 This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. The Tragedy of King Lear by William Shakespeare Recorded by LibriVox volunteers to mark the 400th anniversary of the first performance of the play, which was on December 26, 1606. Act 1 Scene 1 A Room of State in King Lear's Palace Enter Kent, Gloucester and Edmund. Kent I thought the King had more affected the Duke 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 equalities are so weighed that curiosity in neither can make choice of either's moiety. Kent Is not this your son, my lord? Gloucester His breathing, sir, hath been at my charge. I have so often blushed to acknowledge him that now I am brazed to it. Kent I cannot conceive you. Gloucester This young fellow's mother could, whereupon she grew round-wound, and had indeed, sir, a son for her cradle ere she had a husband for her bed. Do you smell a fault? Kent I cannot wish the fault undone, the issue of it being so proper. Gloucester But I have, sir, a son by order of law some year elder than this, no dearer in my account, though this nave came something sossily into the world before he was sent for, yet was his mother fair, there was good sport at his making, and the horse-son must be acknowledged. Do you know this noble gentleman, Edmund? Edmund No, my lord. My lord of Kent, remember him hereafter as my honorable friend. My services to your lordship. I must love you and sue to know you better. Sir, I shall study deserving. He hath been out nine years, and away he shall again. The king is coming. Sound a senate. Enter one bearing a coronet. Enter King Lear, Cornwall, Albany, Goneril, Regan, Cordelia, and attendance. Lear Attend the lords of France and Burgundy Gloucester. I shall, my muse. Exiant Gloucester and Edmund. Meantime we shall express our darker purpose. Give me the map there. Know that we have divided in three our kingdom, and is our first intent to shake all cares and business from our age, conferring them on younger strengths, while we, unburdened, crawl toward death, our son of Cornwall, and you are no less loving son of Albany. We have this hour of constant will to publish our daughters several dours. That future strife may be prevented now. The princes, France and Burgundy, great rivals in our youngest daughters' love, long in our court have made their amour a sojourn, and here are to be answered. Tell me, my daughters, since now we will divest us both of rule, interest of territory, cares of state, which of you shall we say doth love us most, that we, our largest bounty, may extend, when nature doth with merit challenge? Goneril, our eldest born, speak first. Sir, I love you more than words 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, honour, as much as child-are loved or father found, a love that makes breath poor and speech unable, beyond all manner of so much, I love you. Cordelia. What shall Cordelia speak? Love and be silent. Of all these bounds, even from this line to this, with shadowy forests and with champions rich, with plenty of rivers and wide-skirted meads, we make thee lady, to thine and Albany's issue be this perpetual. What says our second daughter? Our dearest Regan, wife to Cornel, speak. Sir, I am made of the self-same metal that my sister is, and brise me at her worth. In my true art I find she names me very deed of love, only she comes to short, that I profess myself an enemy to all other joys, which the most precious square of sense possesses, and find I am alone felicitate, in your dear highness's love. Then poor Cordelia, and yet not so, since I am sure my love's more richer 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 the last not least, to whose young love the vines of France and milk of Burgundy strive to be interested. What can you say to draw a third more opulent than your sister's? Speak. Nothing, my lord. Nothing? Nothing. Nothing can come of nothing. Speak again. Unhappy that I am. I cannot heave my heart into my mouth. I love your majesty according to my bond. No more, no less. Oh, how Cordelia! Mind your speech a little, lest you may mar your fortunes. Good my lord, you have begot me, bred me, loved me. I return those duties back as our right fit, obey you, love you, and most honour you. Why have my sister's husbands, if they say they love you all? Happily when I shall wed, that lord whose hand must take my plight, shall carry half my love with him, half my care and duty. Sure I shall never marry like my sister's, to love my father all. But goes thy heart with this? I, good my lord. So young, and so untender. So young, my lord, and true. Let it be so. Thy truth then be thy dour. For by the sacred radiance of the sun, the mysteries of Eckart and the night, by all the operation of the orbs, from whom we do exist and cease to be, here I disclaim all my paternal care, prepinquity and property of blood, and as a stranger to my heart and me hold thee for this forever, the barbarous Scythian, or he that makes his generation messes to gorge his appetite, shall to my bosom be as well neighbour, pitted and relieved, as thou, my sometimes daughter. Good my leash! Peace, Kent, come not between the dragon and his wroth. 