Bringing the murderous coward to the stake;
He that conceals him, death.
EDMOND
When I dissuaded him from his intent
And found him pitched to do it, with curst speech
I threatened to discover him. He replied,
‘Thou unpossessing bastard, dost thou think
If I would stand against thee, would the reposal
Of any trust, virtue, or worth in thee
Make thy words faithed? No, what I should deny—
As this I would, ay, though thou didst produce
My very character—I’d turn it all
To thy suggestion, plot, and damned practice,
And thou must make a dullard of the world
If they not thought the profits of my death
Were very pregnant and potential spirits
To make thee seek it.’
GLOUCESTER
O strange and fastened villain!
Would he deny his letter, said he?
Tucket within
Hark, the Duke’s trumpets. I know not why he comes.
All ports I’ll bar. The villain shall not scape.
The Duke must grant me that; besides, his picture
I will send far and near, that all the kingdom
May have due note of him—and of my land,
Loyal and natural boy, I’ll work the means
To make thee capable.
Enter the Duke of Cornwall, Regan, and attendants
CORNWALL
How now, my noble friend? Since I came hither,
Which I can call but now, I have heard strange news.
REGAN
If it be true, all vengeance comes too short
Which can pursue th’offender. How dost, my lord?
GLOUCESTER
O madam, my old heart is cracked, it’s cracked.
REGAN
What, did my father’s godson seek your life?
He whom my father named, your Edgar?
GLOUCESTER
O lady, lady, shame would have it hid!
REGAN
Was he not companion with the riotous knights
That tend upon my father?
GLOUCESTER
I know not, madam. ’Tis too bad, too bad.
EDMOND
Yes, madam, he was of that consort.
REGAN
No marvel, then, though he were ill affected.
‘Tis they have put him on the old man’s death,
To have th’expense and spoil of his revenues.
I have this present evening from my sister
Been well informed of them, and with such cautions
That if they come to sojourn at my house
I’ll not be there.
CORNWALL
Nor I, assure thee, Regan. Edmond, I hear that you have shown your father A childlike office.
EDMOND
It was my duty, sir. GLOUCESTER (to Cornwall)
He did bewray his practice, and received
This hurt you see striving to apprehend him.
CORNWALL
Is he pursued?
GLOUCESTER Ay, my good lord.
CORNWALL
If he be taken, he shall never more
Be feared of doing harm. Make your own purpose
How in my strength you please. For you, Edmond,
Whose virtue and obedience doth this instant
So much commend itself, you shall be ours.
Natures of such deep trust we shall much need.
You we first seize on.
EDMOND
I shall serve you, sir,
Truly, however else.
GLOUCESTER (to Cornwall) For him I thank your grace.
CORNWALL
You know not why we came to visit you—
REGAN
Thus out of season, threading dark-eyed night—
Occasions, noble Gloucester, of some poise,
Wherein we must have use of your advice.
Our father he hath writ, so hath our sister,
Of differences which I least thought it fit
To answer from our home. The several messengers
From hence attend dispatch. Our good old friend,
Lay comforts to your bosom, and bestow
Your needful counsel to our businesses,
Which craves the instant use.
GLOUCESTER I serve you, madam.
Your graces are right welcome.
Flourish. Exeunt
2.2 Enter the Earl of Kent, disguised, and Oswald the steward, severally
OSWALD Good dawning to thee, friend. Art of this house? KENT Ay.
OSWALD Where may we set our horses?
KENT I’th’ mire.
OSWALD Prithee, if thou lov’st me, tell me. 5 KENT I love thee not.
OSWALD Why then, I care not for thee.
KENT If I had thee in Lipsbury pinfold I would make thee care for me.
OSWALD Why dost thou use me thus? I know thee not.
KENT Fellow, I know thee.
OSWALD What dost thou know me for?
KENT A knave, a rascal, an eater of broken meats, a base, proud, shallow, beggarly, three-suited, hundred-pound, filthy worsted-stocking knave; a lily-livered, action-taking, whoreson, glass-gazing, super-serviceable, finical rogue; one-trunk-inheriting slave; one that wouldst be a bawd in way of good service, and art nothing but the composition of a knave, beggar, coward, pander, and the son and heir of a mongrel bitch, one whom I will beat into clamorous whining if thou deniest the least syllable of thy addition.
OSWALD Why, what a monstrous fellow art thou, thus to rail on one that is neither known of thee nor knows thee!
KENT What a brazen-faced varlet art thou, to deny thou knowest me! Is it two days since I tripped up thy heels and beat thee before the King? Draw, you rogue; for though it be night, yet the moon shines.
⌈He draws his sword⌉
I’ll make a sop o’th’ moonshine of you, you whoreson, cullionly barber-monger, draw!
OSWALD Away. I have nothing to do with thee.
