Kent. I cannot wish the fault undone, the issue of it being so proper.

a son for her cradle, ere she had a husband for her | My heart into my mouth; I love your majesty bed. Do you smell a fault? According to my bond; no more, nor less. Lear. How, how, Cordelia? mend your speech a Lest you may mar your fortunes. [little, Cor. Good my lord, You have begot me, bred me, lov'd 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

Glo. But I have a son, sir, by order of law, some year elder than this, who yet is no dearer in my account: though this knave came somewhat 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.-Do you know this noble gentleman, Edmund? Edm. No, my lord.

Glo. My lord of Kent: remember him hereafter as Half my love with him, half my care, and duty: my honourable friend.

Edm. My services to your lordship.
Kent. I must love you, and sue to know you better.
Edm. Sir, I shall study deserving.
Glo. He hath been out nine years, and away he
shall again :-The king is coming.

[Trumpets sound within. Enter Lear, Cornwall, Albany, Goneril, Regan, Cordelia, and Attendants.

Lear. Attend the lords of France and Burgundy,
Gloster.

Glo. I shall, my liege. [Exeunt Glo. and Edm.
Lear. Meantime we shall express our darker pur-
pose.
[divided,
Give me the map there.-Know, that we have
In three, our kingdom: and 't is our fast intent
To shake all cares and business from our age;
Conferring them on younger strengths, while we
Unburthen'd crawl toward death.-Our son of Corn-
And you, our no less loving son of Albany, [wall,
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 answer'd.-Tell me, my daugh-
(Since now we will divest us, both of rule, [ters,
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.
[the matter,
Gon. Sir, I love you more than word can wield
Dearer than eye-sight, 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 lov'd, or father found.
A love that makes breath poor, and speech unable;
Beyond all manner of so much I love you.
Cor. What shall Cordelia speak? Love, and be
[Aside.
Lear. Of all these bounds, even from this line to
this,

silent.

With shadowy forests and with champains rich'd,
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?

Reg. I am made of that self metal 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.

Cor.
Then poor Cordelia! [Aside.
And yet not so; since, I am sure, my love 's
More ponderous than my tongue.

Lear. To thee, and thine, hereditary ever,
Remain this ample third of our fair kingdom;
No less in space, validity, and pleasure,
Than that conferr'd on Goneril.-Now, our joy,
Although our last and least; to whose young love
The vines of France and milk of Burgundy
Strive to be interess'd; what can you say, to draw
A third more opulent than your sisters? Speak.
Cor. Nothing, my lord.
Lear. Nothing?

Cor. Nothing.

Lear. Nothing will come of nothing: speak again.
Cor. Unhappy that I am, I cannot heave

Sure, I shall never marry like my sisters,
To love my father all.

Lear. But goes thy heart with this?
Cor.

Ay, my good lord.
Lear. So young, and so untender?
Cor. 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 [Scythian,
Hold thee, from this, for ever. The barbarous
Or he that makes his generation messes
To gorge his appetite, shall to my bosom
Be as well neighbour'd, pitied, and reliev'd,
As thou, my sometime daughter.
Kent.

Lear. Peace, Kent!

Good my liege,

Come not between the dragon and his wrath:
I lov'd her most, and thought to set my rest
On her kind nursery.-Hence, and avoid my sight!-
[To Cordelia.
So be my grave my peace, as here I give
Her father's heart from her I-Call France;-Who
Call Burgundy.-Cornwall and Albany, [stirs!
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
With reservation of an hundred knights, [course,
By you to be sustain'd, shall our abode
Make with you by due turn. Only we shall retain
The name, and all the additions to a king;
The sway,

Revenue, execution of the rest,
Beloved sons, be yours: which to confirm,
This coronet part between you. [Giving the crown
Kent.
Royal Lear,
Whom I have ever honour'd as my king,
Lov'd as my father, as my master follow'd,
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 would'st thou do, old
man?

Think'st thou that duty shall have dread to speak,
When power to flattery bows? To plainness hon-

our 's bound,

Kent. 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 strain'd 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 tenth day following,
Thy banish'd trunk be found in our dominions,
The moment is thy death: Away! by Jupiter,
This shall not be revok'd.

Kent. Fare thee well, king: sith thus thou wilt ap-
pear,

Freedom lives hence, and banishment is here.-
The gods to their dear shelter take thee, maid,
[To Cordelia.
That justly think'st, and hast most rightly said!-
And your large speeches may your deeds approve,
[To Regan and Goneril.
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.
Re-enter Gloster; with France, Burgundy, and
Attendants.