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 Franz, who stirs, call Burgundy, Cornwall and Albany, with my two daughters Dower's digest this third. Let pride, which she calls plainness, marry her. I do invest you jointly in my power, pre-eminence and all the large effects that troop with majesty, ourself by monthly course, with reservation of one hundred nights, by you to be sustained, shall our abode make with you by due turns. Only we still retain the name and all the additions to her king, the sway, revenue, execution of the rest. Beloved sons, be yours, which to confirm this coronet part betwixt you. Royal Lyre, whom I have ever honored as my king, loved 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. Bekent, unmanorly, when Lyre is mad. What wouldst thou do, old man? Thinkst thou that duty shall have dread to speak when power to flattery bows? To plainness honors bound when majesty falls to folly. Reverse thy state, and 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 sound reverbs no hollowness. Kent, on thy life, no more. My life I never held but as a pawn to wage against thine enemies, nor fear to lose it, thy safety being the motive. Out of my sight. See better, Lyre, and let me still remain the true blank of thine eye. Now, by Apollo. Now, by Apollo, king, thou squirts thy gods in vain. Oh, vassal, miscreant! He makes to strike him. Dear sir, forbear. Do, kill thy physician, and the fee bestow upon the foul disease. Revoke thy gift, or whilst I can vent clamour for my throat, I'll tell thee thou dust evil. Hear me, Recreant, on thine allegiance hear me, since thou hast sought to make us break our vow, which we doth never yet, and with strained pride to come between our sentence and our power, which nor our nature nor our place can bear. Our potency made good. Take thy reward. Five days do we 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 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 will appear. Freedom lives hence, and banishment is here. To Cordelia. The gods to their dear shelter take thee, maid, that justly thinks, 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. Thus Kent, O princes, bid you all adieu. He'll shape his old course in a country new. Exit. Flourish, enter Gloucester with France and Burgundy and attendance. Here's France and Burgundy, my noble lord. My lord of Burgundy, we first address towards you, who with this king hath rivaled for our daughter. What in the least will you require in present dour with her, nor cease your quest of love? Most royal, majesty. I crave no more than hath your highness offered. Nor will you tender less. Right, noble Burgundy, when she was dear to us, we did hold her so. But now her price is fallen. Sir, there she stands. If all within that little seeming substance, or all of it with our displeasure pierced, and nothing more may fitly like your grace, she's there, and she is yours. I know no answer. Will you, with those infirmities she owes, unfriended, new adopted to our hate, dour with our curse and stranger'd with our oath, take her, or leave her? Pardon me, royal sir. Election makes not up on 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 to match you where I hate. Therefore beseech you to avert your liking a more worthy way, than on a wretch whom nature is ashamed almost to acknowledge her. This is most strange, that she, even but now with 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 favor. Sure her offense must be of such a natural degree that monsters it, or your forvashed affection falling into taint, which, to believe of her, must be a faith that reason without miracle should never plant in me. Yet I 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 it before I speak, that you make known it is no vicious plot, murder, or foulness, no unchaste action or dishonored step, that hath deprived me of your grace in favor, but even for want of that 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. Better thou hadst not been born, not to have pleased me better? Is it but this? A tardiness in nature which often leaves the historian spoke that it intends to do? My lord of Burgundy, what say you to the lady? She loves not love when it is mingled with regards that stands aloof from the entire point. Will you have her? She's herself a dowry. 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. To Cordelia. I am sorry, then, you have so lost a father that you must lose a husband. You must be with Burgundy. Since that respects of fortune are his love, I shall not be his wife. Ferris Cordelia. That art most rich being poor, most choice forsaken, and most love despised. Thee, and thy virtues, here I seize upon. Be it lawful, I take up what's cast away. Gods! Gods! It is strange that from their coldest neglect my love should kindle to inflamed respect. Thy dourless 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 unpriced precious maid of me. Be them farewell Cordelia, though unkind. Thou looses 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, without our grace, our love, our benison. Come, noble Burgundy. Flourish, exeant, Lea, Burgundy, Cornwall, Albany, Glouster, and Attendance. Be farewell to your sisters. The jewels of our father with washed eyes Cordelia leaves you. I know what you are, and like a sister, am most loath to call your faults as they are named. Love 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. Prescribe not us, thou duties. Let your study be to contend your lord, who hath received you at fortune's alms. You have obedience scanted, and well are worth the want that you have wanted. Time shall unfold what plighted cunning hides, who covers faults at last shame them derides. Well may you prosper. Come, my fair Cordelia. Exeant France and Cordelia. Sister, it is not little I have to say that most nearly appertains to us both. I think our father will hence tonight. That's most certain, and with you, next month with us. 