Internet Shakespeare Editions

Author: William Shakespeare
Editor: Michael Best
Not Peer Reviewed

King Lear (Modern, Folio)

Enter Kent, Gloucester, and Edmund [the Bastard].
Kent
I thought the King had more affected the 5Duke of Albany than Cornwall.
Gloucester
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 qualities are so weighed that curiosity in 10neither can make choice of either's moiety.
Kent
Is not this your son, my lord?
Gloucester
His breeding, sir, hath been at my charge. I have so often blushed to acknowledge him that now I am brazed to't.
15Kent
I cannot conceive you.
Gloucester
Sir, this young fellow's mother could, whereupon she grew round-wombed, and had indeed, sir, a son for her cradle ere she had a husband for her bed. Do you smell a fault?
20Kent
I cannot wish the fault undone, the issue of it being so proper.
Gloucester
But I have a son, sir, by order of law, some year elder than this, who yet is no dearer in my account, though this knave came something saucily to the 25world 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?
Bastard
No, my lord.
30Gloucester
My Lord of Kent. Remember him hereafter as my honorable friend.
Bastard
My services to your lordship.
I must love you, and sue to know you better.
Bastard
Sir, I shall study deserving.
35Gloucester
He hath been out nine years, and away he shall again. The King is coming.
Sennet. Enter King Lear, Cornwall, Albany, Goneril, Regan, Cordelia, and attendants.
Attend the lords of France and Burgundy, Gloucester.
40Gloucester
I shall, my lord.
Exit [Gloucester].
Meantime we shall express our darker purpose.
Give me the map there. Know that we have divided
In three our kingdom, and 'tis our fast intent
To shake all cares and business from our age,
45Conferring 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
50May be prevented now. The princes France and Burgundy,
Great rivals in our youngest daughter's love,
Long in our court have made their amorous sojourn,
And here are to be answered. Tell me, my daughters--
Since now we will divest us both of rule,
55Interest of territory, cares of state--
Which of you shall we say doth love us most,
That we our largest bounty may extend
Where nature doth with merit challenge. Goneril,
Our eldest born, speak first.
60Goneril
Sir, I love you more than word can wield the matter;
Dearer than eyesight, space, and liberty,
Beyond what can be valued, rich or rare,
No less than life; with grace, health, beauty, honor,
As much as child e'er loved or father found;
65A love that makes breath poor and speech unable.
Beyond all manner of so much I love you.
Cordelia
[Aside] What shall Cordelia speak? Love and be silent.
Of all these bounds even from this line to this,
With shadowy forests and with champaigns riched
70With plenteous rivers and wide-skirted meads,
We make thee lady. To thine and Albany's issues
Be this perpetual. What says our second daughter,
Our dearest Regan, wife of Cornwall?
Regan
I am made of that self-mettle as my sister,
75And prize me at her worth. In my true heart
I find she names my very deed of love--
Only she comes too short--that I profess
Myself an enemy to all other joys
Which the most precious square of sense professes,
80And find I am alone felicitate
In your dear highness' love.
Cordelia
[Aside] Then poor Cordelia--
And yet not so, since I am sure my love's
More ponderous than my tongue.
To thee and thine hereditary ever
Remain this ample third of our fair kingdom,
No less in space, validity, and pleasure
Than that conferred on Goneril. Now our joy,
Although our last and least, to whose young love
90The vines of France and milk of Burgundy
Strive to be interessed, what can you say to draw
A third, more opulent than your sisters'? Speak.
Cordelia
Nothing my lord.
Nothing?
95Cordelia
Nothing.
Nothing will come of nothing. Speak again.
Cordelia
Unhappy that I am, I cannot heave
My heart into my mouth. I love your majesty
According to my bond, no more nor less.
How, how, Cordelia? Mend your speech a little,
Lest you may mar your fortunes.
Cordelia
Good my lord,
You have begot me, bred me, loved me.
I return those duties back as are right fit;
105Obey 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.
110Sure I shall never marry like my sisters.
