Glo. 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. Kent. Is not this your son, my lord? Glo. His breeding, sir, has been at my charge: I have so often blushed to acknowledge him, that now I am brazed to it. Kent. I cannot conceive you. Glo. Sir, this young fellow's mother could: whereupon she grew round-wombed; and had, indeed, sir, a son for her cradle, ere she had a husband for her bed. Do you smell a fault? Glo. 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 somewhat saucily into the world before he was sent for, yet was his mother fair; there was good sport at his making, and the whoreson must be acknowledged.-Do you know this noble gentleman, Edmund ? Enter Lear, Cornwall, Albany, Goneril, Regan, Cor Lear. Attend the lords of France and Burgundy, Glo. I shall, my liege. [Exeunt Glo. and Edmund. pose. Give me the map there.-Know, that we have divided Great rivals in our youngest daughter's love, Sir, I Kent. I cannot wish the fault undone, the issue of it (Since now we will divest us, both of rule, Edm. No, my lord. Glo. My lord of Kent: remember him hereafter as my honourable friend. Edm. My services to your lordship. Kent. I must love you, and sue to know you better. Beyond all manner of so much I love you. Edm. Sir, I shall study deserving. Glo. He hath been out nine years, and away he shall again:-The king is coming. [Trumpets sound within. Cor. What shall Cordelia do? Love, and be silent. [Aside. Lear. Of all these bounds, even from this line to this With shadowy forests and with champains rich'd, Reg. I am made of that self metal as my sister, Which the most precious square of sense possesses; And find, I am alone felicitate In your dear highness' love. Car. Then poor Cordelia! [Aside. And yet not so; since, I am sure, my love's Lear. To thee, and thine, hereditary ever, Lear. Cor. Nothing? Nothing. Lear. Nothing can come of nothing; speak again. Cor. Unhappy that I am, I cannot heave My heart into my mouth: I love your majesty According to my bond; nor more, nor less. Lear. How, how, Cordelia? mend your speech a little, Lest it may mar your fortunes. Cor. That lord, whose hand must take my plight, shall carry Cor. From whom we do exist, and cease to be; Her father's heart from her!-Call France;-Whe stirs ? Call Burgundy.-Cornwall, and Albany, With my two daughters' dowers digest this third: That troop with majesty.-Ourself, by monthly course, By you to be sustain'd, shall our abode Make with you by due turns. Only we still retain Revenue, execution, of the rest, Beloved sons, be yours: which to confirm, Kent. [Giving the crown. Royal Lear, Whom I have ever honour'd as my king, Lov'd as my father, as my master follow'd, As my great patron thought on in my prayers.Lear. The bow is bent and drawn, make from the shaft. Kent. Let it fall rather, though the fork invade The region of my heart: be Kent unmannerly. When Lear is mad. What wouldst thou do, old man? Think'st thou, that duty shall have dread to speak, When power to flattery bows? To plainness honour's bound, When majesty stoops to folly. Reverse thy doom; And, in thy best consideration, check This hideous rashness: answer my life my judgemEM, Thy youngest daughter does not love thee least; Nor are those empty-hearted, whose low sound Reverbs no hollowness. Hear me, recreaut! On thine allegiance hear me ! Since thou hast sought to make us break our voR, (Which we durst never yet,) and, with strain'd pride, To come betwixt our sentence and our power; Hold thee, from this, for ever. The barbarous Scythian, (Which nor our nature nor our place can bear,) Our potency make good, take thy reward. Kent. Fare thee well, king: since thas thou wilt Glo. Here's France and Burgundy, my noble lord. We first address towards you, who with this king Or cease your quest of love? Most royal majesty, I crave no more than hath your highness offer'd, Lear. Bur. Lear. I know no answer. Will you, with those infirmities she owes, Unfriended, new-adopted to our hate, Sir, poor; Most choice, forsaken; and most lov'd, despis❜d! Be it lawful, I take up what's cast away. Gods, gods! 'tis strange, that from their cold'st neglect Lear. Thou hast her, France: let her be thine; for we Dower'd with our curse, and stranger'd with our oath, Without our grace, our love, our benizon.