Most choice, forsaken, and most lov'd, despis'd, Gods, gods! 'tis strange, that from their cold'st neglect My love should kindle to inflam'd respect.— SCENE II-A Hall in the Earl of GLOSTER'S Castle. Enter EDMUND, the Bastard, with a Letter. Edm. Thou, nature, art my goddess; to thy law My services are bound. Wherefore should I Stand on the plague of custom, and permit The curiosity of nations to deprive me, For that I am some twelve or fourteen moon-shines Lag of a brother? Why bastard? wherefore base, When my dimensions are as well compact, My mind as generous, and my shape as true, Lear. Thou hast her, France: let her be thine, As honest madam's issue? Why brand they us for we Have no such daughter, nor shall ever see [Flourish. Exeunt LEAR, BURGUNDY, CORNWALL, ALBANY, GLOSTER, and Attendants. France. Bid farewell to your sisters. Cor. Ye jewels of our father, with wash'd eyes Cordelia leaves you: I know you what you are; And, like a sister, am most loath to call Your faults as they are nam'd. Love well our father: To your professed bosoms I commit him; с But yet, ala! stood I within his grace, I would prefer him to a better place. So, farewell to you both. Gon. Prescribe not us our duty. Let your study Be to content your lord, who hath receiv'd you 2 As fortune's alms: you have obedience scanted, And well are worth the want that you have wanted. Cor. Time shall unfold what plighted cunning hides; Who cover faults, at last shame them derides. France. Come, my fair Cordelia. [Exeunt FRANCE and CORDELIA. Gon. Sister, it is not 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 month 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 judgment 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. Reg. Such unconstant starts are we like to have from him, as this of Kent's banishment. Gon. There is farther compliment of leave-taking between France and him. Pray you, let us hit together: if our father carry authority with such dispositions as he bears, this last surrender of his will but offend us. Reg. We shall farther think of it. Gon. We must do something, and i' the fheat. [Exeunt. That is Thou losest preferment here, to find a better elsewhere. Benison is blessing.- Professed for professing. That is, And well deserve the loss of the dower that you have failed to obtain.'-Long-engrafted condition," Le., qualities of mind confirmed by long habit-"I' the beat," i. e., While the iron is hot.' With base with baseness? bastardy? base, base? Enter GLOSTER. [Reads the Letter. Glo. Kent banish'd thus! And France in choler parted! And the king gone to-night! 'subscrib'd his power! Confin'd to exhibition! All this done Upon the 'gad!-Edmund. How now! what news? Edm. So please your lordship, none. [Hiding the Letter. Glo. Why so earnestly seek you to put up that letter? Edm. I know no news, my lord. 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 see: 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; and for so much as I have perused, I find it not fit for your o'erlooking. 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. I 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 bond age 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!-Conspiracy!Sleep till I waked him,-you should enjoy half "The curiosity of nations," i. e., the nicety, the strictness of civil institutions. To deprive, here, is to disinherit.i "Subscribed," i. e., yielded; surrendered.- Exhibition is an allowance, a stipend.-1" Upon the gad," i. e., upon the spur; in haste-"As an essay," i, e., as a trial. Fond," i. e., weak; foolish. his revenue."-My son Edgar! Had he a hand to | asters, the sun, the moon, and the stars: as if we write this? a heart and brain to breed it in ?—When were villains by necessity; fools, by heavenly com‐ came this to you? Who brought it? pulsion; knaves, thieves, and treachers, by spheri cal predominance; drunkards, liars, and adulterers, Edm. It was not brought me, my lord; there's the cunning of it: I found it thrown in at the case-by an enforced obedience of planetary influence, and ment of my closet. 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 fathers declined, the father should be as ward to the son, and the son manage his revenue. Glo. 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? Edm. 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 shall 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 pretence of danger. b Glo. Think you so? Edm. 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 without any farther delay than this very evening. Glo. He cannot be such a monster. Edm. Nor is not, sure. | My 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 stars! 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 maiderliest 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 villainous 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 socceed unhappily; as of unnaturalness between the child and the parent; death, dearth, dissolution of ancient amities; divisions in state; menaces and maledictions against king and nobles; needless diffidences, banishment of friends, dissipation of ce horts, nuptial breaches, and I know not what. Edg. How long have you been a sectary astro nomical? Edm. Come, come; when saw you my father last! Edm. Spake you with him? Edm. Parted you in good terms? Found you að displeasure in him, by word, or countenance? Edg. None at all. Glo. To his father, that so tenderly and entirely loves him.