the ass know when
the cart draws a horse?
Oh, whoops, Jug, I love thee!
Does any here know me?
This is not Lear.
[laughs]
Does Lear walk thus?
Speak thus?
Where are his eyes?
[laughs] Either his notion weakens,
or his discernings are lethargied.
[laughs] Waking?
'Tis not so!
Who is it that will 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 [laughs].
They will make an obedient father.
Your name,
fair gentlewoman?
This admiration, sir,
is much o' the savor of
other your new pranks.
I do beseech you to
understand my purposes aright.
As you are old and
reverend, should be wise.
Here you do keep a hundred
knights and squires,
men, so disordered, so deboshed and bold,
that this our court,
infected with their manners,
shows like a riotous inn.
Epicurism and lust makes it
more like a brothel or a tavern
than a graced palace.
The shame itself doth
speak for instant remedy.
Be then designed by
her that else will take
the things she begs
a little to disquantity your train,
and the remainders that shall still depend
to be such men as may besort your age,
which know themselves, and you.
Darkness and devils!
Saddle my horses!
Call my train together!
Degenerate bastard, I'll not trouble thee,
yet have I left a daughter.
You strike my people,
and your disordered rabble
make servants of their betters.
Woe that too late repents!
O, sir, are you come?
Is it your will?
Speak, sir!
Prepare my horses.
Ingratitude, thou marble-hearted fiend.
More hideous when thou
showest thee in a child
than the sea monster!
Pray, sir, be patient.
Detested kite,
thou liest!
My train are men of
choice and rarest parts,
who all particulars of duty know
and with the most exact regard
support the worships of their name.
O this most small fault,
how ugly didst thou in Cordelia show!
Which, 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, Lear!
Beat at this gate that let thy folly in
and thy dear judgment out!
Go, go, my people.
My lord, I am as
guiltless as I am ignorant
of what hath moved you.
It may be so, my lord.
Hear, Nature, hear!
Dear goddess, hear!
Suspend thy purpose,
if thou didst intend to
make this creature fruitful.
Into her womb convey sterility.
Dry up in her the organs of increase.
And from her derogate body never
spring a babe to honor her!
If she must teem, create
her child of spleen,
that it may live and be a twart
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 how sharper
than a serpent's tooth it is
to have a thankless child.
Away,
away!
Now, gods that we adore,
wherefore comes this?
Never afflict yourself to know more of it,
but let his disposition have
that scope as dotage gives it.
What,
50 of my followers at a
clap within a fortnight?
What's the matter, sir?
I'll tell thee.
Life and death I am ashamed
that thou hast power
to shake my manhood thus,
that these hot tears, which
break from me perforce,
should make thee worth them.
Blasts and fogs upon thee!
The untented woundings of a father's curse
pierce every sense about thee!
Old fond eyes [inhales],
beweep this cause again,
I'll pluck ye out,
and cast you, with the
waters that you lose,
to temper clay.
[yells]
Is it come to this?
Let it be so.
I have another daughter,
who 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 that shape
which thou dost think I
have cast off for ever.
[footsteps stomping]
Do you mark that?
I cannot be so partial, Goneril,
to the great love I bear you--
Oh, pray you, content.
What, Oswald, ho!
You, sir, more knave than fool,
after your master!
Nuncle Lear, nuncle Lear,
tarry, take the fool with thee.
A fox when one has caught
her, and such a daughter,
should sure to the slaughter,
if my cap would buy a halter.
And so the fool follows after.
This man hath had good counsel!
A hundred knights?
[laughs]
'Tis politic and safe
to let him keep at
point a hundred knights,
yes, that on every dream,
each buzz, each fancy,
each complaint, dislike,
he may enguard his dotage in their powers
and hold our lives in mercy.
Oswald, I say!
Well, you may fear too far--
[gasps]
Safer than trust too far.
Let me still take away the harms I fear,
not fear still to be taken.
I know his heart.
What he hath uttered
I have writ my sister.
If she sustain him and
his hundred knights,
when I have shown the unfitness.
How now, Oswald?
What, have you writ that
letter to my sister?
Aye, madam.
Take you some company, and away to horse!
Inform her full of my particular fear,
and thereto add such reasons of your own
as may compact it more.
Get you gone, and hasten your return.
No, no, my lord!
This milky gentleness and course of yours,
though I condemn not, yet, under pardon,
you are much more attacked
for want of wisdom
than praised for harmful mildness.
How far your eyes may
pierce I cannot tell.
Striving to do better,
oft we mar what's well.
Nay then.
Oh, well.
The event.
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.
I will not sleep, my lord,
till I have delivered your letter.
If a man's brains were in his heels,
were it not in danger of kibes?
Ay, boy.
Then prithee be merry.
Thy wit shall not go slip-shod.
Ha, ha, ha!
Shalt see thy other daughter
will use thee kindly,
for though she's as like this
as a crab's like an apple,
yet I can tell what I can tell.
What canst tell, boy?
She will taste as like this
as a crab does to a crab.
Canst tell why one's nose
stands in the middle on's face?
No.
To keep his eyes on
either side of his nose,
that what a man cannot
smell out, he may spy into.
I did her wrong.
Canst tell how an oyster makes his shell?
No, no, no, no.
No, nor I neither,
but I can tell why a snail has a house.
Why?
Put his head in.
Not to give it away to his daughters,
and leave his horns without a case.
I shall forget my nature.
So kind a father!
Be my horses ready?
Thy asses are gone about them.
The reason why the seven
stars are no more than seven
is a pretty reason.
Because they're not eight?
Yes.
Yes indeed.
Thou'd make a good fool.
To tak't again perforce!
Monster ingratitude!
If thou wert my fool, nuncle,
I'd have thee beaten for
being old before thy time.
How's that?
Thou shouldst not have been
old till thou hadst been wise.
O, let me not be mad,
not mad, sweet heaven, keep me in temper.
I would not be mad!
How now?
Are the horses ready?
Ready, my lord.
Come, boy.
She that's a maid now, and
laughs at my departure,
shall not be a maid long,
unless things be cut shorter.
Save thee, Curan.
And you, sir.
Oh,
I've been with your father,
given him notice that the Duke of Cornwall
and Regan his Duchess will
be here with him this night.
How comes that?
Nay, I know not.
You have heard of the news abroad?
Not I.
Pray you, what are they?
You heard of no likely wars toward
'twixt Dukes of Cornwall and Albany?
Not a word.
You may do, then, in time.
Fare you well, sir.
The Duke be here tonight?
The better.
Best.
This weaves itself
perforce into my business.
My father hath set guard
to take my brother,
and I have one thing,
of a queasy question,
which I must act.
Briefness and fortune, work!
Brother, a word!
Descend!
Brother, I say!
Come on.
My father watches.
O sir, fly this place!
Intelligence is given where you are hid.
You have now the good
advantage of the night.
Have you not spoken 'gainst
the Duke of Cornwall?
He's coming hither now, in
the night, in the haste,
and Regan with him.
Have you nothing said upon his party
against the Duke of Albany?
Advise yourself.
I am sure on't,
-not a word.
-Shhh!
I hear my father coming.
Pardon me.
In cunning I must draw my sword upon you.
Draw, seem to defend
yourself, now quit you well.
-[swords clang]
-Ha!
Yield!
Come before my father.
Light, ho.
Fly, brother.
Torches, torches!
So, farewell.
[sword clatters]
Some blood drawn on me would beget opinion
of my more fierce endeavor.
[gasps]
I have seen drunkards do
more than this in sport.
[yells]
Father, father!
Stop, stop!
No help?
Now, Edmund,
where's the villain?
Here stood he in the dark,
his sharp sword out,
mumbling of wicked charms,
conjuring the moon to
stand auspicious mistress.
But where is he?
Look sir, I bleed.
Where is the villain, Edmund?
Fled this way, sir.
When by no means he could--
Pursue him, ho!
Go after.
By no means what?
Persuade me to the
murder of your lordship.
Oh, strong and fastened villain.
Would he deny his letter?
I never got him.
[trumpets blaring]
Hark, the Duke's trumpet!
I know not why he comes.
All ports I'll bar, the
villain shall not scape.
The Duke must grant me that,
and of my land, loyal and natural boy,
I'll work the means to make thee capable.
How now, my noble friend?
Since I came hither,
which I can call but now,
I've heard strange news.
If it be true all
vengeance comes too short
which can pursue the offender.
How dost, my lord?
O madam, my old heart is
cracked, it's cracked.
What did my father's
godson seek your life?
He whom my father named?
Your Edgar?
Dear, dear lady, shame would have it hid!
Was he not companion
with the riotous knights
that tend upon my father?
I know not, madam.
'Tis too bad, too bad.
Yes, madam, he was of that consort.
No marvel then though
he were ill affected.
'Tis they have put him on
to the old man's death,
to have the expense 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.
Nor I, assure thee, Regan.
Edmund, I hear that you
have shown your father
a childlike office.
It was my duty, sir.
He did bewray his practice,
and received this hurt you
see, striving to apprehend him.
Is he pursued?
Ay, my good lord.
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 shall we much need,
you we first seize on.
I shall serve you, sir,
truly, however else.
For him I thank your Grace.
You know not why we came to visit you.
Thus out of season,
threading 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 best thought it
fit to answer from home.
The several messengers
from hence attend dispatch.
Our good old friend,
lay comforts to your bosom,
and bestow your needful
counsel to our businesses,
which craves the instant use.
I serve you, madam.
Your Graces are right welcome.
[footsteps thudding]
Good dawning to thee, friend.
Art of this house?
Ay.
Where may we set our horses?
In the mire.
Prithee, if thou lov'st me, tell me.
I love thee not.
Why then, I care not for thee.
If I had thee in Lipsbury Pinfold,
I'd make thee care for me.
Why dost thy use me thus?
I know thee not.
Oh, fellow, I know thee.
What dost thou know me for?
A knave.
A rascal.
An eater of broken meats.
A base, proud, shallow,
beggarly, three-suited,
hundred-pound, filthy,
worsted-stocking knave.
A lily-livered, action-taking, whoreson,
glass-gazing, super-serviceable,
finical rogue.
One-trunk-inheriting slave.