➡ Take her, or leave her? [To France. I would not from your love make such a stray, France. That monsters it, or your fore-vouch'd affection Cor. I yet beseech your majesty Better thou Lear. France. Is it but this? a tardiness in nature, Come, noble Burgundy. [Flourish. Exeunt Lear, Burgundy, Cornwall, Albany, Gloster, and Attendants France. Bid farewell to your sisters. Cor. The jewels of our father, with wash'd eyes But yet, alas! stood I within his grace, I would prefer him to a better place. Gon. Prescribe not us our duties. France. Come, my fair Cordelia. [Exeunt France and Cordelia. Gon. Sister, it is not a little I have to say, of what most nearly appertains to us both. I think, our father will hence to-night. Reg. That's most certain, and with you; next mouth with us. Gon. You see how full of changes his age is; the observation we have made of it hath not been little; he always loved our sister most; and with what poor judgement he hath now cast her off. appears too grossly, Reg. 'Tis the infirmity of his age: yet he hath ever but slenderly known himself. Gon. The best and soundest of his time hath been but rash; then must we look to receive from his age, not alone the imperfections of long-engrafted condition, but, therewithal, the unruly waywardness that infirm and choleric years bring with them, SCENE II-A Hall in the Earl of Gloster's Castle. Enter Edmund, with a letter. Edm. Thou, nature, art my goddess; to thy law For that I am some twelve or fourteen moon-shines Enter Gloster. Glo. Kent banish'd thus! and France in choler parted! And the king gone to-night! subscrib'd his power! [Putting up the letter. Glo. No? What needed then that terrible despatch of it into your pocket? the quality of nothing hath not such need to hide itself. Let's sec: Come, if it be nothing, I shall not need spectacles. Edm. I beseech you, sir, pardon me: it is a letter from my brother, that I have not all o'er-read; for so much as I have perused, I find it not fit for your over looking. Glo. Give me the letter, sir. Edm. I shall offend, either to detain or give it. The contents, as in part I understand them, are to blame. Glo. Let's see, let's see. Edm. 1 hope, for my brother's justification, he wrote this but as an essay or taste of my virtue. Glo. [Reads.] This policy, and reverence of age, makes the world bitter to the best of our times; keeps our fortunes from us, till our oldness cannot relish them. I begin to find an idle and fond bondage in the oppression of aged tyranny; who sways, not as it hath power but as it is suffered. Come to me, that of this I may speak more. if our father would sleep till I waked him, you should enjoy half his revenue for ever, and live the beloved of your brother, Edgar.-Humph-Conspir acy!-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? Edm. It was not brought me, my lord, there's the cunning of it; I found it thrown in at the casement of my closet. Glo. You know the character to be your brother's? Edm. 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. Glo. It is his. Edm. It is his hand, my lord; but, I hope, his heart is not in the contents. Glo. Hath he never heretofore sounded you in this business? Edm. Never, my lord: But I have often heard him maintain it to be fit, that, sons at perfect age, and futhers declining, the father should be as ward to the san, and the son manage his revenue. Glo. O villain, villain!-His very opinion in the let ter!-Abhorred villain! Unnatural, detested, brutish villain! worse than brutish!-Go, sirrah, sock him; I'll apprehend him:-Abominable villain !-Where in he? Edm. I do not well know, my lord. If it shall ple you to suspend your indignation against my broth, till you can derive from him better testimony of his intent, you shall run a certain course; where, if you violently proceed against him, mistaking his purpost, it would make a great gap in your own honour, and shake in pieces the heart of his obedience. I dare pawn down my life for him, that he hath writ this to feel my affection to your honour, and to no other pretence of danger. Glo. Think you so? Edm. If your honour judge it meet, I will place you where you shall hear us confer of this, and by an # ricular assurance have your satisfaction; and that without any further delay than this very evening. Glo. He cannot be such a monster. Edm. Nor is not, sure. Glo. To his father, that so tenderly and entirely lon him.-Heaven and earth!-Edmund, seek him est; wind me into him, I pray you: frame the business of ter your own wisdom, I would unstate myself, to be in a due resolution. Edm. I will seek him, sir, presently; convey the business as I shall find means, and acquaint you wish al. Glo. These late eclipses in the sun and moon pa tend no good to us: though the wisdom of nature cas reason it thus and thus, yet nature finds itself scour ed by the sequent effects: Love couls, friendship falls off, brothers divide: In cities, mutinies; in countries, discord; in palaces, treason; and the bond cracked between son and father. This villain of mine comes under the prediction; there's son against father: the king falls from bias of nature; there's father against child. We have seen the best of our time: Machinetions, hollowness, treachery, and all ruinous disorden. follow us disquietly to our graves! Find out this villain, Edmund; it shall lose thee nothing; do it carefully:-and the noble and true hearted Kent banished! his offence, honesty!