KENT Draw, you rascal. You come with letters against the King, and take Vanity the puppet’s part against the royalty of her father. Draw, you rogue, or I’ll so carbonado your shanks—draw, you rascal, come your ways!
OSWALD Help, ho, murder, help!
KENT Strike, you slave! Stand, rogue! Stand, you neat slave, strike! 40
OSWALD Help, ho, murder, murder!
Enter Edmond the bastard, ⌈then⌉ the Duke of
Cornwall, Regan, the Duke of Gloucester, and
servants
EDMOND How now, what’s the matter? Part.
KENT With you, goodman boy. If you please, come, I’ll flesh ye. Come on, young master.
GLOUCESTER Weapons? Arms? What’s the matter here?
CORNWALL
Keep peace, upon your lives. He dies that strikes again.
What is the matter?
REGAN The messengers from our sister and the King. CORNWALL (to Kent and Oswald) What is your difference?
Speak.
OSWALD I am scarce in breath, my lord.
KENT No marvel, you have so bestirred your valour, you cowardly rascal. Nature disclaims in thee; a tailor made thee.
CORNWALL Thou art a strange fellow—a tailor make a man?
KENT A tailor, sir. A stone-cutter or a painter could not have made him so ill though they had been but two years o’th’ trade.
CORNWALL Speak yet; how grew your quarrel?
OSWALD This ancient ruffian, sir, whose life I have spared at suit of his grey beard—
KENT Thou whoreson Z, thou unnecessary letter—(to Cornwall) my lord, if you’ll give me leave I will tread this unbolted villain into mortar and daub the wall of a jakes with him. (To Oswald) Spare my grey beard, you wagtail?
CORNWALL Peace, sirrah.
You beastly knave, know you no reverence?
KENT
Yes, sir, but anger hath
a privilege.
CORNWALL Why art thou angry?
KENT
That such a slave as this should wear a sword,
Who wears no honesty. Such smiling rogues as these,
Like rats, oft bite the holy cords a-twain
Which are too intrince t’unloose, smooth every
passion
That in the natures of their lords rebel;
Being oil to fire, snow to the colder moods,
Renege, affirm, and turn their halcyon beaks
With every gall and vary of their masters,
Knowing naught, like dogs, but following.
⌈To Oswald⌉ A plague upon your epileptic visage!
Smile you my speeches as I were a fool?
Goose, an I had you upon Sarum Plain
I’d drive ye cackling home to Camelot.
CORNWALL
What, art thou mad, old fellow?
GLOUCESTER ⌈to Kent⌉ How fell you out? Say that.
KENT
No contraries hold more antipathy Than I and such a knave.
CORNWALL
Why dost thou call him knave?
What is his fault?
KENT His countenance likes me not.
CORNWALL
No more perchance does mine, nor his, nor hers.
KENT
Sir, ’tis my occupation to be plain:
I have seen better faces in my time
Than stands on any shoulder that I see
Before me at this instant.
CORNWALL This is some fellow
Who, having been praised for bluntness, doth affect
A saucy roughness, and constrains the garb
Quite from his nature. He cannot flatter, he;
An honest mind and plain, he must speak truth.
An they will take’t, so; if not, he’s plain.
These kind of knaves I know, which in this plainness
Harbour more craft and more corrupter ends
Than twenty silly-ducking observants
That stretch their duties nicely.
KENT
Sir, in good faith, in sincere verity,
Under th‘allowance of your great aspect,
Whose influence, like the wreath of radiant fire
On flick’ring Phoebus’ front—
CORNWALL
What mean’st by this?
KENT To go out of my dialect, which you discommend so much. I know, sir, I am no flatterer. He that beguiled you in a plain accent was a plain knave, which for my part I will not be, though I should win your displeasure to entreat me to’t.
CORNWALL (to Oswald)
What was th’offence you gave him?
OSWALD
I never gave him any.
It pleased the King his master very late
To strike at me upon his misconstruction,
When he, compact, and flattering his displeasure,
Tripped me behind; being down, insulted, railed,
And put upon him such a deal of man
That worthied him, got praises of the King
For him attempting who was self-subdued,
And in the fleshment of this dread exploit
Drew on me here again.
KENT
None of these rogues and cowards
But Ajax is their fool.
CORNWALL
Fetch forth the stocks!
⌈Exeunt some servants⌉
You stubborn, ancient knave, you reverend braggart,
We’ll teach you.
KENT
Sir, I am too old to learn.
Call not your stocks for me. I serve the King,
On whose employment I was sent to you.
You shall do small respect, show too bold malice
Against the grace and person of my master,
Stocking his messenger.
CORNWALL ⌈calling⌉
Fetch forth the stocks!—
As I have life and honour, there shall he sit till noon.
REGAN
Till noon?—till night, my lord, and all night too.
KENT
Why, madam, if I were your father’s dog
You should not use me so.
REGAN
Sir, being his knave, I will.
