Glo. Give me the letter, sir. Edm. I shall offend either to detain or give it. The contents, as in part I understand them, are to blame. Glo. Let's see, let's see. Edm. I hope, for my brother's justification, he wrote this but as an assay or taste of my virtue. GLOSTER reads. "This policy and reverence of age makes the world bitter in the best of our times; keeps our fortunes from us till our oldness cannot relish them. I begin to find an idle and fond bondage in the oppression of aged tyranny; who sways, not as it hath power, but as it is suffered. 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." where, if you violently proceed against him, mistaking his purpose, it would make a great gap in your own honor, and shake in pieces the heart of his obedience. I dare pawn down my life for him that he hath writ this to feel my affection to your honor, and to no other pretense of danger. Glo. Think you so? Edm. If your honor judge it meet, I will place you where you shall hear us confer of this, and by an auricular assurance have your satisfaction; and that without any further delay than this very evening. Glo. He cannot be such a monster. Glo. To his father, that so tenderly and entirely loves him. Heaven and earth! - Edmund, seek him out; wind me into him, I pray you: frame the business after your own wisdom. I would unstate myself, to be in a due resolution. Edm. I will seek him, sir, presently; convey the business as I shall find means, and acquaint you withal. Glo. These late eclipses in the sun and moon portend no good to us. Though the wisdom of nature can reason it thus and thus, yet nature finds Glo. You know the character to be your broth- itself scourged by the sequent affects : — love cools, er's? Edm. If the matter were good, my lord, I durst swear it were his; but in respect of that, I would fain think it were not. Glo. It is his. friendship falls off, brothers divide: in cities, mutinies; in countries, discord; in palaces, treason; and the bond cracked between son and father. This villain of mine comes under the prediction; there's son against father: the king falls from bias of na Edm. It is his hand, my lord; but I hope his ture; there's father against child. We have seen heart is not in the contents. the best of our time: machinations, hollowness, Glo. Hath he never heretofore sounded you in treachery, and all ruinous disorders, follow us disthis business? quietly to our graves!- Find out this villain, Edmund; it shall lose thee nothing: do it carefully. And the noble and true-hearted Kent banished! his offense, honesty!-Strange! strange! [Exit. Edm. This is the excellent foppery of the world! that when we are sick in fortune (often the surfeit of our own behavior), we make guilty of our disasters the sun, the moon, and the stars :— as if we were villains by necessity; fools, by heavenly compulsion; knaves, thieves, and treachers, by spherical predominance; drunkards, liars, and adulterers, by an enforced obedience of planetary influence; and all that we are evil in, by a divine Edg. How now, brother Edmund! What se- That he suspects none; on whose foolish honesty rious contemplation are you in? Edm. I am thinking, brother, of a prediction I read this other day, what should follow these eclipses. Edg. Do you busy yourself with that? My practices rides easy! I see the business. Edm. Come, come; when saw you my father He flashes into one gross crime or other, last? Edg. Why, the night gone by. Edm. Spake you with him? Edg. Ay, two hours together. That sets us all at odds: I'll not endure it: Edm. Parted you in good terms? found you no If you come slack of former services, displeasure in him, by word or countenance? Edg. None at all. Edm. Bethink yourself wherein you may have. offended him and at my entreaty forbear his presence till some little time hath qualified the heat of his displeasure; which at this instant so rageth in him, that with the mischief of your person it would scarcely allay. Edg. Some villain hath done me wrong. Edm. That's my fear. I pray you have a continent forbearance till the speed of his rage goes slower; and, as I say, retire with me to my lodging, You shall do well: the fault of it I'll answer. Gon. Put on what weary negligence you please, You and your fellows: I'd have it come to question: If he dislike it, let him to my sister, With checks, as flatteries, when they are seen abused. Remember what I have said. Stew. Very well, madam. Lear. Who wouldst thou serve? Lear. Dost thou know me, fellow? Kent. No, sir; but you have that in your coun Gon. And let his knights have colder looks tenance which I would fain call master. Lear. What's that? Kent. Authority. Lear. What services canst thou do? Kent. I can keep honest counsel, ride, run, mar a curious tale in telling it, and deliver a plain message bluntly that which ordinary men are fit for, I am qualified in; and the best of me is diligence. Lear. How old art thou? Kent. Not so young, sir, to love a woman for singing; nor so old to dote on her for anything. I have years on my back forty-eight. Lear. Follow me; thou shalt serve me: if I like thee no worse after dinner, I will not part from thee yet. - Dinner, ho, dinner!