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. It is the infirmity of his age, yet he hath ever but landerly known himself. 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 ingraft condition, but there with all the unruly waywardness that infirm and choleric years bring with them. Such unconscious darts are we like to have from him as this of Kent's banishment. There is further complement of leave-taking between France and him. Pray you, let us hit together. If our father carry authority with such dispositions as he bears, this last surrender of his will but offend us. We shall further think of it. We must do something, and in the heat. Exiant. Seen to, a hall in the Earl of Gloucester's castle, enter Edmund with a letter. Thou, nature, art my goddess, to thy law my services abound. 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 moonshines like of a brother? Why, bastard? Wherefore base, when my dimensions are as well compact, my mind is generous, and my shape is true as honest madam's issue. Why brand they us with base, with baseness, bastardly base? Base? Who in the lusty stealth of nature take more composition and fierce quality than doth with a dull, stale, tyrant bed, go to the creating of a whole tribe of fops gottween asleep and awake? 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. And how, gods? Stand up for bastards. Enter Gloucester. Kent banished thus, and France in collar parted, and the king, gone to-night, subscribed his power, confined to exhibition, all this done upon the gad. Edmund, how now, what news? So please, your lordship, none. Why, so earnestly, seek you to put up that letter? I know no news, my lord. What paper were you reading? Nothing, my lord. 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. I beseech you, sir, pardon me. Here's a letter from my brother that I have not all or read, and for so much as I have perused I find it not fit for your or looking. Give me the letter, sir. I shall offend, either to detain or give it. The contents, as in part I understand them, are to blame. Let's see, let's see. I hope, for my brother's justification he wrote this, but as an essay or taste of my virtue. This policy and reverence of age makes the world bitter to the best of our times, keeps our fortunes from us till our oldness cannot relish them. I begin to find an idle and fond bondage in the oppression of aged tyranny, who sways not as it hath power but as it is suffered. Come to me, that of this I may speak more. If our father would sleep till I waked him, you should enjoy half his revenue for ever, and live the beloved of your brother, Edgar. Hum. Conspiracy. Sleep till I waked him. You should enjoy half his revenue. My son, Edgar. Had he a hand to write this? A heart and brain to breed it in? When came this to you? Who brought it? It was not brought me, my lord, there's the cunning of it. I found it thrown in at the casement of my closet. You know the character to be your brother's? If the matter were good, my lord, I dost swear it were his, but in respect of that, I would feign think it were not. It is his. It is his hand, my lord, but I hope his heart is not in the contents. Hath he never before sounded you in this business? Never, my lord, but I have heard him oft maintain it, to be fit that sons at perfect age and fathers decline the father should be as ward to the son, and the son manage his revenue. Oh villain, villain, his very opinion in the letter. Abhorred villain, unnatural, detested, brutish villain, worse than brutish. Go, sirrah, seek him. I'll apprehend him. Abominable villain, where is he? I do not well know, my lord. If it shall please you to suspend your indignation against my brother, till you can derive from him better testimony of his intent, you should run a certain course, where, if you violently proceed against him mistaking his purpose, it would make a great gap in your own honour, and shake in pieces the heart of his obedience. I dear pawn down my life for him that he hath rid this to feel my affection to your honour, and to know other pretense of danger. Think you so. If your honour-judged meet, I would place you where you shall hear us confer of this, and by an oricular assurance have your satisfaction, and that without any further delay than this very evening. He cannot be such a monster. Nor it is not, sure. To his father, that so tenderly and entirely loves him, heaven and earth. Edmund, seek him out. Wind me into him, I pray you. Frame the business after your own wisdom. I would unstate myself to be in a due resolution. I will seek him, sir, presently. Convey the business as I shall find means, and acquaint you with all. These late eclipses in the sun and moon portend no good to us, though the wisdom of nature can reason it thus and thus, yet nature finds itself scourged by the sequent effects. Love cools, friendship falls off, brothers