One that wouldst be a bawd
in way of good service,
and art nothing but the
composition of knave, coward,
beggar, pander, and the son
and heir of a mongrel bitch.
And one whom I will beat
into clamorous whining,
if thou denyest the least
syllable of thy addition.
Why, what a monstrous fellow art thou,
thus to rail upon one that
is neither known of thee,
nor knows thee!
And what a brazen-faced varlet art thou,
to deny thou knowest me!
Is it not two days since
I tripped up thy heels
and beat thee before the King?
Draw, you rogue!
[stick bangs]
For though it be night,
yet the moon shines.
I'll make a sop o' the moonshine of you,
you whoreson cullionly barber-monger!
Draw!
-[stick bangs]
-Away!
I have nothing to do with thee.
-[stick bangs]
-Draw, you rascal!
You come with letters against the King,
and take Vanity the puppet's part
against the royalty of her
father, hmm? [stick bangs]
Draw, you rascal [stick bangs],
or I'll so carbonado your shanks!
Draw, you rogue, come your ways!
Help, ho!
Murder!
-Help!
-Strike, you slave!
Stand, you rogue!
Stand, you neat slave!
Strike!
-[yells]
-Help, ho!
Murder!
-Murder!
-How now?
What's the matter?
-Parts.
-With you, goodman boy,
if you please, I'll flesh you.
-Weapons, arms?
-Come on, young master!
Ha!
What's the matter here?
Keep peace, upon your lives!
He dies that strikes again.
What's the matter?
The messengers from our
sister and the King.
What's your difference?
Speak.
I am scarce in breath, my lord.
No marvel, you've so bestirred your valor.
You cowardly rascal,
nature disclaims in thee.
A tailor made thee.
Thou art a strange fellow.
A tailor make a man?
Yeah, a tailor, sir.
Stone-cutter or a painter
could not have made him so ill,
though they been but two
hours at the trade [snorts].
Speak yet, how grew your quarrel?
This ancient ruffian, sir,
whose life I have spared
at suit of his gray beard--
Thou whoreson zed!
Thou unnecessary letter!
My lord, if you'll give me leave,
I'll tread this unbolted
villain into mortar
and daub the wall of a jakes with him.
Peace, sirrah!
You beastly knave,
know you no reverence?
Oh yes, sir, but anger hath a privilege.
Why art thou angry?
That such a slave as
this should wear a sword,
who wears no honesty.
Such smiling rogues as these,
renege, affirm, and
turn their halcyon beaks
with every gale and vary of their master,
knowing naught, like dogs, but following.
A plague upon your epileptic visage!
Smile you my speeches, as I were a fool?
Goose, if I had you upon Sarum Plain,
I'd drive ye cackling home to Camelot.
What art thou mad, old fellow?
How fell you out?
Say that.
No contraries hold more antipathy
than I and such a knave.
Why dost thou call him knave?
What is his fault?
His countenance likes me not.
No more perchance does
mine, nor his, nor hers.
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 [snorts].
[laughs]
This is some fellow,
who having been praised for bluntness,
doth affect a saucy roughness,
and constrains the garb
quite from his nature.
He cannot flatter, he!
An honest mind and plain,
he must speak truth!
And they will take it,
so, if not, he's plain.
These kind of knaves I know
which in this plainness
harbor more craft and more corrupter ends
than 20 silly-ducking observants
that stretch their duties nicely.
Oh, sir, in good faith, in sincere verity,
under the allowance of your great aspect,
whose influence,
like the wreath of radiant fire
on flickering Phoebus' front.
What mean'st by this?
To go out of my dialect,
which you discommend so much.
I know, sir, I am no flatterer.
He that 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 it.
What was the offense you gave him?
I never gave him any.
It pleased the King his master
very late to strike at me,
upon his misconstruction.
When he, compact, and
flattering his displeasure,
tripped me behind.
Being down, insulted,
railed, and put upon him
such a deal of man as 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.
None of these rogues and
cowards but Ajax is their fool.
Fetch forth the stocks!
You stubborn ancient knave,
you reverent braggart.
We'll teach you.
Sir, I'm too old to learn.
Call not your stocks for me.
I serve the King,
on whose employment I was sent to you.
You shall do small respect,
show too bold malice
against the grace and person
of my master, stocking his messenger.
Fetch forth the stocks!
As I have life and honor,
there shall he sit till noon.
'Til noon?
'Till night, my lord, and all night too!
Why madam, if I were your father's dog,
you should not use me so.
Sir, being his knave, I will.
This is a fellow of the selfsame color
our sister speaks of.
Come, bring away the stocks!
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
contemnedest wretches
for pilferings and most common
trespasses are punished with.
The King must take it ill that he,
so lightly valued in his messenger,
should have him thus restrained.
I'll answer that.
My sister may receive it much more worse,
to have her gentleman abused, assaulted,
for following her affairs.
Put in his legs.
[stocks bang]
Come, my good lord,
away.
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.
Pray do not, sir.
I've watched and traveled hard.
Some time I shall sleep out,
the rest I'll whistle.
A good man's fortune
may grow out at heels.
Give you good morrow!
The Duke's to blame in this.
'Twill be ill taken.
Good King, that must
approve the common saw,
thou out of heaven's benediction comest
to the warm sun!
Approach, thou beacon to this under globe,
that by thy comfortable beams
I may peruse this letter.
[paper rustles]
Nothing almost sees miracles but misery.
I know 'tis from Cordelia,
who hath most fortunately been informed
of my obscured course.
[paper rustles]
"And shall find time
from this enormous state
"seeking to give losses their remedies."
All weary and o'erwatched.
Take vantage, heavy eyes,
not to behold this shameful lodging.
[sighs]
Fortune, good night.
Smile once more,
turn thy wheel.
[panting]
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.
Whiles I may scape, I
will preserve myself,
and am bethought to take the
basest and most poorest shape
that ever penury, in contempt
of man, brought near to beast.
My face I'll grime with filth,
blanket my loins, elf
all my hairs in knots,
and with presented
nakedness outface the winds
and persecutions of the sky.
The country gives me proof and
precedent of Bedlam beggars,
who, with roaring voices,
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,
sheepcotes, and mills,
sometime with lunatic bans,
sometime with prayers,
enforce their charity.
"Poor Turlygod!
"Poor Tom!"
That's something yet!
Edgar, I nothing am.
[footsteps thudding]
'Tis strange that they
should so depart from home,
and not send back my messenger.
As I learned,
the night before there
was no purpose in them
of this remove.
Hail to thee, noble master!
Ha!
Mak'st thou this shame thy pastime?
No, my lord.
[laughs] He wears cruel garters.
Horses are tied by the head,
dogs and bears by the neck,
monkeys by the loins, and men by the legs.
When a man's over-lusty at legs,
he wears wooden nether-stocks.
What's he that hath so
much thy place mistook
to set thee here?
It is both he and she,
your son and daughter.
No.
Yes.
No, I say.
I say yea.
No, no, they would not!
Yes, they have.
By Jupiter, I swear no!
By Juno, I swear ay!
They durst not do it.
They could not, would not do it.
'Tis worse than murder
to do upon respect such violent outrage.
Resolve me, with all modest haste,
which way thou mightst deserve
or they employ this usage,
coming from us.
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 Goneril
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 which
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 the shame
which here it suffers.
Winter's not gone yet, if
the wild geese fly that way.
Fathers that wear rags do
make their children blind,
but fathers that bear bags
shall see their children kind.
Fortune, that arrant whore,
ne'er turns the key for the poor.
But for all this,
thou shalt have as many
dolours for thy daughters
as thou canst tell in a year.
O, how this mother swells
up toward my heart!
Hysterica passio!
Down, thou climbing sorrow,
thy element's below!
Where is this daughter?
With the Earl, sir, here within.
Follow me not.
Stay here.
Made you no more offense
but what you speak of?
None.
How chance the King comes
with so small a number?
[laughs]
Thou hadst been set in the
stocks for that question,
thou'dst well deserved it.
Why, fool?
We'll set thee to school to an ant,
to teach thee there's no
laboring in the winter.
All that follow their
noses are led by the eyes
but blind men,
and there's not a nose among 20
but can tell him that's stinking.
Let go thy hold when a great
wheel runs down a hill,
lest it break thy neck with following,
but the great one that goes upwards,
let him draw thee after.
When a wise man gives thee better counsel,
give me mine again.
And I've none but knaves follow
it, since a fool gives it.
Where learned you this, fool?
Not in the stocks, fool.
[footsteps pounding]
Deny to speak with me?
They are sick, they are weary?
They've traveled all the night?
Mere fetches.
The images of revolt and flying off!
Fetch me a better answer.
My dear lord, you know the
fiery quality of the Duke.
How unremovable and fixed
he is in his own course.
Vengeance, plague, death, confusion!
Fiery?
What quality?
Why Gloucester, Gloucester,
I would speak with the Duke
of Cornwall and his wife.
Well, my good lord, I
have informed them so.
Informed them?
Dost understand me, man?
Ay, my good lord.
The King would speak with Cornwall.
The dear father would
with his daughter speak,
commands their service.
Are they informed of this?
My breath and blood!
Fiery?
The fiery Duke?
Tell the hot Duke that,
no, but not yet.
May be he is not well.
Infirmity doth still neglect all office
to which 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 a 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.
Go tell the Duke and 's wife
I'd 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.
I would have all well betwixt you.
O me,
my heart,
my rising heart!
But down!
Cry to it, nuncle, as the
cockney did to the eels
when she put 'em in the paste alive.
She knapped 'em o' the
coxcombs with a stick
and cried "Down, wantons, down!"
It was her brother that in
pure kindness to his horse,
buttered his hay.
[footsteps pounding]
Good morrow to you both.
Hail to your Grace!
I'm glad to see your Highness.
Regan, I think you are.
I know what reason I have to think so.
If though shouldst not be glad,
I would divorce me from thy mother's tomb,
sepulchring an adultress.
[foot stamps]
O, are you free?
Some other time for that.
Beloved Regan, thy sister's naught.
O Regan, she hath tied
sharp-toothed unkindness,
like a vulture, here!
I can scarce speak to thee.
Thou'lt not believe with
how depraved a quality,
O Regan!
I pray you, sir, take patience.
I have hope you less know
how to value her desert
than she to scant her duty.
