The Oxford Shakespeare: The Complete Works

by William Shakespeare

  But I will tarry, the fool will stay,

  And let the wise man fly.

  The knave turns fool that runs away,

  The fool no knave, pardie.

  KENT Where learnt you this, fool?

  FOOL Not in the stocks.

  Enter King Lear and the Duke of Gloucester

  LEAR

  Deny to speak with me? They’re sick, they’re weary?

  They travelled hard tonight?—mere insolence,

  Ay, the images of revolt and flying off.

  Fetch me a better answer.

  GLOUCESTER My dear lord,

  You know the fiery quality of the Duke,

  How unremovable and fixed he is

  In his own course.

  LEAR Vengeance, death, plague, confusion! What ‘fiery quality’? Why, Gloucester, Gloucester, I’d Speak with the Duke of Cornwall and his wife.

  GLOUCESTER Ay, my good lord.

  LEAR

  The King would speak with Cornwall; the dear father

  Would with his daughter speak, commands, tends

  service.

  ‘Fiery’? The Duke?—tell the hot Duke that Lear—

  No, but not yet. Maybe he is not well.

  Infirmity doth still neglect all office

  Whereto our health is bound. We are not ourselves

  When nature, being oppressed, commands the mind

  To suffer with the body. I’ll forbear,

  And am fallen out with my more headier will,

  To take the indisposed and sickly fit

  For the sound man.—Death on my state,

  Wherefore should he sit here? This act persuades me

  That this remotion of the Duke and her

  Is practice only. Give me my servant forth.

  Tell the Duke and ’s wife I’ll speak with them,

  Now, presently. Bid them come forth and hear me,

  Or at their chamber door I’ll beat the drum

  Till it cry sleep to death.

  GLOUCESTER I would have all well

  Betwixt you.

  Exit

  LEAR O, my heart, my heart!

  FOOL Cry to it, nuncle, as the cockney did to the eels when she put ‘em i’th’ paste alive. She rapped ‘em o’th’ coxcombs with a stick, and cried ‘Down, wantons, down!’ ’Twas her brother that, in pure kindness to his horse, buttered his hay.

  Enter the Duke of Cornwall and Regan, the Duke of Gloucester, and others

  LEAR Good morrow to you both.

  CORNWALL Hail to your grace.

  ⌈Kent here set at liberty⌉

  REGAN I am glad to see your highness.

  LEAR

  Regan, I think you are. I know what reason

  I have to think so. If thou shouldst not be glad

  I would divorce me from thy mother’s shrine,

  Sepulchring an adultress. (To Kent) Yea, are you free?

  Some other time for that.—Belovèd Regan,

  Thy sister is naught. O, Regan, she hath tied

  Sharp-toothed unkindness like a vulture here.

  I can scarce speak to thee. Thou’lt not believe

  Of how deplored a quality—O, Regan!

  REGAN

  I pray you, sir, take patience. I have hope

  You less know how to value her desert

  Than she to slack her duty.

  LEAR My curses on her.

  REGAN O sir, you are old.

  Nature in you stands on the very verge

  Of her confine. You should be ruled and led

  By some discretion that discerns your state

  Better than you yourself. Therefore I pray

  That to our sister you do make return;

  Say you have wronged her, sir.

  LEAR Ask her forgiveness?

  Do you mark how this becomes the house?

  ⌈Kneeling⌉ ‘Dear daughter, I confess that I am old.

  Age is unnecessary. On my knees I beg

  That you’ll vouchsafe me raiment, bed, and food.’

  REGAN

  Good sir, no more. These are unsightly tricks.

  Return you to my sister.

  LEAR ⌈rising⌉ No, Regan.

  She hath abated me of half my train,

  Looked black upon me, struck me with her tongue

  Most serpent-like upon the very heart.

  All the stored vengeances of heaven fall

  On her ungrateful top! Strike her young bones,

  You taking airs, with lameness!

  CORNWALL Fie, fie, sir.

  LEAR

  You nimble lightnings, dart your blinding flames

  Into her scornful eyes. Infect her beauty,

  You fen-sucked fogs drawn by the pow’rful sun

  To fall and blast her pride.

  REGAN O, the blest gods!

  So will you wish on me when the rash mood—

  LEAR

  No, Regan. Thou shalt never have my curse.

  Thy tender-hested nature shall not give

  Thee o‘er to harshness. Her eyes are fierce, but thine

  Do comfort and not burn. ’Tis not in thee

  To grudge my pleasures, to cut off my train,

  To bandy hasty words, to scant my sizes,

  And, in conclusion, to oppose the bolt

  Against my coming in. Thou better know’st

  The offices of nature, bond of childhood,

  Effects of courtesy, dues of gratitude.

  Thy half of the kingdom hast thou not forgot,

  Wherein I thee endowed.

  REGAN Good sir, to th’ purpose.

  LEAR

  Who put my man i’th’ stocks?

  ⌈Trumpets within⌉

  CORNWALL What trumpet’s that?

  Enter Oswald the steward

  REGAN

  I know’t, my sister’s. This approves her letters

  That she would soon be here. (To Oswald) Is your lady

  come?

