King Lear

by Shakespeare, William

  216-17 the ... thought we expect to see the main body of the army any hour

  221 worser spirit bad angel, evil side of my nature

  224 tame submissive 2

  25 art ... sorrows instruction of sorrows painfully experienced

  226 pregnant disposed

  227 biding place of refuge

  The bounty and the benison° of heaven

  To boot, and boot.°

  Enter Oswald.

  Oswald. A proclaimed prize°! Most happy!°That eyeless head of thine was first framed° flesh

  To raise my fortunes. Thou old unhappy traitor,

  Briefly thyself reinember:° the sword is out

  That must destroy thee.

  Gloucester. Now let thy friendly° hand Put strength enough to ’t.

  [Edgar interposes.]

  Oswald. Wherefore, bold peasant,Dar‘st thou support a published° traitor? Hence!

  Lest that th’ infection of his fortune take

  Like hold on thee. Let go his arm.

  Edgar. Chill° not let go, zir, without vurther ‘casion.°

  Oswald. Let go, slave, or thou diest!

  Edgar. Good gentleman, go your gait,° and let poor volk° pass. And chud ha’ bin zwaggered° out of my life, ‘twould not ha’ bin zo long as ’tis by a vort- night. Nay, come not near th’ old man; keep out, che vor’ ye,° or I‘se° try whether your costard° or my ballowo be the harder: chill be plain with you.

  Oswald. Out, dunghill!

  They fight.

  228 benison blessing

  229 To boot, and boot also, and in the highest degree

  229 proclaimed prize i.e., one with a price on his head

  229 happy fortunate (for Oswald)

  230 framed created

  232 thyself remember i.e., pray, think of your sins

  233 friendly i.e., because it offers the death Gloucester covets

  235 published proclaimed

  238 Chill ... (Edgar speaks in rustic dialect)

  238 Chill I will

  238 vurther ‘casion further occasion

  240 gait way

  241 volk folk

  241 And chud ha’ bin zwaggered if I could have been swaggered

  244 Che vor’ ye I warrant you

  244 I‘se I shall

  244 costard head (literally, “apple”)

  245 ballow cudgel

  Edgar. Chill pick your teeth,° zir: come; no matter vor your foins.°

  [Oswald falls.]

  Oswald. Slave, thou hast slain me. Villain, take my purse:If ever thou wilt thrive, bury my body,

  And give the letters which thou find‘st about° me

  To Edmund Earl of Gloucester; seek him out

  Upon the English party.° O, untimely death!

  Death!

  He dies.

  Edgar. I know thee well. A serviceable° villain,As duteous° to the vices of thy mistress

  As badness would desire.

  Gloucester. What, is he dead?

  Edgar. Sit you down, father; rest you.Let’s see these pockets: the letters that he speaks

  of

  May be my friends. He’s dead; I am only sorry

  He had no other deathsman.° Let us see:

  Leave,° gentle wax;° and, manners, blame us not:

  To know our enemies’ minds, we rip their hearts;

  Their papers° is more lawful.

  Reads the letter.

  “Let our reciprocal vows be remembered. You have many opportunities to cut him off: if your will want not,° time and place will be fruitfully offered. There is nothing done, if he return the conqueror: then am I the prisoner, and his bed my jail; from the loathed warmth whereof deliver me, and supply the place for your labor.

  “Your—wife, so I would° say—affectionate248 Chill pick your teeth I will knock your teeth out

  249 foins thrusts

  252 about upon

  254 party side

  256 serviceable ready to be used

  257 duteous obedient

  262 deathsman executioner

  263 Leave by your leave

  263 wax (with which the letter is sealed)

  265 Their papers i.e., to rip their papers

  267-68 if ... not if your desire (and lust) be not lacking

  273 would would like to

  servant, and for you her own for venture,°

  ‘Goneril.’ “

  O indistinguished space of woman’s will!°

  A plot upon her virtuous husband’s life;

  And the exchange° my brother! Here in the sands

  Thee I’ll rake up,° the post unsanctified°

  Of murderous lechers; and in the mature° time,

  With this ungracious paper° strike° the sight

  Of the death-practiced° Duke: for him ‘tis well

  That of thy death and business I can tell.

  Gloucester. The King is mad: how stiff° is my vile sense,°That I stand up, and have ingenious° feeling

  Of my huge sorrows! Better I were distract:°

  So should my thoughts be severed from my griefs,

  And woes by wrong imaginations° lose

  The knowledge of themselves.

  Drum afar off.

  Edgar. Give me your hand:Far off, methinks, I hear the beaten drum.

  Come, father, I’ll bestow° you with a friend.

  Exeunt.

  Scene 7. [A tent in the French camp.]

  Enter Cordelia, Kent, Doctor, and Gentleman.

  Cordelia. O thou good Kent, how shall I live and work,274 and ... venture i.e., and one who holds you her own for venturing (Edmund had earlier been promised union by Goneril, “If you dare venture in your own behalf,” 4.2.20).

