LEAR
QHow,Q nothing will come of nothing. Speak again.
90
CORDELIA Unhappy that I am, I cannot heave
My heart into my mouth. I love your majesty
According to my bond, no more nor less.
LEAR How, how, FCordelia?F Mend your speech a little,
Lest you may mar your fortunes.
CORDELIA Good my lord,
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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,
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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
QTo love my father all.Q
LEAR But goes thy heart with this?
105
CORDELIA Ay, my good lord.
LEAR So young and so untender?
CORDELIA So young, my lord, and true.
LEAR
QWellQ, let it be so. Thy truth then be thy dower,
For by the sacred radiance of the sun,
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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,
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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 Fto my bosomF
Be as well neighboured, pitied and relieved,
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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.
125
So be my grave my peace, as here I give
Her father’s heart from her. Call France. Who stirs?
Call Burgundy. [Attendants rush off.]
Cornwall and Albany,
With my two daughters’ dowers, digest this third.
Let pride, which she calls plainness, marry her.
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I do invest you jointly with 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
135
Make with you by due turn; only we shall retain
The name, and all th’addition to a king: the sway,
Revenue, execution of the rest,
Beloved sons, be yours; which to confirm,
This coronet part between you.
KENT Royal Lear,
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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
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The region of my heart: be Kent unmannerly
When Lear is mad. What wouldst 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 falls to folly. Reserve thy state,
150
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 sounds
Reverb no hollowness.
LEAR Kent, on thy life, no more.
155
KENT My life I never held but as QaQ pawn
To wage against thine enemies, ne’er fear to lose it,
Thy safety being QtheQ motive.
LEAR Out of my sight!
KENT See better, Lear, and let me still remain
The true blank of thine eye.
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LEAR Now by Apollo –
KENT Now by Apollo, King,
Thou swear’st thy gods in vain.
LEAR FOF vassal! Miscreant!
FALBANY, CORNWALL Dear sir, forbear!F
KENT QDo,Q kill thy physician, and thy fee bestow
Upon the foul disease. Revoke thy gift,
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Or whilst I can vent clamour from my throat
I’ll tell thee thou dost evil.
LEAR Hear me, Frecreant,F on thine allegiance, hear me:
That thou hast sought to make us break our vows,
Which we durst never yet, and with strained pride
170
To come betwixt our sentences and our power,
Which nor our nature, nor our place can bear,
Our potency made good, take thy reward.
Five days we do allot thee for provision,
To shield thee from disasters of the world,
175
And on the sixth 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.
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KENT
QWhyQ, fare thee well, King, since thus thou wilt appear,
Freedom lives hence and banishment is here.
[to Cordelia] The gods to their dear shelter take thee, maid,
That justly think’st and hast most rightly said;
[to Goneril and Regan] And your large speeches may your deeds approve,
185
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. FExit.F
FFlourish.FEnter GLOUCESTER with FRANCE, and BURGUNDY [and] Fattendants.F
CORNWALL Here’s France and Burgundy, my noble lord.
LEAR My lord of Burgundy,
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We first address toward you, who with this 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 FMostF royal majesty,
I crave no more than hath your highness offered –
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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,
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And nothing more, may fitly like your grace,
She’s there, and she is yours.
BURGUNDY I know no answer.
LEAR QSirQ, will you, with those infirmities she owes,
Unfriended, new adopted to our hate,
Dowered with our curse and strangered with our oath,
205
Take her or leave her?
BURGUNDY Pardon me, royal sir;
Election makes not up in 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
210
To match you where I hate, therefore beseech you
T’avert your liking a more worthier way
Almost t’acknowledge hers.
FRANCE This is most strange,
That she who even but now was your QbestQ object,
215
The argument of your praise, balm of your age,
The best, the 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
220
That monsters it, or your fore-vouched affection
Fall into taint, which to believe of her
Must be a faith that reason without miracle
Should never plant in me.
CORDELIA I yet beseech your majesty,
225
If 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 make known
It is no vicious blot, murder, or foulness,
No unchaste action or dishonoured step,
230
That hath deprived me of your grace and favour,
But even for want of that for which I am richer,
A still soliciting eye and such a tongue
That I am glad I have not – though not to have it
Hath lost me in your liking.
LEAR QGo to, go to,Q better thou
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Hadst not been born than not to have pleased me better.
FRANCE Is it Qno moreQ but this? – a tardiness in nature,
Which often leaves the history unspoke
That it intends to do? My lord of Burgundy,
What say you to the lady? Love’s not love
240
When it is mingled with regards that stands
Aloof from th’entire point. Will you have her?
She is herself a dowry.
BURGUNDY Royal King,
Give but that portion which yourself proposed,
And here I take Cordelia by the hand,
245
Duchess of Burgundy.
LEAR Nothing. I have sworn, FI am firm.F
BURGUNDY [to Cordelia]
I am sorry then you have so lost a father
That you must lose a husband.
CORDELIA Peace be with Burgundy.
Since that respect and fortunes are his love,
250
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.
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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 of waterish Burgundy
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Can 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
265
That face of hers again. Therefore, be gone,
Without our grace, our love, our benison.
Come, noble Burgundy.
FFlourish.FExeunt QLear and BurgundyQ [Cornwall,F Albany, Gloucester, Edmund and attendants.]
FRANCE Bid farewell to your sisters.
CORDELIA The jewels of our father, with washed eyes
270
Cordelia leaves you. I know you what you are,
And like a sister am most loath to call
Your faults as they are named. Love well our father.
To your professed bosoms I commit him,
But yet, alas, stood I within his grace
275
I would prefer him to a better place.
So farewell to you both.
REGAN Prescribe not us our duty.
GONERIL Let your study
Be to content your lord, who hath received you
At fortune’s alms. You have obedience scanted,
280
And well are worth the want that you have wanted.
CORDELIA
Time shall unfold what plighted cunning hides,
Who covert faults at last with shame derides.
Well may you prosper.
FRANCE Come, FmyF fair Cordelia.
Exeunt France and Cordelia.
GONERIL Sister, it is not Q aQ little I have to say of what most nearly appertains to us both. I think our father will hence tonight.
285
REGAN That’s most certain, and with you. Next month with us.
The Arden Shakespeare Complete Works Page 275
