Complete Plays, The (133 page)

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,
Opposed against the act, bending his sword
To his great master; who, thereat enraged,
Flew on him, and amongst them fell’d him dead;
But not without that harmful stroke, which since
Hath pluck’d him after.

Albany

This shows you are above,
You justicers, that these our nether crimes
So speedily can venge! But, O poor Gloucester!
Lost he his other eye?

Messenger

Both, both, my lord.
This letter, madam, craves a speedy answer;
’Tis from your sister.

Goneril

[Aside]
 
One way I like this well;
But being widow, and my Gloucester with her,
May all the building in my fancy pluck
Upon my hateful life: another way,
The news is not so tart.— I’ll read, and answer.

Exit

Albany

Where was his son when they did take his eyes?

Messenger

Come with my lady hither.

Albany

He is not here.

Messenger

No, my good lord; I met him back again.

Albany

Knows he the wickedness?

Messenger

Ay, my good lord; ’twas he inform’d against him;
And quit the house on purpose, that their punishment
Might have the freer course.

Albany

Gloucester, I live
To thank thee for the love thou show’dst the king,
And to revenge thine eyes. Come hither, friend:
Tell me what more thou know’st.

Exeunt

S
CENE
III. T
HE
F
RENCH
CAMP
NEAR
D
OVER
.

Enter Kent and a Gentleman

Kent

Why the King of France is so suddenly gone back know you the reason?

Gentleman

Something he left imperfect in the state, which since his coming forth is thought of; which imports to the kingdom so much fear and danger, that his personal return was most required and necessary.

Kent

Who hath he left behind him general?

Gentleman

The Marshal of France, Monsieur La Far.

Kent

Did your letters pierce the queen to any demonstration of grief?

Gentleman

Ay, sir; she took them, read them in my presence;
And now and then an ample tear trill’d down
Her delicate cheek: it seem’d she was a queen
Over her passion; who, most rebel-like,
Sought to be king o’er her.

Kent

O, then it moved her.

Gentleman

Not to a rage: patience and sorrow strove
Who should express her goodliest. You have seen
Sunshine and rain at once: her smiles and tears
Were like a better way: those happy smilets,
That play’d on her ripe lip, seem’d not to know
What guests were in her eyes; which parted thence,
As pearls from diamonds dropp’d. In brief,
Sorrow would be a rarity most beloved,
If all could so become it.

Kent

Made she no verbal question?

Gentleman

’Faith, once or twice she heaved the name of ‘father’
Pantingly forth, as if it press’d her heart:
Cried ‘sisters! sisters! Shame of ladies! sisters!
Kent! father! sisters! What, i’ the storm? i’ the night?
Let pity not be believed!’ There she shook
The holy water from her heavenly eyes,
And clamour moisten’d: then away she started
To deal with grief alone.

Kent

It is the stars,
The stars above us, govern our conditions;
Else one self mate and mate could not beget
Such different issues. You spoke not with her since?

Gentleman

No.

Kent

Was this before the king return’d?

Gentleman

No, since.

Kent

Well, sir, the poor distressed Lear’s i’ the town;
Who sometime, in his better tune, remembers
What we are come about, and by no means
Will yield to see his daughter.

Gentleman

Why, good sir?

Kent

A sovereign shame so elbows him: his own unkindness,
That stripp’d her from his benediction, turn’d her
To foreign casualties, gave her dear rights
To his dog-hearted daughters, these things sting
His mind so venomously, that burning shame
Detains him from Cordelia.

Gentleman

Alack, poor gentleman!

Kent

Of Albany’s and Cornwall’s powers you heard not?

Gentleman

’Tis so, they are afoot.

Kent

Well, sir, I’ll bring you to our master Lear,
And leave you to attend him: some dear cause
Will in concealment wrap me up awhile;
When I am known aright, you shall not grieve
Lending me this acquaintance. I pray you, go
Along with me.

Exeunt

S
CENE
IV. T
HE
SAME
. A
TENT
.

Enter, with drum and colours, Cordelia, Doctor, and Soldiers

Cordelia

Alack, ’tis he: why, he was met even now
As mad as the vex’d sea; singing aloud;
Crown’d with rank fumiter and furrow-weeds,
With bur-docks, hemlock, nettles, cuckoo-flowers,
Darnel, and all the idle weeds that grow
In our sustaining corn. A century send forth;
Search every acre in the high-grown field,
And bring him to our eye.