Say, how is that?
I cannot think my sister in the least
would fail in her obligation.
If, sir, perchance she
have restrained the riots
of your followers,
'tis on such ground,
and to such wholesome end,
that clears her from all blame.
My curses on her!
O, sir, you are old!
Nature in you stands on the
very verge of her confine.
You should be ruled and
led by some discretion
that discerns your state
better than you yourself.
Therefore I pray you that to
my sister you do make return.
[inhales]
Say you have wronged her, sir.
Ask her forgiveness?
Do you but mark how
this becomes the house.
"Dear daughter, I confess that I am old.
"Age is unnecessary.
"On my knees I beg that you'll
vouchsafe me raiment, bed,
"and food."
Good sir, no more of
these unsightly tricks.
Return you to my sister.
Never, Regan!
She hath abated me of half my train.
Looked black upon me,
struck me with her
tongue, most serpent-like,
about the very heart.
All the stor'd vengeances of heaven
fall on her ingrateful top!
Strike her young bones, you
talking airs, with lameness!
-Fie, sir, fie!
-Your nimble lightnings,
dart your blinding flames
into her scornful eyes!
Infect her beauty, you fen-sucked fogs,
drawn by the powerful sun,
to fall and blast her pride!
O the blest gods!
So will you wish on me
when the rash mood is on.
Never, Regan,
thou shalt not have our curse.
Thy tender-hefted nature
shall not give thee o'er to harshness.
Her eyes are fierce,
but thine do comfort, and not burn.
'Tis not in thee to grudge my pleasures,
to cut off my train,
to bandy hasty words,
to scant my sizes,
and, in conclusion, to oppose
the bolt against my coming in.
Thou better knowest the offices of nature,
bond of childhood,
effects of courtesy,
dues of gratitude.
Thy half o' the kingdom
hast thou not forgot,
wherein I thee endowed.
Good sir, to the purpose.
Who put my man in the stocks?
[trumpet blares]
What trumpet's that?
I know it as my sister's.
This approves her letter,
she will soon be here.
Is your lady come?
This is a slave,
whose easy-borrowed pride
dwells in the fickle
grace of her he follows.
Out, varlet, from my sight.
What means your Grace?
How came my man in the stocks, Regan?
I have good hope thou didst not know on't.
Who comes here?
O heavens!
If you do love old men,
if your sweet sway allow obedience,
if you yourselves are old,
make it your cause!
Send down, and take my part!
Art not ashamed to look upon this beard?
O Regan, will you take her by the hand?
Why not by the hand, sir?
How have I offended?
All's not offense that indiscretion finds
and dotage terms so--
O
sides, you are too tough!
Will you yet hold?
How came my man in the stocks?
I set him there, sir,
but his own disorders deserved
much less advancement.
You?
Did you?
I pray you, father, being weak, seem so.
If, till the expiration of a 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.
Return to her, and 50 men dismissed?
No, rather I abjure all roofs,
and seek to wage against
the enmity of the air,
to be a comrade with the wolf and owl,
necessity's sharp pinch!
Return with her?
Why, the hot-blooded France,
who 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 that detested groom.
At your choice, sir.
I prithee, daughter, do not make me mad.
I'll no more trouble
you, my child, farewell.
We'll no more meet, no
more see one another.
[sighs] And yet thou art my
flesh, my blood, my daughter,
or rather a disease that's in my flesh,
which I must needs call mine.
Thou art a boil, a plague sore,
an embossed carbuncle
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.
Not altogether so.
I looked not for you yet,
nor am provided for your fit welcome.
Give ear, sir, to my sister.
For those that mingle
reason with your passion
must be content to think you old,
and so,
but she knows what she does.
Is this well spoken?
I dare avouch it, sir.
What, 50 followers?
Is it not well?
What should you need of more?
Yea, or so many,
sith that both charge
and danger speak 'gainst
so great a number?
How in one house
should many people, under
two commands, hold amity?
'Tis hard,
almost impossible.
Why might not you, my lord,
receive attendance from those
that she calls servants,
or from mine?
Why not, my lord?
If then they chanced to slack
ye, we could control them.
If you will come to me,
for now I spy a danger,
I do entreat you, bring but five-and-20.
To no more will I give place or notice.
I gave you all.
And in good time you gave it!
Made you my guardians, my depositaries,
but kept a reservation to be
followed by such a number.
What,
must I come to you with
five-and-20, Regan?
Said you so?
And speak't again, my lord.
No more with me.
Those wicked creatures
yet do look more favored
when others are more wicked.
Not being worst stands
in some rank of praise.
I'll go with thee.
Thy 50 yet doth double five-and-20,
and thou art twice her love.
Hear me, my lord.
What need you five-and-20, 10, or five,
to follow in a house where twice so many
have a command to tend you?
What need one?
O, reason not the need!
Our basest beggars are in the
poorest things superfluous.
Allow not nature more than nature needs,
man's life is cheap as beast's.
Thou art a lady.
If only to go warm were gorgeous,
why, nature needs not
what thou gorgeous wear'st
which scarcely keeps thee warm.
But for true need,
o heavens give me that
patience, patience I need!
You see me here, you gods, a poor old man,
as full of grief as age, wretched in both.
If it be you that stirs
these daughters' hearts
against their father,
fool me not so much to bear it tamely,
touch me with noble anger,
and let not women's weapons, water drops,
stain my man's cheeks!
No, you unnatural hags!
I will have such revenges on you both
as all the world shall,
[feet stamping]
I shall do such things.
What they are yet, I know not,
but they shall be the
terrors of the earth!
You think I'll weep.
No, I'll not weep.
I have full cause for weeping,
but this heart shall break
into a hundred thousand flaws
or ere I'll weep.
[thunder rumbles]
O fool,
I shall go mad!
[thunder roars]
Let us withdraw,
'twill be a storm.
This house is little.
The old man and his people
cannot be well bestowed.
'Tis his own blame hath
put himself from rest
and must needs taste his folly.
For his particular,
I'll receive him gladly,
but not one follower.
So am I purposed.
Where is my Lord of Gloucester?
Followed the old man forth.
[footsteps thudding]
He's returned.
The King is in high rage.
Whither is he going?
He calls to horse,
but will I know not whither.
'Tis best to give him
way, he leads himself.
Hear me, my lord.
Entreat him by no means to stay.
Alas the night comes on,
and the high winds do sorely ruffle.
For many miles about
there's scarce a bush.
O, sir, to wilful men
the injuries that they themselves procure
must be their schoolmasters.
Shut up your doors.
He's 'tended by a desperate train,
and what they may incense him to,
being apt to have his ear abused,
wisdom bids fear.
Shut up your doors, my
lord, 'tis a wild night.
My Regan counsels well.
Come, out of the storm.
[thunder rumbles]
[thunder roars]
Who's there, besides foul weather?
[Gent] One's minded like
the weather, most unquietly.
Where's the King?
Contending with the fretful elements,
bids the wind blow the earth into the sea,
or swell the curled waters 'bove the main,
that things might change or cease--
Sir, I do know you,
and dare upon the warrant of my note
commend a dear thing to you.
There is division,
although as yet the face of it
is 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, sir, 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 has cause to plain.
I am a gentleman of blood and breeding,
and from some knowledge and assurance
offer this office to you.
I will talk further with you--
No sir, no, do not.
For confirmation that I am
much more than my outwall,
open this purse and take what it contains.
If you should see Cordelia,
as fear not but you shall,
show her this ring,
and she will tell you who that fellow is
that yet you do not know.
Fie on this storm!
Now go seek the King.
Blow, winds, and crack your cheeks!
Rage!
Blow!
You cataracts and hurricanoes,
spout till you have drenched our steeples,
drowned the cocks!
You sulphurous and
thought-executing fires,
vaunt-couriers of
oak-cleaving thunderbolts,
[thunder roars]
singe my white head!
And you, all-shaking thunder,
strike flat the thick
rotundity of the world,
crack Nature's molds,
all germains spill at once,
that make ingrateful man!
Nuncle!
Court holy water in a dry house
is better than this
rain water out o' door.
Good nuncle, in, ask
thy daughters' blessing!
Here's a night pities
neither wise men nor fools.
Rumble thy bellyful!
Spit fire, spout rain!
[thunder roars]
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.
Then let fall your horrible pleasure.
Here I stand
your slave,
a poor, infirm, weak,
and despised old man.
And yet I call you servile ministers,
that will with two pernicious daughters
join your high-engendered
battles 'gainst a head
so old and white as this!
[laughs]
O!
'Tis foul!
He that has a house to put his head in
has a good head-piece.
No, I will be the pattern of all patience.
I will say
nothing.
[Kent] Who's there?
Marry, here's grace and a codpiece.
That's a wise man and a fool.
[Kent] Alas, sir, are you here?
Things that love night love
not such nights as these.
The wrathful skies gallow the
very wanderers of the night
and make them keep their caves.
Since I was man, such sheets of fire,
such bursts of horrid thunder,
such groans of roaring wind and rain,
I never remember to have heard.
Man's nature cannot carry
the affliction nor the fear.
Let the great gods,
that keep this dreadful
puddle o'er our heads,
find out their enemies now.
Tremble, thou wretch,
that hath within thee undivulged crimes
unwhipped of justice.
-[thunder roars]
-Hide thee,
thou bloody hand,
thou perjured, and thou
simular man of virtue
that art incestuous.
Caitiff, to pieces shake,
that under covert and convenient seeming,
hath practiced on man's life.
Close pent-up guilt,
rive your concealing continents,
and cry these dreadful summoners grace.
I am a man more sinned
against than sinning.
Alack, bareheaded?
Gracious my lord, hard by here is a hovel,
some friendship will it lend
you 'gainst the tempest.
And repose you there,
while I to this hard house,
more harder than the
stones whereof 'tis raised,
which even but now, demanding after you,
denied me to come in,
return, and force their scanted courtesy.
[pants]
My wits begin to turn.
Come on, my boy.
[sniffs]
How dost, my boy?
Art cold?
I'm cold myself.
Where is this straw, my fellow?
[thunder rumbles]
The art of our necessities is strange,
that can make vile things precious.
Come,
your hovel.
Poor fool and knave,
I have one part in my heart
that's sorry yet for thee.
