William Shakespeare: The Complete Works 2nd Edition (419 page)

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Authors: William Shakespeare

Tags: #Drama, #Literary Criticism, #Shakespeare

BOOK: William Shakespeare: The Complete Works 2nd Edition
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EDGAR This is the foul fiend Flibbertigibbet. He begins at curfew and walks till the first cock. He gives the web and the pin, squinies the eye, and makes the harelip; mildews the white wheat, and hurts the poor creature of earth.
⌈
Sings
⌉
Swithin footed thrice the wold,
A met the night mare and her nine foal;
Bid her alight
And her troth plight,
And aroint thee, witch, aroint thee!
 
KENT (
to Lear
)
How fares your grace?
LEAR What’s he?
KENT (
to Gloucester
) Who’s there? What is’t you seek?
GLOUCESTER What are you there? Your names?
EDGAR Poor Tom, that eats the swimming frog, the toad, the tadpole, the wall-newt and the water; that in the fury of his heart, when the foul fiend rages, eats cowdung for salads, swallows the old rat and the ditch-dog, drinks the green mantle of the standing pool; who is whipped from tithing to tithing, and stock-punished, and imprisoned; who hath had three suits to his back, six shirts to his body,
Horse to ride, and weapon to wear.
But mice and rats and such small deer
Hath been Tom’s food for seven long year-
Beware my follower. Peace, Smolking; peace, thou
fiend!
GLOUCESTER (
to
Lear
)
What, hath your grace no better company?
EDGAR
The Prince of Darkness is a gentleman;
Modo he’s called, and Mahu—
GLOUCESTER
(to Lear
)
Our flesh and blood is grown so vile, my lord,
That it doth hate what gets it.
EDGAR Poor Tom’s a-cold.
GLOUCESTER (to Lear)
Go in with me. My duty cannot suffer
To obey in all your daughters’ hard commands.
Though their injunction be to bar my doors
And let this tyrannous night take hold upon you,
Yet have I ventured to come seek you out
And bring you where both food and fire is ready.
LEAR
First let me talk with this philosopher.
(
To Edgar
) What is the cause of thunder?
KENT My good lord,
Take his offer; go into the house.
LEAR
I’ll talk a word with this most learnèd Theban.
(
To Edgar
) What is your study?
EDGAR
How to prevent the fiend, and to kill vermin.
LEAR
Let me ask you one word in private.
They converse apart
 
KENT (
to Gloucester
)
Importune him to go, my lord.
His wits begin to unsettle.
GLOUCESTER Canst thou blame him?
His daughters seek his death. O, that good Kent,
He said it would be thus, poor banished man!
Thou sayst the King grows mad; I’ll tell thee, friend,
I am almost mad myself. I had a son,
Now outlawed from my blood; a sought my life
But lately, very late. I loved him, friend;
No father his son dearer. True to tell thee,
The grief hath crazed my wits. What a night’s this!
(
To Lear
) I do beseech your grace—
LEAR O, cry you mercy.
(
To Edgar
) Noble philosopher, your company.
EDGAR Tom’s a-cold.
GLOUCESTER
In, fellow, there in t’hovel; keep thee warm.
LEAR
Come, let’s in all.
KENT This way, my lord.
LEAR With him!
I will keep still with my philosopher.
KENT (
to Gloucester
)
Good my lord, soothe him; let him take the fellow.
GLOUCESTER Take him you on.
KENT ⌈
to Edgar
⌉
Sirrah, come on. Go along with us.
LEAR (
to Edgar
)
Come, good Athenian.
GLOUCESTER No words, no words. Hush.
EDGAR Child Roland to the dark tower come, His word was still ‘Fie, fo, and fum; I smell the blood of a British man.’
Exeunt
Sc. 12
Enter the Duke of Cornwall and Edmund the bastard
 
CORNWALL I will have my revenge ere I depart the house. EDMUND How, my lord, I may be censured, that nature thus gives way to loyalty, something fears me to think of.
CORNWALL I now perceive it was not altogether your brother’s evil disposition made him seek his death, but a provoking merit set a-work by a reprovable badness in himself.
EDMUND How malicious is my fortune, that I must repent to be just! This is the letter he spoke of, which approves him an intelligent party to the advantages of France. O heavens, that his treason were not, or not I the detector!
CORNWALL Go with me to the Duchess.
EDMUND If the matter of this paper be certain, you have mighty business in hand.
CORNWALL True or false, it hath made thee Earl of Gloucester. Seek out where thy father is, that he may be ready for our apprehension.
EDMUND ⌈
aside
⌉ If I find him comforting the King, it will stuff his suspicion more fully. (To Cornwall) I will persever in my course of loyalty, though the conflict be sore between that and my blood.
CORNWALL I will lay trust upon thee, and thou shalt find a dearer father in my love. Exeunt
Sc. 13
Enter the Duke of Gloucester and King Lear, the Earl of Kent disguised, Lear’s Fool, and Edgar as a Bedlam beggar
 