-Strange! strange! [Erit Edm. This is the excellent foppery of the world! that, when we are sick in fortune, (often the surfeit of our own behaviour,) we make guilty of our disasters. the sun, the moon, and the stars: as if we were vit lains by necessity; fools, by heavenly compulsion knaves, thieves, and treachers, by spherical predominance; drunkards, liars, and adulterers, by an enforc ed obedience of planetary influence; and all that we are evil in, by a divine thrusting on: An admirable evasion of whore-master man, to lay his goatish disposition to the charge of a star! My father compounded with my mother under the dragon's tail; and my nativity was under ursa major; so that it follows, I am rough and lecherous.-Tut, I should have been that I am, had the maidenliest star in the firmament twinkled on my bastardizing. Edgar Enter Edgar. and pat he comes, like the catastrophe of the old comedy: My cue is villanous melancholy, with a sigh like Tom O'Bedlam.-O, these eclipses do portend these divisions! fa, sol, la, mi. Edg. How now, brother Edmund? What serious contemplation are you in? Edm. I am thinking, brother, of a prediction I read this other day, what should follow these eclipses. Edg. Do you busy yourself with that? Edm. I promise you, the effects he writes of, sue. ceed 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. Edg. How long have you been a sectary astronomical? Edm. Come, come; when saw you my father last? Edg. Ay, two hours together. Edm. Parted you in good terms? Found you no displeasure in him, by word, or countenance? Edg. None at all. Edm. Bethink yourself, wherein you may have of fended him: and at my entreaty, forbear his presence, till some little time hath qualified the heart of his displeasure; which at this instant so rageth in him, that with the mischief of your person it would scarcely allay. Edg. Some villain hath done me wrong. Edm. 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 lodging, from whence I will fitly bring you to hear my lord speak: Pray you, go; there's my key:-If you do stir abroad, go armed. Edg. Armed, brother? Edm. Brother, I advise you to the best; go armed; I am no honest man, if there be any good meaning towards you: I have told you what I have seen and heard, but faintly; nothing like the image and horror of it: Pray you, away. Edg. Shall I hear from you anon? Edm. I do serve you in this business.~ [Exit Edg. 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. [Exit. Gon. By day and night! he wrongs me; every hour He flashes into one gross crime or other, That set 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. Stew. He's coming, madam; I hear him. [Horns within. Gon. Put on what weary negligence you please, You and your fellows; I'd have it come to question: If he dislike it, let him to my sister, Whose mind and mine, I know, in that are one, Stew Very well, madam. Gon. And let his knights have colder looks among you; What grows of it, no matter; advise your fellows so: [Exeunt. SCENE IV-A Hall in the same. Enter Kent, disguised. Kent. If but as well I other accents borrow, That can my speech diffuse, my good intent May carry through itself to that full issue For which I raz'd my likeness.-Now, banish'd Kent, If thou canst serve where thou dost stand condemn'd, (So may it come !) thy master, whom thou lov'st, Shall find thee full of labours. Horns within. Enter Lear, Knights, and Attendants Leur. Let me not stay a jot for dinner; go, get it ready. [Exit an Attendant.] How now, what art thou? Kent. A man, sir. Lear. What dost thou profess? What wouldest thou with us? Kent. I do profess to be no less than I seem; to serve him truly, that will put me in trust; to love him that is honest; to converse with him that is wise, and says little; to fear judgement; to fight, when I cannot choose; and to eat no fish. Lear. What art thou? Kent. A very honest-hearted fellow, and as poor as the king. Lear. If thou be as poor for a subject, as he is for a king, thou art poor enough. What wouldest thou? Kent. Service. Lear. Who wouldest thou serve? Kent. You. Lear. Dost thou know me, fellow? Kent. No, sir; but you have that in your countenance, which I would fain call master. Lear. What's that? Kent. Authority. Lear. What services canst thou do? Kent. I can keep honest counsel, ride, run, mar a curious tale in telling it, and deliver a plain message bluntly: that which ordinary men are fit for, I am qualified in; and the best of me is diligence. Lear. How old art thou? Kent. Not so young, sir, to love a woman for sing. |