♪ He that hath and a little tiny wit ♪
♪ With a hey, ho, the wind and the rain ♪
♪ And must make content
with his fortunes fit ♪
♪ For the rain it raineth every day ♪
True, my good boy.
Come,
bring us to your hovel.
Here's a brave night to cool a courtesan.
I'll speak a prophecy ere I go.
When priests are more in word than matter,
when brewers mar their malt with water,
when nobles are their tailors' tutors,
no heretics burned, but wenches suitors,
then shall the realm of Albion
come to great confusion.
When every case in law is right,
no squire in debt nor no poor knight,
when slanders do not live in tongues,
nor cutpurses come not to throngs,
when usurers tell their gold in the field,
and bawds and whores do churches build,
then comes the time,
who lives to see it,
when going shall be used with feet.
And this prophesy Merlin shall make,
for I live before his time.
Alack, alack, Edmund, I like
not this unnatural dealing!
When I desired their leave
that I might pity him,
they took from me the
use of mine own house,
charged me on pain of
perpetual displeasure
neither to speak of him, entreat for him,
or in any way sustain him.
Most savage and unnatural--
Ssh, go to, say you nothing!
There is division between the Dukes,
and a worse matter than that.
I have received a letter this night,
'tis dangerous to be spoken,
I have locked the letter in my closet.
These injuries the King now
bears will be revenged home.
There's part of a power already footed,
we must incline to the King.
I will look him and privily relieve him.
Go you and maintain talk with the Duke,
that my charity be not of him perceived.
If he ask for me, I am
ill and gone to bed.
If I die for it,
as no less is threatened me,
the King my old master must be relieved.
There are strange things toward, Edmund.
Pray you be careful.
[thunder roars]
[grunts]
Here is the place, my lord.
Good my lord, enter.
The tyranny of the open night's too rough
for nature to endure.
Let me alone.
No good my lord, enter here.
Wilst break my heart?
I'd rather break mine own.
Good my lord, enter.
Thou think'st 'tis much
that this contentious storm
invades us to the skin.
So 'tis to thee,
but where the greater malady is 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' the mouth.
When the mind's free, the body's delicate.
The tempest in my mind
doth from my senses take all feeling else
save what beats there.
Filial ingratitude!
Is it not as this mouth
would tear this hand
for lifting food to it?
But I will punish home!
No, I will weep no more.
Such a night
to shut me out!
Pour on, I will endure.
Such a night as this!
O Regan, Goneril!
Thy old kind father, whose
frank heart gave all!
O, that way madness lies.
Let me shun that!
No more of that.
Good my lord, enter here.
Prithee
go in thyself,
take thine own ease.
This tempest will not give me leave
to ponder on things would hurt me more.
But I'll go in.
In, boy.
Go first.
You houseless poverty.
Nay,
get thee in.
I'll pray,
and then I'll sleep.
[thunder roars]
Poor naked wretches,
wheresoe'er you are,
that bide the pelting
of this pitiless storm,
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--
[Edgar] Fathom and a
half, fathom and a half!
Poor Tom!
[Fool] Nuncle, come not in here!
Help me, help me!
Here, give me me thy hand.
Who's there?
[Fool] It's a spirit!
He says his name's poor Tom.
[Kent] What art thou that dost
grumble there in the straw?
Come forth.
[screams]
Away!
The foul fiend follows me!
Through the sharp hawthorn
blows the cold wind.
Humh!
Go to thy cold bed, and warm thee.
Didst thou give all to thy daughters,
and art thou come to this?
Who gives anything to poor Tom?
Whom the foul fiend hath led
through fire and through flame,
through ford and whirlpool,
o'er bog and quagmire,
laid knives under his pillow
and halters in his pew,
set ratsbane by his porridge,
made him proud of heart,
to ride on a bay trotting
horse over four-inched bridges,
to course his own shadow for a traitor.
[yells]
Bless thy five wits!
Tom's acold.
[yells]
Do de, do de, do de.
Do de do.
Bless thee from whirlwinds,
star-blasting and taking!
Do poor Tom some charity,
whom the foul fiend vexes.
-[laughs]
-There could I have him now,
and there, and there,
and there [clamoring]!
-[hands slapping]
-What,
has his daughters
brought him to this pass?
[wails]
Couldst thou save nothing?
Wouldst though give 'em all?
Nay, he reserved a blanket,
else had we been all shamed.
Now all the plagues that
in the pendulous air
hang fated o'er men's faults
light on thy daughters!
He hath no daughters, sir.
Death, traitor!
Nothing could have subdued
nature to such a lowness
but his unkind daughters.
[mewls]
Is it the fashion that discarded fathers
should have this little
mercy on their flesh?
[yells]
Judicious punishment!
'Twas this flesh begot those
-pelican daughters.
-Pillicock sat
on Pillicock, Pillicock, Pillicock!
Cold night will turn us
all to fools and madmen.
Take heed o' the foul fiend,
obey thy parents,
keep thy words justly,
swear not, commit not
with a man's sworn spouse,
set not thy sweet heart on proud array.
Tom's acold.
[wails]
What hast thou been?
A serving man,
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 wak'd to do it.
[laughs]
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 rustling of silks
betray thy poor heart to woman.
Keep thy foot out of brothels,
thy hand out of plackets,
thy pen from lender's books,
and defy the foul fiend.
Still through the hawthorn
blows the cold wind [yells],
say suum, mun, mun, hey.
Dolphin my boy,
right here, sessa, let him trot by.
[wails]
[thunder roars]
Thou wert better in a grave
than to answer with thy uncovered body
this extremity of the skies.
Is man no more than this?
Consider him well.
Thou ow'st the worm no silk,
the beast no hide,
the sheep no wool,
the cat no perfume.
[laughs]
Here's three on's are sophisticated!
Thou art the thing itself,
unaccommodated man
no more but such a poor, bare,
forked animal as thou art.
Off, off, you lendings!
Come, unbutton here.
-[yelling and groaning]
-[Fool] Be contended!
'Tis a naughty night to swim in.
Now a little fire in a dark field
were like an old lecher's heart,
a small spark, the rest on's body cold.
[groaning]
Look, look here comes a walking fire.
This is the foul fiend Flibbertigibbet.
He begins at curfew,
and walks till the first cock.
He gives the web and the pin,
squints the eye,
and makes the harelip,
mildews the white wheat,
and hurts the poor creature of earth.
-[wails]
-How fares your Grace?
What's he?
Who's there?
What is't you seek?
[Gloucester] What are you there?
Your names?
Poor Tom, that eats the
swimming frog, the toad,
the tadpole, the wall newt and the water,
that in a fury of his heart,
when the foul fiend rages,
eats cow dung for sallets,
swallows the old rat and the ditch-dog,
drinks the green mantle
of the standing pool,
that is whipped from tithing to tithing,
and stock-punished and imprisoned,
that 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,
have been Tom's food for seven long year.
Beware my follower.
Peace, Smulkin!
[wails]
Peace, thou fiend!
-[wails]
-What hath your Grace
no better company?
The prince of darkness is a gentleman!
Modo he's called,
and Madhu.
[mewls]
Our flesh and blood, my
lord, is grown so vile,
that it doth hate what gets it.
Poor Tom's acold.
-[wails]
-Go in with me.
My duty cannot suffer to obey
in all your daughters' hard commands.
Though their injunction be to bar my doors
yet have I ventured to come seek you out
and bring you where both
fire and food is ready.
First let me talk with this philosopher.
[whimpers]
What is the cause of thunder?
Good my lord, take his
offer, go into the house!
[groans]
I'll talk a word with
this same learned Theban.
What is thy study?
How to prevent the foul
fiend and to kill vermin.
[wails]
Let me ask you one word in private.
Importune him once more to go, my lord.
His wits begin to unsettle.
Canst thou blame him?
His daughters seek his death.
Oh that good Kent, he
said it would be thus,
poor banished man!
Thou sayest the King grows mad,
I'll tell thee, friend,
I am almost mad myself.
I had a son, now outlawed from my blood.
He 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!
I do beseech your Grace.
-O, cry you mercy.
-[screeches]
Noble philosopher, your company.
Tom is acold.
This way, my lord, in there, fellow.
-[clamoring]
-Keep thee warm.
Good my lord, soothe him,
let him take the fellow.
-[clamoring]
-Take him you on.
This way, this way
sirrah, go along with us.
-[yelling]
-No words, no words!
Hush.
Child Rowland to the dark tower came,
his word was still fie, foh, and fum!
I smell the blood of a British man.
I will have my revenge
ere I depart this house.
How, my lord, I may be censured,
that nature thus gives way to loyalty,
something fears me to think of.
[thunder roars]
I now perceive it was not altogether
your brother's evil disposition
that made him seek his death,
but a provoking merit,
set awork by a reprovable
badness in himself.
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 this treason were not,
or not I the detector!
Go with me to the Duchess.
If the matter of this paper be certain,
you have mighty business in hand.
True or false, it hath made
thee Earl of Gloucester.
Seek out where thy father is,
that he may be ready for our apprehension.
I will persever in my course of loyalty,
though the conflict be sore
between that and my blood.
I will lay trust upon thee,
and thou shalt find a
dearer father in my love.
Here is better than the open air,
take it thankfully.
I will piece out the comfort
with what addition I can.
I will not be long from you.
All the power of his wits
have given way to his impatience.
The gods reward your kindness!
Frateretto calls me,
and tells me Nero is an angler
in the lake of darkness.
Pray, innocent, and beware the foul fiend.
Prithee, nuncle,
tell me whether a madman
be a gentleman or a yeoman.
A king, a king!
No, he's a yeoman that has
a gentleman to his son,
for he's a mad yeoman
that sees his son a gentleman before him.
To have a thousand with red burning spits
come hizzing in upon 'em--
The foul fiend bites my back.
He's mad that trusts in
the tameness of a wolf,
or horses health, a boy's
love, or a whore's oath.
It shall be done.
I will arraign them straight.
Come,
sit thou here, most learned justicer.
Thou, sapient sir, sit there.
Now, you she-foxes!
Look where he stands and glares!
Want'st thou eyes at trial, madam?
[laughs]
Come o'er the bourn, Bessy, to me.