GLOUCESTER Here is better than the open air; take it thankfully. I will piece out the comfort with what addition I can. I will not be long from you.
KENT All the power of his wits have given way to impatience; the gods discern your kindness! ⌈
Exit Gloucester
⌉
EDGAR Frateretto calls me, and tells me Nero is an angler in the lake of darkness. Pray, innocent; beware the foul fiend.
FOOL (to Lear) Prithee, nuncle, tell me whether a madman be a gentleman or a yeoman.
LEAR
A king, a king! To have a thousand With red burning spits come hissing in upon them!
EDGAR The foul fiend bites my back.
FOOL (to Lear) He’s mad that trusts in the tameness of a wolf, a horse’s health, a boy’s love, or a whore’s oath.
LEAR
It shall be done. I will arraign them straight.
⌈
To Edgar
⌉ Come, sit thou here, most learned justicer.
⌈
To Fool
⌉ Thou sapient sir, sit here.—No, you she-
foxes—
EDGAR Look where he stands and glares. Want’st thou eyes at troll-madam?
⌈
Sings
⌉ Come o’er the burn, Bessy, to me.
FOOL ⌈
sings
⌉
Her boat hath a leak,
And she must not speak
Why she dares not come over to thee.
EDGAR The foul fiend haunts Poor Tom in the voice of a nightingale. Hoppedance cries in Tom’s belly for two white herring. Croak not, black angel: I have no food for thee.
KENT (to
Lear
)
How do you, sir? Stand you not so amazed.
Will you lie down and rest upon the cushions?
LEAR
I’ll see their trial first. Bring in the evidence.
⌈
To Edgar
⌉ Thou robed man of justice, take thy place;
⌈
To Fool
⌉ And thou, his yokefellow of equity,
Bench by his side. ⌈
To Kent
⌉ You are o’th’
commission,
Sit you, too.
EDGAR Let us deal justly.
⌈
Sings
⌉
Sleepest or wakest thou, jolly shepherd?
Thy sheep be in the corn,
And for one blast of thy minikin mouth
Thy sheep shall take no harm.
Purr, the cat is grey.
LEAR Arraign her first. ’Tis Gonoril. I here take my oath before this honourable assembly she kicked the poor King her father.
FOOL Come hither, mistress. Is your name Gonoril?
LEAR She cannot deny it.
FOOL Cry you mercy, I took you for a join-stool.
LEAR
And here’s another, whose warped looks proclaim
What store her heart is made on. Stop her there.
Arms, arms, sword, fire, corruption in the place!
False justicer, why hast thou let her scape?
EDGAR Bless thy five wits.
KENT (to
Lear
)
O pity! Sir, where is the patience now
That you so oft have boasted to retain?
EDGAR (aside)
My tears begin to take his part so much
They’ll mar my counterfeiting.
LEAR The little dogs and all,
Tray, Blanch, and Sweetheart—see, they bark at me.
EDGAR Tom will throw his head at them.—Avaunt, you curs!
Be thy mouth or black or white,
Tooth that poisons if it bite,
Mastiff, greyhound, mongrel grim,
Hound or spaniel, brach or him,
Bobtail tyke or trundle-tail,
Tom will make them weep and wail;
For with throwing thus my head,
Dogs leap the hatch, and all are fled.
Loudla, doodla! Come, march to wakes and fairs
And market towns. Poor Tom, thy horn is dry.
LEAR Then let them anatomize Regan; see what breeds about her heart. Is there any cause in nature that makes this hardness? (To Edgar) You, sir, I entertain you for one of my hundred, only I do not like the fashion of your garments. You’ll say they are Persian attire; but let them be changed.
KENT
Now, good my lord, lie here a while.
LEAR Make no noise, make no noise. Draw the curtains.
So, so, so. We’ll go to supper i’th’ morning. So, so, so.
He sleeps. Enter the Duke of Gloucester
 
GLOUCESTER (to Kent)
Come hither, friend. Where is the King my master?
KENT
Here, sir, but trouble him not; his wits are gone.
GLOUCESTER
Good friend, I prithee take him in thy arms.
I have o’erheard a plot of death upon him.
There is a litter ready. Lay him in’t
And drive towards Dover, friend, where thou shalt meet
Both welcome and protection. Take up thy master.
If thou shouldst dally half an hour, his life,
With thine and all that offer to defend him,
Stand in assured loss. Take up, take up,
And follow me, that will to some provision
Give thee quick conduct.
KENT (to Lear) Oppressed nature sleeps.
This rest might yet have balmed thy broken sinews
Which, if convenience will not allow,
Stand in hard cure. (To Fool) Come, help to bear thy
master.
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‘th’ mind,
Leaving free things and happy shows behind.
But then the mind much sufferance doth o’erskip
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 fathered. Tom, away.
Mark the high noises, and thyself bewray
When false opinion, whose wrong thoughts defile thee,
In thy just proof repeals and reconciles thee.
What will hap more tonight, safe scape the King!
Lurk, lurk.
Exit
Sc. 14
Enter the Duke of Cornwall and Regan, and Gonoril and Edmund the bastard, and Servants
 
CORNWALL (
to Gonoril
)
Post speedily to my lord your husband.
Show him this letter. The army of France is landed.
(
To Servants
) Seek out the villain Gloucester.
Exeunt some
REGAN
Hang him instantly.
GONORIL
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
intelligence betwixt us.—
Farewell, dear sister. Farewell, my lord of Gloucester.

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