  276 indistinguished ... will unlimited range of woman’s lust

  278 exchange substitute

  279 rake up cover up, bury

  279 post unsanctified unholy messenger

  280 mature ripe

  281 ungracious paper wicked letter

  281 strike blast

  282 death-practiced whose death is plotted

  284 stiff unbending

  284 vile sense hateful capacity for feeling

  285 ingenious conscious

  286 distract distracted, mad

  288 wrong imaginations delusions

  291 bestow lodge

  To match thy goodness? My life will be too short, And every measure fail me.

  Kent. To be acknowledged, madam, is o‘erpaid.All my reports go° with the modest truth, Nor more nor clipped,° but so.

  Cordelia, Be better suited:°These weeds° are memories° of those worser

  hours:

  I prithee, put them off.

  Kent. Pardon, dear madam;Yet to be known shortens my made intent:°

  My boon I make it,° that you know me not

  Till time and I think meet.°

  Cordelia. Then be ’t so, my good lord. [To the Doctor. ] How does the King?

  Doctor. Madam, sleeps still.

  Cordelia. O you kind gods!Cure this great breach in his abusèd° nature.

  Th’ untuned and jarring senses, 0, wind up°

  Of this child-changèd father.

  Doctor. So please your Majesty That we may wake the King: he hath slept long.

  Cordelia. Be governed by your knowledge, and proceedI’ th’ sway of° your own will. Is he arrayed?

  Enter Lear in a chair carried by Servants.

  4.7.5 go conform

  6 clipped curtailed

  6 suited attired

  7 weeds clothes

  7 memories reminders

  9 Yet ... intent to reveal myself just yet interferes with the plan I have made

  10 My boon I make it I ask this reward

  11 meet fitting

  15 abusèd disturbed

  16 wind up tune

  17 child-changèd changed, deranged (and also, reduced to a child) by the cruelty of his children

  20 I’ th’ sway of according to

&n
bsp; Gentleman. Ay, madam; in the heaviness of sleep We put fresh garments on him. Doctor. Be by, good madam, when we do awake him; I doubt not of his temperance.° Cordelia. Very well. Doctor. Please you, draw near. Louder the music there! Cordelia. O my dear father, restoration hang Thy medicine on my lips, and let this kiss Repair those violent harms that my two sisters Have in thy reverence° made. Kent. Kind and dear Princess. Cordelia. Had you not been their father, these white flakes° Did challenge° pity of them. Was this a face To be opposed against the warring winds? To stand against the deep dread-bolted° thunder? In the most terrible and nimble stroke Of quick, cross° lightning to watch—poor perdu!°—With this thin helm?° Mine enemy’s dog, Though he had bit me, should have stood that night Against my fire; and wast thou fain,° poor father, To hovel thee with swine and rogues° forlorn, In short° and musty straw? Alack, alack! ‘Tis wonder that thy life and wits at once Had not concluded all.° He wakes; speak to him.

  Doctor. Madam, do you; ‘tis fittest.

  24 temperance sanity

  29 reverence revered person

  30 flakes hairs (in long strands)

  31 challenge claim

  33 deep dread-bolted deep-voiced and furnished with the dreadful thunderbolt

  35 cross zigzag

  35 perdu (1) sentry in a forlorn position (2) lost one

  36 helm helmet (his scanty hair)

  38 fain pleased

  39 rogues vagabonds

  40 short (when straw is freshly cut, it is long, and suitable for bedding, given its flexibility and crispness. As it is used, it becomes musty, shreds into pieces, is “short.” In contemporary Maine usage, “short manure” refers to dung mixed with straw that has been broken up; “long manure” to dung mixed with coarse new straw)

  42 concluded all come to a complete end

  Cordelia. How does my royal lord? How fares your Majesty?

  Lear. You do me wrong to take me out o’ th’ grave:Thou art a soul in bliss; but I am bound

  Upon a wheel of fire,° that mine own tears

  Do scald like molten lead.

  Cordelia. Sir, do you know me?

  Lear. You are a spirit, I know. Where did you die?

  Cordelia. Still, still, far wide.°

  Doctor. He’s scarce awake: let him alone awhile.

  Lear. Where have I been? Where am I? Fair daylight?I am mightily abused.° I should ev’n die with pity,

  To see another thus. I know not what to say.

  I will not swear these are my hands: let’s see;

  I feel this pin prick. Would I were assured

  Of my condition.

  Cordelia. O, look upon me, sir,And hold your hand in benediction o‘er me. You must not kneel.

  Lear. Pray, do not mock me:I am a very foolish fond° old man,

  Fourscore and upward, not an hour more nor less;

  And, to deal plainly,

  I fear I am not in my perfect mind.

  Methinks I should know you and know this man,

  Yet I am doubtful; for I am mainly° ignorant

  What place this is, and all the skill I have

  Remembers not these garments, nor I know not

  Where I did lodge last night. Do not laugh at me,

  For, as I am a man, I think this lady

  To be my child Cordelia.

  Cordelia. And so I am, I am.

  Lear. Be your tears wet? Yes, faith. I pray, weep not. If you have poison for me, I will drink it.47 wheel of fire (torment associated by the Middle Ages with Hell, where Lear thinks he is)

  50 wide i.e., of the mark (of sanity)

  53 abused deluded

  60 fond in dotage

  65 mainly entirely

  I know you do not love me; for your sisters

  Have, as I do remember, done me wrong.

