Thou must not stay behind.
Gloucester
Come, come, away.
Exeunt all but Edgar
Edgar
When we our betters see bearing our woes,
We scarcely think our miseries our foes.
Who alone suffers suffers most i’ the mind,
Leaving free things and happy shows behind:
But then the mind much sufferance doth o’er skip,
When grief hath mates, and bearing fellowship.
How light and portable my pain seems now,
When that which makes me bend makes the king bow,
He childed as I father’d! Tom, away!
Mark the high noises; and thyself bewray,
When false opinion, whose wrong thought defiles thee,
In thy just proof, repeals and reconciles thee.
What will hap more to-night, safe ’scape the king!
Lurk, lurk.
Exit
SCENE VII. GLOUCESTER’S CASTLE.
Enter Cornwall, Regan, Goneril, Edmund, and Servants
Cornwall
Post speedily to my lord your husband; show him this letter: the army of France is landed. Seek out the villain Gloucester.
Exeunt some of the Servants
Regan
Hang him instantly.
Goneril
Pluck out his eyes.
Cornwall
Leave him to my displeasure. Edmund, keep you our sister company: the revenges we are bound to take upon your traitorous father are not fit for your beholding. Advise the duke, where you are going, to a most festinate preparation: we are bound to the like. Our posts shall be swift and intelligent betwixt us. Farewell, dear sister: farewell, my lord of Gloucester.
Enter Oswald
How now! where’s the king?
Oswald
My lord of Gloucester hath convey’d him hence:
Some five or six and thirty of his knights,
Hot questrists after him, met him at gate;
Who, with some other of the lords dependants,
Are gone with him towards Dover; where they boast
To have well-armed friends.
Cornwall
Get horses for your mistress.
Goneril
Farewell, sweet lord, and sister.
Cornwall
Edmund, farewell.
Exeunt Goneril, Edmund, and Oswald
Go seek the traitor Gloucester,
Pinion him like a thief, bring him before us.
Exeunt other Servants
Though well we may not pass upon his life
Without the form of justice, yet our power
Shall do a courtesy to our wrath, which men
May blame, but not control. Who’s there? the traitor?
Enter Gloucester, brought in by two or three
Regan
Ingrateful fox! ’tis he.
Cornwall
Bind fast his corky arms.
Gloucester
What mean your graces? Good my friends, consider
You are my guests: do me no foul play, friends.
Cornwall
Bind him, I say.
Servants bind him
Regan
Hard, hard. O filthy traitor!
Gloucester
Unmerciful lady as you are, I’m none.
Cornwall
To this chair bind him. Villain, thou shalt find —
Regan plucks his beard
Gloucester
By the kind gods, ’tis most ignobly done
To pluck me by the beard.
Regan
So white, and such a traitor!
Gloucester
Naughty lady,
These hairs, which thou dost ravish from my chin,
Will quicken, and accuse thee: I am your host:
With robbers’ hands my hospitable favours
You should not ruffle thus. What will you do?
Cornwall
Come, sir, what letters had you late from France?
Regan
Be simple answerer, for we know the truth.
Cornwall
And what confederacy have you with the traitors
Late footed in the kingdom?
Regan
To whose hands have you sent the lunatic king? Speak.
Gloucester
I have a letter guessingly set down,
Which came from one that’s of a neutral heart,
And not from one opposed.
Cornwall
Cunning.
Regan
And false.
Cornwall
Where hast thou sent the king?
Gloucester
To Dover.
Regan
Wherefore to Dover? Wast thou not charged at peril —
Cornwall
Wherefore to Dover? Let him first answer that.
Gloucester
I am tied to the stake, and I must stand the course.
Regan
Wherefore to Dover, sir?
Gloucester
Because I would not see thy cruel nails
Pluck out his poor old eyes; nor thy fierce sister
In his anointed flesh stick boarish fangs.
The sea, with such a storm as his bare head
In hell-black night endured, would have buoy’d up,
And quench’d the stelled fires:
Yet, poor old heart, he holp the heavens to rain.
If wolves had at thy gate howl’d that stern time,
Thou shouldst have said ‘Good porter, turn the key,’
All cruels else subscribed: but I shall see
The winged vengeance overtake such children.
Cornwall
See’t shalt thou never. Fellows, hold the chair.
Upon these eyes of thine I’ll set my foot.
Gloucester
He that will think to live till he be old,
Give me some help! O cruel! O you gods!
Regan
One side will mock another; the other too.
Cornwall
If you see vengeance,—
First Servant
Hold your hand, my lord:
I have served you ever since I was a child;
But better service have I never done you
Than now to bid you hold.
Regan
How now, you dog!