- Where's my knave; my fool. Go you, and call my fool hither. Enter Steward. If thou canst serve where thou dost stand con- You, you sirrah, where's my daughter? — Knight. He says, my lord, your daughter is not well. Lear. Why came not the slave back to me when I called him? Knight. Sir, he answered me in the roundest Kent. A man, sir. Lear. What dost thou profess? what wouldst manner, he would not. thou with us? Kent. I do profess to be no less than I seem; to serve him truly that will put me in trust; to love him that is honest; to converse with him that is wise and says little; to fear judgment; to fight when I cannot choose; and to eat no fish. Lear. What art thou? Kent. A very honest-hearted fellow, and as poor as the King. Lear. If thou be as poor for a subject as he is for a king, thou art poor enough. What wouldst thou? Kent. Service. Lear. He would not! Knight. My lord, I know not what the matter is; but, to my judgment, your highness is not entertained with that ceremonious affection as you were wont: there's a great abatement of kindness appears, as well in the general dependants as in the duke himself also, and your daughter. Lear. Ha! sayst thou so? Knight. I beseech you pardon me, my lord, if I be mistaken; for my duty cannot be silent when I think your highness is wronged. Lear. Thou but rememberest me of mine own conception: I have perceived a most faint neglect How now, nuncle? 'Would I had two coxcombs, and two daughters. Lear. Why, my boy? of late which I have rather blamed as mine own my coxcomb. : jealous curiosity, than as a very pretense and purpose of unkindness. I will look further into 't. But where's my fool? I have not seen him this two days. Knight. Since my young lady's going into France, sir, the fool hath much pined away. Lear. No more of that; I have noted it well. -Go you, and tell my daughter I would speak with her. Go you, call hither my fool. Re-enter Steward. O, you, sir, you sir, come you hither. Who am I, sir? Stew. My lady's father. Lear. My lady's father! my lord's knave: you whorson dog! you slave! you cur! Stew. I am none of this, my lord: I beseech you pardon me. Lear. Do you bandy looks with me, you rascal? [Striking him. Stew. I'll not be struck, my lord. Kent. Nor tripped neither, you base football player. [Tripping up his heels. Lear. I thank thee, fellow: thou servest me, and I'll love thee. Kent. Come, sir, arise, away: I'll teach you differences away, away. If you will measure your lubber's length again, tarry; but away: go to. Have you wisdom? so. [Pushing the Steward out. Lear. Now, my friendly knave, I thank thee: there's earnest of thy service. Fool. Why? for taking one's part that is out of favor. Nay, an thou canst not smile as the wind sits, thou 'lt catch cold shortly: there, take my coxcomb. Why, this fellow has banished two of his daughters, and did the third a blessing against his will if thou follow him, thou must needs wear Fool. If I gave them all my living, I'd keep my coxcombs myself. There's mine: beg another of thy daughters. Lear. Take heed, sirrah: the whip. Fool. Truth's a dog that must to kennel: he must be whipt out, when Lady, the brach, may stand by the fire and stink. Lear. A pestilent gall to me! Fool. Mark it, nuncle:- Have more than thou shewest, And thou shalt have more, Than two tens to a score. Fool. Then 't is like the breath of an unfee'd lawyer: you gave me nothing for 't. Can you make no use of nothing, nuncle? Lear. Why, no, boy: nothing can be made out of nothing. Fool. Pr'y thee, tell him, so much the rent of his land comes too: he will not believe a fool. [TO KENT. Lear A bitter fool! Fool. That lord that counseled thee Or do thou for him stand: Will presently appear; The other found out there!- Kent. This is not altogether fool, my lord. Fool. No, 'faith, lords and great men will not let me; if I had a monopoly out, they would have part on 't and ladies, too, they will not let me have all fool to myself; they'll be snatching. Give me an egg, nuncle, and I'll give thee two crowns. Lear. What two crowns shall they be? Fool. Why, after I have cut the egg i' the middle, and eat up the meat, the two crowns of the egg. When thou clovest thy crown i' the middle, and gavest away both parts, thou borest thine ass on thy back over the dirt: thou hadst little wit in thy bald crown, when thou gavest thy golden one away. If I speak like myself in this, let him be whipped that first finds it so. Sings. "Fools had ne'er less grace in a year; frontlet on? Methinks you are too much of late i' the frown. Fool. Thou wast a pretty fellow when thou hadst no need to care for her frowning: now thou art an O without a figure. I am better than thou art now: I am a fool; thou art nothing. —Yes, forsooth, I will hold my tongue; so your face [To GONERIL] bids me, though you say nothing. Mum, mum: He that keeps nor crust nor crum, Weary of all, shall want some. Lear. When were you wont to be so full of Which, in the tender of a wholesome weal, songs, sirrah? Fool. I have used it, nuncle, ever since thou madest thy daughters thy mother: for when thou gavest them the rod, and putt'st down thine own breeches, Sings. Then they for sudden joy did weep, And I for sorrow sung, That such a king should play bo-peep, Pr'y thee, nuncle, keep a schoolmaster that can Enter GONERIL. Lear. How now, daughter, what makes that Gon. Come, sir, I would you would make use of that good wisdom whereof I know you are fraught; and put away these dispositions, which of late transform you from what you rightly are. Fool. May not an ass know when the cart draws the horse?-Whoop, Jug! I love thee Lear. Does any here know me? - Why this is not Lear: does Lear walk thus? speak thus? Where are his eyes? Either his notion weakens, or his discernings are lethargied. - Sleeping or waking? - Ha! sure 't is not so. Who is it that can tell me who I am?- Lear's shadow? I would learn that; for by the marks of sovereignty, knowledge, and reason, I should be false persuaded I had daughters Fool. Which they will make an obedient father. |