Her boat hath a leak,
and she must not speak why she
dare not come over to thee.
The foul fiend haunts Tom in
the voice of a nightingale.
Hoppedance cries in Tom's
belly for two white herrings.
Croak not, black angel.
I have no food for thee.
How do you, sir?
Stand you not so amazed.
[grunts]
Will you lie down and
rest upon the cushions--
I'll see their trial first.
Bring in their evidence.
Thou robed man of justice, take thy place.
And thou, his yokefellow of
equity, bench by his side.
You are o' the commission, sit you too.
Let us deal justly.
Arraign her first.
'Tis Goneril.
I here take my oath before
this honorable assemblage,
she kicked the poor King her father.
Come hither, mistress.
Is your name Goneril?
She cannot deny it.
Cry you mercy, I took
you for a joint-stool.
[laughs]
And there's another,
whose warped looks proclaim
what store her heart is made upon.
Stop her there!
Arms, arms, sword, fire!
Corruption in the place!
False justicer, why
dist thou let her scape?
Bless thy wits!
-[yelps]
-O pity!
Sir, where is the patience now
that you so oft have boasted to retain?
My tears begin to take his part so much
they'll mar my counterfeiting.
[yelps]
The little dogs and all,
Trey, Blanch, and Sweetheart,
see, they bark at me.
Tom will throw his head at them.
Avaunt, you curs!
[grunts]
Then let them anatomize Regan.
[thunder roars]
See what breeds about her heart.
Is there any cause in nature
that make these hard hearts?
You, sir, I entertain
for one of my hundred.
Only I do not like the
fashion of your garments.
You'll say they are Persian,
but let them be changed.
[chomping]
Now good my lord, lie
here and rest awhile.
Make no noise,
make no noise,
draw the curtains.
So,
so,
[thunder roars]
We'll go to supper in the morning.
And I'll go to bed at noon.
Come hither, friend.
Where is the King my master?
Here, sir, but trouble him
not, his wits are gone.
Good friend, I prithee
take him in they arms.
I have o'er heard a
plot of death upon him.
There is a litter ready,
lay him in't and drive
toward Dover, friend,
where thy 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.
Oppressed nature sleeps.
This rest might yet have
balmed thy broken sinews,
which, if convenience will not allow,
stand in hard cure.
Come, help to bear thy master.
Come, thou must not stay behind.
Psst.
[grunts]
[Gloucester] Come, away.
Away.
[thunder roars]
When we our betters see bearing our woes,
we scarcely think our miseries our foes.
Who alone suffers
suffers most in the 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.
[fire crackles]
He childed as I fathered!
[sighs]
Tom, away!
[thunder roars]
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.
[blows]
Post speedily to my lord your husband,
show him this letter.
The army of France is landed.
Seek out the traitor Gloucester.
Hang him instantly.
Pluck out his eyes [laughs].
Leave him to my displeasure.
Edmund, keep you our sister company.
The revenges we are bound to take
upon your treacherous father
are not fit for your beholding.
Advise the Duke where you're going,
to a most festinate preparation.
We are bound to the like.
Our posts shall be swift
and intelligent betwixt us.
Farewell, dearest sister.
Farewell my Lord of Gloucester.
How now, where's the King?
My Lord of Gloucester
hath conveyed him hence.
Some five or six and 30 of his knights,
hot questrists after
him, met him at a gate,
who, with some other of
the lord's dependents,
are gone with him toward Dover,
where they boast to
have well-armed friends.
Get horses for your mistress.
Farewell, sweet lord, and sister.
Go seek the traitor Gloucester,
pinion him like a thief,
bring him before us.
Though well we may not pass upon his life
without the form of justice,
yet our power shall do
a courtesy to our wrath,
which men may blame, but not control.
Who's there?
The traitor?
Ingrateful fox!
'Tis he.
Bind fast his corky arms.
What means your Graces?
Good my friends, consider
you are my guests.
Should do me no foul play, friends.
Bind him, I say.
Hard,
hard.
O filthy traitor!
[Gloucester] Unmerciful lady as you are,
I am none.
Villain, thou shalt find--
[Gloucester] [yells] By the kind gods,
'tis most ignobly done
to pluck me by the beard.
So white, and such a traitor!
Naughty lady,
these hairs which thou
dost ravage from my chin
will quicken and accuse thee.
I'm your host.
With robber's hands my hospitable favors
you should not ruffle thus.
What will you do.
Come, sir,
what letters had you late from France?
Be simple-answered, for we know the truth.
And what confederacy have you
with the traitors late
footed in the kingdom?
To whose hands have you
sent the lunatic King?
Speak.
[Gloucester] I have a
letter guessingly set down,
that came from one that's
of a neutral heart,
and not from one opposed.
Cunning.
And false.
Where hast thou sent the King?
[Gloucester] To Dover.
Wherefore to Dover?
Wast thou not charged at peril--
Wherefore to Dover?
Let him first answer that.
[Gloucester] I am tied to the stake,
and I must stand the course [sobs].
Wherefore to Dover?
[Gloucester] Because I would
not see thy cruel nails
pluck out his poor old eyes,
nor thy fierce sister
in his anointed flesh
rest boarish fangs.
But I shall see the winged
vengeance overtake such children.
See it shalt thou never.
Fellows, hold the chair.
Upon these eyes of thine I'll set my foot.
[Gloucester] He that will
think to live till he be old,
give me some help!
[screams]
O cruel!
O ye gods!
[screams]
One side will mock the other.
Th'other too!
[screams]
If you see vengeance--
Hold your hand, my lord!
[yells]
I have served you ever
since I was a child,
but better service have I never given you
than now to bid you hold.
How now, you dog?
-[growling]
-If you did wear
a beard upon your chin,
I'd shake it on this quarrel.
What do you mean?
My villain!
Then come then, and take
the chance of anger.
Give me thy sword.
[clamoring]
A peasant stand up thus?
[screams]
-[thuds]
-[Servant] I am slain!
My lord, you have one eye left
to see some mischief on him.
[thuds]
Lest it see more,
prevent it.
[screams]
Out!
[screams]
Vile jelly!
[whimpers]
Where is thy luster now?
[gurgling]
[Gloucester] All dark
and comfortless! [sobs]
Where's my son Edmund?
Edmund, enkindle all the sparks of nature
to quit this horrid act.
Out, treacherous villain!
Thou call'st upon him that hates thee.
It was he that made the
overtures of thy treason to us,
who is too good
to pity thee.
[groans]
[Gloucester] O my follies!
Then Edgar was abused.
Kind gods, forgive me
that and prosper him!
[sobs]
Go,
thrust him out at gate.
Let him smell his way to Dover.
[laughs]
How is't you, my lord?
How look you?
I've received a hurt.
Follow me, lady.
Turn out that eyeless villain.
Throw this slave upon the dunghill.
Regan, I bleed apace.
Untimely comes this hurt.
Give me your arm.
I'll never care what wickedness I do,
if this man come to good.
If she live long,
and in the end meet the
old course of death,
women will all turn monsters.
[mewls]
[groans]
I'll get some flax and whites of eggs
to apply to his bleeding face.
Now heaven help him!
[groans]
[birds cawing]
Yet better thus,
and known to be contemned,
than still contemned and flattered.
To be worst,
the lowest and most
dejected thing of fortune,
stands still in esperance,
lives not in fear.
The lamentable change is from the best.
[blows]
The worst returns to laughter.
Welcome then thou unsubstantial
air that I embrace.
The wretch that thou
hast blown unto the worst
owes nothing to thy blasts.
But who comes here?
[whimpering]
My father,
poorly led?
World, world, o world!
But that thy strange
mutations make us hate thee,
life would not yield to age.
O my good lord,
I've been your tenant,
and your father's tenant,
these forescore years.
Away, get thee away!
Good friend, be gone.
Thy comforts can do me no good at all.
Thee they may hurt.
But you cannot see your way.
I have no way, and therefore want no eyes.
I stumbled when I saw.
Full oft 'tis seem our means secure us,
and our mere defects
prove our commodities.
[sobs]
O dear son Edgar,
the food of thy abused father's wrath.
Might I but live to see thee in my touch
I'ld say I had eyes again.
How now?
Who's there?
O gods!
Who is't can say, "I am at the worst"?
I am worse than e'er I was [sobs].
'Tis poor mad Tom.
And worse I may be yet.
The worst is not so long as we
can say, "This is the worst."
Fellow, where goest?
Is it a beggarman?
Madman and beggar too.
He 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.
[sobs]
As flies to wanton boys
are we to the gods.
They kill us for their sport.
How should this be?
Bad is the trade that
must play fool to sorrow,
angering itself and others.
Bless thee, master!
Is it the naked fellow?
Ay, my lord.
Then prithee get thee gone.
If for my sake thou wilt o'ertake us hence
a mile or twain either way toward Dover,
do it for ancient love,
and bring some covering
for this naked soul,
which I'll entreat to lead me.
Alack, sir, he is mad!
'Tis the time's plague
when madmen lead the blind.
Do as I bid thee,
or rather do thy pleasure.
Above the rest, be gone.
I'll get him the best apparel that I have,
come on't what will.
[Gloucester] Sirrah!
Naked fellow!
Poor Tom's acold.
I cannot daub it further.
[Gloucester] Come hither, fellow.
And yet I must.
Bless thy sweet eyes, they bleed.
[sobs]
[Gloucester] Dost thou
know the way to Dover?
Both stile and gate,
horse-way and footpath.
Poor Tom hath been scared
out of his good wits.
Bless thee good man's
son, from the foul fiend!
Five fiends have been in
poor Tom at once [sobs].
Of lust,
as Obidicut, Hobbididence,
prince of dumbness,
Mahu of murder,
Modo of stealing,
Flibbertigibbet of mopping
and mowing [screams],
who since possesses
chambermaids and waiting women.
[screeches]
So bless thee master.
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 slaves your ordinance,
who 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?
[sobs] Ay, master.
There is a cliff,
whose high and bending
head looks fearfully
in the confined deep.
Bring me but to the very brim of it,
and I'll repair the misery thou dost bear
with something rich about me.
From that place I shall no leading need.
Give me thy hand.
[panting]
Poor Tom shall lead thee.
Welcome, my lord.