Glo. Here's France and Burgundy, my noble lord.
Lear. My lord of Burgundy,

We first address toward you, who with this king
Hath rivall'd for our daughter: What, in the least,
Will you require in present dower with her,
Or cease your quest of love!
Bur.
Most royal majesty,
I crave no more than hath your highness offer'd,
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 fall'n: Sir, there she stands;
If aught within that little, seeming substance,
Or all of it, with our displeasure piec'd,
And nothing more, may fitly like your grace,
She's there, and she is yours.

Bur.

I know no answer.
Lear. Will you, with those infirmities she owes,
Unfriended, new-adopted to our hate,
Dower'd with our curse, and stranger'd with our oath,
Take her, or leave her!

Bur.
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.-For you, great king,
[To France.
I would not from your love make such a stray,
To match you where I hate; therefore beseech you
To avert your liking a more worthier way,
Than on a wretch whom nature is asham'd
Almost to acknowledge hers.
France.

This is most strange!
That she, who even but now was your best object,
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,

That monsters it, or your fore-vouch'd affection
Fall into taint: which to believe of her,
Must be a faith that reason without miracle
Should never plant in me.
Cor.

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, murther, or foulness,
No unchaste action or dishonour'd step,
That hath depriv'd 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.

Better thou

Lear.
Hadst not been born than not t' have pleas'd 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 stand
Aloof from the entire point. Will you have her?
She is herself a dowry.
Royal king,
Give but that portion which yourself propos'd,
And here I take Cordelia by the hand,
Duchess of Burgundy.

Bur.

Lear. Nothing: I have sworn; I am firm.
Bur. I am sorry, then, you have so lost a father
That you must lose a husband.
Cor.
Peace be with Burgundy!
Since that respects of fortune are his love,
I shall not be his wife.
[poor;
France. Fairest Cordelia, that art most rich, being
Most choice, forsaken; and most lov'd, despis'd!
Thee and thy virtues here I seize upon:
Be it lawful, I take up what 's cast away.
Gods, gods! 't is strange, that from their cold'st
neglect

My love should kindle to inflam'd 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
Cun buy this unpriz'd 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
Have no such daughter, nor shall ever see
That face of hers again :-Therefore be gone,
Without our grace, our love, our benizon.
Come, noble Burgundy.

[we

[Flourish. Exeunt Lear, Burgundy, Cornwall, Albany, Gloster, and Attendants. France. Bid farewell to your sisters.

Cor. The jewels of our father, with wash'd eyes
Cordelia leaves you: I know you what you are;
And, like a sister, am most loath to call'

Your faults as they are nam'd. Love well our
To your professed bosoms I commit him: [father:
But yet, alas! stood I within his grace,

I would prefer him to a better place.
So farewell to you both.

Reg. Prescribe not us our duties.
Gon.

Let your study

Be, to content your lord; who hath receiv'd you
At fortune's alms. You have obedience scanted,
And well are worth the want that you have wanted.
Cor. Time shall unfold what plighted cunning
hides;

Who covers faults at last with shame derides.
Well may you prosper!
France.

Come, my fair Cordelia.
[Exeunt France and Cordelia.
Gon. Sister, it is not little I have to say, of what
most nearly appertains to us both. I think our
father will hence to-night.

Reg. That 's most certain, and with you; next month with us.

Gon. You see how full of changes his age is; the observation we have made of it hath not been little : he always loved our sister most; and with what poor judgment he hath now cast her off appears too grossly.

Reg. 'T is the infirmity of his age: yet he hath ever but slenderly known himself.

Gon. The best and soundest of his time hath been but rash: then must we look from his age to receive not alone the imperfections of long-engraffed condition, but, therewithal, the unruly waywardness that infirm and choleric years bring with them.

Reg. Such unconstant starts are we like to have from him, as this of Kent's banishment.

Gon. There is further compliment of leave-taking between France and him. Pray you, let us sit together: if our father carry authority with such dispositions as he bears, this last surrender of his will but offend us.

Reg. We shall further think of it.

Gon. We must do something, and i' the heat. [Exe,

SCENE II.-A Hall in the Earl of Gloster's Castle.
Enter Edmund, with a letter.

