The Oxford Shakespeare: The Complete Works

by William Shakespeare

  The clear-eyed intensity of Shakespeare’s tragic vision in King Lear has been too much for some audiences, and Nahum Tate’s adaptation, which gave the play a happy ending, held the stage from 1681 to 1843; since then, increased understanding of Shakespeare’s stagecraft along with a greater seriousness in theatre audiences has assisted in the rehabilitation of a play that is now recognized as one of the profoundest of all artistic explorations of the human condition.

  In the text which follows, the Quarto scene numbers are followed by the equivalent Folio act and scene numbers in parentheses. There is no equivalent to Sc. 17 in the Folio.

  THE PERSONS OF THE PLAY

  LEAR, King of Britain

  GONORIL, Lear’s eldest daughter

  Duke of ALBANY, her husband

  REGAN, Lear’s second daughter

  Duke of CORNWALL, her husband

  CORDELIA, Lear’s youngest daughter

  Earl of KENT, later disguised as Caius

  Earl of GLOUCESTER

  EDGAR, elder son of Gloucester, later disguised as Tom o’ Bedlam

  EDMUND, bastard son of Gloucester

  OLD MAN, a tenant of Gloucester

  CURAN, Gloucester’s retainer

  Lear’s FOOL

  OSWALD, Gonoril’s steward

  Three SERVANTS of Cornwall

  DOCTOR, attendant on Cordelia

  Three CAPTAINS

  A HERALD

  A KNIGHT

  A MESSENGER

  Gentlemen, servants, soldiers, followers, trumpeters, others

  The History of King Lear

  Sc. 1 Enter the Earl of Kent, the Duke of Gloucester, and Edmund the bastard

  KENT I thought the King had more affected the Duke of Albany than Cornwall.

  GLOUCESTER It did always seem so to us, but now in the division of the kingdoms 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?

  GLOUCESTER His breeding, sir, hath been at my charge. I have so often blushed to acknowledge him that now I am brazed to it.

  KENT I cannot conceive you.

  GLOUCESTER 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?

  KENT I cannot wish the fault undone, the issue of it being so proper.

  GLOUCESTER 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 something 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. (To Edmund) Do you know this noble gentleman, Edmund?

  EDMUND No, my lord.

  GLOUCESTER (to Edmund) My lord of Kent. Remember him hereafter as my honourable friend.

  EDMUND (to Kent) My services to your lordship.

  KENT I must love you, and sue to know you better.

  EDMUND Sir, I shall study deserving.

  GLOUCESTER (to Kent) He hath been out nine years, and away he shall again.

  Sound a sennet

  The King is coming.

  Enter one bearing a coronet, then King Lear, then the Dukes of Albany and Cornwall; next Gonoril, Regan, Cordelia, with followers

  LEAR

  Attend my lords of France and Burgundy, Gloucester.

  GLOUCESTER I shall, my liege.

  ⌈Exit⌉

  LEAR

  Meantime we will express our darker purposes.

  The map there. Know we have divided

  In three our kingdom, and ’tis our first intent

  To shake all cares and business off our state,

  Confirming them on younger years.

  The two great princes, France and Burgundy—

  Great rivals in our youngest daughter’s love—

  Long in our court have made their amorous sojourn,

  And here are to be answered. Tell me, my daughters,

  Which of you shall we say doth love us most,

  That we our largest bounty may extend

  Where merit doth most challenge it?

  Gonoril, our eldest born, speak first.

  GONORIL

  Sir, I do love you more than words can wield the

  matter;

  Dearer than eyesight, space, or liberty;

  Beyond what can be valued, rich or rare;

  No less than life; with grace, health, beauty, honour;

  As much as child e’er loved, or father, friend;

  A love that makes breath poor and speech unable.

  Beyond all manner of so much I love you.

  CORDELIA (aside)

  What shall Cordelia do? Love and be silent.

  LEAR (to Gonoril)

  Of all these bounds even from this line to this,

  With shady forests and wide skirted meads,

  We make thee lady. To thine and Albany’s issue

  Be this perpetual.—What says our second daughter?

  Our dearest Regan, wife to Cornwall, speak.

  REGAN Sir, I am made

  Of the self-same mettle that my sister is,

  And prize me at her worth. In my true heart

  I find she names my very deed of love—

  Only she came short, that I profess

  Myself an enemy to all other joys

  Which the most precious square of sense possesses,

  And find I am alone felicitate

  In your dear highness’ love.

  CORDELIA (aside) Then poor Cordelia—

  And yet not so, since I am sure my love’s

  More richer than my tongue.