I marvel our mild husband
not met us on the way.
Now, where's your master?
Madam, within, but never a 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 most he should dislike
seems pleasant to him.
What like, offensive.
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 mistresses command.
Wear this.
Spare speech.
Decline your head.
This kiss,
if it durst speak,
would stretch thy spirits up into the air.
[sighs]
Conceive, and fare thee well.
Yours in the ranks of death!
[laughs]
My most dear Gloucester!
O, the difference of man and man.
To thee a woman's services are due.
My fool usurps my body.
Madam, here comes my lord.
I have been worth the whistle.
O Goneril,
you are not worth the dust
which the rude wind blows in your face!
I fear your disposition.
That nature which condemns its origin
cannot be bordered certain in itself.
She that herself will sliver and disbranch
from her material sap,
perforce must wither
and come to deadly use.
No more, the text is foolish!
Wisdom and goodness to the vile seem vile.
Filths savor but themselves.
What have you done?
Tigers, not daughters,
what have you performed?
A father, and a gracious aged man,
who's 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 benefited.
Yet if the heavens do
not their visible spirits
send quickly down to
tame these vile offenses,
it will come.
Humanity must perforce prey on itself,
like monsters of the deep.
Milk-livered man, that
bear'st a cheek for blows,
a head for wrongs,
who hast not in thy brows
an eye discerning thine
honor from thy suffering,
that not knowest 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
state begins to threat,
whilst thou, a moral fool,
sit'st still, and criest
"Alack, why does he so?"
See thyself, devil!
Proper deformity shows not in the fiend
so horrid as in woman.
O vain fool!
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.
However, thou art a fiend, a
woman's shape doth shield thee.
Marry, your manhood, mew.
What news?
O, my good lord, the
Duke of Cornwall's dead,
slain by his servant,
going to put out the
other eye of Gloucester.
Gloucester's eyes?
A servant that he bred,
thrilled 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.
This shows you are above, you justicers,
that these are nether crimes
so speedily can venge!
O poor Gloucester, lost he his other eye?
Both, both my lord.
This letter, madam,
craves a speedy answer.
'Tis from your sister.
One way I like this well,
but being widow, and
my Gloucester with her,
may all the building of my fancy
pluck upon my hateful life.
Another way the news is not so tart.
I'll read, and answer.
Where was his son when
they did take his eyes?
Come with my lady hither.
He's not here.
No, my good lord, I met him back again.
Knows he the wickedness?
Ay, my good lord.
'Twas he informed against him,
and quit the house on purpose,
that their punishment might
have the freer course.
Gloucester, I live to thank thee
for the love thou show'dst the King,
and to revenge thine eyes.
Come hither, friend, tell
me what more thou know'st.
Alack, 'tis he.
Why he was met even now
as mad as the vexed sea,
singing aloud, crowned with
rank fumiter and furrow weeds,
with hardocks, hemlock,
nettles, cuckoo flowers,
darnel, and all the idle weeds
that grow in our sustaining corn.
A century send forth.
Search every acre in the high-grown field
and bring him to our eye.
What can man's wisdom in the
restoring his bereaved sense?
He that helps him take
all my outward worth.
There is means, madam.
Our foster nurse of nature is
repose, the which he lacks.
That to provoke in him are
many simples operative,
whose power will close the eye of anguish.
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.
News, madam.
The British powers are
marching hitherward.
'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 importunate
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.
But are my brother's powers set forth?
Ay, madam.
Himself in person there?
Madam, with much ado.
Your sister is the better soldier.
Lord Edmund spoke not
to your lord at home?
No, madam.
What might import my
sister's letter to him?
I know not, lady.
Faith, he's 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 of the enemy.
I must needs after him,
madam, with my letter.
Our troops set forth tomorrow.
Stay with us.
The ways are dangerous.
I may not, madam.
My lady charged my duty in this business--
Why should she write to Edmund?
Might not you transport
her purposes by word?
Belike some things,
I know not what.
I'll love thee much, let
me unseal the letter.
Madam, I had rather--
I know your lady does
not love her husband,
I'm sure of that.
And at her late being here,
she gave strange eyeliads
and most speaking looks to noble Edmund.
I know you are of her bosom.
-I--
-I speak in understanding.
You are, I know't.
Therefore I do advise thee 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 call her wisdom to her.
And so farewell.
If you do chance to hear
of that blind traitor,
preferment falls on him that cuts him off.
Would I could meet him, madam.
I should show what party I do follow.
Fare thee well.
When shall I come to the top
of that same hill?
You do climb up it now.
Look how we labor.
Methinks the ground is even.
Horrible steep.
Hark, do you hear the sea?
No, truly.
Why then, your other senses grow imperfect
by your eyes' anguish.
So may it be indeed.
Methinks thy voice is altered,
and thou speak'st in
better phrase and matter
than thou didst.
You are much deceived.
In nothing am I changed
but in my garments.
Methinks y'are better spoken.
Come on, sir,
here's the place.
Stand still.
How fearful and dizzy it is
to cast one's eyes so low.
The crows and choughs
that wing the midway air
show scarce so gross as beetles.
Halfway down hangs one
that gathers sampire,
dreadful trade!
Methinks he seems no bigger than his head.
The fishermen that walk upon
the beach appear like mice,
and yond tall anchoring bark,
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 so high.
Oh I'll look no more,
lest my brain turn,
and the deficient sight
topple down headlong.
Set me where you stand.
Give me your hand.
You are now within a foot
of the extreme verge.
For all beneath the moon
would I not leap upright.
Let go of my hand.
Here, friend, is another purse.
In it a jewel well worth
a poor man's taking.
Fairies and gods prosper it with thee.
Go then further off.
Bid me farewell, and
let me hear thee going.
Now fare ye well, good sir.
With all my heart.
Why I do trifle thus with his
despair is done to cure it.
O you mighty gods!
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.
Gone, sir, farewell.
[screams]
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.
Alive or dead?
Ho you, sir!
Friend!
Hear you, sir?
Speak!
Thus might he pass indeed.
[groans]
Yet he revives.
What are you, sir?
Away, and let me die.
Hadst thou been aught but
gossamer, feathers, air,
so many fathoms down precipitating,
thou'dst shivers like an egg,
but thou dost breathe,
hast heavy substance,
bleed'st not, speak'st, art sound.
10 masts at each make not the altitude
which thou hast perpendicularly fell.
Thy life's a miracle.
Speak yet again.
Have I fallen or no?
From the dread summit
of this chalky bourn.
Look up a height.
The shrill-gorged lark cannot
be seen or heard so far.
Do but look up.
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.
Ah give me your arm.
Up.
[groans]
So.
How is't?
Feel you your legs?
You stand.
Too well, too well.
This is above all strangeness.
Upon the crown of the cliff,
what thing was that which parted from you?
A poor unfortunate beggar.
As I stood here below, methought his eyes
were two full moons.
He had a thousand noses,
horns whelked and waved
like the enridged sea.
It was some fiend.
Therefore, thou happy father,
think that the clearest gods
who make them honors of
men's impossibilities
have preserved thee.
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 'twould say, "The fiend, the fiend,"
he led me to that place.
Bear free
-and patient thoughts.
-[trumpets blare]
Who comes here?
[laughs]
No,
they cannot touch me for coining.
I am the King himself.
O thou side-piercing sight!
Nature's above art in that respect.
[hands slapping]
There's your press money.
That fellow handles his
bow like a crow-keeper.
Draw me a clothier's yard.
Look, look, a mouse!
See, see, this piece of
toasted cheese will do it.
[gurgles]
[growls]
[sniffs]
[laughs]
[sighs]
[yells]
There's my gauntlet.
I'll prove it on a giant.
Bring up the brown bills.
O,
well flown, bird!
I' the clout, i' the clout!
[hisses]
Give the word.
Sweet marjoram.
Pass.
I know that voice.
Ha!
Goneril with a white beard?
[yells]
[laughs]
They flattered me like a dog,
told me I had white hairs in my beard
before the black ones were there.
To say "ay" and "no" to everything I said.
"Ay" and "no" too was no good divinity.
When the rain came
to wet me once,
and the wind to make me chatter,
when the thunder would
not peace at my bidding,
there I found 'em,
there I smelt 'em out.
Go to, they're not men of their words.
They told me I was everything.
'Tis a lie [gurgles].
I'm not ague-proof.
The trick of that voice
I do well remember.
Is it not the King?
Ay,
every inch a king.
When I do stare,
see how the subject quakes.
I pardon that man's life.
What was thy cause?
Adultery?
[laughs]
Thou shalt not die.
Die for adultery?
No.
The wren goes to't,
the small gilded fly
does lecher in my sight.
Let copulation thrive,
for Gloucester's bastard
son was kinder to his father
than were my daughters got
'tween the lawful sheets.
To't,
luxury,
pell-mell!
For I lack soldiers.
Behold yond simpering 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 are Centaurs,
though women all above.
But to the girdle do the gods inherit,
beneath is all the fiends.
There's hell, there's darkness,
there is the sulphurous pit,
burning, scalding, stench consumption.
Fie, fie, fie!
[growls]
Give me an ounce of
civet, good apothecary,
sweeten my imagination.
There's money for thee.
Oh let me kiss that hand.
Let me wipe it first.
[hisses]
It smells of mortality.
O ruined piece of nature.
This great world shall
so wear out to naught.
Dost though know me?
I remember thine eyes well enough.
[screams]
[laughs]
Dost squiny at me?
No, no, do thy worst, blind Cupid.
I'll not love.
[shrieks]
Read thou this challenge,
mark but the penning of it.
[laughs]
Were all thy letters suns,
I could not see.
I would not take this from report.
It is, and my heart breaks at it.
Read.
What, with the case of eyes?
Yea, o, ho, you're there with me.
No eyes in your head,
no money in your purse?
[laughs]
Your eyes are in a heavy
case, your purse in a light.
Yet you may see how this world goes.
I see it feelingly.
What, art mad?
A man may see how this
world goes with no eyes.
Look with thine ears.
See how yond justice rails
on yond simple thief.
Hark in thine ear.
Change places or a handy-dandy,
which is the justice, which is the thief?
Thou hast seen a farmer's
dog bark at a beggar?
Ay, sir.
And the creature run from the cur?