First Servant
If you did wear a beard upon your chin,
I’d shake it on this quarrel. What do you mean?
Cornwall
My villain!
They draw and fight
First Servant
Nay, then, come on, and take the chance of anger.
Regan
Give me thy sword. A peasant stand up thus!
Takes a sword, and runs at him behind
First Servant
O, I am slain! My lord, you have one eye left
To see some mischief on him. O!
Dies
Cornwall
Lest it see more, prevent it. Out, vile jelly!
Where is thy lustre now?
Gloucester
All dark and comfortless. Where’s my son Edmund?
Edmund, enkindle all the sparks of nature,
To quit this horrid act.
Regan
Out, treacherous villain!
Thou call’st on him that hates thee: it was he
That made the overture of thy treasons to us;
Who is too good to pity thee.
Gloucester
O my follies! then Edgar was abused.
Kind gods, forgive me that, and prosper him!
Regan
Go thrust him out at gates, and let him smell
His way to Dover.
Exit one with Gloucester
How is’t, my lord? how look you?
Cornwall
I have received a hurt: follow me, lady.
Turn out that eyeless villain; throw thi
s slave
Upon the dunghill. Regan, I bleed apace:
Untimely comes this hurt: give me your arm.
Exit Cornwall, led by Regan
Second Servant
I’ll never care what wickedness I do,
If this man come to good.
Third Servant
If she live long,
And in the end meet the old course of death,
Women will all turn monsters.
Second Servant
Let’s follow the old earl, and get the Bedlam
To lead him where he would: his roguish madness
Allows itself to any thing.
Third Servant
Go thou: I’ll fetch some flax and whites of eggs
To apply to his bleeding face. Now, heaven help him!
Exeunt severally
ACT IV
SCENE I. THE HEATH.
Enter Edgar
Edgar
Yet better thus, and known to be contemn’d,
Than still contemn’d and flatter’d. To be worst,
The lowest and most dejected thing of fortune,
Stands still in esperance, lives not in fear:
The lamentable change is from the best;
The worst returns to laughter. Welcome, then,
Thou unsubstantial air that I embrace!
The wretch that thou hast blown unto the worst
Owes nothing to thy blasts. But who comes here?
Enter Gloucester, led by an Old Man
My father, poorly led? World, world, O world!
But that thy strange mutations make us hate thee,
Lie would not yield to age.
Old Man
O, my good lord, I have been your tenant, and your father’s tenant, these fourscore years.
Gloucester
Away, get thee away; good friend, be gone:
Thy comforts can do me no good at all;
Thee they may hurt.
Old Man
Alack, sir, you cannot see your way.
Gloucester
I have no way, and therefore want no eyes;
I stumbled when I saw: full oft ’tis seen,
Our means secure us, and our mere defects
Prove our commodities. O dear son Edgar,
The food of thy abused father’s wrath!
Might I but live to see thee in my touch,
I’ld say I had eyes again!
Old Man
How now! Who’s there?
Edgar
[Aside] O gods! Who is’t can say ‘I am at the worst’? I am worse than e’er I was.
Old Man
’Tis poor mad Tom.
Edgar
[Aside] And worse I may be yet: the worst is not
So long as we can say ‘This is the worst.’
Old Man
Fellow, where goest?
Gloucester
Is it a beggar-man?
Old Man
Madman and beggar too.
Gloucester
He has some reason, else he could not beg.
I’ the last night’s storm I such a fellow saw;
Which made me think a man a worm: my son
Came then into my mind; and yet my mind
Was then scarce friends with him: I have heard more since.
As flies to wanton boys, are we to the gods.
They kill us for their sport.
Edgar
[Aside] How should this be?
Bad is the trade that must play fool to sorrow,
Angering itself and others.— Bless thee, master!
Gloucester
Is that the naked fellow?
Old Man
Ay, my lord.
Gloucester
Then, prithee, get thee gone: if, for my sake,
Thou wilt o’ertake us, hence a mile or twain,
I’ the way toward Dover, do it for ancient love;
And bring some covering for this naked soul,
Who I’ll entreat to lead me.
Old Man
Alack, sir, he is mad.
Gloucester
’Tis the times’ plague, when madmen lead the blind.
Do as I bid thee, or rather do thy pleasure;
Above the rest, be gone.
Old Man
I’ll bring him the best ’parel that I have,
Come on’t what will.
Exit
Gloucester
Sirrah, naked fellow,—
Edgar
Poor Tom’s a-cold.
Aside
I cannot daub it further.
Gloucester
Come hither, fellow.
Edgar
[Aside] And yet I must.— Bless thy sweet eyes, they bleed.
Gloucester
Know’st thou the way to Dover?
