The Arden Shakespeare Complete Works

by William Shakespeare

  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,

  95

  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,

  100

  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,

  110

  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,

  115

  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,

  120

  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.

  130

  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,

  140

  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

  145

  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.

  160

  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,

  165

  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.

  180

  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,

  190

  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 –

  195

  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,

  200

  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
r />   Than on a wretch whom nature is ashamed

  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

  235

  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.

  255

  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

  260

  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.