  LEAR (to Regan)

  To thee and thine hereditary ever

  Remain this ample third of our fair kingdom, No less in space, validity, and pleasure

  Than that confirmed on Gonoril. (To Cordelia) But

  now our joy,

  Although the last, not least in our dear love:

  What can you say to win a third more opulent

  Than your sisters?

  CORDELIA Nothing, my lord.

  LEAR

  How? Nothing can come of nothing. Speak again.

  CORDELIA

  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

  Go to, go to, mend your speech a little

  Lest it may mar your fortunes.

  CORDELIA Good my lord,

  You have begot me, bred me, loved me.

  I return those duties back as are right fit—

  Obey you, love you, and most honour you.

  Why have my sisters husbands if they say

  They love you all? Haply when I shall wed

  That lord whose hand must take my plight shall carry

  Half my love with him, half my care and duty.

  Sure, I shall never marry like my sisters,

  To love my father all.

  LEAR But goes this with thy heart?

  CORDELIA Ay, good my lord.

  LEAR So young and so untender?

  CORDELIA So young, my lord, and true.

  LEAR

  Well, let it be so. Thy truth then he thy dower;

  For by the sacred radiance of the sun,

  The mysteries of Hecate and the night,

  By all the operation of the orbs

  From whom we do exist and cease to be,

  Here I disclaim all my paternal care,

  Propinquity, and property of blood,

  And as a stranger to my heart and me

  Hold thee from this for ever. The barbarous Scythian,

  Or he that makes his generation

  Messes to gorge his appetite,

  Shall be as well neighboured, pitied, and relieved

  As thou, my sometime daughter.

  KENT Good my +liege-
/>   LEAR

  Peace, Kent. Come not between the dragon and his

  wrath.

  I loved her most, and thought to set my rest

  On her kind nursery. ⌈To Cordelia⌉ Hence, and avoid

  my sight!—

  So be my grave my peace as here I give

  Her father’s heart from her. Call France. Who stirs?

  Call Burgundy.

  ⌈Exit one or more⌉

  Cornwall and Albany,

  With my two daughters’ dowers digest this third.

  Let pride, which she calls plainness, marry her.

  I do invest you jointly in my power,

  Pre-eminence, and all the large effects

  That troop with majesty. Ourself by monthly course,

  With reservation of an hundred knights

  By you to be sustained, shall our abode

  Make with you by due turns. Only we still retain

  The name and all the additions to a king.

  The sway, revenue, execution of the rest,

  Beloved sons, be yours; which to confirm,

  This crownet part betwixt you.

  KENT Royal Lear,

  Whom I have ever honoured as my king,

  Loved as my father, as my master followed,

  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 wilt 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 judgement,

  Thy youngest daughter does not love thee least,

  Nor are those empty-hearted whose low sound

  Reverbs no hollowness.

  LEAR Kent, on thy life, no more!

  KENT

  My life I never held but as a pawn

  To wage against thy enemies, nor fear to lose it,

  Thy safety being the motive.

  LEAR Out of my sight!

  KENT

  See better, Lear, and let me still remain

  The true blank of thine eye.

  LEAR Now, by Apollo-

  KENT

  Now, by Apollo, King, thou swear’st thy gods in vain.

  LEAR ⌈making to strike himl ⌉

  Vassal, recreant!

  KENT Do, kill thy physician,

  And the fee bestow upon the foul disease.

  Revoke thy doom, or whilst I can vent clamour

  From my throat I’ll tell thee thou dost evil.

  LEAR

  Hear me; on thy allegiance hear me!

  Since thou hast sought to make us break our vow,

  Which we durst never yet, and with strayed pride

  To come between our sentence and our power,

  Which nor our nature nor our place can bear,

  Our potency made good take thy reward:

  Four days we do allot thee for provision

  To shield thee from dis-eases of the world,

  And on the fifth to turn thy hated back

  Upon our kingdom. If on the next day following

  Thy banished trunk be found in our dominions,

  The moment is thy death. Away! By Jupiter,

  This shall not be revoked.

  KENT

  Why, fare thee well, King; since thus thou wilt

  appear,

  Friendship lives hence, and banishment is here.

  (To Cordelia) The gods to their protection take thee,

  maid,

  That rightly thinks, and hast most justly said.

  (To Gonoril and Regan)

  And your large speeches may your deeds approve,

  That good effects may spring from words of love.

  Thus Kent, O princes, bids you all adieu;

  He’ll shape his old course in a country new.

  Exit

  Enter the King of France and the Duke of

  Burgundy, with the Duke of Gloucester

  GLOUCESTER

  Here’s France and Burgundy, my noble lord.