Edm. Thou, nature, art my goddess; to thy law
My services are bound: Wherefore should I
Stand in the plague of custom; and permit
The curiosity of nations to deprive me,
For that I am some twelve or fourteen moonshines
Lag of a brother? Why bastard? Wherefore base?
When my dimensions are as well compact,
My mind as generous, and my shape as true,
As honest madam's issue? Why brand they us
With base? with baseness? bastardy? base, base?
Who, in the lusty stealth of nature, take
More composition and fierce quality,
Than doth, within a dull, stale, tired bed,
Go to the creating a whole tribe of fops,
Got 'tween asleep and wake?-Well, then,
Legitimate Edgar, I must have your land:
Our father's love is to the bastard Edmund,
As to the legitimate: Fine word,-legitimate!
Well, my legitimate, if this letter speed,
And my invention thrive, Edmund' the base
Shall top the legitimate. I grow; I prosper :-
Now, gods, stand up for bastards!

Enter Gloster.

Glo. Kent banish'd thus! and France in choler
parted!

And the king gone to-night! prescrib'd his power!
Confin'd to exhibition! All this done
Upon the gadEdmund! How now; what
Edm. So please your lordship, none.

Edm. I do not well know, my lord. If it shall please you to suspend your indignation against my brother, till you can derive from him better testimony of his intent, you should run a certain course; where, if you violently proceed against him, mistaking his purpose, it would make a great gap in your own honour, and shake in pieces the heart of his obedihath writ this to feel my affection to your honour, ence. I dare pawn down my life for him, that he and to no other pretence of danger. Glo. Think you so!

Edm. If your honour judge it meet, I will place you where you shall hear us confer of this, and by an auricular assurance have your satisfaction; and that without any further delay than this very evening. Glo. He cannot be such a monster.

Edm. Nor is not, sure.

Glo. To his father, that so tenderly and entirely loves him.-Heaven and earth 1-Edmund, seek him out; wind me into him, I pray you; frame the business after your own wisdom: I would unstate myself, to be in a due resolution.

Edm. I will seek him, sir, presently; convey the business as I shall find means, and acquaint you withal.

Glo. These late eclipses in the sun and moon portend no good to us: Though the wisdom of nature can reason it thus and thus, yet nature finds itself scourged by the sequent effects: love cools, friendship falls off, brothers divide: in cities, mutinies; in countries, discord; in palaces, treason; and the [news? bond cracked 'twixt son and father. This villain of [Putting up the letter. mine comes under the prediction; there 's son up that against father: the king falls from bias of nature; [letter? there's father against child. We have seen the best of our time: Machinations, hollowness, treachery, and all ruinous disorders, follow us disquietly to our graves! Find out this villain, Edmund; it shall lose thee nothing; do it carefully:-And the noble and true-hearted Kent banished! his offence, honesty! -T is strange! [Exit.

Glo. Why so earnestly seek you to put
Edm. I know no news, my lord.
Glo. What paper were you reading?
Edm. Nothing, my lord.

Glo. No? what needed then that terrible despatch of it into your pocket? the quality of nothing hath not such need to hide itself. Let's see: Come, if it be nothing, I shall not need spectacles.

Edm. I beseech you, sir, pardon me: it is a letter from my brother, that I have not all o'er-read: and for so much as I have perused, I find it not fit for your o'er-looking. Glo. Give me the letter, sir. Edm. I shall offend, either to detain or give it. The contents, as in part I understand them, are to blame. Glo. Let's see, let's see.

Edm. This is the excellent foppery of the world! that, when we are sick in fortune, (often the surfeit of our own behaviour,) we make guilty of our disasters the sun, the moon, and stars: as if we were villains on necessity; fools by heavenly compulsion; knaves, thieves, and treachers, by spherical predominance; drunkards, liars, and adulterers, by an Edm. I hope, for my brother's justification, he enforced obedience of planetary influence; and all wrote this but as an essay or taste of my virtue. that we are evil in, by a divine thrusting on: An adGlo. [Reads.] This policy, and reverence of age, mirable evasion of whoremaster man, to lay his goatmakes the world bitter to the best of our times; ish disposition on the charge of a star! My father keeps our fortunes from us, till our oldness cannot compounded with my mother under the dragon's relish them. I begin to find an idle and fond bond-tail; and my nativity was under ursa major: so age in the oppression of aged tyranny; who sways, that it follows, I am rough and lecherous.-I should not as it hath power, but as it is suffered. Come to have been that I am, had the maidenliest star in the me, that of this I may speak more. If our father firmament twinkled on my bastardizing. would sleep till I waked him, you should enjoy half his revenue for ever, and live the beloved of your brother, Edgar.'