  LEAR

  This is a slave whose easy-borrowed pride

  Dwells in the fickle grace of her a follows.

  He strikes Oswald⌉

  Out, varlet, from my sight!

  CORNWALL What means your grace?

  Enter Gonoril

  GONORIL

  Who struck my servant? Regan, I have good hope

  Thou didst not know on’t.

  LEAR Who comes here? O heavens,

  If you do love old men, if your sweet sway

  Allow obedience, if yourselves are old,

  Make it your cause! Send down and take my part.

  (To Gonoril) Art not ashamed to look upon this

  beard?

  O Regan, wilt thou take her by the hand?

  GONORIL

  Why not by the hand, sir? How have I offended?

  All’s not offence that indiscretion finds

  And dotage terms so.

  LEAR O sides, you are too tough!

  Will you yet hold?—How came my man i’th’ stocks?

  CORNWALL

  I set him there, sir; but his own disorders

  Deserved much less advancement.

  LEAR You? Did you?

  REGAN

  I pray you, father, being weak, seem so.

  If till the expiration of your month

  You will return and sojourn with my sister,

  Dismissing half your train, come then to me.

  I am now from home, and out of that provision

  Which shall be needful for your entertainment.

  LEAR

  Return to her, and fifty men dismissed?

  No, rather I abjure all roofs, and choose

  To be a comrade with the wolf and owl,

  To wage against the enmity of the air

  Necessity’s sharp pinch. Return with her?

  Why, the hot-blood in France that dowerless took

  Our youngest born—I could as well be brought

  To knee his throne and, squire-like, pension beg

 
To keep base life afoot. Return with her?

  Persuade me rather to be slave and sumpter

  To this detested groom.

  GONORIL At your choice, sir.

  LEAR

  Now I prithee, daughter, do not make me mad.

  I will not trouble thee, my child. Farewell.

  We’ll no more meet, no more see one another.

  But yet thou art my flesh, my blood, my daughter—

  Or rather a disease that lies within my flesh,

  Which I must needs call mine. Thou art a boil,

  A plague-sore, an embossed carbuncle

  In my corrupted blood. But I’ll not chide thee.

  Let shame come when it will, I do not call it.

  I do not bid the thunder-bearer shoot,

  Nor tell tales of thee to high-judging Jove.

  Mend when thou canst; be better at thy leisure.

  I can be patient, I can stay with Regan,

  I and my hundred knights.

  REGAN Not altogether so, sir.

  I look not for you yet, nor am provided

  For your fit welcome. Give ear, sir, to my sister;

  For those that mingle reason with your passion

  Must be content to think you are old, and so—

  But she knows what she does.

  LEAR Is this well spoken now?

  REGAN

  I dare avouch it, sir. What, fifty followers?

  Is it not well? What should you need of more,

  Yea, or so many, sith that both charge and danger

  Speaks ‘gainst so great a number? How in a house

  Should many people under two commands

  Hold amity? ’Tis hard, almost impossible.

  GONORIL

  Why might not you, my lord, receive attendance

  From those that she calls servants, or from mine?

  REGAN

  Why not, my lord? If then they chanced to slack you,

  We could control them. If you will come to me—

  For now I spy a danger—I entreat you

  To bring but five-and-twenty; to no more

  Will I give place or notice.

  LEAR I gave you all.

  REGAN And in good time you gave it.

  LEAR

  Made you my guardians, my depositaries,

  But kept a reservation to be followed

  With such a number. What, must I come to you

  With five-and-twenty, Regan? Said you so?

  REGAN

  And speak’t again, my lord. No more with me.

  LEAR

  Those wicked creatures yet do seem well favoured

  When others are more wicked. Not being the worst

  Stands in some rank of praise. (To Gonoril) I’ll go with

  thee.

  Thy fifty yet doth double five-and-twenty,

  And thou art twice her love.

  GONORIL Hear me, my lord.

  What need you five-and-twenty, ten, or five,

  To follow in a house where twice so many

  Have a command to tend you?

  REGAN What needs one?

  LEAR

  O, reason not the need! Our basest beggars

  Are in the poorest thing superfluous.

  Allow not nature more than nature needs,

  Man’s life is cheap as beast’s. Thou art a lady.

  If only to go warm were gorgeous,

  Why, nature needs not what thou, gorgeous, wearest,

  Which scarcely keeps thee warm. But for true need—

  You heavens, give me that patience, patience I need.

  You see me here, you gods, a poor old fellow,

  As full of grief as age, wretched in both.

  If it be you that stirs these daughters’ hearts

  Against their father, fool me not so much

  To bear it tamely. Touch me with noble anger.

  O, let not women’s weapons, water-drops,

  Stain my man’s cheeks! No, you unnatural hags,

  I will have such revenges on you both

  That all the world shall—I will do such things—

  What they are, yet I know not; but they shall be

  The terrors of the earth. You think I’ll weep.

  No, I’ll not weep.

  ⌈Storm within⌉

  I have full cause of weeping, but this heart

  Shall break into a hundred thousand flaws

  Or ere I’ll weep.—O fool, I shall go mad!

