The Arden Shakespeare Complete Works
Page 290
Maugre thy strength, youth, place and eminence,
Despite thy victor sword and fire-new fortune,
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Thy valour and thy heart, thou art a traitor:
False to thy gods, thy brother and thy father,
Conspirant ‘gainst this high illustrious prince,
And from th’extremest upward of thy head
To the descent and dust below thy foot
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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.
EDMUND In wisdom I should ask thy name,
But since thy outside looks so fair and warlike,
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And that thy tongue some say of breeding breathes,
What safe and nicely I might well delayFF
By rule of knighthood, I disdain and spurn.
Back do I toss these treasons to thy head,
With the hell-hated lie o’erwhelm thy heart,
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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.
[F Alarums. Fight.F [Edmund falls].]
ALBANY [to Edgar] Save him, save him!
GONERIL This is Q mereQ practice, Gloucester.
By the law of war thou wast not bound to answer
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An unknown oppposite. Thou art not vanquished,
But cozened and beguiled.
ALBANY Shut your mouth, dame,
Or with this paper shall I stop it.
[to Edmund] FHold, sir,F
Thou worse than any name, read thine own evil.
[to Goneril] Q NayQ, no tearing, lady; I perceive you know it.
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GONERIL Say if I do, the laws are mine, not thine.
Who can arraign me for’t?Exit.
ALBANY Most monstrous! FO!F
[to Edmund] Knowst thou this paper?
EDMUND Ask me not what I know.
ALBANY [to an officer, who follows Goneril]
Go after her; she’s desperate, govern her.
EDMUND
What you have charged me with, that have I done,
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And more, much more; the time will bring it out.
’Tis past and so am I. [to Edgar] But what art thou
That hast this fortune on me? If thou’rt noble,
I do forgive thee.
EDGAR Let’s exchange charity:
I am no less in blood than thou art, Edmund;
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If more, the more thou’st 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
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Cost him his eyes.
EDMUND Thou’st spoken Fright, ’tisF true;
The wheel is come full circle, I am here.
ALBANY [to Edgar]
Methought thy very gait did prophesy
A royal nobleness. I must embrace thee.
Let sorrow split my heart if ever I
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Did hate thee or thy father.
EDGAR Worthy prince, I know’t.
ALBANY Where have you hid yourself?
How have you known the miseries of your father?
EDGAR By nursing them, my lord. List a brief tale,
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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 we the pain of death would hourly die
Rather than die at once! – taught me to shift
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Into a madman’s rags, t’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,
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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 from first to last
Told him our pilgrimage. But his flawed heart,
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Alack, too weak the conflict to support,
’Twixt two extremes of passion, joy and grief,
Burst smilingly.
EDMUND This speech of yours hath moved me,
And shall perchance do good; but speak you on,
You look as you had something more to say.
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ALBANY If there be more, more woeful, hold it in,
For I am almost ready to dissolve
Hearing of this.
QEDGAR This would have seemed a period
To such as love not sorrow, but another
To amplify too much would make much more
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And top extremity.
Whilst I was big in clamour, came there in a man
Who, having seen me in my worst estate,
Shunned my abhorred society, but then finding
Who ’twas that so endured, with his strong arms,
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He fastened on my neck and bellowed out
As he’d burst heaven, threw him on my father,
Told the most piteous tale of Lear and him
That ever ear received, which in recounting
His grief grew puissant and the strings of life
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Began to crack. Twice then the trumpets sounded
And there I left him tranced.
ALBANY But who was this?
EDGAR Kent, sir, the banished Kent, who in disguise
Followed his enemy king and did him service
Improper for a slave.Q
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Enter a Gentleman Qwith a bloody knife. Q
GENTLEMAN Help, help, FO, help!F
EDGAR What kind of help?
FALBANY Speak, man.
EDGARF What means this bloody knife?
GENTLEMAN ’Tis hot, it smokes,
It came even from the heart of – FO, she’s dead!F
ALBANY Who FdeadF? Speak, man.
GENTLEMAN Your lady, sir, your lady; and her sister
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By her is poisoned; she confesses it.
