king; and take vanity the puppet’s part against the
royalty of her father: draw, you rogue, or I’ll so
carbonado your shanks: draw, you rascal; come your ways.
OSWALD Help, ho! murder! help!
KENT Strike, you slave; stand, rogue, stand; you neat
slave, strike.
Beating him
OSWALD Help, ho! murder! murder!
Enter EDMUND, with his rapier drawn, CORNWALL, REGAN, GLOUCESTER, and Servants
EDMUND How now! What’s the matter?
KENT With you, goodman boy, an you please: come, I’ll
flesh ye; come on, young master.
GLOUCESTER Weapons! arms! What ‘s the matter here?
CORNWALL Keep peace, upon your lives:
He dies that strikes again. What is the matter?
REGAN The messengers from our sister and the king.
CORNWALL What is your difference? speak.
OSWALD I am scarce in breath, my lord.
KENT No marvel, you have so bestirred your valour. You
cowardly rascal, nature disclaims in thee: a
tailor made thee.
CORNWALL Thou art a strange fellow: a tailor make a man?
KENT Ay, a tailor, sir: a stone-cutter or painter could
not have made him so ill, though he had been but two
hours at the trade.
CORNWALL Speak yet, how grew your quarrel?
OSWALD This ancient ruffian, sir, whose life I have spared
at suit of his gray beard,–
KENT Thou whoreson zed! thou unnecessary letter! My
lord, if you will give me leave, I will tread this
unbolted villain into mortar, and daub the wall of
a jakes with him. Spare my gray beard, you wagtail?
CORNWALL Peace, sirrah!
You beastly knave, know you no reverence?
KENT Yes, sir; but anger hath a privilege.
CORNWALL Why art thou angry?
KENT That such a slave as this should wear a sword,
Who wears no honesty. Such smiling rogues as these,
Like rats, oft bite the holy cords a-twain
Which are too intrinse t’ unloose; smooth every passion
That in the natures of their lords rebel;
Bring oil to fire, snow to their colder moods;
Renege, affirm, and turn their halcyon beaks
With every gale and vary of their masters,
Knowing nought, like dogs, but following.
A plague upon your epileptic visage!
Smile you my speeches, as I were a fool?
Goose, if I had you upon Sarum plain,
I’ld drive ye cackling home to Camelot.
CORNWALL Why, art thou mad, old fellow?
GLOUCESTER How fell you out? say that.
KENT No contraries hold more antipathy
Than I and such a knave.
CORNWALL Why dost thou call him a knave? What’s his offence?
KENT His countenance likes me not.
CORNWALL No more, perchance, does mine, nor his, nor hers.
KENT Sir, ’tis my occupation to be plain:
I have seen better faces in my time
Than stands on any shoulder that I see
Before me at this instant.
CORNWALL This is some fellow,
Who, having been praised for bluntness, doth affect
A saucy roughness, and constrains the garb
Quite from his nature: he cannot flatter, he,
An honest mind and plain, he must speak truth!
An they will take it, so; if not, he’s plain.
These kind of knaves I know, which in this plainness
Harbour more craft and more corrupter ends
Than twenty silly ducking observants
That stretch their duties nicely.
KENT Sir, in good sooth, in sincere verity,
Under the allowance of your great aspect,
Whose influence, like the wreath of radiant fire
On flickering Phoebus’ front,–
CORNWALL What mean’st by this?
KENT To go out of my dialect, which you
discommend so much. I know, sir, I am no
flatterer: he that beguiled you in a plain
accent was a plain knave; which for my part
I will not be, though I should win your displeasure
to entreat me to ‘t.
CORNWALL What was the offence you gave him?
OSWALD I never gave him any:
It pleased the king his master very late
To strike at me, upon his misconstruction;
When he, conjunct and flattering his displeasure,
Tripp’d me behind; being down, insulted, rail’d,
And put upon him such a deal of man,
That worthied him, got praises of the king
For him attempting who was self-subdued;
And, in the fleshment of this dread exploit,
Drew on me here again.
KENT None of these rogues and cowards
But Ajax is their fool.
CORNWALL Fetch forth the stocks!
You stubborn ancient knave, you reverend braggart,
We’ll teach you–
KENT Sir, I am too old to learn:
Call not your stocks for me: I serve the king;
On whose employment I was sent to you:
You shall do small respect, show too bold malice
Against the grace and person of my master,
Stocking his messenger.
