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Enter KENT, GLOSTER, and EDMUND.

Kent. I thought the King had more affected the Duke of Albany than Cornwall.

Glo. It did always seem so to us: but now, in the division of the kingdom, it appears not which of the dukes he values most; for equalities are so weighed, that curiosity in neither can make choice of either's moiety.

Kent. Is not this your son, my lord?

Glo. His breeding, sir, hath been at my charge: I have so often blushed to acknowledge him, that now I am brazed to it.

Kent. I cannot conceive you.

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.

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[Trumpets sound within.

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purpose.

Glo. Sir, this young fellow's mother could: whereupon she grew round-wombed, and had indeed, Give me the map there. - Know that we have

sir, a son for her cradle ere she had a husband for her bed. Do you smell a fault?

divided

In three, our kingdom; and 't is our fast intent Kent. I cannot wish the fault undone, the issue To shake all cares and business from our age; of it being so proper.

Glo. But I have, sir, a son by order of law, some year elder than this, who yet is no dearer in my account. Though this knave came somewhat saucily into 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.

Conferring them on younger strengths, while we
Unburdened crawl toward death. Our son of
Cornwall,

And you, our no less loving son of Albany,
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,

Glo. My lord of Kent: remember him hereafter Long in our court have made their amorous as my honorable friend.

sojourn,

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may mar your fortunes. Good my lord,

Cor.
You have begot me, bred me, loved me: I
Return those duties back as are right fit;
Obey you, love you, and most honor 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

Half my love with him, half my care and duty :
Sure I shall never marry, like my sisters,
To love my father all.

Lear. But goes this with thy heart?
Ay, good my lord.

Cor.
Lear. So young, and so untender?
Cor. So young, my lord, and true.
Lear. Let it be so:-
dower:

thy truth, then, be thy

For, by the sacred radiance of the sun; The mysteries of Hecate and the night; By all the operations of the orbs

From whom we do exist, and cease to be, Here I disclaim all my paternal care, Propinquity and property of blood,

Which the most precious sphere of sense possesses, And as a stranger to my heart and me

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That troop with majesty.-Ourself, by monthly Or, whilst I can vent clamor from my throat,

course,

With reservation of an hundred knights,

By you to be sustained, shall our abode

Make with you by due turns. Only we still retain
The name and all the additions to a king;

The sway,

Revénue, execution of the rest,

be

Belovéd sons,
This coronet part between you. [Giving the crown.
Kent. Royal Lear,

yours which to confirm,

Whom I have ever honored as my king,
Loved as my father, as my master followed,
As my aged 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 wouldst thou do, old
man?

Think'st thou that duty shall have dread to speak, When power to flattery bows? To plainness honor's bound,

When majesty stoops to folly.

doom;

And, in thy best consideration, check

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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 diseases of the world;
And on the sixth to turn thy hated back
Upon our kingdom: if on the tenth day following
Thy banished trunk be found in our dominions,
The moment is thy death. Away! by Jupiter,
This shall not be revoked.

Kent. Fare thee well, King: since thus thou

wilt appear,

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.-
Reverse thy And your large speeches may your deeds approve,
[To REGAN and GONERIL.
That good effects may spring from words of love.—

This hideous rashness. Answer my life my judg- Thus Kent, O princes, bids you all adieu : He'll shape his old course in a country new.

ment,

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Kent. See better, Lear; and let me still remain Hath rivaled for our daughter:- What, in the

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Lear.

O, vassal! miscreant !

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I crave no more than hath your highness offered,

[Laying his hand on his sword. Nor will you tender less.

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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 is not love,

When it is mingled with respects that stand
Aloof from the entire point? Will you have her?

Dowered with our curse, and strangered with our She is herself a dowry.

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That she, that even but now was your best object,
The argument of your praise, balm of your age,
Most best, most dearest, should in this trice of
time

Commit a thing so monstrous, to dismantle
So many folds of favor! Sure her offense
Must be of such unnatural degree
That monsters it, or your fore-vouched affection
Fall into taint which to believe of her,
Must be a faith that reason, without miracle,
Could never plant in me.

Cor.

I yet beseech your majesty

(If for I want that glib and oily art,

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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.
Bur. I am sorry, then, you have so lost a
father,
That you must lose a husband. [TO CORDELIA.
Cor. Peace be with Burgundy!
Since that respects of fortune are his love.
I shall not be his wife.

France. Fairest Cordelia, that art most rich,
being poor;

Most choice, forsaken; and most loved, despised!
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 inflamed respect.
Thy dowerless daughter, King, thrown to my
chance,
Is
queen of us, of ours,
and our fair France:
Not all the dukes of waterish Burgundy
Shall buy this unprized 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 we

To speak and purpose not; since what I well Have no such daughter, nor shall ever see

intend,

I'll do 't before I speak), that you make known
It is no vicious blot, nor other foulness,
No unchaste action or dishonored step,
That hath deprived me of your grace and favor:
But even for want of that for which I am richer:
A still-soliciting eye, and such a tongue

That face of hers again :- therefore, be gone,
Without our grace, our love, our benizon. -
Come, noble Burgundy.

[Flourish. Exeunt LEAR, BURGUNDY, CORN-
WALL, ALBANY, GLOSTER, and Attendants.
France. Bid farewell to your sisters.
Cor. The jewels of our father, with washed eyes

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Cordelia leaves you: I know you what you are;
And, like a sister, am most loath to call
Your faults as they are named. Use well our
father:

To your professéd bosoms I commit him:
But yet, alas! stood I within his grace,
I would prefer him to a better place.
So farewell to you both.

Gon. Prescribe not us our duties.

Reg.

Let your study

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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;
Cor. Time shall unfold what plaited cunning Who, in the lusty stealth of nature, take

Be to content your lord; who hath received you
At fortune's alms. You have obedience scanted,
And well are worth the want that you have

wanted.

hides:

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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,

Reg. That's most certain, and with you: next And my invention thrive, Edmund the base 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.

Shall top the legitimate. I grow: I prosper. -
Now, gods, stand up for bastards!

Enter GLOSTER.

Glo. Kent banished thus; and France in choler parted!

Reg. "T is the infirmity of his age: yet he hath And the king gone to-night: subscribed his power: ever but slenderly known himself. Confined to exhibition! All this done

Gon. The best and soundest of his time hath been but rash: then must we look to receive from his age, not alone the imperfections of long-engrafted 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 leavetaking between France and him. Pray you, let us hit 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.
[Exeunt.

Upon the gad! - Edmund! how now? what news?
Edm. So please your lordship, none.

[Putting up the letter. Glo. Why so earnestly seek you to put up that letter?

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'erread for so much as I have perused, I find it not fit for your over-looking.

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