There thou mightst behold
the great image of authority,
a dog's obeyed in office.
[woofs]
[laughs]
Thou rascal beadle,
hold thy bloody hand!
Why dost thou lash that whore?
Thou hotly lusts to use her in that kind
for which thou whip'st her.
The usurer hangs the cozener.
Through tattered clothes
small vices do appear.
Robes and furred gowns hide all.
Plate sin with gold,
and the strong lance of
justice hurtless breaks.
Arm it in rags, a pygmy's
straw does pierce it.
None does offend, none I say none.
I'll able 'em.
Take this of me, my friend,
who have the power to
seal the accuser's lips.
[whimpering]
Get thee glass eyes
and, like a scurvy politician,
seem to see the things
thou dost not [laughs].
Now, now, now, now, now!
Pull off my boots.
Harder,
harder!
[coughs]
So.
O, matter and impertinency mixed!
Reason in madness.
[sobs]
If thou wilt weep my
fortunes, take my eyes.
I know thee well enough,
thy name is Gloucester.
Thou must be patient.
We came crying hither.
Thou know'st the first
time that we smell the air
we wawl and cry.
I will preach to thee.
Mark.
Alack, alack the day!
When we are born,
we cry that we are come to
this great stage of fools.
This is a good block.
It were a delicate stratagem
to shoe a troop of horse with felt.
I'll put it in proof,
and when I've stolen
upon these son-in-laws,
-then kill, kill, kill!
-O, here he is!
Lay a hand upon him.
Sir.
Your most dear daughter--
No rescue?
What, a prisoner?
I am even the natural fool of fortune.
Use me well.
You shall have ransom.
Let me have surgeons.
I'm cut to the brains.
You shall have anything.
No seconds?
All myself?
Why, this would make a man a man of salt,
to use his eyes for garden waterpots,
ay, and laying autumn's dust.
Good sir.
I will die bravely,
like a smug bridegroom.
What!
I will be jovial [laughs].
Come, come,
I am a king.
My masters,
know you that?
You are a royal one,
and we obey you.
Then
there's life in't.
And you shall get it,
you shall get it by running.
[laughs]
A sight most pitiful
in the meanest wretch,
past speaking of in a king!
Hail, gentle sir.
Sir, speed you.
What's your will?
Do you know aught, sir,
of a battle toward?
Most sure and vulgar.
Everyone hears that which
can distinguish sound.
But, by your favor, how
near's the other army?
Near and on speedy foot.
The main descry stands
on the hourly thought.
I thank you sir, that's all.
Though that the Queen on
special cause is here,
her army is moved on.
I thank you, sir.
You ever gentle gods,
take my breath from me.
Let not my worser spirit tempt me again
to die before you please.
Well pray you, father.
Now, good sir,
what are you?
A most poor man,
made tame to fortune's blows,
who, by the art of known
and feeling sorrows,
am pregnant to good pity.
Give me your arm.
I'll lead you to some biding.
Hearty thanks.
The bounty and the benison
of heaven to boot, and boot!
A proclaimed prize!
Most happy!
That eyeless head of thine
was first framed flesh
to raise my fortunes.
Thou old unhappy traitor,
briefly thyself remember.
The sword is out that must destroy thee.
O, let thy friendly hand
-put strength enough to't.
-Wherefore, bold peasant,
dar'st thou support a published traitor?
Hence!
Lest that the infection of his fortune
take like hold on thee.
Let go his arm.
Let go, slave,
or thou diest!
Out, dunghill!
[yells]
[clamoring]
[screams]
Slave, thou hast slain me.
Villain,
take my purse.
If ever thou wilt thrive,
bury my body,
and take the letters
which thou find'st about me
to Edmund Earl of Gloucester.
Seek him out
upon the English party.
O untimely death!
Death!
I know thee well.
A serviceable villain,
as duteous to the vices of thy mistress
as badness would desire.
What,
is he dead?
Let's see the letter that he
speaks of may be my friend.
Leave, gentle wax, and
manners, blame us not.
To know our enemies' minds,
we'd rip their hearts,
their papers is most lawful.
"Let our 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 labor.
"Your wife, so I would say,
affectionate servant, Goneril."
O indistinguished space of woman's will.
A plot upon her virtuous husband's life,
and the exchange of my brother.
The King is mad.
How stiff is my vile sense,
that I stand up and
have ingenious feelings
of my huge sorrow!
Better I were distract.
So should my thoughts be
severed from my griefs,
and woes by wrong imaginations
lose the knowledge of themselves.
[drum beating]
Give me your hand.
Far off methinks I hear the beaten drum.
Come, father,
I'll bestow you with a friend.
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.
To be acknowledged, madam, is o'erpaid.
All my reports go with the modest truth.
Nor more nor clipped, but so.
Be better suited.
These weeds are memories
of those worser hours.
I prithee put them off.
Pardon, dear madam.
Yet to be known shortens my made intent.
My boon I make it that you know me not.
Till time and I think meet.
Then be it so, my good lord.
How does the King?
Madam, sleeps still.
O you kind gods,
cure this great breach
in his abused nature.
The untuned and jarring senses,
O, wind up of this child-changed father!
So please your Majesty
that we may wake the King?
He hath slept long.
Be governed by your knowledge,
and proceed in the sway of your own will.
Is he arrayed?
Ay, madam.
In the heaviness of sleep we
put fresh garments on him.
Be by, good madam, when we do awake him,
I doubt not of his temperance.
Very well.
Please you draw near.
O my dear father.
Restoration hang thy medicine on my lips,
and let this kiss repair
those violent harms
that my two sisters have
in thy reverence made.
Kind and dear princess.
Had you not been their father,
these white flakes did
challenge pity of them.
Was this a face to be opposed
against the warring winds?
Mine enemy's dog, though he had bit me,
should have stood that
night against my fire.
And wast thou fain, poor father,
to hovel thee with swine
and rogues forlorn,
in short and musty straw?
Alack, alack!
'Tis wonder that thy life and wits at once
had not concluded all.
He wakes.
Speak to him.
Madam, do you, 'tis fittest.
How does my royal lord?
How fares your majesty?
You do me wrong to take
me out of the grave.
Thou art a soul in bliss,
but I am bound upon a wheel of fire,
which mine own tears do
scald like molten lead.
Sir,
do you know me?
You are a spirit, I know.
Where did you die?
Still, still, far wide!
He's scarce awake.
Let him alone a while.
Where have I been?
Where am I?
Fair daylight,
I'm mightily abused.
I would 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.
[gurgles]
I feel this pin prick.
Would I were assured of my condition!
O, look upon me, sir,
and hold your hand in benediction o'er me.
[grunts]
No, sir, you must not kneel.
Pray, do not mock me.
I am a very foolish fond old man,
fourscore and upward,
not an hour more or less,
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,
all my skill remembers not these garments,
nor I know not where I
did lodge last night.
[weeps]
Do not laugh at me.
For as I am a man,
I think this lady to be my child Cordelia.
[sobs] And so I am!
I am!
Be thy tears wet?
Yes, faith.
[sighs]
If you have poison for me,
I will drink it.
I know you do not love me.
For your sisters have, as
I remember, done me wrong.
You have some cause, they have not.
No cause.
Am I in France?
In your own kingdom, sir.
Do not abuse me.
Be comforted, good madam.
The great rage you see is killed in him,
and yet it is danger
to make him even o'er
the time he has lost.
[sniffs]
Will it please your Highness walk?
[grunts]
You must bear with me.
Pray you now,
forget and forgive.
I'm old and foolish.
Holds it true, sir,
that the Duke of Cornwall was so slain?
Most certain, sir.
Who is the conductor of his people?
As 'tis said, the bastard
son of Gloucester.
They say Edgar, his banished son,
is with the Earl of Kent in Germany.
Report is changeable.
'Tis time to look about,
the powers of the kingdom approach apace.
The arbitrement is like to be bloody.
Fare you well, sir.
My point and period will be truly wrought,
or well or ill, as this
day's battle is fought.
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?
In honored love.
But have you never found my brother's way
to the forfended place?
No, by mine honor, madam.
I never should endure her.
Dear my lord, be not familiar with her.
Fear me not.
She and the Duke her husband!
I had rather lose the battle
than that sister should loosen him and me.
Our very loving sister, well bemet.
Sir, this I hear.
The King is come to his
daughter with others
whom the rigor of our
state forced to cry out.
Where I could not be honest,
I never yet was valiant--
Why is this reasoned?
Combine together 'gainst the enemy.
For these domestic door particulars
are not the question here.
Well let's then determine
with the ancient of war
on our proceeding.
Sister, you'll go with us?
No.
'Tis most convenient.
I pray you'll go with us.
O, ho, I know the riddle.
I will go.
If e'er your Grace had
speech with man so poor,
hear me one word.
I'll overtake you.
Speak.
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 avouched there.
If you miscarry,
your business of the world hath so an end,
and machination ceases.
Fortune love you!
Stay till I have read the letter.
I was forbid it.
When time shall serve,
let but the herald cry,
and I'll appear again.
Oh, fare thee well.
I will look your paper.
The enemy's in view, draw up your powers.
Here is the guess of their
true strength and forces
by diligent discovery,
but your haste is now urged on you.
We will greet the time.
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 Goneril,
and hardly shall I carry out my side,
her husband being alive.
Now then,
we'll use his countenance for the battle,
which being done,
let her who would be rid of him
devise his speedy taking off.
As for the mercy which he
intends to Lear and to Cordelia,
the battle done, and
they within our power,
shall never see his pardon,
for my state stands on me
to defend, not to debate.
[trumpet blasts]
Away, old man, give me thy hand, away!
King Lear hath lost, he
and his daughter taken.
Give me thy hand!
Come on!
No further, sir.
A man may rot even here.
What?
In ill thoughts again?
Men must endure their going hence,
even as they're coming hither.
Ripeness is all.
Come on.
And that's true too.
Some officers take them away.
Good guard until their greater
pleasures first be known
that are to censure them.
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?
No, no, no, no!
Come, let's away to prison.
We two alone will sing
like birds i' the cage.
When thou dost ask me blessing,
I'll kneel down and ask
of thee forgiveness.
And 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 the great ones
that ebb and flow by the moon.
Take them away.
