King lear, p.5
King Lear, page 5
Well, my legitimate, if this letter speed19
And my invention20 thrive, Edmund the base
Shall to th’legitimate21. I grow, I prosper:
Now, gods, stand up for bastards!
Enter Gloucester
GLOUCESTER Kent banished thus? And France in choler parted23?
And the king gone tonight? Prescribed24 his power,
Confined to exhibition25? All this done
Upon the gad26? Edmund, how now? What news?
Hides the letter
EDMUND So please your lordship, none.
GLOUCESTER Why so earnestly seek you to put up28 that letter?
EDMUND I know no news, my lord.
GLOUCESTER What paper were you reading?
EDMUND Nothing, my lord.
GLOUCESTER No? What needed, then, that terrible dispatch32 of it
into your pocket? The quality of nothing hath not such need
to hide itself. Let’s see: come, if it be nothing I shall not need
spectacles.
EDMUND I beseech you, sir, pardon me: it is a letter from my
brother that I have not all o’er-read; and for37 so much as I
have perused, I find it not fit for your o’erlooking38.
GLOUCESTER Give me the letter, sir.
EDMUND I shall offend either to detain or give it: the contents,
as in part I understand them, are to blame.
Edmund gives the letter
GLOUCESTER Let’s see, let’s see.
EDMUND I hope for my brother’s justification he wrote this
but as an essay or taste44 of my virtue.
GLOUCESTER Reads ‘This policy and reverence of age45 makes the
world bitter to the best of our times, keeps our fortunes46 from
us till our oldness cannot relish them. I begin to find an idle47
and fond48 bondage in the oppression of aged tyranny, who
sways, not as it hath power, but as it is suffered49. Come to me,
that of this I may speak more. If our father would sleep till I
waked him, you should enjoy half his revenue for ever and
live the beloved of your brother, Edgar.’
Hum! Conspiracy! ‘Sleep till I wake 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 you to this?
Who brought it?
EDMUND It was not brought me, my lord; there’s the cunning
of it: I found it thrown in at the casement of my closet58.
GLOUCESTER You know the character59 to be your brother’s?
EDMUND If the matter60 were good, my lord, I durst swear it
were his, but in respect of that I would fain61 think it were not.
GLOUCESTER It is his.
EDMUND It is his hand, my lord, but I hope his heart is not in
the contents.
GLOUCESTER Has he never before sounded you in this business?
EDMUND Never, my lord: but I have heard him oft maintain it
to be fit that, sons at perfect age and fathers declined67, the
father should be as ward to the son, and the son manage his
revenue.
GLOUCESTER O villain, villain! His very opinion in the letter!
Abhorred villain! Unnatural, detested, brutish villain! Worse
than brutish! Go, sirrah, seek him: I’ll apprehend72 him.
Abominable73 villain, where is he?
EDMUND I do not well know, my lord. If it shall please you to
suspend your indignation against my brother till you can
derive from him better testimony of his intent, you should
run a certain course, where, if you violently proceed77 against
him, mistaking his purpose, it would make a great gap in
your own honour and shake in pieces the heart of his
obedience. I dare pawn down80 my life for him, that he hath
writ this to feel81 my affection to your honour, and to no other
pretence82 of danger.
GLOUCESTER Think you so?
EDMUND If your honour judge it meet84, I will place you where
you shall hear us confer of this, and by an auricular85
assurance have your satisfaction86, and that without any
further delay than this very evening.
GLOUCESTER He cannot be such a monster. Edmund, seek him
out: wind me into him, I pray you: frame89 the business after
your own wisdom. I would unstate myself to be in a due90
resolution.
EDMUND I will seek him, sir, presently: convey92 the business as
I shall find means and acquaint you withal93.
GLOUCESTER These late94 eclipses in the sun and moon portend no
good to us: though the wisdom of nature95 can reason it thus
and thus, yet nature finds itself scourged by the sequent96
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 nature101: there’s father against
child. 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: it104
shall lose thee nothing. Do it carefully.— And the noble and
true-hearted Kent banished! His offence, honesty! ’Tis
strange.
Exit
EDMUND This is the excellent foppery108 of the world, that when
we are sick in fortune — often the surfeits109 of our own
behaviour — we make guilty of our disasters110 the sun, the
moon111 and stars, as if we were villains on necessity, fools by
heavenly compulsion, knaves, thieves and treachers112 by
spherical predominance113, 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 evasion115
of whoremaster man, to lay his goatish116 disposition on the
charge of a star! My father compounded117 with my mother
under the dragon’s tail and my nativity was under Ursa118
Major, so that it follows I am rough119 and lecherous. I should
have been that I am had the maidenliest120 star in the
firmament twinkled on my bastardizing121.
