Opposed against the act, bending his sword
To his great master; who, thereat enraged,
Flew on him, and amongst them fell’d him dead;
But not without that harmful stroke, which since
Hath pluck’d him after.
Albany
This shows you are above,
You justicers, that these our nether crimes
So speedily can venge! But, O poor Gloucester!
Lost he his other eye?
Messenger
Both, both, my lord.
This letter, madam, craves a speedy answer;
’Tis from your sister.
Goneril
[Aside] One way I like this well;
But being widow, and my Gloucester with her,
May all the building in my fancy pluck
Upon my hateful life: another way,
The news is not so tart.— I’ll read, and answer.
Exit
Albany
Where was his son when they did take his eyes?
Messenger
Come with my lady hither.
Albany
He is not here.
Messenger
No, my good lord; I met him back again.
Albany
Knows he the wickedness?
Messenger
Ay, my good lord; ’twas he inform’d against him;
And quit the house on purpose, that their punishment
Might have the freer course.
Albany
Gloucester, I live
To thank thee for the love thou show’dst the king,
And to revenge thine eyes. Come hither, friend:
Tell me what more thou know’st.
Exeunt
SCENE III. THE FRENCH CAMP NEAR DOVER.
Enter Kent and a Gentleman
Kent
Why the King of France is so suddenly gone back know you the reason?
Gentleman
Something he left imperfect in the state, which since his coming forth is thought of; which imports to the kingdom so much fear and danger, that his personal return was most required and necessary.
Kent
Who hath he left behind him general?
Gentleman
The Marshal of France, Monsieur La Far.
Kent
Did your letters pierce the queen to any demonstration of grief?
Gentleman
Ay, sir; she took them, read them in my presence;
And now and then an ample tear trill’d down
Her delicate cheek: it seem’d she was a queen
Over her passion; who, most rebel-like,
Sought to be king o’er her.
Kent
O, then it moved her.
Gentleman
Not to a rage: patience and sorrow strove
Who should express her goodliest. You have seen
Sunshine and rain at once: her smiles and tears
Were like a better way: those happy smilets,
That play’d on her ripe lip, seem’d not to know
What guests were in her eyes; which parted thence,
As pearls from diamonds dropp’d. In brief,
Sorrow would be a rarity most beloved,
If all could so become it.
Kent
Made she no verbal question?
Gentleman
’Faith, once or twice she heaved the name of ‘father’
Pantingly forth, as if it press’d her heart:
Cried ‘sisters! sisters! Shame of ladies! sisters!
Kent! father! sisters! What, i’ the storm? i’ the night?
Let pity not be believed!’ There she shook
The holy water from her heavenly eyes,
And clamour moisten’d: then away she started
To deal with grief alone.
Kent
It is the stars,
The stars above us, govern our conditions;
Else one self mate and mate could not beget
Such different issues. You spoke not with her since?
Gentleman
No.
Kent
Was this before the king return’d?
Gentleman
No, since.
Kent
Well, sir, the poor distressed Lear’s i’ the town;
Who sometime, in his better tune, remembers
What we are come about, and by no means
Will yield to see his daughter.
Gentleman
Why, good sir?
Kent
A sovereign shame so elbows him: his own unkindness,
That stripp’d her from his benediction, turn’d her
To foreign casualties, gave her dear rights
To his dog-hearted daughters, these things sting
His mind so venomously, that burning shame
Detains him from Cordelia.
Gentleman
Alack, poor gentleman!
Kent
Of Albany’s and Cornwall’s powers you heard not?
Gentleman
’Tis so, they are afoot.
Kent
Well, sir, I’ll bring you to our master Lear,
And leave you to attend him: some dear cause
Will in concealment wrap me up awhile;
When I am known aright, you shall not grieve
Lending me this acquaintance. I pray you, go
Along with me.
Exeunt
SCENE IV. THE SAME. A TENT.
Enter, with drum and colours, Cordelia, Doctor, and Soldiers
Cordelia
Alack, ’tis he: why, he was met even now
As mad as the vex’d sea; singing aloud;
Crown’d with rank fumiter and furrow-weeds,
With bur-docks, hemlock, nettles, cuckoo-flowers,
Darnel, and all the idle weeds that grow
In our sustaining corn. A century send forth;
Search every acre in the high-grown field,
And bring him to our eye.
Exit an Officer
What can man’s wisdom
In the restoring his bereaved sense?
He that helps him take all my outward worth.
Doctor
There is means, madam:
Our foster-nurse of nature is repose,
The which he lacks; that to provoke in him,
Are many simples operative, whose power
Will close the eye of anguish.
