The Arden Shakespeare Complete Works
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Devoured by the unexpected flood. [The King dies.]
SALISBURY
You breathe these dead news in as dead an ear.
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My liege! my lord! – But now a king, now thus.
PRINCE HENRY
Even so must I run on, and even so stop.
What surety of the world, what hope, what stay,
When this was now a king, and now is clay?
BASTARD Art thou gone so? I do but stay behind
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To do the office for thee of revenge,
And then my soul shall wait on thee to heaven,
As it on earth hath been thy servant still.
Now, now, you stars that move in your right spheres,
Where be your powers? show now your mended faiths,
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And instantly return with me again,
To push destruction and perpetual shame
Out of the weak door of our fainting land.
Straight let us seek, or straight we shall be sought;
The Dolphin rages at our very heels.
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SALISBURY
It seems you know not, then, so much as we:
The Cardinal Pandulph is within at rest,
Who half an hour since came from the Dolphin,
And brings from him such offers of our peace
As we with honour and respect may take,
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With purpose presently to leave this war.
BASTARD He will the rather do it when he sees
Ourselves well sinew’d to our defence.
SALISBURY Nay, ’tis in a manner done already,
For many carriages he hath dispatch’d
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To the sea-side, and put his cause and quarrel
To the disposing of the cardinal:
With whom yourself, myself and other lords,
If you think meet, this afternoon will post
To consummate this business happily.
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BASTARD Let it be so: and you, my noble prince,
With other princes that may best be spar’d,
Shall wait upon your father’s funeral.
PRINCE HENRY At Worcester must his body be interr’d;
For so he will’d it.
BASTARD Thither shall it then:
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And happily may your sweet self put on
The lineal state and glory of the land!
To whom, with all submission, on my knee
I do bequeath my faithful services
And true subjection everlastingly.
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SALISBURY And the like tender of our love we make,
To rest without a spot for evermore.
PRINCE HENRY
I have a kind soul that would give thanks
And knows not how to do it but with tears.
BASTARD O, let us pay the time but needful woe,
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Since it hath been beforehand with our griefs.
This England never did, nor never shall,
Lie at the proud foot of a conqueror,
But when it first did help to wound itself.
Now these her princes are come home again
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Come the three corners of the world in arms
And we shall shock them! Nought shall make us rue
If England to itself do rest but true! Exeunt.
King Lear
King Lear was first printed in quarto format with the title The History of King Lear in 1608; a different text appeared in the First Folio, where it is the eighth of the tragedies, as The Tragedy of King Lear in 1623. There are in addition something like 850 verbal variants between the two texts, and several speeches are assigned to different speakers. The military action of acts 4 and 5 is handled differently, and there are minor changes in the characterization of Lear, Cordelia and Goneril, but the most striking change is in Edgar who is a stronger character in 1623 than in the 1608 version; Albany and Kent are weaker by comparison. Several recent scholars maintain that the 1608 text represents Shakespeare’s first version of the play and the 1623 version represents his revision of it; they therefore reject the traditional editorial practice of combining the two texts into a single conflated version; some editions of the ‘Complete Works’ now print both texts of the play.
King Lear is usually dated 1604-5, putting it after Hamlet and Othello but before Macbeth. The 1608 Quarto title-page refers to a performance before King James at Whitehall on 24 December 1606 (see Fig. 9, p. 7). Shakespeare knew the Lear story from Raphael Holinshed’s Chronicles (1587) and from the Mirror for Magistrates (1574) as well as from a brief version in Edmund Spenser’s Fairy Queen (1590: book 2, canto 10). He also knew, and may have acted in, an anonymous play called The True Chronicle History of King Leir and his three daughters (usually referred to as King Leir), which was published in 1605 but probably written and first performed around 1590. He complicated the Lear story by inventing Lear’s madness and by adding the parallel plot of Gloucester and his sons which derives from Philip Sidney’s Arcadia (1590). He used Samuel Harsnett’s A Declaration of Egregious Popish Impostures (1603) for building up the characterization of Edgar as Poor Tom.
Nahum Tate’s Restoration adaptation of Shakespeare’s play (1681) is notorious for providing a happy ending, with Lear and Gloucester still alive and Cordelia betrothed to Edgar, who has earlier saved her from being raped by Edmund. This version, which also omitted the Fool, was thought to be more acceptable by readers and audiences until the mid-nineteenth century, but since then admiration for Shakespeare’s bleak play has increased to the point that many people would now see King Lear as his greatest tragedy, surpassing even Hamlet. Its social and political vision of ‘the promised end … or image of that horror’ has appealed to a world threatened by genocide and environmental or nuclear catastrophe, while at the personal and familial level the play’s presentation of conflict between the generations (‘age is unnecessary’) speaks to societies where people are living longer and the elderly make up an increasing proportion of the population. Modern productions and films frequently evoke Samuel Beckett’s Endgame (1957), turning it into a kind of prophecy of the disintegration of modern as well as Renaissance civilization.