CORNWALL Fetch forth the stocks! As I have life and honour,
There shall he sit till noon.
REGAN Till noon! till night, my lord; and all night too.
KENT Why, madam, if I were your father’s dog,
You should not use me so.
REGAN Sir, being his knave, I will.
CORNWALL This is a fellow of the self-same colour
Our sister speaks of. Come, bring away the stocks!
Stocks brought out
GLOUCESTER Let me beseech your grace not to do so:
His fault is much, and the good king his master
Will cheque him for ‘t: your purposed low correction
Is such as basest and contemned’st wretches
For pilferings and most common trespasses
Are punish’d with: the king must take it ill,
That he’s so slightly valued in his messenger,
Should have him thus restrain’d.
CORNWALL I’ll answer that.
REGAN My sister may receive it much more worse,
To have her gentleman abused, assaulted,
For following her affairs. Put in his legs.
KENT is put in the stocks
Come, my good lord, away.
Exeunt all but GLOUCESTER and KENT
GLOUCESTER I am sorry for thee, friend; ’tis the duke’s pleasure,
Whose disposition, all the world well knows,
Will not be rubb’d nor stopp’d: I’ll entreat for thee.
KENT Pray, do not, sir: I have watched and travell’d hard;
Some time I shall sleep out, the rest I’ll whistle.
A good man’s fortune may grow out at heels:
Give you good morrow!
GLOUCESTER The duke’s to blame in this; ’twill be ill taken.
Exit
KENT Good king, that must approve the common saw,
Thou out of heaven’s benediction comest
To the warm sun!
Approach, thou beacon to this under globe,
That by thy comfortable beams I may
Peruse this letter! Nothing almost sees miracles
But misery: I know ’tis from Cordelia,
Who hath most fortunately been inform’d
Of my obscured course; and shall find time
From this enormous state, seeking to give
Losses their remedies. All weary and o’erwatch’d,
Take vantage, heavy eyes, not to behold
This shameful lodging.
Fortune, good night: smile once more: turn thy wheel!
Sleeps
Scene 3
A wood.
Enter EDGAR
EDGAR I heard myself proclaim’d;
And by the happy hollow of a tree
Escaped the hunt. No port is free; no place,
That guard, and most unusual vigilance,
Does not attend my taking. Whiles I may ‘scape,
I will preserve myself: and am bethought
To take the basest and most poorest shape
That ever penury, in contempt of man,
Brought near to beast: my face I’ll grime with filth;
Blanket my loins: elf all my hair in knots;
And with presented nakedness out-face
The winds and persecutions of the sky.
The country gives me proof and precedent
Of Bedlam beggars, who, with roaring voices,
Strike in their numb’d and mortified bare arms
Pins, wooden pricks, nails, sprigs of rosemary;
And with this horrible object, from low farms,
Poor pelting villages, sheep-cotes, and mills,
Sometime with lunatic bans, sometime with prayers,
Enforce their charity. Poor Turlygod! poor Tom!
That’s something yet: Edgar I nothing am.
Exit
Scene 4
Before GLOUCESTER’s castle. KENT in the stocks.
Enter KING LEAR, Fool, and Gentleman
KING LEAR ‘Tis strange that they should so depart from home,
And not send back my messenger.
Gentleman As I learn’d,
The night before there was no purpose in them
Of this remove.
KENT Hail to thee, noble master!
KING LEAR Ha!
Makest thou this shame thy pastime?
KENT No, my lord.
Fool Ha, ha! he wears cruel garters. Horses are tied
by the heads, dogs and bears by the neck, monkeys by
the loins, and men by the legs: when a man’s
over-lusty at legs, then he wears wooden
nether-stocks.
KING LEAR What’s he that hath so much thy place mistook
To set thee here?
KENT It is both he and she;
Your son and daughter.
KING LEAR No.
KENT Yes.
KING LEAR No, I say.
KENT I say, yea.
KING LEAR No, no, they would not.
KENT Yes, they have.
KING LEAR By Jupiter, I swear, no.
KENT By Juno, I swear, ay.
KING LEAR They durst not do ‘t;
They could not, would not do ‘t; ’tis worse than murder,
To do upon respect such violent outrage:
Resolve me, with all modest haste, which way
Thou mightst deserve, or they impose, this usage,
Coming from us.
KENT My lord, when at their home
I did commend your highness’ letters to them,