Cordelia
All blest secrets,
All you unpublish’d virtues of the earth,
Spring with my tears! be aidant and remediate
In the good man’s distress! Seek, seek for him;
Lest his ungovern’d rage dissolve the life
That wants the means to lead it.
Enter a Messenger
Messenger
News, madam;
The British powers are marching hitherward.
Cordelia
’Tis known before; our preparation stands
In expectation of them. O dear father,
It is thy business that I go about;
Therefore great France
My mourning and important tears hath pitied.
No blown ambition doth our arms incite,
But love, dear love, and our aged father’s right:
Soon may I hear and see him!
Exeunt
SCENE V. GLOUCESTER’S CASTLE.
Enter Regan and Oswald
Regan
But are my brother’s powers set forth?
Oswald
Ay, madam.
Regan
Himself in person there?
Oswald
Madam, with much ado:
Your sister is the better soldier.
Regan
Lord Edmund spake not with your lord at home?
Oswald
No, madam.
Regan
What might import my siste
r’s letter to him?
Oswald
I know not, lady.
Regan
’Faith, he is posted hence on serious matter.
It was great ignorance, Gloucester’s eyes being out,
To let him live: where he arrives he moves
All hearts against us: Edmund, I think, is gone,
In pity of his misery, to dispatch
His nighted life: moreover, to descry
The strength o’ the enemy.
Oswald
I must needs after him, madam, with my letter.
Regan
Our troops set forth to-morrow: stay with us;
The ways are dangerous.
Oswald
I may not, madam:
My lady charged my duty in this business.
Regan
Why should she write to Edmund? Might not you
Transport her purposes by word? Belike,
Something — I know not what: I’ll love thee much,
Let me unseal the letter.
Oswald
Madam, I had rather —
Regan
I know your lady does not love her husband;
I am sure of that: and at her late being here
She gave strange oeillades and most speaking looks
To noble Edmund. I know you are of her bosom.
Oswald
I, madam?
Regan
I speak in understanding; you are; I know’t:
Therefore I do advise you, take this note:
My lord is dead; Edmund and I have talk’d;
And more convenient is he for my hand
Than for your lady’s: you may gather more.
If you do find him, pray you, give him this;
And when your mistress hears thus much from you,
I pray, desire her call her wisdom to her.
So, fare you well.
If you do chance to hear of that blind traitor,
Preferment falls on him that cuts him off.
Oswald
Would I could meet him, madam! I should show
What party I do follow.
Regan
Fare thee well.
Exeunt
SCENE VI. FIELDS NEAR DOVER.
Enter Gloucester, and Edgar dressed like a peasant
Gloucester
When shall we come to the top of that same hill?
Edgar
You do climb up it now: look, how we labour.
Gloucester
Methinks the ground is even.
Edgar
Horrible steep.
Hark, do you hear the sea?
Gloucester
No, truly.
Edgar
Why, then, your other senses grow imperfect
By your eyes’ anguish.
Gloucester
So may it be, indeed:
Methinks thy voice is alter’d; and thou speak’st
In better phrase and matter than thou didst.
Edgar
You’re much deceived: in nothing am I changed
But in my garments.
Gloucester
Methinks you’re better spoken.
Edgar
Come on, sir; here’s the place: stand still. How fearful
And dizzy ’tis, to cast one’s eyes so low!
The crows and choughs that wing the midway air
Show scarce so gross as beetles: half way down
Hangs one that gathers samphire, dreadful trade!
Methinks he seems no bigger than his head:
The fishermen, that walk upon the beach,
Appear like mice; and yond tall anchoring bark,
Diminish’d to her cock; her cock, a buoy
Almost too small for sight: the murmuring surge,
That on the unnumber’d idle pebbles chafes,
Cannot be heard so high. I’ll look no more;
Lest my brain turn, and the deficient sight
Topple down headlong.
Gloucester
Set me where you stand.
Edgar
Give me your hand: you are now within a foot
Of the extreme verge: for all beneath the moon
Would I not leap upright.
Gloucester
Let go my hand.
Here, friend, ’s another purse; in it a jewel
Well worth a poor man’s taking: fairies and gods
Prosper it with thee! Go thou farther off;
Bid me farewell, and let me hear thee going.
Edgar
Now fare you well, good sir.
Gloucester
With all my heart.
Edgar
Why I do trifle thus with his despair
Is done to cure it.
Gloucester
[Kneeling] O you mighty gods!
This world I do renounce, and, in your sights,
Shake patiently my great affliction off:
If I could bear it longer, and not fall
To quarrel with your great opposeless wills,
My snuff and loathed part of nature should
Burn itself out. If Edgar live, O, bless him!
Now, fellow, fare thee well.
