King Lear - William Shakespeare (electronic reader txt) 📗

any:

It pleas’d the king his master very late

To strike at me, upon his misconstruction;

When he, compact, and flattering his displeasure,

Tripp’d me behind; being down, insulted, rail’d

And put upon him such a deal of man,

That worthied him, got praises of the king

For him attempting who was self-subdu’d;

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.

 

Corn.

Fetch forth the stocks!—

You stubborn ancient knave, you reverent 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.

 

Corn.

Fetch forth the stocks!—As I have life and honour,

there shall he sit till noon.

 

Reg.

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.

 

Reg.

Sir, being his knave, I will.

 

Corn.

This is a fellow of the selfsame colour

Our sister speaks of.—Come, bring away the stocks!

 

[Stocks brought out.]

 

Glou.

Let me beseech your grace not to do so:

His fault is much, and the good king his master

Will check him for’t: your purpos’d low correction

Is such as basest and contemned’st wretches

For pilferings and most common trespasses,

Are punish’d with: the king must take it ill

That he, so slightly valu’d in his messenger,

Should have him thus restrain’d.

 

Corn.

I’ll answer that.

 

Reg.

My sister may receive it much more worse,

To have her gentleman abus’d, assaulted,

For following her affairs.—Put in his legs.—

 

[Kent is put in the stocks.]

 

Come, my good lord, away.

 

[Exeunt all but Gloster and Kent.]

 

Glou.

I am sorry for thee, friend; ‘tis the duke’s pleasure,

Whose disposition, all the world well knows,

Will not be rubb’d nor stopp’d; I’ll entreat for thee.

 

Kent.

Pray do not, sir: I have watch’d, and travell’d 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!

 

Glou.

The duke’s to blame in this: ‘twill be ill taken.

 

[Exit.]

 

Kent.

Good king, that must approve the common saw,—

Thou out of heaven’s benediction com’st

To the warm sun!

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 most fortunately been inform’d

Of my obscured course; and shall find time

From this enormous state,—seeking to give

Losses their remedies,—All weary and o’erwatch’d,

Take vantage, heavy eyes, not to behold

This shameful lodging.

Fortune, good night: smile once more, turn thy wheel!

 

[He sleeps.]

 

Scene III. The open Country.

 

[Enter Edgar.]

 

Edg.

I heard myself proclaim’d;

And by the happy hollow of a tree

Escap’d the hunt. No port is free; no place

That guard and most unusual vigilance

Does not attend my taking. While 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 hair 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 numb’d and mortified bare 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 Turlygod! poor Tom!

That’s something yet:—Edgar I nothing am.

 

[Exit.]

 

Scene IV. Before Gloster’s Castle; Kent in the stocks.

 

[Enter Lear, Fool, and Gentleman.]

 

Lear.

‘Tis strange that they should so depart from home,

And not send back my messenger.

 

Gent.

As I learn’d,

The night before there was no purpose in them

Of this remove.

 

Kent.

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

head; dogs and bears by the neck, monkeys by the loins, and

men by the legs: when a man is over-lusty at legs, then he

wears wooden nether-stocks.

 

Lear.

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.

No.

 

Kent.

Yes.

 

Lear.

No, I say.

 

Kent.

I say, yea.

 

Lear.

No, no; they would not.

 

Kent.

Yes, they have.

 

Lear.

By Jupiter, I swear no.

 

Kent.

By Juno, I swear ay.

 

Lear.

They durst not do’t.

They would not, could 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 show’d

My duty kneeling, came there a reeking post,

Stew’d in his haste, half breathless, panting forth

From Goneril his mistress salutations;

Deliver’d letters, spite of intermission,

Which presently they read: on whose contents,

They summon’d 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 perceiv’d had poison’d mine,—

Being the very fellow which of late

Display’d so saucily against your highness,—

Having more man than wit about me, drew:

He rais’d 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.

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!

Hysterica passio,—down, thou climbing sorrow,

Thy element’s below!—Where is this daughter?

 

Kent.

With the earl, sir, here within.

 

Lear.

Follow me not;

Stay here.

 

[Exit.]

 

Gent.

Made you no more offence but what you speak of?

 

Kent.

None.

How chance the king comes with so small a number?

 

Fool.