Edgar
Both stile and gate, horse-way and foot-path. Poor Tom hath been scared out of his good wits: bless thee, good man’s son, from the foul fiend! five fiends have been in poor Tom at once; of lust, as Obidicut; Hobbididence, prince of dumbness; Mahu, of stealing; Modo, of murder; Flibbertigibbet, of mopping and mowing, who since possesses chambermaids and waiting-women. So, bless thee, master!
Gloucester
Here, take this purse, thou whom the heavens’ plagues
Have humbled to all strokes: that I am wretched
Makes thee the happier: heavens, deal so still!
Let the superfluous and lust-dieted man,
That slaves your ordinance, that will not see
Because he doth not feel, feel your power quickly;
So distribution should undo excess,
And each man have enough. Dost thou know Dover?
Edgar
Ay, master.
Gloucester
There is a cliff, whose high and bending head
Looks fearfully in the confined deep:
Bring me but to the very brim of it,
And I’ll repair the misery thou dost bear
With something rich about me: from that place
I shall no leading need.
Edgar
Give me thy arm:
Poor Tom shall lead thee.
Exeunt
SCENE II. BEFORE ALBANY’S PALACE.
Enter Goneril and Edmund
Goneril
Welcome, my lord: I marvel our mild husband
Not met us on the way.
Enter Oswald
Now, where’s your master’?
Oswald
Madam, within; but never man so changed.
I told him of the army that was landed;
He smiled at it: I told him you were coming:
His answer was ‘The worse:’ of Gloucester’s treachery,
And of the loyal service of his son,
When I inform’d him, then he call’d me sot,
And told me I had turn’d the wrong side out:
What most he should dislike seems pleasant to him;
What like, offensive.
Goneril
[To Edmund] Then shall you go no further.
It is the cowish terror of his spirit,
That dares not undertake: he’ll not feel wrongs
Which tie him to an answer. Our wishes on the way
May prove effects. Back, Edmund, to my brother;
Hasten his musters and conduct his powers:
I must change arms at home, and give the distaff
Into my husband’s hands. This trusty servant
Shall pass between us: ere long you are like to hear,
If you dare venture in your own behalf,
A mistress’s command. Wear this; spare speech;
Giving a favour
Decline your head: this kiss, if it durst speak,
Would stretch thy spirits up into the air:
Conceive, and fare thee well.
Edmund
Yours in the ranks of death.
Goneril
My most dear Gloucester!
Exit Edmund
O, the difference of man and man!
To thee a woman’s services are due:
My fool usurps my body.
Oswald
Madam, here comes my lord.
Exit
Enter Albany
Goneril
I have been worth the whistle.
Albany
O Goneril!
You are not worth the dust which the rude wind
Blows in your face. I fear your disposition:
That nature, which contemns its origin,
Cannot be border’d certain in itself;
She that herself will sliver and disbranch
From her material sap, perforce must wither
And come to deadly use.
Goneril
No more; the text is foolish.
Albany
Wisdom and goodness to the vile seem vile:
Filths savour but themselves. What have you done?
Tigers, not daughters, what have you perform’d?
A father, and a gracious aged man,
Whose reverence even the head-lugg’d bear would lick,
Most barbarous, most degenerate! have you madded.
Could my good brother suffer you to do it?
A man, a prince, by him so benefited!
If that the heavens do not their visible spirits
Send quickly down to tame these vile offences,
It will come,
Humanity must perforce prey on itself,
Like monsters of the deep.
Goneril
Milk-liver’d man!
That bear’st a cheek for blows, a head for wrongs;
Who hast not in thy brows an eye discerning
Thine honour from thy suffering; that not know’st
Fools do those villains pity who are punish’d
Ere they have done their mischief. Where’s thy drum?
France spreads his banners in our noiseless land;
With plumed helm thy slayer begins threats;
Whiles thou, a moral fool, sit’st still, and criest
‘Alack, why does he so?’
Albany
See thyself, devil!
Proper deformity seems not in the fiend
So horrid as in woman.
Goneril
O vain fool!
Albany
Thou changed and self-cover’d thing, for shame,
Be-monster not thy feature. Were’t my fitness
To let these hands obey my blood,
They are apt enough to dislocate and tear
Thy flesh and bones: howe’er thou art a fiend,
A woman’s shape doth shield thee.
Goneril
Marry, your manhood now —
Enter a Messenger
Albany
What news?
Messenger
O, my good lord, the Duke of Cornwall’s dead:
Slain by his servant, going to put out
The other eye of Gloucester.
Albany
Gloucester’s eye!
Messenger
A servant that he bred, thrill’d with remorse,
Complete Plays, The Page 105