He falls forward
Edgar
Gone, sir: farewell.
And yet I know not how conceit may rob
The treasury of life, when life itself
Yields to the theft: had he been where he thought,
By this, had thought been past. Alive or dead?
Ho, you sir! friend! Hear you, sir! speak!
Thus might he pass indeed: yet he revives.
What are you, sir?
Gloucester
Away, and let me die.
Edgar
Hadst thou been aught but gossamer, feathers, air,
So many fathom down precipitating,
Thou’dst shiver’d like an egg: but thou dost breathe;
Hast heavy substance; bleed’st not; speak’st; art sound.
Ten masts at each make not the altitude
Which thou hast perpendicularly fell:
Thy life’s a miracle. Speak yet again.
Gloucester
But have I fall’n, or no?
Edgar
From the dread summit of this chalky bourn.
Look up a-height; the shrill-gorged lark so far
Cannot be seen or heard: do but look up.
Gloucester
Alack, I have no eyes.
Is wretchedness deprived that benefit,
To end itself by death? ’Twas yet some comfort,
When misery could beguile the tyrant’s rage,
And frustrate his proud will.
Edgar
Give me your arm:
Up: so. How is ’t? Feel you your legs? You stand.
Gloucester
Too well, too well.
Edgar
This is above all strangeness.
Upon the crown o’ the cliff, what thing was that
Which parted from you?
Gloucester
A poor unfortunate beggar.
Edgar
As I stood here below, methought his eyes
Were two full moons; he had a thousand noses,
Horns whelk’d and waved like the enridged sea:
It was some fiend; therefore, thou happy father,
Think that the clearest gods, who make them honours
Of men’s impossibilities, have preserved thee.
Gloucester
I do remember now: henceforth I’ll bear
Affliction till it do cry out itself
‘Enough, enough,’ and die. That thing you speak of,
I took it for a man; often ’twould say
‘The fiend, the fiend:’ he led me to that place.
Edgar
Bear free and patient thoughts. But who comes here?
Enter King Lear, fantastically dressed with wild flowers
The safer sense
will ne’er accommodate
His master thus.
King Lear
No, they cannot touch me for coining; I am the king himself.
Edgar
O thou side-piercing sight!
King Lear
Nature’s above art in that respect. There’s your press-money. That fellow handles his bow like a crow-keeper: draw me a clothier’s yard. Look, look, a mouse! Peace, peace; this piece of toasted cheese will do ’t. There’s my gauntlet; I’ll prove it on a giant. Bring up the brown bills. O, well flown, bird! i’ the clout, i’ the clout: hewgh! Give the word.
Edgar
Sweet marjoram.
King Lear
Pass.
Gloucester
I know that voice.
King Lear
Ha! Goneril, with a white beard! They flattered me like a dog; and told me I had white hairs in my beard ere the black ones were there. To say ‘ay’ and ‘no’ to every thing that I said!—‘Ay’ and ‘no’ too was no good divinity. When the rain came to wet me once, and the wind to make me chatter; when the thunder would not peace at my bidding; there I found ’em, there I smelt ’em out. Go to, they are not men o’ their words: they told me I was every thing; ’tis a lie, I am not ague-proof.
Gloucester
The trick of that voice I do well remember:
Is ’t not the king?
King Lear
Ay, every inch a king:
When I do stare, see how the subject quakes.
I pardon that man’s life. What was thy cause? Adultery?
Thou shalt not die: die for adultery! No:
The wren goes to ’t, and the small gilded fly
Does lecher in my sight.
Let copulation thrive; for Gloucester’s bastard son
Was kinder to his father than my daughters
Got ’tween the lawful sheets.
To ’t, luxury, pell-mell! for I lack soldiers.
Behold yond simpering dame,
Whose face between her forks presages snow;
That minces virtue, and does shake the head
To hear of pleasure’s name;
The fitchew, nor the soiled horse, goes to ’t
With a more riotous appetite.
Down from the waist they are Centaurs,
Though women all above:
But to the girdle do the gods inherit,
Beneath is all the fiends’;
There’s hell, there’s darkness, there’s the sulphurous pit,
Burning, scalding, stench, consumption; fie, fie, fie! pah, pah! Give me an ounce of civet, good apothecary, to sweeten my imagination: there’s money for thee.
Gloucester
O, let me kiss that hand!
King Lear
Let me wipe it first; it smells of mortality.
Gloucester
O ruin’d piece of nature! This great world
Shall so wear out to nought. Dost thou know me?
King Lear
I remember thine eyes well enough. Dost thou squiny at me? No, do thy worst, blind Cupid! I’ll not love. Read thou this challenge; mark but the penning of it.
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