King Lear (6 page)

The gods to their dear shelter take thee, maid,

That justly think’st, and hast most rightly said.—

And
your large speeches may your deeds approve
¹⁹⁰
,

That good effects may spring from words of love.

Thus Kent, O princes, bids you all adieu.

He’ll
shape his old course
¹⁹³
in a country new.

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
¹⁹⁷

Will you require in
present dower
¹⁹⁸
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
²⁰²
less.

LEAR
    Right noble Burgundy,

When she was dear to us, we did
hold her so
²⁰⁴
,

But now her price is fallen. Sir, there she stands:

If
aught
within that
little seeming substance
²⁰⁶
,

Or all of it, with our displeasure
pieced
²⁰⁷
,

And nothing more, may
fitly like
²⁰⁸
your grace,

She’s there, and she is yours.

BURGUNDY
    I know no answer.

LEAR
    Will you, with those
infirmities
she
owes
²¹¹
,

Unfriended, new-adopted to our hate,

Dowered with
our curse and
strangered
²¹³
with our oath,

Take her or leave her?

BURGUNDY
    Pardon me, royal sir:

Election makes not up
²¹⁶
in such conditions.

LEAR
    Then leave her, sir, for by the power that made me,

I
tell you
²¹⁸
all her wealth.— For you, great king,

I would not
from your love make such a stray
²¹⁹

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 object
²²⁵
,

The
argument
of your praise,
balm
²²⁶
of your age,

The best, the dearest, should in this
trice
²²⁷
of time

Commit a thing so
monstrous
to
dismantle
²²⁸

So many folds of favour. Sure her offence

Must be of such unnatural degree

That
monsters it
, or your
fore-vouched
²³¹
affection

Fall into taint
,
which to believe of her
²³²

Must be a faith that reason without miracle

Should never plant in me.

CORDELIA
    I yet beseech your majesty —

If
for
I
want
²³⁶
that glib and oily art

To speak and
purpose not
²³⁷
, since what I will intend

I’ll do’t before I speak — that you make known

It is no vicious blot, murder, or
foulness
²³⁹
,

No unchaste action or dishonoured step

That hath deprived me of your grace and favour,

But even for want of that
for which
²⁴²
I am richer:

A
still-soliciting
²⁴³
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
²⁴⁸
,

Which often leaves the
history
²⁴⁹
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
²⁵²

Aloof from th’entire point. Will you have her?

She is herself a dowry.

BURGUNDY
    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
    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
²⁶³
are his love,

I shall not be his wife.

FRANCE
    Fairest Cordelia, that art most rich being poor,

Most choice forsaken
²⁶⁶
, and most loved despised,

Thee and thy virtues here I
seize upon
²⁶⁷
:

Be it lawful
²⁶⁸
, I take up what’s cast away.

Gods, gods! ’Tis strange that from
their
²⁶⁹
cold’st neglect

My love should kindle to
inflamed
²⁷⁰
respect.—

Thy dowerless daughter, king,
thrown to my chance
²⁷¹
,

Is queen of us, of ours and our fair France:

Not all the dukes of
wat’rish
²⁷³
Burgundy

Can buy this
unprized
²⁷⁴
precious maid of me.—

Bid them farewell, Cordelia,
though unkind
²⁷⁵
.

Thou losest here, a better
where
²⁷⁶
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
²⁸⁰
.

Come, noble Burgundy.

FRANCE
    Bid farewell to your sisters.

CORDELIA
    The jewels of our father, with
washèd
²⁸³
eyes

Cordelia leaves you. I know you what you are,

And like a sister am most loath to call

Your faults
as they are named
²⁸⁶
. Love well our father:

To
your professèd bosoms
I
commit
²⁸⁷
him,

But yet, alas, stood I within his grace,

I would
prefer
²⁸⁹
him to a better place.

So farewell to you both.

REGAN
    Prescribe not us our duty.

GONERIL
    Let your
study
²⁹²

Be to content your lord who hath received you

At fortune’s alms
. You have obedience
scanted
²⁹⁴
,

And well
are worth the want that you have wanted
²⁹⁵
.

CORDELIA
    Time shall unfold what
plighted cunning
²⁹⁶
hides:

Who covers faults, at last with shame derides
²⁹⁷
.

Well may you prosper.

FRANCE
    Come, my fair Cordelia.

GONERIL
    Sister, it is not little I have to say of what most
nearly
³⁰⁰

appertains to us both. I think our father will hence tonight.

REGAN
    That’s most certain, and with you: next month with

us.

GONERIL
    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 judgement

he hath now cast her off appears too
grossly
³⁰⁷
.

REGAN
    ’Tis the infirmity of his age: yet he hath
ever
³⁰⁸
but

slenderly
³⁰⁹
known himself.

GONERIL
    
The best and soundest of his time hath been but
³¹⁰

rash. Then must we
look
³¹¹
from his age to receive not alone the

imperfections of
long-engrafted condition
, but
therewithal
³¹²

the unruly waywardness that infirm and
choleric
³¹³
years

bring with them.

REGAN
    Such
unconstant starts
³¹⁵
are we like to have from him

as this of Kent’s banishment.

GONERIL
    There is further
compliment
³¹⁷
of leave-taking

between France and him. Pray you let us
sit together
³¹⁸
: if our

father
carry
authority with such
disposition
³¹⁹
as he bears, this

last surrender
of his will but
offend
³²⁰
us.

REGAN
We shall further think of it.

GONERIL
    We must do something, and
i’th’heat
³²²
.