divide. In cities mutinies, in countries discord, in palaces treason, and the bond cracked, twist son and father. This villain of mine comes under the prediction. There's son against father. The king falls from bias of nature. There's father against child. We have seen the best of our time. Machinations, hollowness, treachery, and all ruinous disorders follow us disquietly to our graves. Find out this villain, Edmund. It shall lose thee nothing. Do it carefully. And the noble and true-hearted Kent banished. His offence honesty. Tis strange. Exit. This is the exon-foppery of the world, that when we are sick and fortune, often to the surfeit of our own behaviour, we make guilty our own disasters, the sun, the moon, and the stars, as if we were villains on necessity. Fools by heavenly compulsion, knaves, thieves, and treaters by spherical predominance. Drunkards, liars, and adulterers by an enforced obedience of planetary influence. And all that we are evil in by a divine thrusting on an admirable evasion of whore-master-men to lay as gotish disposition to the charge of a star. My father compounded with my mother under the dragon's tail, and my nativity was under Ursa Major, so that it follows I am rough and lecherous, tut. I should have been that I am, had the maidenliest star in the firmament twinkled on my bastardising. Enter Edgar. Pat, he comes. Like the catastrophe of the old comedy, my cue is villainous melancholy, with a sigh like Tom or Bedlam. Oh, these eclipses do portend these divisions. Fa sola me. How now, brother Edmund, what serious contemplation are you in? I am thinking, rather, of a prediction I read this other day. What should follow these eclipses? Do you busy yourself with that? I promise you the effects he writes of succeed unhappily, as of unnaturalness between the child and the parent, death, dearth, disillusions of ancient amities, divisions in state, menaces, and maledictions against king and nobles, needless diffidences, banishment of friends, dissipation of cohorts, nuptial breaches, and I know not what. How long have you been a secretary astronomical? Come, come. When saw you, my father, last? The night gone by. Spoke you with him? I, two hours together. Parted you in good terms, and no displeasure in him by word or countenance? None at all. Be-think yourself wherein you may have offended him, and at my entreaty forbear his presence until some little time hath qualified the heat of a displeasure, which, at this instance, so rages in him that, with the mischief of your person, it would scarcely allay. Some villain hath done me wrong. That's my fear. I pray you have a continent forbearance till the speed of his rage goes slower, and, as I say, retire with me to my lodging from whence I will fitly bring you to hear my lord speak. Pray you go. There's my key. If you do stir abroad, go armed. Armed, brother? Brother, I advise you to the best. I am no honest man if there be any good meaning toward you. I have told you what I have seen and heard, but faintly. Nothing like the image and horror of it. Pray you away. Shall I hear from you, Anona? I do serve you in this business. Exit, Edgar. Credulous father, and a brother noble, whose nature is so far from doing harm that he suspects none, on whose foolish honesty my practice is right easy. I see the business. Let me, if not by birth, have lands by wit, all with me's meat that I can fashion fit. Exit, scene three. A room in the Duke of Albany's palace. Enter Goneril, and Oswald, her steward. Did my father strike my gentlemen for chiding of his fool? I am Madame. By day and night he wrongs me. Every hour he flashes into one gross crime or another that sets us all at odds. I'll not endure it. His knights grow riotous, and himself upbraids us on every trifle. When he returns from hunting, I will not speak with him. Say I am sick. If you come slack of former services, you shall do well. The fault of it I'll answer. He's coming, Madame. I hear him. I'd have it come to question. If he distaste it, let him to our sister, whose mind and mine I know in that are one, not to be overruled. I'd a old man that still would manage those authorities that he hath given away. Now by my life old fools are babes again, and must be used with checks as flatteries, when they are seen abused. Remember what I have said. Very well, Madame. And let his knights have colder looks among you. What grows of it, no matter, so I would breed from hence occasions, and I shall that I may speak. I'll write straight to my sister to hold my very course. Prepare for dinner. Exiant. Scene four. A hall in Albany's palace. Enter Kent in disguise. If, but as well, I other accents borrow, that can my speech diffuse, my good intent may carry through itself to that full issue for which I raised my likeness. Now, banished Kent, if thou canst serve where thou dost stand condemned, so may it come, thy master, whom thou loftest, shall find thee full of labours. Horns within, and to leer, and knights. Let me not stay a jot for dinner. Go, get it ready. Exit first night. Ah, now, what art thou? A man, sir. What dost thou profess? What wouldst thou with us? I do profess to be no less than I seem to serve him truly that will put me in trust, to love him that is honest, to converse with him that is wise and says little, to fear judgment, to fight when I