Sit you too.
EDGAR Let us deal justly.
Sleepest or wakest thou, jolly shepherd?
Thy sheep be in the corn,
And for one blast of thy minikin87 mouth,
Thy sheep shall take no harm.
Purr89, the cat is grey.
LEAR Arraign her first, ’tis Goneril. I here take my oath
before this honourable assembly, she kicked the poor king
her father.
FOOL Come hither, mistress. Is your name Goneril?
LEAR She cannot deny it.
FOOL Cry you mercy, I took you for a joint-stool95.
LEAR And here’s another whose warped looks96 proclaim
What store her heart is made on97: stop her there!
Arms, arms, sword, fire! Corruption in the place!
False justicer, why hast thou let her scape99?
Following 3.6.55:
KENT Oppressed100 nature sleeps:
This rest might yet have balmed thy broken sinews101,
Which, if convenience102 will not allow,
To Fool
Stand in hard cure103.— Come help to bear thy master:
Thou must not stay behind.
Exeunt. [Edgar remains]
EDGAR When we our betters see bearing our woes105,
We scarcely think our miseries our foes.
Who alone suffers, suffers most i’th’mind107,
Leaving free things and happy shows108 behind,
But then the mind much sufferance doth o’erskip109,
When grief hath mates, and bearing110 fellowship:
How light and portable111 my pain seems now,
When that which makes me bend, makes the king bow112:
He childed as I fathered113. Tom away!
Mark the high noises and thyself bewray114
When false opinion, whose wrong thoughts defile thee,
In thy just proof116 repeals and reconciles thee.
What will hap more tonight, safe scape the king117:
Lurk118, lurk.
Exit
Following 3.7.109:
SERVANT I’ll never care what wickedness I do,
If this man come to good.
SECOND SERVANT If she live long,
And in the end meet the old course of death122,
Women will all turn monsters.
FIRST SERVANT Let’s follow the old earl, and get the Bedlam124
To lead him where he would125: his madness
Allows itself to126 anything.
SECOND SERVANT Go thou: I’ll fetch some flax and whites of eggs127
To apply to his bleeding face. Now heaven help him!
Following 4.1.66:
Five fiends have been in poor Tom at once: of lust, as
Obidicut, Hobbididence, prince of dumbness, Mahu of130
stealing, Modo of murder, Flibbertigibbet of mopping and131
mowing, who since possesses chambermaids and waiting-
women. So, bless thee, master.
Following 4.2.35:
I fear your disposition:
That nature, which contemns i’th’origin135
Cannot be bordered certain136 in itself.
She that herself will sliver and disbranch137
From her material sap perforce138 must wither
And come to deadly use139.
GONERIL No more, the text140 is foolish.
ALBANY Wisdom and goodness to the vile seem vile:
Filths savour but142 themselves. What have you done?
Tigers, not daughters, what have you performed?
A father, and a gracious144 agèd man,
Whose reverence even the head-lugged145 bear would lick,
Most barbarous, most degenerate, have you madded146. Could
my good brother suffer147 you to do it?
A man, a prince, by him so benefited!
If that the heavens do not their visible spirits149
Send quickly down to tame150 the vile offences, it will come,
Humanity must perforce prey on itself,
Like monsters of the deep.
Following 4.2.39:
that not know’st
Fools do those villains pity who are punished154
Ere they have done their mischief. Where’s thy drum?
France spreads his banners in our noiseless156 land,
With plumèd helm, thy state begins threat157,
Whilst thou, a moral158 fool, sits still and cries
‘Alack, why does he so?’
Following 4.2.43:
ALBANY Thou changèd and self-covered160 thing, for shame
Bemonster not thy feature. Were’t my fitness161
To let these hands obey my blood162,
They are apt enough to dislocate and tear
Thy flesh and bones: howe’er164 thou art a fiend,
A woman’s shape doth shield thee.
GONERIL Marry, your manhood mew166—
Enter a Gentleman
ALBANY What news?
Following 4.2.77:
Enter Kent and a Gentleman
KENT Why the King of France is so suddenly gone back168,
know you no reason?
GENTLEMAN Something he left imperfect170 in the state, which
since his coming forth is thought of, which imports171 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 trilled179 down
Her delicate cheek: it seemed she was a queen over
Her passion181, 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 goodliest185. You have seen
Sunshine and rain at once: her smiles and tears
Were like a better way: those happy smilets187,
That played on her ripe lip seem not to know
What guests were in her eyes, which, parted thence,
As pearls from diamonds dropped. In brief,
Sorrow would be a rarity most beloved,
If all could so become it192.
KENT Made she no verbal question?
GENTLEMAN Faith, once or twice she heaved the name of ‘father’
Pantingly forth, as if it pressed her heart:
Cried ‘Sisters, sisters! Shame of ladies, sisters!
Kent, father, sisters! What, i’th’storm, i’th’night?
Let pity not be believed198!’ There she shook
The holy water from her heavenly eyes,
And clamour moistened her: then away she started200
To deal with grief alone.
KENT It is the stars,
The stars above us, govern our conditions,
Else one self mate and make204 could not beget
Such different issues205. You spoke not with her since?
GENTLEMAN No.
KENT Was this before the king returned?
GENTLEMAN No, since.
KENT Well, sir, the poor distressèd Lear’s i’th’town;
Who sometime, in his better tune210, 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 elbows214 him: his own unkindness,
That stripped her from his benediction, turned her