Stocks brought out
CORNWALL
This is a fellow of the selfsame colour
Our sister speaks of.—Come, bring away the stocks.
GLOUCESTER
Let me beseech your grace not to do so.
The King his master needs must take it ill
That he, so slightly valued in his messenger,
Should have him thus restrained.
CORNWALL I’ll answer that.
⌈Theg put Kent in the stocks⌉
REGAN
My sister may receive it much more worse
To have her gentlemen abused, assaulted.
CORNWALL Come, my good lord, away!
Exeunt all but Gloucester and Kent
GLOUCESTER
I am sorry for thee, friend. ’Tis the Duke’s pleasure,
Whose disposition, all the world well knows,
Will not be rubbed nor stopped. I’ll entreat for thee.
KENT
Pray do not, sir. I have watched and travelled hard.
Some time I shall sleep out; the rest I’ll whistle.
A good man’s fortune may grow out at heels.
Give you good morrow.
GLOUCESTER
The Duke’s to blame in this; ’twill be ill taken. Exit
KENT
Good King, that must approve the common say:
Thou out of heaven’s benediction com’st
To the warm sun.
⌈He takes out a letter⌉
Approach, thou beacon to this under globe,
That by thy comfortable beams I may
Peruse this letter. Nothing almost sees miracles
But misery. I know ‘tis from Cordelia,
Who hath now fortunately been informed
Of my obscured course, and shall find time
For this enormous state, seeking to give
Losses their remedies. All weary and o’erwatched,
Take vantage, heavy eyes, not to behold
This shameful lodging. Fortune, good night;
Smile once more; turn thy wheel.
He sleeps
Enter Edgar
EDGAR
I heard myself proclaimed,
And by the happy hollow of a tree
Escaped the hunt. No port is free, no place
That guard and most unusual vigilance
Does not attend my taking. Whiles I may scape
I will preserve myself, and am bethought
To take the basest and most poorest shape
That ever penury in contempt of man
Brought near to beast. My face I’ll grime with filth,
Blanket my loins, elf all my hairs in knots,
And with presented nakedness outface
The winds and persecutions of the sky.
The country gives me proof and precedent
Of Bedlam beggars who with roaring voices
Strike in their numbed and mortified arms
Pins, wooden pricks, nails, sprigs of rosemary,
And with this horrible object from low farms,
Poor pelting villages, sheep-cotes and mills
Sometime with lunatic bans, sometime with prayers
Enforce their charity. ‘Poor Tuelygod, Poor Tom.’
That’s something yet. Edgar I nothing am.
Exit
Enter King Lear, his Fool, and ⌈the First⌉ Gentleman
LEAR
’Tis strange that they should so depart from home
And not send back my messenger.
⌈FIRST⌉ GENTLEMAN
As I learned,
The night before there was no purpose in them
Of this remove.
KENT (waking)
&n
bsp; Hail to thee, noble master.
LEAR
Ha! Mak’st thou this shame thy pastime?
KENT No, my lord.
FOOL Ha, ha, he wears cruel garters! Horses are tied by the heads, dogs and bears by th’ neck, monkeys by th’ loins, and men by th’ legs. When a man’s overlusty at legs, then he wears wooden nether-stocks.
LEAR (to Kent)
What’s he that hath so much thy place mistook To set thee here?
KENT It is both he and she:
Your son and daughter.
LEAR By Jupiter, I swear no.
KENT
By Juno, I swear ay.
LEAR They durst not do’t,
They could not, would not do’t. ’Tis worse than
murder,
To do upon respect such violent outrage.
Resolve me with all modest haste which way
Thou mightst deserve or they impose this usage,
Coming from us.
KENT My lord, when at their home
I did commend your highness’ letters to them,
Ere I was risen from the place that showed
My duty kneeling, came there a reeking post
Stewed in his haste, half breathless, painting forth
From Goneril, his mistress, salutations,
Delivered letters spite of intermission,
Which presently they read, on whose contents 210
They summoned up their meiny, straight took horse,
Commanded me to follow and attend
The leisure of their answer, gave me cold looks;
And meeting here the other messenger,
Whose welcome I perceived had poisoned mine—
Being the very fellow which of late
Displayed so saucily against your highness—
Having more man than wit about me, drew.
He raised the house with loud and coward cries.
Your son and daughter found this trespass worth
The shame which here it suffers.
FOOL Winter’s not gone yet if the wild geese fly that way.
⌈Sings⌉ Fathers that wear rags
Do make their children blind,
But fathers that bear bags
Shall see their children kind.
Fortune, that arrant whore,
Ne’er turns the key to th’ poor.
But for all this thou shalt have as many dolours for
thy daughters as thou canst tell in a year.
LEAR
O, how this mother swells up toward my heart!
Histerica passio down, thou climbing sorrow;
Thy element’s below.—Where is this daughter?
The Oxford Shakespeare: The Complete Works Page 374