cannot choose, and to eat no fish. What art thou? A very honest hearted fellow, and as poor as the king. If thou beest as poor for a subject as he's for a king, thou art poor enough. What wouldst thou? Service. Who wouldst thou serve? You. Does thou know me, fellow? No, sir, but you have that and your countenance, which I would feign call master. What's that? Authority. What services canst thou do? I can keep honest counsel, ride, run, mar a curious tale in telling it, and deliver a plain message bluntly. That which ordinary men are fit for, I am qualified in, and the best of me is diligence. How old art thou? Not so young, sir, to love a woman for singing, nor so old to dot on her for anything. I have years on my back forty-eight. Follow me, thou shalt serve me. If I like thee no worse after dinner, I will not part from thee yet. Dinner. Where's my nave, my fool? Go you and call my fool, hither. Exit second night. Enter Oswald. You. You, sir, where's my daughter? So please you. Exit. What says the fellow there? Call the clock pole back. Exit third night. Where's my fool? Oh, I think the world's asleep. Enter third night. How now? Where's that mongrel? He says, my lord, your daughter is not well. Why came not the slave back to me when I called him? Sir, he answered me. In the roundest manner, he would not. He would not? My lord, I know not what the matter is. But to my judgment, your highness is not entertained with that ceremonious affection as you were want. There's a great abatement of kindness appears as well in the general dependence as in the duke himself also, and your daughter. Huh! Says thou so? I beseech you pardon me, my lord, if I be mistaken, for my duty cannot be silent when I think your highness wronged. Thou but rememberst me of my own conception. I have perceived a most faint neglect of late which I have rather blamed as my own jealous curiosity, than as a very pretence and purpose of unkindness. I will look further into it. But where's my fool? I have not seen him these two days. Since my young lady's going into frat, sir, the fool hath much pined away. No more of that, I have noted it well. Go you and tell my daughter I would speak with her. Exit third night. Go you, call hither my fool. Exit another night. Enter Oswald. O you, sir, you, come hither, sir. Who am I, sir? My lady's father. My lady's father? My lord's name, you horse and dog, you slave, you cur. I am none of these, my lord. I beseech your pardon. Do you bandy looks with me, you rascal? He strikes him. I'll not be struck, my lord. Nor tripped, neither. You base football player. He trips him. I thank thee, fellow. Thou serves me, and I love thee. To Oswald. Come, sir, arise, away. I'll teach you differences, away, away. If you will measure your lover's length again, Terry, but away, go to. Have you wisdom? He pushes Oswald out. So? Now, my friend inave, I thank thee. There's earnest of thy service. He gives him money. Enter the fool. Let me hire him, too. Here's my cox comb. How now, my pretty knave? How dost thou? Sirah, you were best take my cox comb. Why, fool? Why, for taking one's part, that's out of favour. Nay, and thou canst not smile, as the wind sits. Delt catch cold shortly. There, take my cox comb. Why, this fellow has banished two one's daughters and did the third a blessing against his will. If thou follow him, thou must need's wear my cox comb. How now, nunkel? Would I had two cox combs and two daughters? Why, my boy? If I gave them all my living, I'd keep my cox combs myself. There's mine, beg another of thy daughters. Take heed, sirah, the whip. Truth's the dog must to kennel. He must be whipped out, when the lady brock may stand by the fire and stink. A pestilent goal to me. Sirah, I'll teach thee a speech. Do. Mark it, nunkel. Have more than thou showest. Speak less than thou knowest. Land less than thou o'est. Ride more than thou goest. Learn more than thou throwest. Set less than thou throwest. Leave thy drink and thy whore and keep in a door. And thou shalt have more than two tens to a score. This is nothing, fool. Then, tis like the breath of an unfeed lawyer. You gave me nothing fort. Can you make no use of nothing, nunkel? Why, no, boy, nothing can be made out of nothing. To Kent. Prithee tell him, so much the rent of his land comes to, he will not believe a fool. A bitter fool. Does thou know the difference, my boy, between a bitter fool and a sweet one? No, lad, teach me. That lord that counseled thee to give away thy land, come place him here by me. Do thou for him stand. The sweet and bitter fool will presently appear. The one in motley here, the other found out there. Does thou call me fool, boy? All thy other titles thou hast given away that thou was born with. This is not altogether fool, my lord. No faith. Lords and great men will not let me. If I had a monopoly out, they would have part-aunt and loads too. They will not let me have all the fool to myself. They'll be snatching, nunkel. Give me an egg, and I'll give thee two crowns. What two crown shall they be? Why, after I've cut the egg in the middle, and eat up the meat, the two crowns of the egg? When thou clovest thy crown in the middle, and gavest away both parts, thou borst thine ass on thy back or the dirt, thou hadst little width in thy bald crown, when thou gavest thy golden one away. If I