Enter Edgar
Pat he comes like the catastrophe of the old comedy: my cue122
is villainous melancholy, with a sigh like Tom o’Bedlam123.—
O, these eclipses do portend these divisions! Fa, sol, la, mi124.
EDGAR How now, brother Edmund, what serious
contemplation are you in?
EDMUND I am thinking, brother, of a prediction I read this127
other day, what should follow these eclipses.
EDGAR Do you busy yourself with that?
EDMUND I promise you, the effects he writes of succeed130
unhappily131. When saw you my father last?
EDGAR The night gone by.
EDMUND Spake you with him?
EDGAR Ay, two hours together.
EDMUND Parted you in good terms? Found you no displeasure
in him by word nor countenance136?
EDGAR None at all.
EDMUND Bethink yourself wherein you may have offended
him, and at my entreaty forbear139 his presence until some little
time hath qualified140 the heat of his displeasure, which at this
instant so rageth in him that with the mischief of your141
person it would scarcely allay142.
EDGAR Some villain hath done me wrong.
EDMUND That’s my fear. I pray you have a continent144
forbearance till the speed of his rage goes slower: and, as I
say, retire with me to my lodging, from whence I will fitly146
bring you to hear my lord speak. Pray ye go.
Gives a key
There’s my key: if you do stir abroad148, go armed.
EDGAR Armed, brother?
EDMUND Brother, I advise you to the best: I am no honest
man if there be any good meaning151 toward you: I have told
you what I have seen and heard, but faintly, nothing like the
image and horror153 of it. Pray you away.
EDGAR Shall I hear from you anon154?
Exit
EDMUND I do serve155 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 practices159 ride easy. I see the business.
Let me, if not by birth, have lands by wit160:
All with me’s meet that I can fashion fit161.
Exit
Act 1 Scene 3
running scene 3
Enter Goneril and Steward [Oswald]
GONERIL Did my father strike my gentleman for chiding1 of his
fool?
OSWALD Ay, madam.
GONERIL By day and night he wrongs me: every hour
He flashes5 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 slack10 of former services
You shall do well: the fault of it I’ll answer11.
Horns within
OSWALD He’s coming, madam: I hear him.
GONERIL Put on what weary negligence you please,
You and your fellows: I’d have it come to question14:
If he distaste15 it, let him to my sister,
Whose mind and mine, I know, in that are one.
Remember what I have said.
OSWALD Well, madam.
GONERIL And let his knights have colder looks among you:
what grows of it, no matter: advise your fellows so. I’ll write
straight to21 my sister, to hold my course. Prepare for dinner.
Exeunt
Act 1 Scene 4
running scene 3 continues
Enter Kent
Disguised
KENT If but as will I1 other accents borrow,
That can my speech defuse2, my good intent
May carry through itself to that full issue3
For which I razed my likeness4. Now, banished Kent,
If thou canst serve where thou dost stand condemned,
So may it come thy master whom thou lov’st,
Shall find thee full of labours.
Horns within. Enter Lear and Attendants [his Knights]
LEAR Let me not stay8 a jot for dinner: go get it ready.—
[Exit a Knight]
To Kent
How now, what art thou?
KENT A man, sir.
LEAR What dost thou profess? What wouldst thou11 with
us12?
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 fish16.
LEAR What art thou?
KENT A very honest-hearted fellow, and as poor as the
king.
LEAR If thou be’st as poor for a subject as he’s for a king,
thou art poor enough. What wouldst thou?
KENT Service.
LEAR Who wouldst thou serve?
KENT You.
LEAR Dost thou know me, fellow?
KENT No, sir, but you have that in your countenance
which I would fain call master.
LEAR What’s that?
KENT Authority.
LEAR What services canst thou do?
KENT I can keep honest counsel, ride, run, mar a curious31
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 singing, nor
so old to dote on her for anything37: I have years on my back
forty-eight.
LEAR Follow me, thou shalt serve me: if I like thee no
worse after dinner, I will not part from thee yet.— Dinner,
ho, dinner! Where’s my knave41? My fool? Go you and call my
fool hither.
[Exit another Knight]
Enter Steward [Oswald]
You, you, sirrah, where’s my daughter?
