Complete Plays, The (135 page)

Edgar

Give me your hand:

Drum afar off

Far off, methinks, I hear the beaten drum:
Come, father, I’ll bestow you with a friend.

Exeunt

S
CENE
V
II
. A
TENT
IN
THE
F
RENCH
CAMP
. L
EAR
ON
A
BED
ASLEEP
,

soft music playing; Gentleman, and others attending.

Enter Cordelia, Kent, and Doctor

Cordelia

O thou good Kent, how shall I live and work,
To match thy goodness? My life will be too short,
And every measure fail me.

Kent

To be acknowledged, madam, is o’erpaid.
All my reports go with the modest truth;
Nor more nor clipp’d, but so.

Cordelia

Be better suited:
These weeds are memories of those worser hours:
I prithee, put them off.

Kent

Pardon me, dear madam;
Yet to be known shortens my made intent:
My boon I make it, that you know me not
Till time and I think meet.

Cordelia

Then be’t so, my good lord.

To the Doctor

How does the king?

Doctor

Madam, sleeps still.

Cordelia

O you kind gods,
Cure this great breach in his abused nature!
The untuned and jarring senses, O, wind up
Of this child-changed father!

Doctor

So please your majesty
That we may wake the king: he hath slept long.

Cordelia

Be govern’d by your knowledge, and proceed
I’ the sway of your own will. Is he array’d?

Gentleman

Ay, madam; in the heaviness of his sleep
We put fresh garments on him.

Doctor

Be by, good madam, when we do awake him;
I doubt not of his temperance.

Cordelia

Very well.

Doctor

Please you, draw near. Louder the music there!

Cordelia

O my dear father! Restoration hang
Thy medicine on my lips; and let this kiss
Repair those violent harms that my two sisters
Have in thy reverence made!

Kent

Kind and dear princess!

Cordelia

Had you not been their father, these white flakes
Had challenged pity of them. Was this a face
To be opposed against the warring winds?
To stand against the deep dread-bolted thunder?
In the most terrible and nimble stroke
Of quick, cross lightning? to watch — poor perdu!—
With this thin helm? Mine enemy’s dog,
Though he had bit me, should have stood that night
Against my fire; and wast thou fain, poor father,
To hovel thee with swine, and rogues forlorn,
In short and musty straw? Alack, alack!
’Tis wonder that thy life and wits at once
Had not concluded all. He wakes; speak to him.

Doctor

Madam, do you; ’tis fittest.

Cordelia

How does my royal lord? How fares your majesty?

King Lear

You do me wrong to take me out o’ the grave:
Thou art a soul in bliss; but I am bound
Upon a wheel of fire, that mine own tears
Do scald like moulten lead.

Cordelia

Sir, do you know me?

King Lear

You are a spirit, I know: when did you die?

Cordelia

Still, still, far wide!

Doctor

He’s scarce awake: let him alone awhile.

King Lear

Where have I been? Where am I? Fair daylight?
I am mightily abused. I should e’en die with pity,
To see another thus. I know not what to say.
I will not swear these are my hands: let’s see;
I feel this pin prick. Would I were assured
Of my condition!

Cordelia

 
O, look upon me, sir,
And hold your hands in benediction o’er me:
No, sir, you must not kneel.

King Lear

Pray, do not mock me:
I am a very foolish fond old man,
Fourscore and upward, not an hour more nor less;
And, to deal plainly,
I fear I am not in my perfect mind.
Methinks I should know you, and know this man;
Yet I am doubtful for I am mainly ignorant
What place this is; and all the skill I have
Remembers not these garments; nor I know not
Where I did lodge last night. Do not laugh at me;
For, as I am a man, I think this lady
To be my child Cordelia.

Cordelia

And so I am, I am.

King Lear

Be your tears wet? yes, ’faith. I pray, weep not:
If you have poison for me, I will drink it.
I know you do not love me; for your sisters
Have, as I do remember, done me wrong:
You have some cause, they have not.

Cordelia

No cause, no cause.

King Lear

Am I in France?

Kent

 
In your own kingdom, sir.

King Lear

Do not abuse me.

Doctor

Be comforted, good madam: the great rage,
You see, is kill’d in him: and yet it is danger
To make him even o’er the time he has lost.
Desire him to go in; trouble him no more
Till further settling.

Cordelia

Will’t please your highness walk?

King Lear

You must bear with me:
Pray you now, forget and forgive: I am old and foolish.

Exeunt all but Kent and Gentleman

Gentleman

Holds it true, sir, that the Duke of Cornwall was so slain?

Kent

Most certain, sir.

Gentleman

Who is conductor of his people?

Kent

As ’tis said, the bastard son of Gloucester.

Gentleman

They say Edgar, his banished son, is with the Earl of Kent in Germany.

Kent

Report is changeable. ’Tis time to look about; the powers of the kingdom approach apace.

Gentleman

The arbitrement is like to be bloody. Fare you well, sir.

Exit

Kent

My point and period will be throughly wrought,
Or well or ill, as this day’s battle’s fought.

Exit

A
CT
V

S
CENE
I. T
HE
B
RITISH
CAMP
,
NEAR
D
OVER
.

Enter, with drum and colours, Edmund, Regan, Gentlemen, and Soldiers.

Edmund

Know of the duke if his last purpose hold,
Or whether since he is advised by aught
To change the course: he’s full of alteration
And self-reproving: bring his constant pleasure.