  You have some cause, they have not.

  Cordelia. No cause, no cause. Lear. Am I in France?

  Kent. In your own kingdom, sir.

  Lear. Do not abuse° me.

  Doctor. Be comforted, good madam: the great rage,°You see, is killed in him: and yet it is danger

  To make him even o‘er° the time he has lost.

  Desire him to go in; trouble him no more

  Till further settling.°

  Cordelia. Will ’t please your Highness walk?°

  Lear. You must bear with me. Pray you now, forget and forgive. I am old and foolish.Exeunt. Mane[n]t° Kent and Gentleman.

  Gentleman. Holds it true, sir, that the Duke of Cornwall was so slain?

  Kent. Most certain, sir.

  Gentleman. Who is conductor of his people?

  Kent. As ‘tis said, the bastard son of Gloucester. Gentleman. They say Edgar, his banished son, is with the Earl of Kent in Germany.

  Kent. Report is changeable.° ‘Tis time to look about; the powers° of the kingdom approach apace.

  Gentleman. The arbitrement° is like to be bloody. Fare you well, sir. [Exit.]

  Kent. My point and period will be throughly wrought,°Or well or ill, as this day’s battle’s fought.

  Exit.

  77 abuse deceive

  78 rage frenzy

  80 even o‘er smooth over by filling in; and hence. “recollect”

  82 settling calming

  83 walk (perhaps in the sense of “withdraw”)

  85 s.d. Mane[n]t remain

  93 Report is changeable rumors are unreliable

  94 powers armies

  95 arbitrement deciding encounter

  97 My ... wrought the aim and end, the close of my life would be completely worked out

  ACT 5

  Scene 1. [The British camp near Dover.]

  Enter, with drum and colors, Edmund, Regan, Gentlemen, and Soldiers.

  Edmund. Know° of the Duke if his last purpose hold,°Or whether since he is advised° by aught

  To change the course: he’s full of alteration

  And self-reproving: bring his constant pleasure.°

  [To a Gentleman, who goes out.]

  Regan. Our sister’s man is certainly miscarried.°

  Edmund. ‘Tis to be doubted,° madam.

  Regan. Now, sweet lord,You know the goodness I intend upon you:

  Tell me, but truly, but then speak the truth,

  Do you not love my sister?

  Edmund. In honored° love.

  Regan. But have you never found my brother’s way To the forfended° place?

  Edmund. That thought abuses° you.

  5.1.1 Know learn I last purpose hold most recent intention (to fight) be maintained

  2 advised induced

  4 constant pleasure fixed (final) decision

  5 miscarried come to grief 6 doubted feared

  9 honored honorable

  11 forfended forbidden

  11 abuses (1) deceives (2) demeans, is unworthy of

  Regan. I am doubtful that you have been conjunct And bosomed with her, as far as we call hers.°

  Edmund. No, by mine honor, madam.

  Regan. I shall never endure her: dear my lord, Be not familiar with her.

  Edmund. Fear° me not.—She and the Duke her husband!

  Enter, with drum and colors, Albany, Goneril [and] Soldiers.

  Goneril. [Aside] I had rather lose the battle than that sisterShould loosen° him and me.

  Albany. Our very loving sister, well be-met.°Sir, this I heard, the King is come to his daughter,

  With others whom the rigor of our state°

  Forced to cry out. Where I could not be honest,°

  I never yet was valiant: for this business,

  It touches us, as° France invades our land,

  Not bolds the King, with others, whom, I fear,

  Most just and heavy causes make oppose.°

  Edmund. Sir, you speak nobly.

  Regan. Why is this reasoned?°

  Goneril. Combine together ‘gainst the enemy;For these domestic and particular broils° Are not the question° here.

  Albany. Let’s then
determine With th’ ancient of war° on our proceeding.

  Edmund. I shall attend you presently at your tent.

  12-13 I ... hers I fear that you have united with her intimately, in the fullest possible way

  16 Fear distrust

  19 loosen separate

  20 be-met met

  22 rigor ... state tyranny of our government

  23 honest honorable

  25 touches us, as concerns me, only in that

  26-27 Not ... oppose and not in that France emboldens the King and others, who have been led, by real and serious grievances, to take up arms against us

  28 reasoned argued

  30 particular broils private quarrels

  31 question issue

  32 th’ ancient of war experienced commanders

  Regan. Sister, you’ll go with us?°

  Goneril. No.

  Regan. ‘Tis most convenient;° pray you, go with us.

  Goneril. [Aside] O, ho, I know the riddle.°—I will go.Exeunt both the Armies. Enter Edgar [disguised].

  Edgar. If e‘er your Grace had speech with man so poor,Hear me one word.

  Albany. [To those going out] I’ll overtake you. [To Edgar] Speak.

  Exeunt [all but Albany and Edgar].

  Edgar. Before you fight the battle, ope this letter.If you have victory, let the trumpet sound

  For° him that brought it: wretched though I seem,

  I can produce a champion that will prove°

  What is avouchèd° there. If you miscarry,

  Your business of° the world hath so an end,