OSWALD So44 please you—
Exit
LEAR What says the fellow there? Call the clotpoll45 back.—
[Exit another Knight]
Where’s my fool? Ho, I think the world’s asleep.—
[Enter a Knight]
How now? Where’s that mongrel?
KNIGHT He says, my lord, your daughter is not well.
LEAR Why came not the slave49 back to me when I called
him?
KNIGHT Sir, he answered me in the roundest51 manner, he
would not.
LEAR He would not?
KNIGHT My lord, I know not what the matter is, but to my
judgement your highness is not entertained55 with that
ceremonious affection as you were wont56: there’s a great
abatement of kindness appears as well in the general57
dependants as in the duke himself also and your daughter.
LEAR Ha? Say’st thou so?
KNIGHT I beseech you pardon me, my lord, if I be mistaken,
for my duty cannot be silent when I think your highness
wronged.
LEAR Thou but rememb’rest me of mine own conception63:
I have perceived a most faint64 neglect of late, which I have
rather blamed as mine own jealous curiosity than as a very65
pretence and purpose of unkindness. I will look further
into’t. But where’s my fool? I have not seen him this two
days.
KNIGHT Since my young lady’s going into France, sir, the
fool hath much pined away.
LEAR No more of that, I have noted it well.— Go you and
tell my daughter I would speak with her.—
[Exit a Knight]
Go you, call hither my fool.—
[Exit another Knight]
Enter Steward [Oswald]
O, you sir, you, come you hither, sir. Who am I, sir?
OSWALD My lady’s father.
LEAR ‘My lady’s father’? My lord’s knave: you whoreson
dog, you slave, you cur77!
OSWALD I am none of these, my lord, I beseech your pardon.
LEAR Do you bandy79 looks with me, you rascal?
Strikes him
OSWALD I’ll not be strucken80, my lord.
KENT Nor tripped neither, you base football81 player.
Trips him
LEAR I thank thee, fellow: thou serv’st me and I’ll love
thee.
KENT Come, sir, arise, away! I’ll teach you differences84:
away, away! If you will measure your lubber’s85 length again,
tarry: but away, go to86. Have you wisdom? So.
Pushes Oswald out
LEAR Now, my friendly knave, I thank thee.
Gives money
There’s earnest88 of thy service.
Enter Fool
FOOL Let me hire him too: here’s my
coxcomb90.
Offers Kent his cap
LEAR How now, my pretty91 knave, how dost thou?
To Kent
FOOL Sirrah, you were best take my coxcomb.
LEAR Why, my boy?
FOOL Why? For taking one’s part that’s out of favour: nay,
an thou canst not smile as the wind sits95, thou’lt catch cold
shortly. There, take my coxcomb. Why, this fellow has
banished two on’s97 daughters and did the third a blessing
against his will: if thou follow him, thou must needs98 wear
my coxcomb.— How now, nuncle? Would99 I had two
coxcombs and two daughters.
LEAR Why, my boy?
FOOL If I gave them all my living102, I’d keep my coxcombs
myself. There’s mine: beg another of thy daughters.
LEAR Take heed, sirrah: the whip.
FOOL Truth’s a dog must to kennel: he must be whipped
out when the Lady Brach106 may stand by th’fire and stink.
LEAR A pestilent gall107 to me!
FOOL Sirrah, I’ll teach thee a speech.
LEAR Do.
FOOL Mark110 it, nuncle:
Have more than thou showest,
Speak less than thou knowest,
Lend less than thou owest113,
Ride more than thou goest114,
Learn more than thou trowest115,
Set less than thou throwest116;
Leave thy drink and thy whore,
And keep in-a-door,
And thou shalt have more119
Than two tens to a score120.
KENT This is nothing, fool.
To Lear
FOOL Then ’tis like the breath of an unfee’d122
lawyer: you gave me nothing for’t.— Can you make no use123
of nothing, nuncle?
LEAR Why, no, boy: nothing can be made out of nothing.
To Kent
FOOL Prithee tell him, so much the rent of his land
comes to: he will not believe a fool.
LEAR A bitter fool!
FOOL Dost thou know the difference, my boy, between a
bitter fool and a sweet one?
LEAR No, lad, teach me.
FOOL Nuncle, give me an egg and I’ll give thee two
crowns.
LEAR What two crowns134 shall they be?
FOOL Why, after I have cut the egg i’th’middle and eat up