  LEAR My lord of Burgundy,

  We first address towards you, who with a king

  Hath rivalled for our daughter: what in the least

  Will you require in present dower with her

  Or cease your quest of love?

  BURGUNDY Royal majesty,

  I crave no more than what your highness offered;

  Nor will you tender less.

  LEAR Right noble Burgundy,

  When she was dear to us we did hold her so;

  But now her price is fallen. Sir, there she stands.

  If aught within that little seeming substance,

  Or all of it, with our displeasure pieced,

  And nothing else, may fitly like your grace,

  She’s there, and she is yours.

  BURGUNDY I know no answer.

  LEAR

  Sir, will you with those infirmities she owes,

  Unfriended, new-adopted to our hate,

  Covered with our curse and strangered with our oath,

  Take her or leave her?

  BURGUNDY Pardon me, royal sir.

  Election makes not up on such conditions.

  LEAR

  Then leave her, sir; for by the power that made me,

  I tell you all her wealth. (To France) For you, great

  King,

  I would not from your love make such a stray

  To match you where I hate, therefore beseech you

  To avert your liking a more worthier way

  Than on a wretch whom nature is ashamed

  Almost to acknowledge hers.

  FRANCE

  This is most strange, that she that even but now

  Was your best object, the argument of your praise,

  Balm of your age, most best, most dearest,

  Should in this trice of time commit a thing

  So monstrous to dismantle

  So many folds of favour. Sure, her offence

  Must be of such unnatural degree

  That monsters it, or your fore-vouched affections

  Fall’n into taint; which to believe of her

  Must be a faith that reason without miracle

  Could never plant in me.

  CORDELIA (to Lear)

  I yet beseech your majestyIf for I want that glib and oily art

  To speak and purpose not—since what I well intend,

  I’ll do’t before I speak—that you acknow

  It is no vicious blot, murder, or foulness,

  No unclean action or dishonoured step

  That hath deprived me of your grace and favour,

  But even the want of that for which I am rich—

  A still-soliciting eye, and such a tongue

  As I am glad I have not, though not to have it

  Hath lost me in your liking.

  LEAR Go to, go to.

  Better thou hadst not been born than not to have

  pleased me better.

  FRANCE

  Is it no more but this—a tardiness in nature,

  That often leaves the history unspoke

  That it intends to do?—My lord of Burgundy,

  What say you to the lady? Love is not love

  When it is mingled with respects that stands

  Aloof from the entire point. Will you have her?

  She is herself a dower.

  BURGUNDY Royal Lear,

  Give but that portion which yourself proposed,

  And here I take Cordelia by the hand,

  Duchess of Burgundy—

  LEAR Nothing. I have sworn.

  BURGUNDY (to Cordelia)

  I am sorr
y, then, you have so lost a father

  That you must lose a husband.

  CORDELIA

  Peace be with Burgundy; since that respects

  Of fortune are his love, I shall not be his wife.

  FRANCE

  Fairest Cordelia, that art most rich, being poor;

  Most choice, forsaken; and most loved, despised:

  Thee and thy virtues here I seize upon.

  Be it lawful, I take up what’s cast away.

  Gods, gods! ‘Tis strange that from their cold’st neglect

  My love should kindle to inflamed respect.—

  Thy dowerless daughter, King, thrown to my chance,

  Is queen of us, of ours, and our fair France.

  Not all the dukes in wat’rish Burgundy

  Shall buy this unprized precious maid of me.—

  Bid them farewell, Cordelia, though unkind.

  Thou losest here, a better where to find.

  LEAR

  Thou hast her, France. Let her be thine, for we

  Have no such daughter, nor shall ever see

  That face of hers again. Therefore be gone,

  Without our grace, our love, our benison.—

  Come, noble Burgundy.

  [Flourish.! Exeunt Lear and Burgundy, then

  Albany, Cornwall, Gloucester, ⌈Edmund,⌉

  and followers

  FRANCE (to Cordelia) Bid farewell to your sisters.

  CORDELIA

  Ye jewels of our father, with washed eyes

  Cordelia leaves you. I know you what you are,

  And like a sister am most loath to call

  Your faults as they are named. Use well our father.

  To your professed bosoms I commit him.

  But yet, alas, stood I within his grace

  I would prefer him to a better place.

  So farewell to you both.

  GONORIL Prescribe not us our duties.

  REGAN Let your study

  Be to content your lord, who hath received you

  At fortune’s alms. You have obedience scanted,

  And well are worth the worst that you have wanted.

  CORDELIA

  Time shall unfold what pleated cunning hides.

  Who covers faults, at last shame them derides.

  Well may you prosper.