But goes thy heart with this?
Cordelia
Ay, my good lord.
So young and so untender?
Cordelia
So young, my lord, and true.
Let it be so. Thy truth then be thy dower;
For by the sacred radiance of the sun,
The mysteries of Hecate and the night,
By all the operation of the orbs
From whom we do exist and cease to be,
120Here I disclaim all my paternal care,
Propinquity and property of blood,
And as a stranger to my heart and me
Hold thee from this for ever. The barbarous Scythian,
Or he that makes his generation messes
125To gorge his appetite, shall to my bosom
Be as well neighbored, pitied, and relieved
As thou my sometime daughter.
Kent
Good my liege--
Peace, Kent!
130Come not between the dragon and his wrath.
I loved her most, and thought to set my rest
On her kind nursery. [To Cordelia] Hence and avoid my sight--
So be my grave my peace, as here I give
Her father's heart from her. Call France. Who stirs?
135Call Burgundy.
[Exit an attendant.]
Cornwall and Albany,
With my two daughters' dowers digest the third.
Let pride, which she calls plainness, marry her.
I do invest you jointly with my power,
Preeminence, and all the large effects
140That troop with majesty. Ourself by monthly course,
With reservation of an hundred knights
By you to be sustained, shall our abode
Make with you by due turn; only we shall retain
The name and all th'addition to a king. The sway,
145Revenue, execution of the rest,
Beloved sons, be yours; which to confirm,
This coronet part between you.
Kent
Royal Lear,
Whom I have ever honored as my king,
150Loved as my father, as my master followed,
As my great patron thought on in my prayers--
The bow is bent and drawn. Make from the shaft.
Let it fall rather, though the fork invade
The region of my heart. Be Kent unmannerly
155When 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 falls to folly. Reserve thy state,
160And in thy best consideration check
This hideous rashness. Answer my life my judgment;
Thy youngest daughter does not love thee least;
Nor are those empty-hearted whose low sounds
Reverb no hollowness.
165Lear
Kent, on thy life no more.
My life I never held but as pawn
To wage against thine enemies, ne'er feared to lose it,
Thy safety being motive.
Lear
Out of my sight!
See better Lear, and let me still remain
The true blank of thine eye.
Lear
Now by Apollo--
Now, by Apollo, King, thou swear'st thy gods in vain.
[Threatening Kent] O vassal! Miscreant!
Albany, [Cornwall or Cordelia]
Dear sir, forbear!
Kill thy physician, and thy fee bestow
Upon the foul disease. Revoke thy gift,
Or whilst I can vent clamor from my throat
180I'll tell thee thou dost evil.
Hear me, recreant, on thine allegiance hear me.
That thou hast sought to make us break our vows,
Which we durst never yet, and with strained pride
To come betwixt our sentences and our power,
185Which 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 disasters of the world,
And on the sixth to turn thy hated back
190Upon our kingdom. If on the next day following
Thy banished trunk be found in our dominions,
The moment is thy death. Away! By Jupiter,
This shall not be revoked.
Fare thee well, King, sith thus thou wilt appear,
195Freedom lives hence, and banishment is here.
[To Cordelia] The gods to their dear shelter take thee, maid,
That justly think'st, and hast most rightly said.
[To Goneril and Regan] And your large speeches may your deeds approve,
That good effects may spring from words of love.
200Thus Kent, O princes, bids you all adieu;
He'll shape his old course in a country new.
Exit.
Flourish. Enter Gloucester with France and Burgundy [and] attendants.
[Cornwall or Cordelia]
Here's France and Burgundy, my noble lord.
My lord of Burgundy,
We first address toward you, who with this king
Hath rivaled for our daughter. What in the least
Will you require in present dower with her,
Or cease your quest of love?
210Burgundy
Most royal majesty,
I crave no more than hath your highness offered,
Nor will you tender less.
Lear
Right noble Burgundy,
When she was dear to us we did hold her so,
215But now her price is fallen. Sir, there she stands.