-Heaven and earth!-Edmund, seek him Edm. Bethink yourself, wherein you may have out; wind me into him, I pray you: frame the busi- offended him: and at my entreaty forbear his pres ness after your own wisdom. I would unstate my-ence, till some little time hath qualified the heat of self to be in a due resolution. his displeasure, which at this instant so rageth in him, that with the mischief of your person it would scarcely allay. Edm. I will seek him, sir, presently, convey the business as I shall find means, and acquaint you withal. Glo. 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 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: 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 offence, honesty.'Tis strange. [Exit. Edm. This is the excellent foppery of the world, that, when we are sick in fortune, (often the surfeit of our own behavior) we make guilty of our dis • Where for whereas.-b" Pretence," i. e., design; purpose. -That is, I would give all I am possessed of to be satisfied of the truth-dConvey," i. e., conduct; manage.— The wisdom of nature," i. e., natural philosophy."The sequent effects," i. e., the consequences. Edg. Some villain hath done me wrong. Edm. That's my fear. I pray you, have a con tinent 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 lad speak. Pray you, go: there's my key. If you de stir abroad, go armed. Edg. Armed, brother? Edm. Brother, I advise you to the best; I am ne 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 EDGAR 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. [Ert "Treachers," i. e., traitors."Continent,” i. e, terme perate. SCENE III.-A Room in the Duke of ALBANY'S Palace. Enter GONERIL, and OSWALD her Steward. Gon. Did my father strike my gentleman for chiding of his fool? Osw. Ay, madam. 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 Gon. By day and night he wrongs me: every hour singing; nor so old, to dote on her for any thing: I 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: Well, madam. Osw. SCENE IV.-A Hall in the Same. Kent. If but as well I other accents borrow, Horns within. Enter LEAR, Knights, and Attend Lear. What dost thou profess? What would'st 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 judgment; 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 would'st thou ? Kent. Service. Lear. Whom would'st 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. "Diffuse," 1. e., disguise.-b"Raz'd," i. e., effaced."To converse," i. e., to keep company. have years on my back forty-eight. Lear. Follow me; thou shalt serve me: if I like thee no worse after dinner, I will not part from thee yet.-Dinner, ho! dinner!-Where's my knave? my fool? Go you, and call my fool hither. Knight. 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 dependants, as in the duke himself also, and your daughter. Lear. Ha! sayest 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 rememberest me of mine own conception. I have perceived a most faint neglect of late; which I have rather blamed as mine own jealous curiosity, than as a very pretence and purpose of unkindness: I will look farther 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.-Go you, call hither my fool. Re-enter OsWALD. O! you sir, you sir, come you hither. Who am I, sir? Osw. My lady's father. whoreson dog! you slave! you cur! Lear. My lady's father? my lord's knave: you Osw. I am none of these, my lord; I beseech your pardon. Lear. Do you bandy looks with me, you rascal? [Striking him. Osw. I'll not be stricken, my lord. Kent. Nor tripped neither, you base foot-ball player. [Tripping up his heels. Lear. I thank thee, fellow; thou servest me, and I'll love thee. Kent. Come, sir, arise; away! I'll teach you differences: away, away! If you will measure your lubber's length again, tarry; but away! Go to: have you wisdom? so. [Pushes OSWALD out "Jealous curiosity," i. e., punctilious jealousy. “A very pretence," i. e., an absolute design. Fool. If I gave them all my living, I'd keep my 1 coxcomb 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 brach may stand by the fire and stink. Lear. A pestilent gall to me. Fool. Sirrah, I'll teach thee a speech. Fool. Mark it, nuncle. e Have more than thou showest, And thou shalt have more Than two tens to a score. Lear. This is nothing, fool. Fool. Then, 'tis like the breath of an unfee'd lawyer: you gave me nothing for't. Can you make no use of nothing, nuncle? Lear. Why, no, boy; nothing can be made out of nothing. Fool. Pr'ythee, tell him, so much the rent of his land comes to: he will not believe a fool. Lear. A bitter fool! Lear. What two crowns shall they be? Fool. Why, after I have cut the egg i' the middle, and eat up the meat, the two crowns of