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[A building attached to Gloucester’s castle]
Enter KENT and GLOUCESTER
Glou. Here is better than the open air; take it thankfully. I will piece out the comfort with what addition I can. I will not be long from you. Exit. | |
| Kent. All the power of his wits have given way to his impatience. The gods reward your kindness! | |
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Enter LEAR, EDGAR, and Fool.
Edg. Frateretto calls me; and tells me Nero is an angler in the lake of darkness. Pray, innocent, and beware the foul fiend. | |
| Fool. Prithee, nuncle, tell me whether a madman be a gentleman or a yeoman? | 4 |
| Lear. A king, a king! | |
| Fool. No, he’s a yeoman that has a gentleman to his son; for he’s a mad yeoman that sees his son a gentleman before him. | |
| Lear. To have a thousand with red burning spits | |
| Come hissing in upon ’em,— | 8 |
| 1[Edg. The foul fiend bites my back. | |
| Fool. He’s mad that trusts in the tameness of a wolf, a horse’s health, a boy’s love, or a whore’s oath. | |
| Lear. It shall be done; I will arraign them straight. | |
| [To EDGAR.] Come, sit thou here, most learned justicer; | 12 |
| [To the Fool.] Thou, sapient sir, sit here. Now, you she-foxes! | |
| Edg. Look, where he stands and glares! | |
Wantest thou eyes at trial, madam?| | “Come o’er the bourn, 2 Bessy, to me,”— |
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Fool.| | “Her boat hath a leak, |
| And she must not speak |
| Why she dares not come over to thee.” |
| 16 |
| Edg. The foul fiend haunts poor Tom in the voice of a nightingale. Hopdance cries in Tom’s belly for two white herring. Croak not, balck angel; I have no food for thee. | |
| Kent. How do you, sir? Stand you not so amaz’d: | |
| Will you lie down and rest upon the cushions? | |
| Lear. I’ll see their trial first. Bring in their evidence. | 20 |
| [To EDGAR.] Thou robed man of justice, take thy place; | |
| [To the Fool.] And thou, his yoke-fellow of equity, | |
| Bench by his side. [To KENT.] You are o’ the commission, | |
| Sit you too. | 24 |
Edg. Let us deal justly.| | “Sleepest or wakest thou, jolly shepherd? |
| Thy sheep be in the corn; |
| And for one blast of thy minikin 3 mouth, |
| Thy sheep shall take no harm.” |
Purr! the cat is grey. | |
| Lear. Arraign her first; ’tis Goneril. I here take my oath before this honourable assembly, she kick’d the poor king her father. | |
| Fool. Come hither, mistress. Is your name Goneril? | |
| Lear. She cannot deny it. | 28 |
| Fool. Cry you mercy, I took you for a joint-stool. | |
| Lear. And here’s another, whose warp’d 4 looks proclaim | |
| What store her heart is made on. Stop her there! | |
| Arms, arms, sword, fire! Corruption in the place! | 32 |
| False justicer, why hast thou let her scape? | |
| Edg. Bless thy five wits! | |
| Kent. O pity! Sir, where is the patience now | |
| That you so oft have boasted to retain? | 36 |
| Edg. [Aside.] My tears begin to take his part so much, | |
| They mar my counterfeiting. | |
| Lear. The little dogs and all, | |
| Tray, Blanch, and Sweetheart, see, they bark at me. | 40 |
| Edg. Tom will throw his head at them. | |
Avaunt, you curs!| | Be thy mouth or black or white, |
| Tooth that poisons if it bite; |
| Mastiff, greyhound, mongrel grim, |
| Hound or spaniel, brach 5 or lym, 6 |
| Or bobtail tike or trundle-tail, 7 |
| Tom will make him weep and wail; |
| For, with throwing thus my head, |
| Dogs leapt the hatch, 8 and all are fled. |
Do de, de, de. Sessa! Come, march to wakes and fairs and market-towns. Poor Tom, thy horn is dry. | |
| Lear. Then let them anatomize 9 Regan; see what breeds about her heart. Is there any cause in nature that make these hard hearts? [To EDG.] You, sir, I entertain for one of my hundred; only I do not like the fashion of your garments. You will say they are Persian, but let them be chang’d. | |
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Re-enter GLOUCESTER
Kent. Now, good my lord, lie here and rest a while. | 44 |
| Lear. Make no noise, make no noise; draw the curtains; so, so, so. | |
| We’ll go to supper i’ the morning. | |
| Fool. And I’ll go to bed at noon. | |
| Glou. Come hither, friend; where is the King my master? | 48 |
| Kent. Here, sir; but trouble him not, his wits are gone. | |
| Glou. Good friend, I prithee, take him in thy arms; | |
| I have o’erheard a plot of death upon him. | |
| There is a litter ready; lay him in’t, | 52 |
| And drive toward Dover, friend, where thou shalt meet | |
| Both welcome and protection. Take up thy master. | |
| If thou shouldst dally half an hour, his life, | |
| With thine, and all that offer to defend him, | 56 |
| Stand in assured loss. Take up, take up; | |
| And follow me, that will to some provision | |
| Give thee quick conduct. | |
| Kent. [Oppressed nature sleeps. | 60 |
| This rest might yet have balm’d thy broken sinews, 10 | |
| Which, if convenience will not allow, | |
| Stand in hard cure. 11 [To the Fool.] Come, help to bear thy master; | |
| Thou must not stay behind.] | 64 |
| Glou. Come, come, away. Exeunt [all but EDGAR] | |
| [Edg. When we our betters see bearing our woes, | |
| We scarcely think our miseries our foes. | |
| Who alone suffers, suffers most i’ the mind, | 68 |
| Leaving free 12 things and happy shows behind; | |
| But then the mind much sufferance doth o’erskip, | |
| When grief hath mates, and bearing fellowship. | |
| How light and portable 13 my pain seems now, | 72 |
| When that which makes me bend makes the King bow, | |
| He childed as I fathered! Tom, away! | |
| Mark the high noises; and thyself bewray, | |
| When false opinion, whose wrong thoughts defile thee, | 76 |
| In thy just proof repeals and reconciles thee. | |
| What will hap more to-night, safe scape the King! | |
| Lurk, lurk.] [Exit.] | |