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 goodyears shall devour them,
flesh and fell,
ere they shall make us weep!
We'll see 'em starved first.
Come.
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.
I'll do it my lord.
About it, and write
happy when th'hast done.
Mark, I say, instantly,
and carry it so as I have set it down.
I cannot draw a cart, nor eat dried oats.
If it be man's work, I'll do it.
Sir, you have showed
today your valiant strain,
and fortune led you well.
You have the captives
who were the opposites
of this day's strife.
I do require them of you,
so to use them as we
shall find their merits
and our safety may equally determine.
Sir, I thought it fit
to send the old and miserable King
to some retention and appointed guard,
whose age had 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,
t'appear where you
shall hold your session.
Sir, by your patience,
I hold you but a subject of this war,
not as a brother.
That's as we list to grace him.
Methinks our pleasure
might have been demanded
ere you spoke so far.
He had led our powers,
bore the commission of
my place and person,
the which immediacy may well stand up
and call itself your brother.
Not so hot!
In his own grace he doth exalt himself
more than in your addition.
In my rights by me invested,
he compeers the best.
That were the most if
he should husband you.
Jesters do oft prove prophets.
Holla, holla!
That eye that told you
so looked but asquint.
Lady, I am not well,
else I should answer from
a full-flowing stomach.
General, take thou my
soldiers, prisoners, patrimony,
dispose of them, of
me, the walls is thine.
Witness the world that I create thee here
my lord and master.
Mean you to enjoy him?
The letter alone lies
not in your good will.
Nor in thine, lord.
Half-blooded fellow, yes.
Let the drum strike, and
prove my title thine.
Stay yet, hear reason.
Edmund, I arrest thee on capital treason,
and in thy attaint, this gilded serpent.
For your claim, fair sister,
I bar it in the interests of my wife.
'Tis she is subcontracted to this lord,
and I, her husband, contradict your banes.
If you would marry, make your love to me,
my lady is bespoke.
An interlude!
Thou art armed, Gloucester.
Let the trumpet sound.
If none appear to prove upon thy person
thy heinous, manifest, and many treasons,
there is my pledge!
I'll make it on thy
heart, ere I taste bread,
thou art in nothing less than
I have here proclaimed thee.
Sick,
O, sick!
If not, I'll ne'er trust medicine.
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 honor firmly.
A herald, ho!
Trust to thy single
virtue, for thy soldiers,
all levied in my name, have in
my name took their discharge.
My sickness grows upon me.
She is not well.
Convey her to my tent.
Come hither, herald.
Let the trumpet sound, and read out this.
"If any man of quality or degree
"within the lists of the army
will maintain upon Edmund,
"supposed Earl of Gloucester,
"that he is a manifold traitor,
"let him appear by the
third sound of the trumpet.
"He is bold in his defense."
Sound!
[trumpet blares]
Again!
[trumpet blares]
Again!
[trumpet blares]
Ask him his purposes,
and why he appears upon
this call of the trumpet.
What are you?
Your name?
Your quality?
And why you answer this present summons?
Know my name is lost.
By treason's tooth
bare-gnawn and canker-bit.
Yet am I noble as the
adversary I come to cope.
Which is that adversary?
What's he that speaks for
Edmund Earl of Gloucester?
Himself.
What say'st thou to him?
Draw thy sword,
that if my speech offend a noble heart,
thy arm may do thee justice.
Here is mine.
Behold, it is the
privilege of mine honors,
my oath and my profession.
I protest, Maugre thy
strength, youth, place,
and eminence, despite thy victor
sword and fire-new fortune,
thy valor and thy heart,
thou art a traitor,
false to thy gods, thy
brother, and thy father,
conspirant 'gainst this
high illustrious prince,
and from the extremest upward of thy head,
to the descent and dust below thy foot,
a most toad-spotted traitor.
Say thou "no,"
this sword, this arm, and my best spirits
are bent to prove upon thy
heart, whereto I speak,
thou liest.
In wisdom I should ask thy name.
But since thy outside
looks so fair and warlike,
and that thy tongue some
say of breeding breathes,
what safe and nicely I might well delay
by rule of knighthood,
I disdain and spurn.
Back do I toss those treasons to thy head,
with the hell-hated lie
o'erwhelm thy heart,
which for they yet glance
by and scarcely bruise,
this sword of mine shall
give them instant way
where they shall rest for ever.
Trumpets, speak!
[trumpets blare]
Fight.
[swords clang]
[thuds]
[shouts]
[shouts]
[shouts]
[clamoring]
Save him, save him!
[sobs]
This is practice, Gloucester.
By the laws of war, thou
wast not bound to answer
an unknown opposite.
Thou art not vanquished,
but cozened and beguiled.
Shut your mouth, dame,
[paper rustling]
or with this paper shall I stop it.
Hold, sir.
Thou worse than any name,
read thine own evil.
No tearing, lady!
I perceive you know it.
Say if I do, the laws are mine, not thine.
Who can arraign me for it?
Most monstrous!
O knows't thou this paper?
Ask me not what I know.
[yells]
Go after her.
She's desperate.
Govern her.
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.
But what art thou that
hast this fortune on me?
If thou art noble, I do forgive thee.
I am no less in blood
than thou art, Edmund.
If more, the more thou hast wronged me.
My name is Edgar and thy father's son.
The gods are just,
and of our pleasant vices
make instruments to plague us.
The dark and vicious place
where thee he got cost him his eyes.
Th'hast spoken right, 'tis true.
The wheel is come full circle,
I am here.
Methought thy very gait did
prophesy a royal nobleness.
I must embrace thee.
Let sorrow split my heart
if ever I did hate thee
or thy father!
Worthy prince, I know't.
Where have you hid yourself?
How have you known the
miseries of your father?
By nursing them, my lord.
List a brief tale, 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 hourly would die,
rather than die at once,
led me to move 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,
their precious stones new lost.
Became his guide, led him, begged for him,
saved him from despair.
Never, O fault, 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 told him all my pilgrimage.
But his flawed heart,
alack, too weak the conflict to support,
twixt two extremes of
passion, joy and grief,
burst smilingly.
Help, help, O, help!
What kind of help?
Speak, man.
What means this bloody knife?
'Tis hot,
it smokes,
it came even from the heart of,
she's dead!
Who dead?
Speak, man?
Your lady, sir, your lady!
And her sister by her is
poisoned, she confesses it.
I was contracted to them both.
All three now marry in an instant.
Produce their bodies,
be they alive or dead.
This judgment of the heavens,
which makes us tremble,
touches us not with pity.
Here comes Kent.
O, is this he?
The time will not allow the compliment
which very manners urges.
I am come to bid my King
and master aye good night.
Is he not here?
Great thing of us forgot.
Speak, Edmund, where's the King?
And where's Cordelia?
Edmund was beloved.
The one the other poisoned for my sake,
and after slew herself.
I pant for life.
Some good I mean to do,
despite of mine own nature.
Quickly send, be brief
in it, to the castle,
for my writ is on the life
of Lear and on Cordelia.
Nay, send in time.
Run, run, run--
To who, my lord?
Who has the office?
Send thy token of reprieve.
Well thought on.
Take my sword.
Give it to the Captain.
Haste thee for thy life.
He hath commission from thy wife and me
to hang Cordelia in the prison
and to lay the blame upon her own despair
that she fordid herself.
The gods defend her.
Bear him hence awhile.
Howl,
howl,
howl,
howl!
O, you are men of stones.
Had I your tongues and eyes,
I'd 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.
Lend me a looking glass.
If that her breath
should mist or stain the stone,
why then she lives.
Is this the promised end?
Or image of that horror?
Fall and cease!
This feather stirs, she lives!
If it be so,
it is a chance which
does redeem all sorrows
that ever I have felt.
O my good master!
Prithee away!
'Tis noble Kent, your friend.
A plague upon you,
murderers, traitors, all!
I might have saved her,
now she's gone for ever!
Cordelia,
Cordelia, stay a little.
Ha!
What is't thou say'st?
Her voice was ever soft, gentle, and low,
an excellent thing in a woman.
[hands slapping]
I killed the slave that
was a hanging thee.
'Tis true, my lords, he did.
Did I not, fellow?
I have known the day, with
my good biting falchion,
I'd have made 'em skip.
[pants]
I'm old now,
and these same crosses spoil me.
Who are you?
Mine eyes are not o' the
best, I'll tell you straight.
If fortune brag of two
she loved and hated,
one of them we behold.
This is a dull sight.
Are you not Kent?
The same.
Your servant, Kent.
Where is your servant, Caius?
He's a good fellow.
He'll strike, and quickly too.
He's dead and rotten.
No, my good lord,
I am the very man.
I'll see that straight.
That from your first
of difference and decay
have followed your sad steps.
You're welcome hither.
Nor no man else!
All's cheerless, dark, and deadly.
Your eldest daughters
have fordone themselves,
and desperately are dead.
Ay, so I think.
He knows not what he says,
and vain is it that we present us to him.
Very bootless [weeps].
Edmund is dead, my lord.
That's but a trifle here.
You lords and noble
friends, know our intent.
What comfort to this great
decay may come shall be applied.
[hand slapping]
For us, we will resign.
During the life of this old Majesty,
to him our absolute power,
you to your rights, with boot,
and such addition as your
honors have more than merited.
All friends shall taste
the wages of their virtue,
and all foes the cup of their deservings.
[sobs]
My poor fool is hanged!
No,
no,
no life.
Why should a dog,
a horse,
a rat,
have life,
and thou no breath at all?
Thou'lt come no more.
Never,
never,
never,
never!
[gasps]
Pray you undo this button.
[growls]
Thank you, sir.
Do you see this?
Look on her!
Look!
Her lips!
Look there,
look there!
He faints!
My lord, my lord!
Break, heart, I prithee break!
Look up, my lord.
Vex not his ghost.
O let him pass!
He hates him that would upon
the rack of this tough world
stretch him out longer.
He is gone indeed.
The wonder is, he hath endured so long.
He but usurped his life.
Bear them from hence.
Our present business is general woe.
Friends of my soul,
you twain rule in this realm,
and the gor'd state sustain.
I have a journey, sir, shortly to go.
My master calls me,
I must not say no.
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.
[drum beats]