The Arden Shakespeare Complete Works
Page 285
GLOUCESTER He that will think to live till he be old,
Give me some help! – O cruel! O you gods!
REGAN One side will mock another – th’other too.
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CORNWALL If you see vengeance –
1 SERVANT Hold your hand, my lord.
I have served FyouF ever since I was a child,
But better service have I never done you
Than now to bid you hold.
REGAN How now, you dog?
1 SERVANT If you did wear a beard upon your chin,
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I’d shake it on this quarrel. What do you mean?
CORNWALL My villein? [They] Qdraw and fight. Q
1 SERVANT
Nay then, come on, and take the chance of anger.
[He wounds Cornwall.]
REGAN [to another Servant]
Give me thy sword. A peasant stand up thus?
[Q She takes a sword and runs at him behind.Q F Kills him.F]
1 SERVANT
O, I am slain. My lord, you have one eye left
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To see some mischief on him. O! [He dies.]
CORNWALL Lest it see more, prevent it. Out, vile jelly,
Where is thy lustre now?
GLOUCESTER
All dark and comfortless? Where’s my son Edmund?
Edmund, enkindle all the sparks of nature
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To quit this horrid act.
REGAN Out, FtreacherousF villain,
Thou call’st on him that hates thee. It was he
That made the overture of thy treasons to us,
Who is too good to pity thee.
GLOUCESTER O my follies! Then Edgar was abused?
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Kind gods, forgive me that and prosper him.
REGAN [to a Servant]
Go, thrust him out at gates and let him smell
His way to Dover. How is’t, my lord? How look you?
CORNWALL I have received a hurt. Follow me, lady.
[to Servants] Turn out that eyeless villain. Throw this slave
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Upon the dunghill.
Exeunt [Servants] Fwith GloucesterF [and the body].
Regan, I bleed apace;
Untimely comes this hurt. Give me your arm.
Exeunt [Cornwall and Regan].
Q2SERVANT I’ll never care what wickedness I do
If this man come to good.
3 SERVANT If she live long
And in the end meet the old course of death,
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Women will all turn monsters.
2 SERVANT
Let’s follow the old Earl and get the bedlam
To lead him where he would. His roguish madness
Allows itself to anything.
3 SERVANT
Go thou: I’ll fetch some flax and whites of eggs
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To apply to his bleeding face. Now heaven help him!
Exeunt.Q
4.1 Enter EDGAR[, disguised as Poor Tom].
EDGAR 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,
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The worst returns to laughter. FWelcome then,
Thou unsubstantial air that I embrace;
The wretch that thou hast blown unto the worst
Owes nothing to thy blasts.F
Enter GLOUCESTER, led by an Old Man.
FButF who comes here? My father, poorly led?
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World, world, O world!
But that thy strange mutations make us hate thee,
Life would not yield to age.
OLD MAN O my good lord, I have been your tenant and
your father’s tenant these fourscore FyearsF –
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GLOUCESTER
Away, get thee away; good friend, be gone.
Thy comforts can do me no good at all,
Thee they may hurt.
OLD MAN Alack, sir,Q you cannot see your way.Q
GLOUCESTER
I have no way, and therefore want no eyes:
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I stumbled when I saw. Full oft ’tis seen
Our means secure us and our mere defects
Prove our commodities. O dear son Edgar,
The food of thy abused father’s wrath,
Might I but live to see thee in my touch,
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I’d say I had eyes again.
OLD MAN How now? Who’s there?
EDGAR [aside]
O gods! Who is’t can say ‘I am at the worst’?
I am worse than e’er I was.
OLD MAN [to Gloucester] ’Tis poor mad Tom.
EDGAR [aside] And worse I may be yet; the worst is not
So long as we can say ‘This is the worst.’
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OLD MAN [to Edgar] Fellow, where goest?
GLOUCESTER Is it a beggar-man?
OLD MAN Madman, and beggar too.
GLOUCESTER
He has some reason, else he could not beg.
I’the last night’s storm I such a fellow saw,
Which made me think a man a worm. My son
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Came then into my mind, and yet my mind
Was then scarce friends with him. I have heard more since:
As flies to wanton boys are we to the gods,
They kill us for their sport.
EDGAR [aside] How should this be?
Bad is the trade that must play fool to sorrow,
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Angering itself and others.
[to Gloucester] Bless thee, master.