If aught within that little-seeming substance,
Or all of it with our displeasure pieced
And nothing more, may fitly like your grace,
She's there, and she is yours.
220Burgundy
I know no answer.
Will you with those infirmities she owes,
Unfriended, new adopted to our hate,
Dowered with our curse and strangered with our oath,
Take her or leave her?
225Burgundy
Pardon me royal sir,
Election makes not up in such conditions.
Then leave her sir, for by the power that made me
I tell you all her wealth. [To France] For you, great king,
I would not from your love make such a stray
230To match you where I hate. Therefore, beseech you
T'avert your liking a more worthier way
Than on a wretch whom nature is ashamed
Almost t'acknowledge hers.
France
This is most strange,
235That she whom even but now was your object,
The argument of your praise, balm of your age,
The best, the dearest, should in this trice of time
Commit a thing so monstrous to dismantle
So many folds of favor. Sure her offence
240Must 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
Should never plant in me.
245Cordelia
I yet beseech your majesty,
If for I want that glib and oily art,
To speak and purpose not--since what I will intend
I'll do't before I speak--that you make known
It is no vicious blot, murder, or foulness,
250No 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 I am glad I have not, though not to have it
255Hath lost me in your liking.
Lear
Better thou hadst
Not been born than not t'have pleased me better.
France
Is it but this? A tardiness in nature
Which often leaves the history unspoke
260That it intends to do? My lord of Burgundy,
What say you to the lady? Love's not love
When it is mingled with regards that stands
Aloof from th'entire point. Will you have her?
She is herself a dowry.
265Burgundy
Royal King,
Give but that portion which yourself proposed,
And here I take Cordelia by the hand,
Duchess of Burgundy.
Nothing. I have sworn. I am firm.
270Burgundy
[To Cordelia] I am sorry then you have so lost a father
That you must lose a husband.
Cordelia
Peace be with Burgundy;
Since that respect and fortunes are his love,
I shall not be his wife.
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! 'Tis strange, that from their cold'st neglect
280My 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,
Can buy this unprized precious maid of me.
285Bid them farewell, Cordelia, though unkind.
Thou losest here a better where to find.
Thou hast her, France. Let her be thine, for we
Have no such daughter, nor shall ever see
That face of hers again. Therefore be gone,
290Without our grace, our love, our benison.
Come, noble Burgundy.
Flourish. Exeunt [Lear, Burgundy, and others].
France
Bid farewell to your sisters.
Cordelia
The jewels of our father, with washed eyes
Cordelia leaves you. I know you what you are,
295And like a sister am most loath to call
Your faults as they are named. Love well our father.
To your professèd bosoms I commit him;
But yet, alas, stood I within his grace,
I would prefer him to a better place.
300So farewell to you both.
Prescribe not us our duty.
Goneril
Let your study
Be to content your lord, who hath received you
At fortune's alms. You have obedience scanted,
305And well are worth the want that you have wanted.
Cordelia
Time shall unfold what plighted cunning hides;
Who covers faults at last with shame derides.
Well may you prosper.
France
Come my fair Cordelia.
Exeunt France and Cordelia.
Sister, it is not little I have to say of what most nearly appertains to us both. I think our father will hence tonight, next month with us.
That's most certain, and with you.
Goneril
You see how full of changes his age is. The 315observation we have made of it hath been little. He always loved our sister most, and with what poor judgment he hath now cast her off appears too grossly.
'Tis the infirmity of his age. Yet he hath ever but slenderly known himself.
320Goneril
The best and soundest of his time hath been but rash. Then must we look from his age to receive not alone the imperfections of long-engrafted condition, but therewithal the unruly waywardness that infirm and choleric years bring with them.
Such unconstant starts are we like to have from him as this of Kent's banishment.
Goneril
There is further compliment of leave-taking between France and him. Pray you let us sit together. If our father carry authority with such disposition as he bears, 330this last surrender of his will but offend us.
We shall further think of it.
Goneril
We must do something, and i'th'heat.