King Lear has been interpreted more positively as a tragedy of Christian suffering and redemption, and as one which embraces radical socialism (‘So distribution should undo excess, / And each man have enough’). However, despite the fact that a number of major characters are still alive at the end of the play and gestures are made towards ‘sustaining’ ‘the gored state’, the final impression is one of apocalyptic finality where an escape from suffering is all that can be hoped for.
Note on the text
There are two texts of King Lear, the Quarto of 1608 and the First Folio of 1623. They differ in many ways, and any editor has to choose between variant readings. The 1997 text presented here relies mainly on the Folio text, which was probably revised by Shakespeare, perhaps with advice from his fellow-actors. However, the Quarto has about 300 lines that are not found in the Folio, and the Folio has about 110 lines that are not in the Quarto. Since all these appear to be authentically Shakespearean, they are included in the present text; but so that they can be readily identified, passages and words found only in the Quarto are marked by superscript Q, and passages or words found only in the Folio by superscript F, at the beginning and end of them. Where no superscript Q or F, occurs, square brackets indicate stage directions, or words in them, which have been added by the editor.
LIST OF ROLES
LEAR
King of Britain
GONERIL
his eldest daughter
REGAN
his second daughter
CORDELIA
his youngest daughter
Duke of ALBANY
married to Goneril
Duke of CORNWALL
married to Regan
King of FRANCE
/>
Duke of BURGUNDY
Earl of GLOUCESTER
EDGAR
his elder son
EDMUND
his younger bastard son
Earl of KENT
FOOL
attendant on Lear
OSWALD
Goneril’s steward
CURAN
a follower of Gloucester
OLD MAN
Gloucester’s tenant
A Herald, a Captain, an Officer, a Doctor, Knights, Gentlemen, Attendants, Servants and Messengers
1.1 Enter KENT, GLOUCESTER and EDMUND.
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 kingdom, it appears not which of the
dukes he values most, for qualities are so weighed that
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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’t.
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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?
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KENT I cannot wish the fault undone, the issue of it
being so proper.
GLOUCESTER But I have a son, sir, by order of law, some
year elder than this, who yet is no dearer in my
account. Though this knave came something saucily
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to 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. Do you know this
noble gentleman, Edmund?
EDMUND No, my lord.
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GLOUCESTER [to Edmund] My lord of Kent: remember
him hereafter, as my honourable friend.
EDMUND My services to your lordship.
KENT I must love you, and sue to know you better.
EDMUND [to Kent] Sir, I shall study deserving.
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GLOUCESTER He hath been out nine years, and away he
shall again. The King is coming.
Sennet. Enter Qone bearing a coronet, thenQ LEAR, CORNWALL, ALBANY, GONERIL, REGAN, CORDELIA and attendants.
LEAR
Attend the lords of France and Burgundy, Gloucester.
GLOUCESTER I shall, my lord. FExit.F
LEAR Meantime we shall express our darker purpose.
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FGive meF the map there. Know FthatF we have divided
In three our kingdom; and ’tis our fast intent
To shake all cares and business from our age,
Conferring them on younger strengths, Fwhile we
Unburdened crawl toward death. Our son of Cornwall,
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And you, our no less loving son of Albany,
We have this hour a constant will to publish
Our daughters’ several dowers, that future strife
May be prevented now.F
The Q two greatQ princes, France and Burgundy,
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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 –
Since now we will divest us both of rule, F
Interest of territory, cares of state –F
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Which of you shall we say doth love us most,
That we our largest bounty may extend
Where nature doth with merit challenge. – Goneril,
Our eldest born, speak first.
GONERIL
Sir, I Q doQ love you more than word can wield the matter,
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Dearer than eyesight, space and 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 found,
A love that makes breath poor and speech unable,
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Beyond all manner of so much I love you.
CORDELIA [aside]
What shall Cordelia speak? Love, and be silent.
LEAR Of all these bounds, even from this line to this,
With shadowy forests Fand with champaigns riched,
With plenteous riversF and wide-skirted meads,
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We make thee lady. To thine and Albany’s issues
Be this perpetual. – What says our second daughter,
Our dearest Regan, wife of Cornwall? QSpeak.Q
REGAN QSirQ I am made of that self mettle as my sister,
And prize me at her worth. In my true heart
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I find she names my very deed of love:
Only she comes FtooF 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
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In your dear highness’ love.
CORDELIA [aside] Then poor Cordelia,
And yet not so, since I am sure my love’s
More ponderous than my tongue.
LEAR To thee and thine hereditary ever
Remain this ample third of our fair kingdom,
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No less in space, validity and pleasure
Than that conferred on Goneril. –QButQ now our joy,
Although our last and least, to whose young love
FThe vines of France and milk of Burgundy
Strive to be interessed,F what can you say to draw
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A third more opulent than your sisters? FSpeak.F
CORDELIA Nothing, my lord.
FLEAR Nothing?
CORDELIA Nothing.F