To a Gentleman, who goes out

Regan

Our sister’s man is certainly miscarried.

Edmund

’Tis to be doubted, madam.

Regan

Now, sweet lord,
You know the goodness I intend upon you:
Tell me — but truly — but then speak the truth,
Do you not love my sister?

Edmund

In honour’d love.

Regan

But have you never found my brother’s way
To the forfended place?

Edmund

That thought abuses you.

Regan

I am doubtful that you have been conjunct
And bosom’d with her, as far as we call hers.

Edmund

No, by mine honour, madam.

Regan

I never shall endure her: dear my lord,
Be not familiar with her.

Edmund

Fear me not:
She and the duke her husband!

Enter, with drum and colours, Albany, Goneril, and Soldiers

Goneril

[Aside]
 
I had rather lose the battle than that sister
Should loosen him and me.

Albany

Our very loving sister, well be-met.
Sir, this I hear; the king is come to his daughter,
With others whom the rigor of our state
Forced to cry out. Where I could not be honest,
I never yet was valiant: for this business,
It toucheth us, as France invades our land,
Not bolds the king, with others, whom, I fear,
Most just and heavy causes make oppose.

Edmund

Sir, you speak nobly.

Regan

Why is this reason’d?

Goneril

Combine together ’gainst the enemy;
For these domestic and particular broils
Are not the question here.

Albany

Let’s then determine
With the ancient of war on our proceedings.

Edmund

I shall attend you presently at your tent.

Regan

Sister, you’ll go with us?

Goneril

No.

Regan

’Tis most convenient; pray you, go with us.

Goneril

[Aside]
 
O, ho, I know the riddle.— I will go.

As they are going out, enter Edgar disguised

Edgar

If e’er your grace had speech with man so poor,
Hear me one word.

Albany

 
I’ll overtake you. Speak.

Exeunt all but Albany and Edgar

Edgar

Before you fight the battle, ope this letter.
If you have victory, let the trumpet sound
For him that brought it: wretched though I seem,
I can produce a champion that will prove
What is avouched there. If you miscarry,
Your business of the world hath so an end,
And machination ceases. Fortune love you.

Albany

Stay till I have read the letter.

Edgar

I was forbid it.
When time shall serve, let but the herald cry,
And I’ll appear again.

Albany

Why, fare thee well: I will o’erlook thy paper.

Exit Edgar

Re-enter Edmund

Edmund

The enemy’s in view; draw up your powers.
Here is the guess of their true strength and forces
By diligent discovery; but your haste
Is now urged on you.

Albany

We will greet the time.

Exit

Edmund

To both these sisters have I sworn my love;
Each jealous of the other, as the stung
Are of the adder. Which of them shall I take?
Both? one? or neither? Neither can be enjoy’d,
If both remain alive: to take the widow
Exasperates, makes mad her sister Goneril;
And hardly shall I carry out my side,
Her husband being alive. Now then we’ll use
His countenance for the battle; which being done,
Let her who would be rid of him devise
His speedy taking off. As for the mercy
Which he intends to Lear and to Cordelia,
The battle done, and they within our power,
Shall never see his pardon; for my state
Stands on me to defend, not to debate.

Exit

S
CENE
II. A
FIELD
BETWEEN
THE
TWO
CAMPS
.

Alarum within. Enter, with drum and colours, King Lear, Cordelia, and Soldiers, over the stage; and exeunt

Enter Edgar and Gloucester

Edgar

Here, father, take the shadow of this tree
For your good host; pray that the right may thrive:
If ever I return to you again,
I’ll bring you comfort.

Gloucester

Grace go with you, sir!

Exit Edgar

Alarum and retreat within. Re-enter Edgar

Edgar

Away, old man; give me thy hand; away!
King Lear hath lost, he and his daughter ta’en:
Give me thy hand; come on.

Gloucester

No farther, sir; a man may rot even here.

Edgar

What, in ill thoughts again? Men must endure
Their going hence, even as their coming hither;
Ripeness is all: come on.

Gloucester

And that’s true too.

Exeunt

S
CENE
III. T
HE
B
RITISH
CAMP
NEAR
D
OVER
.

Enter, in conquest, with drum and colours, Edmund, King Lear and Cordelia, prisoners; Captain, Soldiers, & c

Edmund

Some officers take them away: good guard,
Until their greater pleasures first be known
That are to censure them.

Cordelia

We are not the first
Who, with best meaning, have incurr’d the worst.
For thee, oppressed king, am I cast down;
Myself could else out-frown false fortune’s frown.
Shall we not see these daughters and these sisters?

King Lear

No, no, no, no! Come, let’s away to prison:
We two alone will sing like birds i’ the cage:
When thou dost ask me blessing, I’ll kneel down,
And ask of thee forgiveness: so we’ll live,
And pray, and sing, and tell old tales, and laugh
At gilded butterflies, and hear poor rogues
Talk of court news; and we’ll talk with them too,
Who loses and who wins; who’s in, who’s out;
And take upon’s the mystery of things,
As if we were God’s spies: and we’ll wear out,
In a wall’d prison, packs and sects of great ones,
That ebb and flow by the moon.

Edmund

Take them away.

King Lear

Upon such sacrifices, my Cordelia,
The gods themselves throw incense. Have I caught thee?
He that parts us shall bring a brand from heaven,
And fire us hence like foxes. Wipe thine eyes;
The good-years shall devour them, flesh and fell,
Ere they shall make us weep: we’ll see ’em starve first. Come.