Which 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 diseases of the world;
And on the sixth to turn thy hated back
Upon our kingdom: if, on the tenth day following,
Thy banish’d trunk be found in our dominions,
The moment is thy death. Away! by Jupiter,
This shall not be revoked.
KENT Fare thee well, king: sith thus thou wilt appear,
Freedom 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 REGAN and GONERIL
And your large speeches may your deeds approve,
That good effects may spring from words of love.
Thus Kent, O princes, bids you all adieu;
He’ll shape his old course in a country new.
Exit
Flourish. Re-enter GLOUCESTER, with KING OF FRANCE, BURGUNDY, and Attendants
GLOUCESTER Here’s France and Burgundy, my noble lord.
KING LEAR My lord of Burgundy.
We first address towards you, who with this king
Hath rivall’d for our daughter: what, in the least,
Will you require in present dower with her,
Or cease your quest of love?
BURGUNDY Most royal majesty,
I crave no more than what your highness offer’d,
Nor will you tender less.
KING LEAR Right noble Burgundy,
When she was dear to us, we did hold her so;
But now her price is fall’n. 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.
BURGUNDY I know no answer.
KING LEAR Will you, with those infirmities she owes,
Unfriended, new-adopted to our hate,
Dower’d with our curse, and stranger’d with our oath,
Take her, or leave her?
BURGUNDY Pardon me, royal sir;
Election makes not up on such conditions.
KING LEAR Then leave her, sir; for, by the power that made me,
I tell you all her wealth.
To KING OF FRANCE
For you, great king,
I would not from your love make such a stray,
To match you where I hate; therefore beseech you
To avert your liking a more worthier way
Than on a wretch whom nature is ashamed
Almost to acknowledge hers.
KING OF FRANCE This is most strange,
That she, that even but now was your best object,
The argument of your praise, balm of your age,
Most best, most dearest, should in this trice of time
Commit a thing so monstrous, to dismantle
So many folds of favour. Sure, her offence
Must be of such unnatural degree,
That monsters it, or your fore-vouch’d affection
Fall’n into taint: which to believe of her,
Must be a faith that reason without miracle
Could never plant in me.
CORDELIA I yet beseech your majesty,–
If for I want that glib and oily art,
To speak and purpose not; since what I well intend,
I’ll do’t before I speak,–that you make known
It is no vicious blot, murder, or foulness,
No unchaste action, or dishonour’d step,
That hath deprived me of your grace and favour;
But even for want of that for which I am richer,
A still-soliciting eye, and such a tongue
As I am glad I have not, though not to have it
Hath lost me in your liking.
KING LEAR Better thou
Hadst not been born than not to have pleased me better.
KING OF FRANCE Is it but this,–a tardiness in nature
Which often leaves the history unspoke
That 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 stand
Aloof from the entire point. Will you have her?
She is herself a dowry.
BURGUNDY Royal Lear,
Give but that portion which yourself proposed,
And here I take Cordelia by the hand,
Duchess of Burgundy.
KING LEAR Nothing: I have sworn; I am firm.
BURGUNDY I am sorry, then, you have so lost a father
That you must lose a husband.
CORDELIA Peace be with Burgundy!
Since that respects of fortune are his love,
I shall not be his wife.
KING OF FRANCE 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
My 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.
Bid them farewell, Cordelia, though unkind:
Thou losest here, a better where to find.
KING LEAR 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
Without our grace, our love, our benison.
Come, noble Burgundy.
Flourish. Exeunt all but KING OF FRANCE, GONERIL, REGAN, and CORDELIA
KING OF FRANCE Bid farewell to your sisters.
CORDELIA The jewels of our father, with wash’d eyes
Cordelia leaves you: I know you what you are;
And like a sister am most loath to call
Your faults as they are named. Use well our father:
To your professed bosoms I commit him
But yet, alas, stood I within his grace,
I would prefer him to a better place.
So, farewell to you both.
REGAN Prescribe not us our duties.
GONERIL Let your study
Be to content your lord, who hath received you
At fortune’s alms. You have obedience scanted,
And well are worth the want that you have wanted.
CORDELIA Time shall unfold what plaited cunning hides:
Who cover faults, at last shame them derides.
Well may you prosper!
KING OF FRANCE Come, my fair Cordelia.
Exeunt KING OF FRANCE and CORDELIA
GONERIL Sister, it is not a little I have to say of what
most nearly appertains to us both. I think our
father will hence to-night.
REGAN That’s most certain, and with you; next month with us.
GONERIL You see how full of changes his age is; the
observation we have made of it hath not been
little: he always loved our sister most; and
with what poor judgment he hath now cast her off
appears too grossly.
REGAN ‘Tis the infirmity of his age: yet he hath ever
but slenderly known himself.
GONERIL The best and soundest of his time hath been but
rash; then must we look to receive from his age,
not alone the imperfections of long-engraffed
condition, but therewithal the unruly waywardness
that infirm and choleric years bring with them.
REGAN Such unconstant starts are we like to have from
him as this of Kent’s banishment.
GONERIL There is further compliment of leavetaking
between France and him. Pray you, let’s hit
together: if our father carry authority with
such dispositions as he bears, this last
surrender of his will but offend us.
REGAN We shall further think on’t.
GONERIL We must do something, and i’ the heat.
Exeunt
Scene 2
The Earl of Gloucester’s castle.
Enter EDMUND, with a letter
EDMUND Thou, nature, art my goddess; to thy law
My services are bound. Wherefore should I
Stand in the plague of custom, and permit
The curiosity of nations to deprive me,
For that I am some twelve or fourteen moon-shines
Lag of a brother? Why bastard? wherefore base?
When my dimensions are as well compact,
My mind as generous, and my shape as true,
As honest madam’s issue? Why brand they us
With base? with baseness? bastardy? base, base?
Who, in the lusty stealth of nature, take
More composition and fierce quality
Than doth, within a dull, stale, tired bed,
Go to the creating a whole tribe of fops,
Got ‘tween asleep and wake? Well, then,
Legitimate Edgar, I must have your land:
Our father’s love is to the bastard Edmund
As to the legitimate: fine word,–legitimate!
Well, my legitimate, if this letter speed,
And my invention thrive, Edmund the base
Shall top the legitimate. I grow; I prosper:
Now, gods, stand up for bastards!
Enter GLOUCESTER
GLOUCESTER Kent banish’d thus! and France in choler parted!
And the king gone to-night! subscribed his power!
Confined to exhibition! All this done
Upon the gad! Edmund, how now! what news?
EDMUND So please your lordship, none.
Putting up the letter
GLOUCESTER Why so earnestly seek you to put up that letter?
EDMUND I know no news, my lord.
GLOUCESTER What paper were you reading?
EDMUND Nothing, my lord.
GLOUCESTER No? What needed, then, that terrible dispatch of
it into your pocket? the quality of nothing hath
not such need to hide itself. Let’s see: come,
if it be nothing, I shall not need spectacles.
EDMUND I beseech you, sir, pardon me: it is a letter
from my brother, that I have not all o’er-read;
and for so much as I have perused, I find it not