The reasons for these variations, and their effect on the play, are to some extent matters of speculation and of individual interpretation. Certainly they streamline the play’s action, removing some reflective passages, particularly at the ends of scenes. They affect the characterization of, especially, Edgar, Albany, and Kent, and there are significant differences in the play’s closing passages. Structurally the principal differences lie in the presentation of the military actions in the later part of the play; in the Folio-based text Cordelia is more clearly in charge of the forces that come to Lear’s assistance, and they are less clearly a French invasion force. The absence from this text of passages that appeared in the 1608 text implies no criticism of them in themselves. The play’s revision may have been dictated in whole or in part by theatrical exigencies, or it may have emerged from Shakespeare’s own dissatisfaction with what he had first written. Each version has its own integrity, which is distorted by the practice, traditional since the early eighteenth century, of conflation.
THE PERSONS OF THE PLAY
LEAR, King of Britain
GONERIL, Lear’s eldest daughter
Duke of ALBANY, her husband
REGAN, Lear’s second daughter
Duke of CORNWALL, her husband
CORDELIA, Lear’s youngest daughter
Earl of KENT, later disguised as Caius
Earl of GLOUCESTER
EDGAR, elder son of Gloucester, later disguised as Tom o’ Bedlam
EDMOND, bastard son of Gloucester
OLD MAN, Gloucester’s tenant
CURAN, Gloucester’s retainer
Lear’s FOOL
OSWALD, Goneril’s steward
A SERVANT of Cornwall
A KNIGHT
A HERALD
A CAPTAIN
Gentlemen, servants, soldiers, attendants, messengers
The Tragedy of King Lear
1.1 Enter the Earl of Kent, the Duke of Gloucester, and Edmond
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 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.
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?
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 older than this, who yet is no dearer in my account. Though this knave came something saucily 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. (To Edmond) Do you know this noble gentleman, Edmond?
EDMOND No, my lord.
GLOUCESTER (to Edmond) My lord of Kent. Remember him hereafter as my honourable friend.
EDMOND (to Kent) My services to your lordship.
KENT I must love you, and sue to know you better.
EDMOND Sir, I shall study deserving.
GLOUCESTER (to Kent) He hath been out nine years, and away he shall again.
Sennet
The King is coming.
Enter King Lear, the Dukes of Cornwall and Albany, Goneril, Regan, Cordelia, and attendants
LEAR
Attend the lords of France and Burgundy, Gloucester.
GLOUCESTER I shall, my lord. Exit
LEAR
Meantime we shall express our darker purpose.
Give me the map there. Know that 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 while we
Unburdened crawl toward death. Our son of Cornwall,
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. The princes France and
Burgundy—
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,
Interest of territory, cares of state—
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 love you more than words can wield the matter;
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.
Beyond all manner of so much I love you.
CORDELIA (aside)
What shall Cordelia speak? Love and be silent.
LEAR (to Goneril)
Of all these bounds even from this line to this,
With shadowy forests and with champaigns riched,
With plenteous rivers and wide-skirted meads,
We make thee lady. To thine and Albany’s issues
Be this perpetual.—What says our second daughter?
Our dearest Regan, wife of Cornwall?
REGAN
I am made of that self mettle as my sister,
And prize me at her worth. In my true heart
I find she names my very deed of love—
Only she comes too 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
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 Regan)
To thee and thine hereditary ever
Remain this ample third of our fair kingdom,
No less in space, validity, and pleasure
Than that conferred on Goneril. (To Cordelia) Now our
joy,
Although our last and least, to whose young love
The vines of France and milk of Burgundy
Strive to be interessed: what can you say to draw
A third more opulent than your sisters? Speak.
CORDELIA Nothing, my lord.
LEAR Nothing?
CORDELIA Nothing.
LEAR
Nothing will come of nothing. Speak again.
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, Cordelia? Mend your speech a little
Lest you may mar your fortunes.
CORDELIA
Good my lord,
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
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.
LEAR But goes thy heart with this?
CORDELIA Ay, my good lord.
LEAR So you
ng and so untender?
CORDELIA So young, my lord, and true.
LEAR
Let it be so. Thy truth then be thy dower;
For by the sacred radiance of the sun,
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,
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 to my bosom
Be as well neighboured, pitied, and relieved
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!—
So be my grave my peace as here I give
Her father’s heart from her. Call France. Who stirs?
Call Burgundy.
⌈Exit one or more⌉
Cornwall and Albany,
With my two daughters’ dowers digest the third.
Let pride, which she calls plainness, marry her.
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
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 crownet part between you.
KENT
Royal Lear,
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
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,
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!
KENT
My life I never held but as a pawn
To wage against thine enemies, ne’er feared to lose it,
Thy safety being motive.
LEAR
Out of my sight!
KENT
See better, Lear, and let me still remain
The true blank of thine eye.
LEAR
Now, by Apollo—
KENT
Now, by Apollo, King, thou swear’st thy gods in vain.
LEAR ⌈making to strike him⌉
O vassal! Miscreant!
ALBANY and ⌈CORDELIA⌉ Dear sir, forbear.
KENT (to Lear)
Kill thy physician, and thy fee bestow
Upon the foul disease. Revoke thy gift,
Or whilst I can vent clamour from my throat
I’ll tell thee thou dost evil.
LEAR
Hear me, recreant; on thine allegiance hear me!
That thou hast sought to make us break our vows,
Which we durst never yet, and with strained pride
To come betwixt our sentence 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,
And on the sixth to turn thy hated back
Upon our kingdom. If on the seventh day following
Thy banished trunk be found in our dominions,
The moment is thy death. Away! By Jupiter,
This shall not be revoked.
KENT
Fare thee well, King; sith 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,
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. Exit
Flourish. Enter the Duke of Gloucester with the
King of France, the Duke of Burgundy, and attendants
⌈CORDELIA⌉
Here’s France and Burgundy, my noble lord.
LEAR My lord of Burgundy,
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
Most royal majesty,
I crave no more than hath your highness offered;
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,
And nothing more, may fitly like your grace,
She’s there, and she is yours.
BURGUNDY
I know no answer.
LEAR
Will you with those infirmities she owes,
Unfriended, new adopted to our hate,
Dowered with our curse and strangered with our oath,
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
To match you where I hate, therefore beseech you
T‘avert your liking a more worthier way
Than on a wretch whom nature is ashamed
Almost t’acknowledge hers.
FRANCE
This is most strange,
That she whom even but now was your best object,
The argument of your praise, balm of your age,
The best, the dear’st, 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
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 (to Lear)
I yet beseech your majesty,
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
That hath deprived me of your grace an
d favour,
But even the 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
Better thou
Hadst not been born than not t’have pleased me better.
FRANCE
Is it 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
When it is mingled with regards that stands
Aloof from th’entire point. Will you have her?
She is herself a dowry.
BURGUNDY (to Lear) Royal King,
Give but that portion which yourself proposed,
And here I take Cordelia by the hand,
Duchess of Burgundy.
LEAR Nothing. I have sworn. I am firm.
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,
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.
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 wat’rish Burgundy
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
That face of hers again. Therefore be gone,
Without our grace, our love, our benison.—
Come, noble Burgundy. Flourish. Exeunt all but France
The Oxford Shakespeare: The Complete Works Page 371