speak like myself in this, let him be whipped that first finds it so. Fools had near, let's grace in a year, for wise men are grown foppish, and know not how their widths to wear, their manners are so apish. When will you want to be so full of song, sirrah? I have used it, nunkel, ere since thou madeest thy daughters thy mothers, for when thou gavest them the rod, and putest down thine own breeches, then they for a sudden joy did weep, and I for sorrow sung, that such a king should play bo peep, and go the fools among. Prithee, nunkel, keep a school master, that can teach thy fool to lie, I would fain learn to lie. And you lie, sirrah, we'll have you whipped. I marvel what kin thou and thy daughters are, they'll have me whipped for speaking true, they'll have me whipped for lying, and sometimes I am whipped for holding my peace. I had rather be any kind of thing than a fool, and yet I would not be thee, nunkel. Thou hast paired thy widow both sides, and left nothing in the middle. Here comes one of the pairings. How now, daughter, what makes that frontal dawn? Me thinks thou art too much of later the frown. I am a fool, thou art nothing. Yes, forsooth, I will hold my tongue. So, to your face, bid me, though you say nothing, mum, mum, he that keeps nor crest nor crumb, weary of all shall want some. He points to Lea. That's a shield-piece card. Not only, sir, this your all-licensed fool, but other of your insolent retinue, do hourly carp and quarrel, breaking forth in rank and not to be endured riots. Sir, I had thought by making this well-known unto you to have found a safe redress, but now grow fearful by what yourself too late have spoken done that you protect this course, and put it on by your allowance, which if you should the fault would not escape censure, nor the redress's sleep, which in the tender of a wholesome wheel might in their working do you that offence which else were shame. That then necessity will call the screed proceeding. For you know, nunco, the hedge-sparrow fed the cuckoo so long that it had it head bid off by it young, so out went the candle, and we were left darkling. Are you our daughter? Come, sir, I would you would make use of that good wisdom whereof I know you are fraught, and put away these dispositions that of late transform you from what you rightly are. May not an ass know when the cart draws the horse? Woop! Jug! I love thee! Doth any here know me? This is not Lear. Doth Lear walk thus, speak thus. Where are his eyes? Either his notion weakens, his discerning's a lethargy'd. Aw, waking, tis not so. Who is it that can tell me who I am? Lear shadow. I would learn that, for by the marks of sovereignty, knowledge and reason, I should be false persuaded I had daughters. Which they will make an obedient father. Your name, fair gentlewoman? This admiration, sir, is much of the favour of your other new pranks. I do beseech you to understand my purposes are right. As you are old and reverent you should be wise. Here do you keep a hundred knights and squires, men so disordered, so debauched and bold, while court, infected with their manners, shows like a riotous inn. Epicurism and lust make it more like a tavern or a brothel than a graced place. The shame itself doth speak for instant remedy. Be then desired by her that else will take the thing she begs, a little to disquantity your train, and the remainder that shall still depend, to be such men as may besort your age which know themselves and you. Darkness and devil, saddle my horses, bore my train together, did generate bastard, I'll not trouble thee, yet have I left a daughter. You strike my people and your disordered rabble makes servants of their betters. Enter Albany. Woe that too late repents. Oh, sir, are you come? Is it your will? Speak, sir. Prepare my horses, ingratitude, thou marble-hearted fiend, more hideous when thou shows thee more mild than the sea-monster. Ray, sir, be patient. To Gonorill. Did tested kite thou lyest? My train are men of choice and rarest parts that all particulars of duty know, and in the most exact regard support the worships of their name. Oh, most small fault, how ugly, didst thou in Cordelia show, which like an engine wrenched my frame of nature from the fixed place, drew from my heart all love added to the gall. Oh, lyre, lyre, lyre, beat at this gate that let thy folly in He strikes his head, and thy dear judgment out. Go, go, my people. Exiant kent and knights. My lord, I am guiltless as I am ignorant of what hath moved you. It may be so, my lord. He kneels. Hear, nature, hear, dear goddess, hear. To spend thy purpose, if thou dost intend to make this creature fruitful, into her womb convey sterility, dry up in her the organs of increase, and from her derogate body never spring a babe to honour her. If she must team, create her child of spleen, that it may live and be a thwart disnatured torment to her. Let it stamp wrinkles in her brow of youth, with cadent tears fret channels in her cheeks. Turn all her mother's pains and benefits to laughter and contempt, that she may feel how sharper than a serpent's tooth it is to have a thankless child. Away, away! Exit. Now, gods that we adore, whereof comes this? Never afflict yourself to know more of it, but let his disposition have that scope that dotage gives it. Enter lyre. What fifty of my followers