GLOUCESTER Is that the naked fellow?
OLD MAN Ay, my lord.
GLOUCESTER
QThen pritheeQ get thee away. If for my sake
Thou wilt o’ertake us hence a mile or twain
I’the way toward Dover, do it for ancient love,
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And bring some covering for this naked soul,
Which I’ll entreat to lead me.
OLD MAN Alack, sir, he is mad.
GLOUCESTER
’Tis the time’s plague when madmen lead the blind.
Do as I bid thee, or rather do thy pleasure;
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Above the rest, be gone.
OLD MAN I’ll bring him the best ‘pparel that I have,
Come on’t what will. FExit.F
GLOUCESTER Sirrah, naked fellow.
EDGAR
Poor Tom’s a-cold. [aside] I cannot daub it further –
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GLOUCESTER Come hither, fellow.
EDGAR [aside]
FAnd yet I must.F
[to Gloucester] Bless thy sweet eyes, they bleed.
GLOUCESTER Knowst thou the way to Dover?
EDGAR Both stile and gate, horseway and footpath. Poor
Tom hath been scared out of his good wits. Bless thee,
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goodman’s son, from the foul fiend. Q Five fiends have
been in Poor Tom at once, of lust, as Obidicut;
Hobbididence, prince of darkness; Mahu, of stealing;
Modo, of murder; Flibbertigibbet, of mopping and
mowing, who since possesses chambermaids and
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waiting-women. So, bless thee, master.Q
GLOUCESTER
Here, take this purse, thou whom the heaven’s 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
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That slaves your ordinance, that will not see
Because he does not feel, feel your power quickly:
So distribution should undo excess
And each man have enough. Dost thou know Dover?
/>
EDGAR Ay, master.
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GLOUCESTER
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
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I shall no leading need.
EDGAR Give me thy arm,
Poor Tom shall lead thee. FExeunt.F
4.2 Enter GONERIL, EDMUND, [followed by] OSWALD.
GONERIL
Welcome, my lord. I marvel our mild husband
Not met us on the way.
[to Oswald] Now, where’s your master?
OSWALD Madam, within; but never man so changed.
I told him of the army that was landed;
He smiled at it. I told him you were coming;
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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,
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What like, offensive.
GONERIL [to Edmund] Then shall you go no further.
It is the cowish terror of his spirit,
That dares not undertake. He’ll not feel wrongs
Which tie him to an answer. Our wishes on the way
May prove effects. Back, Edmund, to my brother;
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Hasten his musters and conduct his powers.
I must change names 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 –
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A mistress’s command. Wear this.
[She places a chain about his neck.] Spare speech,
Decline your head. This kiss, if it durst speak,
Would stretch thy spirits up into the air.
Conceive, and fare thee well –
EDMUND Yours in the ranks of death. FExit.F
GONERIL – my most dear Gloucester.
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FO, the difference of man and man!F
To thee a woman’s services are due;
A fool usurps my bed.
OSWALD Madam, here comes my lord. Q Exit.Q
F Enter ALBANY.F
GONERIL I have been worth the whistling.
ALBANY O Goneril,
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You are not worth the dust which the rude wind
Blows in your face. QI fear your disposition;
That nature which contemns its origin
Cannot be bordered certain in itself.
She that herself will sliver and disbranch
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From her material sap perforce must wither,
And come to deadly use.
GONERIL No more, the text is foolish.
ALBANY Wisdom and goodness to the vile seem vile;
Filths savour but themselves. What have you done?
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Tigers, not daughters, what have you performed?
A father, and a gracious aged man
Whose reverence even the head-lugged bear would lick,
Most barbarous, most degenerate, have you madded.
Could my good brother suffer you to do it?
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A man, a prince, by him so benefitted?
If that the heavens do not their visible spirits
Send quickly down to tame these vile offences,
It will come:
Humanity must perforce prey on itself,
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Like monsters of the deep.Q
GONERIL Milk-livered man,
That bear’st a cheek for blows, a head for wrongs,
Who hast not in thy brows an eye discerning
Thine honour from thy suffering; Q that not knowst
Fools do those villains pity who are punished
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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, sits still and cries,
‘Alack, why does he so?’Q
ALBANY See thyself, devil:
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Proper deformity shows not in the fiend
So horrid as in woman.
GONERIL O vain fool!
QALBANY
Thou changed and self-covered thing, for shame