EDMUND I was contracted to them both; all three
Now marry in an instant.
EDGAR Here comes Kent.
Enter KENT.
ALBANY Produce the bodies, be they alive or dead.
Goneril’s and Regan’s bodies brought out.
This judgement of the heavens that makes us tremble
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Touches us not with pity – O, is this he?
The time will not allow the compliment
Which very manners urges.
KENT I am come
To bid my King and master aye good night.
Is he not here?
ALBANY Great thing of us forgot!
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Speak, Edmund, where’s the King? And where’s Cordelia?
Seest thou this object, Kent?
KENT Alack, why thus?
EDMUND Yet Edmund was beloved:
The one the other poisoned for my sake,
And after slew herself.
ALBANY Even so; cover their faces.
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EDMUND 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.
ALBANY Run, run, O run.
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EDGAR
T
o who, my lord? Who has the office?
[to Edmund] Send
Thy token of reprieve.
EDMUND
Well thought on, take my sword; Q the captain,Q
Give it the captain.
EDGAR [to Gentleman] Haste thee for thy life.
[Exit Gentleman.]
EDMUND He hath commission from thy wife and me
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To hang Cordelia in the prison and
To lay the blame upon her own despair,
That she fordid herself.
ALBANY The gods defend her. Bear him hence awhile.
[Edmund is carried off.]
Enter LEAR with CORDELIA in his arms [followed by the Gentleman].
LEAR
Howl, howl, howl, QhowlQ! O, you are men of stones!
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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. [He lays her down.]
Lend me a looking-glass;
If that her breath will mist or stain the stone,
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Why then she lives.
KENT Is this the promised end?
EDGAR Or image of that horror?
ALBANY Fall, and cease.
LEAR This feather stirs, she lives: if it be so,
It is a chance which does redeem all sorrows
That ever I have felt.
KENT O, my good master!
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LEAR Prithee, away!
EDGAR ’Tis noble Kent, your friend.
LEAR 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 sayst? Her voice was ever soft,
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Gentle and low, an excellent thing in woman.
I killed the slave that was a-hanging thee.
GENTLEMAN ’Tis true, my lords, he did.
LEAR Did I not, fellow?
I have seen the day, with my good biting falchion
I would have made him skip. I am old now
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And these same crosses spoil me.
[to Kent] Who are you?
Mine eyes are not o’the best, I’ll tell you straight.
KENT If Fortune brag of two she loved and hated,
One of them we behold.
LEAR FThis is a dull sight:F are you not Kent?
KENT The same;
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Your servant Kent; where is your Servant Caius?
LEAR He’s a good fellow, I can tell FyouF that;
He’ll strike and quickly too. He’s dead and rotten.
KENT No, my good lord, I am the very man –
LEAR I’ll see that straight.
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KENT That from your first of difference and decay
Have followed your sad steps –
LEAR You’re welcome hither.
KENT
Nor no man else. All’s cheerless, dark and deadly;
Your eldest daughters have fordone themselves
And desperately are dead.
LEAR Ay, so I think.
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ALBANY He knows not what he says and vain is it
That we present us to him.
Enter a Messenger.
EDGAR Very bootless.
MESSENGER [to Albany] Edmund is dead, my lord.
ALBANY That’s but a trifle here.
You lords and noble friends, know our intent:
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What comfort to this FgreatF decay may come
Shall be applied. For us, we will resign
During the life of this old majesty
To him our absolute power;
[to Edgar and Kent] you to your rights,
With boot and such addition as your honours
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Have more than merited. All friends shall taste
The wages of their virtue and all foes
The cup of their deservings. O, see, see!
LEAR And my poor fool is hanged. No, no, FnoF life!
Why should a dog, a horse, a rat have life
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And thou no breath at all? Q OQ thou’lt come no more,
Never, never, never, Fnever, never.F
[to Edgar?] Pray you undo this button. Thank you, sir. Q O, o, o, o.Q
FDo you see this? Look on her: look, her lips,
Look there, look there! [He dies.F]
EDGAR He faints: my lord, my lord!
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KENT Break, heart, I prithee break.
EDGAR Look up, my lord.