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  • Title: King Lear (Quarto 2, 1619)
  • Editor: Pervez Rizvi
  • Coordinating editor: Michael Best

    • ISBN: 978-1-55058-463-9

    Copyright Michael Best. This text may be freely used for educational, non-profit purposes; for all other uses contact the Editor.
    Author: William Shakespeare
    Editor: Pervez Rizvi
    Not Peer Reviewed

    King Lear (Quarto 2, 1619)

    The History of King Lear.
    115Lear. Well let it be so, thy truth then be thy dower,
    For by the sacred radience of the Sunne,
    The mistresse of Heccat, and the might,
    By all the operation of the Orbes,
    From whom we do exsist and cease to be,
    120Heere I dissclaime all my paternall care,
    Propinquity and property of bloud,
    And as a stranger to my heart and me,
    Hold thee from this foreuer, the barbarous Scythian,
    Or he that makes his generation
    125Messes to gorge his appetite,
    Shall be as well neighbour'd, pittied and releeued,
    As thou my some-time daughter.
    Kent. Good my Liege.
    Lear. Peace Kent, come not betweene the Dragon and his (wrath
    I lou'd her most, and thought to set my rest
    On her kinde nursery, hence and auoid my sight:
    So be my graue my peace as heere I guie,
    Her fathers heart from her; call France, who stirres?
    135Call Burgundy, Cornwall, and Albany,
    With my two daughters dower digest this third,
    Let pride, which she cals plainnesse, marry her:
    I do inuest you ioyntly in my power,
    Preheminence, and all the large effects
    140That troope with Maiesty, our selfe by monthly course
    With reseruation of an hundred Knights,
    By you to be sustain'd, shall our abode
    Make with you by due turnes, onely we still retaine
    The name and all the additions to a King,
    145The sway, reuenue, execution of the rest,
    Beloued sonnes be yours, which to confirme,
    This Coronet part betwixt you.
    Kent. Royall Lear,
    Whom I haue euer honor'd as my King,
    150Loued as my Father, as my Master followed,
    As my great Patron thought on in my praiers.
    Lear. The bow is bent and drawne, make from the shaft.
    Kent.
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