Exeunt

EDMUND
    Thou, nature, art my goddess: to thy law

My services are bound.
Wherefore
²
should I

Stand in
³
the plague of custom and permit

The
curiosity
of
nations
⁴
to deprive me

For that I am some twelve or fourteen
moonshines
⁵

Lag of
a brother? Why bastard? Wherefore
base
⁶
?

When my
dimensions
are as well
compact
⁷
,

My mind as
generous
, and my shape as
true
⁸
,

As
honest madam’s issue
⁹
? Why brand they us

With base? With baseness? Bastardy? Base, base?

Who
in the lusty stealth of nature
take
¹¹

More composition and fierce quality
¹²

Than doth within a dull, stale, tirèd bed,

Go to th’creating a whole tribe of
fops
¹⁴

Got
¹⁵
’tween a sleep and wake? Well then,

Legitimate Edgar, I must have your land:

Our father’s love is to the bastard Edmund

As
¹⁸
to th’legitimate — fine word, ‘legitimate’ —

Well, my legitimate, if this letter
speed
¹⁹

And my
invention
²⁰
thrive, Edmund the base

Shall
to th’legitimate
²¹
. I grow, I prosper:

Now, gods, stand up for bastards!

GLOUCESTER
    Kent banished thus? And France in
choler
parted
²³
?

And the king gone tonight?
Prescribed
²⁴
his power,

Confined to
exhibition
²⁵
? All this done

Upon the
gad
²⁶
? Edmund, how now? What news?

EDMUND
    So please your lordship, none.

GLOUCESTER
    Why so earnestly seek you to put
up
²⁸
that letter?

EDMUND
    I know no news, my lord.

GLOUCESTER
    What paper were you reading?

EDMUND
    Nothing, my lord.

GLOUCESTER
    No? What needed, then, that
terrible dispatch
³²
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.

EDMUND
    I beseech you, sir, pardon me: it is a letter from my

brother that I have not all o’er-read; and
for
³⁷
so much as I

have perused, I find it not fit for your
o’erlooking
³⁸
.

GLOUCESTER
    Give me the letter, sir.

EDMUND
    I shall offend either to detain or give it: the contents,

as in part I understand them, are to blame.

GLOUCESTER
    Let’s see, let’s see.

EDMUND
    I hope for my brother’s justification he wrote this

but as an
essay or taste
⁴⁴
of my virtue.

GLOUCESTER
    
Reads
‘This
policy and reverence of age
⁴⁵
makes the

world bitter to
the best of our times
, keeps our
fortunes
⁴⁶
from

us till our oldness cannot
relish
them. I begin to find an
idle
⁴⁷

and
fond
⁴⁸
bondage in the oppression of aged tyranny, who

sways
, not
as it hath power, but as it is suffered
⁴⁹
. Come to me,

that of this I may speak more. If our father would sleep till I

waked him, you should enjoy half his revenue for ever and

live the beloved of your brother, Edgar.’

Hum! Conspiracy! ‘Sleep till I wake him, you should enjoy

half his revenue.’ 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?

EDMUND
    It was not brought me, my lord; there’s the cunning

of it: I found it thrown in at the
casement
of my
closet
⁵⁸
.

GLOUCESTER
    You know the
character
⁵⁹
to be your brother’s?

EDMUND
    If the
matter
⁶⁰
were good, my lord, I durst swear it

were his, but
in respect of that
I would
fain
⁶¹
think it were not.

GLOUCESTER
    It is his.

EDMUND
    It is his hand, my lord, but I hope his heart is not in

the contents.

GLOUCESTER
    Has he never before sounded you in this business?

EDMUND
    Never, my lord: but I have heard him oft maintain it

to be fit that, sons
at perfect age
and fathers
declined
⁶⁷
, the

father should be as ward to the son, and the son manage his

revenue.

GLOUCESTER
    O villain, villain! His very opinion in the letter!

Abhorred villain! Unnatural, detested, brutish villain! Worse

than brutish! Go,
sirrah
, seek him: I’ll
apprehend
⁷²
him.

Abominable
⁷³
villain, where is he?

EDMUND
    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
⁷⁷
against

him, mistaking his purpose, it would make a great gap in

your own honour and shake in pieces the heart of his

obedience. I dare
pawn down
⁸⁰
my life for him, that he hath

writ this to
feel
⁸¹
my affection to your honour, and to no other

pretence
⁸²
of danger.

GLOUCESTER
    Think you so?

EDMUND
    If your honour judge it
meet
⁸⁴
, I will place you where

you shall hear us confer of this, and by an
auricular
⁸⁵

assurance
have your satisfaction
⁸⁶
, and that without any

further delay than this very evening.

GLOUCESTER
    He cannot be such a monster. Edmund, seek him

out:
wind me into him
, I pray you:
frame
⁸⁹
the business after

your own wisdom. I would
unstate myself to be in a due
⁹⁰

resolution.

EDMUND
    I will seek him, sir,
presently
:
convey
⁹²
the business as

I shall find means and acquaint you
withal
⁹³
.

GLOUCESTER
    These
late
⁹⁴
eclipses in the sun and moon portend no

good to us: though the
wisdom of nature
⁹⁵
can reason it thus

and thus, yet nature finds itself
scourged
by the
sequent
⁹⁶

effects: love cools, friendship falls off, brothers divide: in

cities, mutinies; in countries, discord; in palaces, treason;

and the bond cracked ’twixt son and father. This villain of

mine comes under the prediction: there’s son against father.

The king falls from
bias of nature
¹⁰¹
: 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
¹⁰⁴

shall lose thee nothing. Do it carefully.— And the noble and

true-hearted Kent banished! His offence, honesty! ’Tis

strange.