are to clap within a fortnight? What's the matter, sir? I'll tell thee life and death. I am ashamed that thou hast power to shake my manhood thus, that these hot tears which break from me before should make thee worth them, blasts and fogs upon thee, dantented woundings of her father's curse pierce every sense about thee. Old fond eyes beweep this cause again, I'll pluck you out and cast you with the waters that you lose to temper clay. Let it be so, I have another daughter who I am sure is kind and comfortable. When she shall hear of this with her nails she'll flay thy wolfish visage. Thou shalt find that I'll resume the shape with thou dost think I have cast off forever. Exit. Do you mark that? I cannot be so partial, gonrel. To the great love I bear you. Pray you content. What, Oswald? Hope! To the fool. You, sir, more naïve than fool, after your master. No clear, no clear, Terry, take the fool with thee. A fox when one has caught her and such a daughter should sure to the slaughter if my cap would buy a halter so the fool follows after. Exit. This man hath had good counsel. A hundred knights, tis politic and safe to let him keep at point a hundred knights. Yes, that on every dream lies each fancy, each complaint, dislike. He may engard his dotage with their powers and hold our lives in mercy. Oswald, I say. Well, you may fear too far. Safer than trust too far. Let me still take away the harms I fear, not fear still to be taken. I know his heart. What he hath uttered I have writ to my sister. If she sustain him in his hundred knights when I have showed th'un fitness. Enter Oswald. How now, Oswald? What, have you writ that letter to my sister? I, madam. Take you some company and away to horse. Inform her full of my particular fear and there to add such reasons of your own as may compact it more. Get you gone and hasten your return. Exit, Oswald. No, no, my lord. This milky gentleness and course of yours, though I condemn it not, yet under pardon you are much more a tasked for want of wisdom than praised for harmful mildness. How far your eyes may pierce I cannot tell. Striving to better oft we mar what's well. Nay, then. Well, well, the event. Exit. Scene five. Court before the Duke of Albany's palace. Enter Lear, Kent, the Fall, and the Gentleman. To Kent. Go you before to Gloucester with these letters. Acquaint my daughter no further with anything you know that comes from her demand out of the letter. If your diligence be not speedy I shall be there for you. I will not sleep, my lord, until I have delivered your letter. Exit. If a man's brains were in his heels were it not in danger of cibes? Aye, boy. Then I prithee be merry. Thy wit shall not go slipshod. Ha, ha, ha! Shalt see thy other daughter will use thee kindly for those she's as like this as a crabs like an apple, yet I can tell what I can tell. What can't tell, boy? She'll taste as like this as a crab does to a crab. Thou can't tell why one's nose stands in the middle one's face? No. Why, to keep one's eyes of either side's nose, that what a man cannot smell out he may spy into? I did her wrong. Can't tell how an oyster makes his shell? No. Nor I neither. But I can tell why a snail has a house. Why? Why to put his head in, not to give it away to his daughters and leave his horns without a case. I will forget my nature. So kind a father. Be my horses ready? Thy asses are gone about them. The reason why the seven stars are no more than seven is a pretty reason. Because they are not eight? Yes, indeed. Thou wouldst make a good fool. To take it again, Perforce. Monstering gratitude. If thou wert my fool, Uncle, I'd have thee beaten for being old before thy time. How's that? Thou shouldst not have been old till thou hadst been wise. Oh, let me not be mad. Not mad, sweet heaven. Keep me in temper. I would not be mad. How now? Are the horses ready? Ready, my lord. Gunboy. Exient all except the fool. She that's a maid now and laughs at my departure shall not be a maid long unless things be cut shorter. Exit. End of Act 1, King Lear. Act 2 of King Lear. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. King Lear by William Shakespeare. Act 2. Scene 1. A court within the castle of the Earl of Gloucester. Enter Edmund and Corrin meeting. Save thee, Currin. And you, sir. I have been with your father and given him notice that the Duke of Cornwall and Regan, his duchess, will be here with him this night. How comes that? Nay, I know not. You have heard of the news abroad. I mean the whispered ones, for they are yet but ear-kissing arguments. Not I. Pray you. What are they? Have you heard of no likely wars toward Twix the two dukes of Cornwall and Albany? Not a word. You may do then in time. Fare you well, sir. Exit. The Duke be here tonight? The better. Best. This weaves itself perforce into my business. My father hath set guard to take my brother, and I have one thing of a queasy question which I must act. Briefness and fortune work. Brother, a word. Descend. Brother, I say. Enter Edgar. My father watches. Sir, fly this place. Intelligence is given where you are hid. You have now the good advantage of the night. Have you not spoken against the Duke of Cornwall? He's coming hither, now with a night at haste, and reagan with him. Have you said nothing upon his party against the Duke of Albany? Advise yourself. I'm