  Exeunt Lear, Gloucester, Kent, ⌈Knight,⌉ and Fool

  CORNWALL

  Let us withdraw. ’Twill be a storm.

  REGAN

  This house is little. The old man and his people

  Cannot be well bestowed.

  GONORIL ’Tis his own blame;

  Hath put himself from rest, and must needs taste his folly.

  REGAN

  For his particular I’ll receive him gladly,

  But not one follower.

  CORNWALL

  So am I purposed. Where is my lord of Gloucester?

  REGAN

  Followed the old man forth.

  Enter the Duke of Gloucester

  He is returned.

  GLOUCESTER

  The King is in high rage, and will I know not whither.

  REGAN

  ’Tis good to give him way. He leads himself.

  GONORIL (to Gloucester)

  My lord, entreat him by no means to stay.

  GLOUCESTER

  Alack, the night comes on, and the bleak winds

  Do sorely rustle. For many miles about

  There’s not a bush.

  REGAN O sir, to wilful men

  The injuries that they themselves procure

  Must be their schoolmasters. Shut up your doors.

  He is attended with a desperate train,

  And what they may incense him to, being apt

  To have his ear abused, wisdom bids fear.

  CORNWALL

  Shut up your doors, my lord. ‘Tis a wild night.

  My Regan counsels well. Come out o’th’ storm. Exeunt

  Sc. 8 Storm. Enter the Earl of Kent disguised, and First Gentleman, at several doors

  KENT

  What’s here, beside foul weather?

  FIRST GENTLEMAN One minded like the weather,

  Most unquietly.

  KENT I know you. Where’s the King?

  FIRST GENTLEMAN

  Contending with the fretful element;

  Bids the wind blow the earth into the sea

  Or swell the curled waters ’bove the main,

  That things might change or cease; tears his white

  hair,

  Which the impetuous blasts, with eyeless rage,

  Catch in their fury and make nothing of;

  Strives in his little world of man to outstorm

  The to-and-fro-conflicting wind and rain.

  This night, wherein the cub-drawn bear would couch,

  The lion and the belly-pinched wolf

  Keep their fur dry, unbonneted he runs,

  And bids what will take all.

  KENT But who is with him?

  FIRST GENTLEMAN

  None but the fool, who labours to outjest

  His heart-struck injuries.

  KENT Sir, I do know you,

  And dare upon the warrant of my art

  Commend a dear thing to you. There is division,

  Although as yet the face of it be covered

  With mutual cunning, ’twixt Albany and Cornwall;

  But true it is. From France there comes a power

  Into this scattered kingdom, who already,

  Wise in our negligence, have secret feet

  In some of our best ports, and are at point

  To show their open banner. Now to you:

  If on my credit you dare build so far

  To make your speed to Dover, you shall find

  Some that will thank you, making just report

  Of how unnatura
l and bemadding sorrow

  The King hath cause to plain.

  I am a gentleman of blood and breeding,

  And from some knowledge and assurance offer

  This office to you.

  FIRST GENTLEMAN I will talk farther with you.

  KENT No, do not.

  For confirmation that I am much more

  Than my out-wall, open this purse, and take

  What it contains. If you shall see Cordelia—

  As fear not but you shall—show her this ring

  And she will tell you who your fellow is,

  That yet you do not know. Fie on this storm!

  I will go seek the King.

  FIRST GENTLEMAN Give me your hand.

  Have you no more to say?

  KENT Few words, but to effect

  More than all yet: that when we have found the King—

  In which endeavour I’ll this way, you that—

  He that first lights on him holla the other.

  Exeunt severally

  Sc. 9 Storm. Enter King Lear and his Fool

  LEAR

  Blow, wind, and crack your cheeks! Rage, blow,

  You cataracts and hurricanoes, spout

  Till you have drenched the steeples, drowned the

  cocks!

  You sulphurous and thought-executing fires,

  Vaunt-couriers to oak-cleaving thunderbolts,

  Singe my white head; and thou all-shaking thunder,

  Smite flat the thick rotundity of the world,

  Crack nature’s mould, all germens spill at once

  That make ingrateful man.

  FOOL O nuncle, court holy water in a dry house is better than this rain-water out o’ door. Good nuncle, in, and ask thy daughters blessing. Here’s a night pities neither wise man nor fool.

  LEAR

  Rumble thy bellyful; spit, fire; spout, rain.

  Nor rain, wind, thunder, fire are my daughters.

  I tax not you, you elements, with unkindness.

  I never gave you kingdom, called you children.

  You owe me no subscription. Why then, let fall

  Your horrible pleasure. Here I stand your slave,

  A poor, infirm, weak and despised old man,

  But yet I call you servile ministers,

  That have with two pernicious daughters joined

  Your high engendered battle ‘gainst a head

  So old and white as this. O, ’tis foul!

  FOOL He that has a house to put his head in has a good headpiece.

  ⌈Sings⌉The codpiece that will house Before the head has any,

  The head and he shall louse,

  So beggars marry many.