Exit an Officer

What can man’s wisdom
In the restoring his bereaved sense?
He that helps him take all my outward worth.

Doctor

There is means, madam:
Our foster-nurse of nature is repose,
The which he lacks; that to provoke in him,
Are many simples operative, whose power
Will close the eye of anguish.

Cordelia

All blest secrets,
All you unpublish’d virtues of the earth,
Spring with my tears! be aidant and remediate
In the good man’s distress! Seek, seek for him;
Lest his ungovern’d rage dissolve the life
That wants the means to lead it.

Enter a Messenger

Messenger

News, madam;
The British powers are marching hitherward.

Cordelia

’Tis known before; our preparation stands
In expectation of them. O dear father,
It is thy business that I go about;
Therefore great France
My mourning and important tears hath pitied.
No blown ambition doth our arms incite,
But love, dear love, and our aged father’s right:
Soon may I hear and see him!

Exeunt

S
CENE
V. G
LOUCESTER
’
S
CASTLE
.

Enter Regan and Oswald

Regan

But are my brother’s powers set forth?

Oswald

Ay, madam.

Regan

Himself in person there?

Oswald

Madam, with much ado:
Your sister is the better soldier.

Regan

Lord Edmund spake not with your lord at home?

Oswald

No, madam.

Regan

What might import my sister’s letter to him?

Oswald

I know not, lady.

Regan

’Faith, he is posted hence on serious matter.
It was great ignorance, Gloucester’s eyes being out,
To let him live: where he arrives he moves
All hearts against us: Edmund, I think, is gone,
In pity of his misery, to dispatch
His nighted life: moreover, to descry
The strength o’ the enemy.

Oswald

I must needs after him, madam, with my letter.

Regan

Our troops set forth to-morrow: stay with us;
The ways are dangerous.

Oswald

I may not, madam:
My lady charged my duty in this business.

Regan

Why should she write to Edmund? Might not you
Transport her purposes by word? Belike,
Something — I know not what: I’ll love thee much,
Let me unseal the letter.

Oswald

Madam, I had rather —

Regan

I know your lady does not love her husband;
I am sure of that: and at her late being here
She gave strange oeillades and most speaking looks
To noble Edmund. I know you are of her bosom.

Oswald

I, madam?

Regan

I speak in understanding; you are; I know’t:
Therefore I do advise you, take this note:
My lord is dead; Edmund and I have talk’d;
And more convenient is he for my hand
Than for your lady’s: you may gather more.
If you do find him, pray you, give him this;
And when your mistress hears thus much from you,
I pray, desire her call her wisdom to her.
So, fare you well.
If you do chance to hear of that blind traitor,
Preferment falls on him that cuts him off.

Oswald

Would I could meet him, madam! I should show
What party I do follow.

Regan

Fare thee well.

Exeunt

S
CENE
V
I
. F
IELDS
NEAR
D
OVER
.

Enter Gloucester, and Edgar dressed like a peasant

Gloucester

When shall we come to the top of that same hill?

Edgar

You do climb up it now: look, how we labour.

Gloucester

Methinks the ground is even.

Edgar

Horrible steep.
Hark, do you hear the sea?

Gloucester

No, truly.

Edgar

Why, then, your other senses grow imperfect
By your eyes’ anguish.

Gloucester

So may it be, indeed:
Methinks thy voice is alter’d; and thou speak’st
In better phrase and matter than thou didst.

Edgar

You’re much deceived: in nothing am I changed
But in my garments.

Gloucester

Methinks you’re better spoken.

Edgar

Come on, sir; here’s the place: stand still. How fearful
And dizzy ’tis, to cast one’s eyes so low!
The crows and choughs that wing the midway air
Show scarce so gross as beetles: half way down
Hangs one that gathers samphire, dreadful trade!
Methinks he seems no bigger than his head:
The fishermen, that walk upon the beach,
Appear like mice; and yond tall anchoring bark,
Diminish’d to her cock; her cock, a buoy
Almost too small for sight: the murmuring surge,
That on the unnumber’d idle pebbles chafes,
Cannot be heard so high. I’ll look no more;
Lest my brain turn, and the deficient sight
Topple down headlong.

Gloucester

Set me where you stand.