An thou hadst been set i’ the stocks for that question,

thou hadst well deserved it.

 

Kent.

Why, fool?

 

Fool.

We’ll set thee to school to an ant, to teach thee there’s no

labouring in the winter. All that follow their noses are led by

their eyes but blind men; and there’s not a nose among twenty

but can smell him that’s stinking. Let go thy hold when a great

wheel runs down a hill, lest it break thy neck with following

it; but the great one that goes up the hill, let him draw thee

after.

When a wise man gives thee better counsel, give me mine again: I

would have none but knaves follow it, since a fool gives it.

That sir which serves and seeks for gain,

And follows but for form,

Will pack when it begins to rain,

And leave thee in the storm.

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, perdy.

 

Kent.

Where learn’d you this, fool?

 

Fool.

Not i’ the stocks, fool.

 

[Re-enter Lear, with Gloster.]

 

Lear.

Deny to speak with me? They are sick? they are weary?

They have travell’d all the night? Mere fetches;

The images of revolt and flying off.

Fetch me a better answer.

 

Glou.

My dear lord,

You know the fiery quality of the duke;

How unremovable and fix’d he is

In his own course.

 

Lear.

Vengeance! plague! death! confusion!—

Fiery? What quality? why, Gloster, Gloster,

I’d speak with the Duke of Cornwall and his wife.

 

Glou.

Well, my good lord, I have inform’d them so.

 

Lear.

Inform’d them! Dost thou understand me, man?

 

Glou.

Ay, my good lord.

 

Lear.

The King would speak with Cornwall; the dear father

Would with his daughter speak, commands her service:

Are they inform’d of this?—My breath and blood!—

Fiery? the fiery duke?—Tell the hot duke that—

No, but not yet: may be he is not well:

Infirmity doth still neglect all office

Whereto our health is bound: we are not ourselves

When nature, being oppress’d, commands the mind

To suffer with the body: I’ll forbear;

And am fallen out with my more headier will,

To take the indispos’d and sickly fit

For the sound man.—Death on my state! Wherefore

[Looking on Kent.]

Should he sit here? This act persuades me

That this remotion of the duke and her

Is practice only. Give me my servant forth.

Go tell the duke and’s wife I’d 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.’

 

Glou.

I would have all well betwixt you.

 

[Exit.]

 

Lear.

O me, my heart, my rising heart!—but down!

 

Fool.

Cry to it, nuncle, as the cockney did to the eels when she

put ‘em i’ the paste alive; she knapped ‘em o’ the coxcombs with

a stick and cried ‘Down, wantons, down!’ ‘Twas her brother that,

in pure kindness to his horse, buttered his hay.

 

[Enter Cornwall, Regan, Gloster, and Servants.]

 

Lear.

Good-morrow to you both.

 

Corn.

Hail to your grace!

 

[Kent is set at liberty.]

 

Reg.

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 tomb,

Sepulchring an adultress.—[To Kent] O, are you free?

Some other time for that.—Beloved Regan,

Thy sister’s naught: O Regan, she hath tied

Sharp-tooth’d unkindness, like a vulture, here,—

[Points to his heart.]

I can scarce speak to thee; thou’lt not believe

With how deprav’d a quality—O Regan!

 

Reg.

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

You less know how to value her desert

Than she to scant her duty.

 

Lear.

Say, how is that?

 

Reg.

I cannot think my sister in the least

Would fail her obligation: if, sir, perchance

She have restrain’d the riots of your followers,

‘Tis on such ground, and to such wholesome end,

As clears her from all blame.

 

Lear.

My curses on her!

 

Reg.

O, sir, you are old;

Nature in you stands on the very verge

Of her confine: you should be rul’d and led

By some discretion, that discerns your state

Better than you yourself. Therefore, I pray you,

That to our sister you do make return;

Say you have wrong’d her, sir.

 

Lear.

Ask her forgiveness?

Do you but mark how this becomes the house:

‘Dear daughter, I confess that I am old;

[Kneeling.]

Age is unnecessary: on my knees I beg

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

 

Reg.

Good sir, no more! These are unsightly tricks:

Return you to my sister.

 

Lear.

[Rising.] Never, Regan:

She hath abated me of half my train;

Look’d black upon me; struck me with her tongue,