My son Edgar! Had he a hand to write this? a heart and brain to breed it in? When came you to this? Who brought it?

Edm. It was not brought me, my lord; there's the cunning of it: I found it thrown in at the casement of my closet.

Glo. You know the character to be your brother's? Edm. If the matter were good, my lord, I durst swear it were his; but, in respect of that, I would fain think it were not. Glo. It is his.

Edm. It is his hand, my lord; but I hope his heart is not in the contents. [business? Glo. Hath he never heretofore sounded you in this Edm. Never, my lord: But I have heard him oft maintain it to be fit, that, sons at perfect age, and fathers declined, the father should be as ward to the son, and the son manage his revenue.

Glo. O villain, villain His very opinion in the letter-Abhorred villain! Unnatural, detested, brutish villain worse than brutish 1-Go, sirrah, seek him; I'll apprehend him:-Abominable villain -Where

is he?

Enter Edgar.

Pat: he comes like the catastrophe of the old comedy: My cue is villainous melancholy, with a sigh like Tom o' Bedlam.-O, these eclipses do portend these divisions! fa, sol, la, mi.

Edg. How now, brother Edmund? What serious contemplation are you in?

Edm. I am thinking, brother, of a prediction I read
this other day, what should follow these eclipses.
Edg. Do you busy yourself with that?
Edm. I promise you, the effects he writes of suc-
ceed unhappily; as of unnaturalness between the
child and the parent; death, dearth, dissolutions of
ancient amities; divisions in state, menaces and
maledictions against king and nobles; needless dif-
fidences, banishment of friends, dissipation of co-
horts, nuptial breaches, and I know not what.
Edg. How long have you been a sectary astro-
nomical?

Edm. Come, come; when saw you my father last!
Edg. The night gone by.
Edm. Spake you with him?
Edg. Ay, two hours together.
Edm. Parted you in good terms? Found you no
displeasure in him, by word, or countenance?
Edg. None at all.

Edm. Bethink yourself wherein you may have offended him: and at my entreaty forbear his

presence, till some little time hath qualified the for a king, thou art poor enough. What would'st heat of his displeasure; which at this instant so thou? Kent. Service. rageth in him, that with the mischief of your person it would scarcely allay.

Edg. Some villain hath done me wrong. Edm. That 's my fear. I pray you have a continent forbearance, till the speed of his rage goes slower; and, as I say, retire with me to my Fodging, from whence I will fitly bring you to hear my lord speak: Pray you, go; there's my key:-If you do stir abroad go armed.

Edm. Brother, I advise you to the best. I am no honest man if there be any good meaning toward you: I have told you what I have seen and heard, but faintly; nothing like the image and horror of it: Pray you, away.

Edg. Shall I hear from you anon?

Edm. I do serve you in this business.- [Ex. Edg. yet.-Dinner, hoa, dinner.- Where's my knave!
A credulous father, and a brother noble,
Whose nature is so far from doing harms

O, you sir, you, come you hither, sir: Who am I,
Stew. My lady's father.
Lear. My lady's father! my lord's knave: you
[sir?
whoreson dog! you slave! you cur! [pardon.
Stew. I am none of these, my lord: I beseech your
Lear. Do you bandy looks with me, you rascal?
[Striking him.

Stew. I'll not be strucken, my lord.
Kent. Nor tripped neither; you base foot-bali
player.
[Tripping up his heels.
Lear. I thank thee, fellow; thou serv'st me, and
I'll love thee.

Kent. Come, sir, arise, away; I'll teach you dif-
ferences; away, away: If you will measure your
lubber's length again, tarry: but away: go to; Have
you wisdom? so.
[Pushes the Steward out.
Lear. Now, my friendly knave, I thank thee: there's
earnest of thy service.
(Giving Kent money

Enter Fool.
Fool. Let me hire him, too;-Here's my coxcomb.
[Giving Kent his cap.
Lear. How now, my pretty knave? How dost thou ?
Fool. Sirrah, you were best take my coxcomb.
Kent. Why, fool?

Fool. Why? For taking one's part that 's out of favour: Nay, an thou canst not smile as the wind sits, thou 'lt catch cold shortly: There, take my coxcomb: Why, this fellow has banish'd two of his daughters, and did the third a blessing against his will; if thou follow him, thou must needs wear my