the egg. When thou clovest thy crown i' 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, when thou gavest thy golden one away. If I speak like myself in this, let him be whipped that first finds it so. Fools had ne'er less & grace in a year; [Singing. And well may fear their wits to wear, Lear. When were you wont to be so full of songs, sirrah ? Fool. I have used it, nuncle, ever since thou madest thy daughters thy mothers: for, when than gavest them the rod and putt'st down thine own breeches, Then they for sudden joy did weep, [Singing. Pr'ythee, nuncle, keep a school-master that can teach thy fool to lie: I would fain learn to lie. Lear. An you lie, sirrah, we'll have you whipped. Fool. I marvel what kin thou and thy daughters are: they'll have me whipped for speaking træ, thou❜lt have me whipped for lying; and sometimes I am whipped for holding my peace. I had rather be any kind o' thing than a fool; and yet I would not be thee, nuncle: thou hast pared thy wit o' both sides, and left nothing i' the middle. Here comes one o' the parings. Enter GONERIL. Lear. How now, daughter! what makes that front let on ? Methinks, you are too much of late i' the frown. Fool. 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 am a fool; thou art nothing.-Yes, forsooth, I wil hold my tongue! so your face [To Gos.] bids me, though you say nothing. Mum, mum: He that keeps nor crust nor crum, [Singing. Fool. Dost thou know the difference, my boy, be- That's a shealed peascod. tween a bitter fool and a sweet one? Lear. No, lad; teach me. Fool. That lord, that counsell'd thee Will presently appear; The other found out there. Lear. Dost thou call me fool, boy? Fool. All thy other titles thou hast given away, that thou wast born with. Kent. This is not altogether fool, my lord. Fool. No, 'faith; lords and great men will not let me: if I had a monopoly out, they would have part on't, and loads too: they will not let me have all fool to myself; they'll be snatching.-Give me an egg, nuncle, and I'll give thee two crowns. "Catch cold shortly," i. e., be turned out of doors.Nuncle, a familiar contraction of mine uncle.-"Living," i. e., estate; property. A brach is a bitch-hound. Ownest."Trowest," i. e., believest, Gon. Not only, sir, this your all-licens'd fool, But other of your insolent retinue Do hourly carp and quarrel; breaking forth Sir, I had thought, by making this well known unto you, Fool. For you know, nuncle, The hedge-sparrow fed the cuckoo so long, Grace is favor. A frontlet, or forehead cloth, was worn by ladies of old to prevent wrinkles, or frowns—* An O without a figure," i. e., a cipher,-A shealed praseod,” i. e., a shelled peapod: a mere empty husk.-Put it on," i. e., promote it; instigate it. Allowance for approbation "A wholesome weal," i. e., a well-governed state. a So, out went the candle, and we were left darkling. | Dry up in her the organs of increase; [wisdom, Fool. May not an ass know when the cart draws the horse?-Whoop, Jug! I love thee. Lear. Does any here know me ?-Why this is not Lear: does Lear walk thus? speak thus? Where are his eyes? Either his notion weakens, or his discernings are lethargied.-Sleeping or waking ?Ha! sure 'tis not so.-Who is it that can tell me who I am?-Lear's shadow? I would learn that; for by the marks of sovereignty, knowledge, and reason, I should be false persuaded I had daughters. Fool. Which they will make an obedient father. Lear. Your name, fair gentlewoman? Gon. This admiration, sir, is much o' the favor As you are old and reverend, should be wise. By her, that else will take the thing she begs, A little to disquantity your train; And the remainder, that shall still depend, you. Lear. Gon. You strike my people; and your disorder'd Pray, sir, be patient. To GONERIL. Lear. Detested kite! thou liest: [Striking his head. “Darkling,” i. e., in the dark. Fraught," i. e., stored. Favor is complexion.-d "Depend," i. e., continue in servicc.-The sea monster is the hippopotamus, the hieroglyphical symbol of impiety and ingratitude.-"An engine," i, e., the rack. And from her & derogate body never spring Re-enter LEAR. Lear. What! fifty of my followers, at a clap, Alb. ERIL.] I am asham'd, That thou hast power to shake my manhood thus: upon thee! Th' muntented woundings of a father's curse Let it be so:-I have another daughter, [Exeunt LEAR 2 in fury, KENT, and Attendants, To the great love I bear you, Gon. Pray you, content.-What, Oswald, ho! You, sir, more knave than fool, after your master. [To the Fool. Fool. Nuncle Lear, nuncle Lear! tarry, and take the fool with thee. A fox, when one has caught her, Should sure to the slaughter, If my cap would buy a halter; So the fool follows after. [Exit. Gon. This man hath had good counsel.-A hun dred knights! 'Tis politic, and safe, to let him keep [dream, Re-enter OSWALD. "Derogate," i. e., degenerate.-"Thwart," i. e.. perverse-Disnatur'd," i. e., unnatural.-k" Cadent," i. e., falling. Benefits are good offices.-"Untented," i. e., rankling; never-healing." At point," i. e., completely armed, -Enguard," i. e., guard; protect |