sure on't. Not a word. I hear my father coming. Pardon me. In cunning I must draw my sword upon you. Draw. Seem to defend yourself. Now quit you well. Yield. Come before my father. Light. Ho here. Fly, brother. Torches. Torches. So farewell. Exit Edgar. Some blood drawn on me would get opinion of my more fierce endeavor. I have seen drunkards do more than this in sport. He wounds himself in the arm. Father! Father, stop! Stop, no help! Enter Gloucester and servants with torches. Now, Edmund, where is the villain? Here stood he in the dark. His sharp sword out mumbling of wicked charms conjuring the moon to stand auspicious mistress. But where is he? Look, sir, I bleed. Where is the villain, Edmund? Fly this way, sir. But by no means he could— Pursue him. Ho, go after. Exit some servants. By no means what? Pursuade me to the murder of your lordship. But that I told him the Revenging Gods against patricides did all their thunders bend. Spoke with how manifold and strong a bond the child was bound to the father, sir, in fine. Seeing how loathly opposite I stood to his unnatural purpose and fell motion with his prepared sword, he charges home where my unprovided body lanced my arm. But when he saw my best alarmed spirits bold in the quarrel's right, roused to the encounter, or whether gassed by the noise I made, full suddenly he fled. Let him fly far. Not in this land shall he remain uncaught and found dispatched. The noble Duke, my master, my worthy arch and patron, comes to-night. By his authority I will proclaim it, that he which finds him shall deserve our thanks, bringing the murderous coward to the stake, he that conceals him death. When I dissuaded him from his intent and found him pite to do it with cursed speech, I threatened to discover him, he replied, Thou unpossessing bastard! Does thou think, if I would stand against thee, would the reposal of any trust, virtue or worth in thee, make thy words faith'd? No. What I should deny, as this I would. Thy. Though thou didst produce my very character, I'd turn it all to thy suggestion plot and damned practice, and thou must make a dullard of the world, if they not thought the prophets of my death were very pregnant and potential spurs to make thee seek it. Strong and fastened villain. Would he deny his letter? I never got him. Hark! The Duke's trumpets. I know not why he comes. All ports, all bar. The villain shall not escape. The Duke must grant me that. Besides, his picture I will send far and near that all the kingdom may have due note of him, and of my land, loyal and natural boy, I'll work the means to make thee capable. Enter Cornwall, Regan, and attendance. How now, my noble friend? Since I came hither, which I can call but now, I have heard strange news. If it be true, our vengeance comes too short, which can pursue the offender. How dost my lord? O madam, my old heart is cracked. It's cracked. What did my father's godson seek your life? He whom my father named, your Edgar? O lady, lady, shame would have it hid. Was he not companion with the riotous knights that tend upon my father? I know not, madam. It is too bad. Yes, madam. He was of that consort. No marvel, then, though he were ill-affected, tis they have put him on the old man's death. To have the expense and waste of his revenues I have this present evening from my sister been well informed of them, and with such cautions that if they come to so join at my house I'll not be there. Nor I assure thee, Regan. Edmund, I hear that you have shown your father a childlike office. It was my duty, sir. He did beret his practice, and received this hurt you see, striving to apprehend him. Is he pursued? I, my good lord. If he be taken, he shall never more be feared of doing harm. Make your own purpose, how in my strength you please. For you, Edmund, whose virtue and obedience doth this instant so much commend itself, you shall be ours. Natures of such deep trust we shall much need. You, we first seize on. I shall serve you, sir. Truly, however else. For him I thank your grace. You know not why we came to visit you. Thus out of season, dark-eyed night, occasions noble glossed of some boys, wherein we must have use of your advice. Our father he hath writ, so hath our sister, of differences which I best thought it fit to answer from our home. The several messengers from hence attend despatch. Our good old friend Lake Umphaz to your bosom, and bestow your needful counsel to our business, which craves the instant use. I serve you, madam. Your graces are right welcome. Exiant, flourish. Seen to, before Gloucester's castle. Enter Kent and Oswald severally. Good dawning to thee, friend. Art of this house? Aye. Where may we set our horses? In the mire. Prithee, if thou lovest me, tell me. I love thee not. Why, then, I care not for thee. If I had thee in lipsbury pinfold, I would make thee care for me. Why dost thou use me thus? I know thee not. Fellow, I know thee. What dost thou know me for? A nave, a rascal, an eater of broken meats, a base-proud, shallow, beggarly, three-suited, hundred-pound, filthy, worsted, stocky nave, a lily-livered, action-taking, horson, glass-gazing, super-serviceable, finical rogue, one-trunk, inheriting slave, one that wouldst be a bod in a way of good service and art nothing but the composition of a nave, beggar, coward, pander, and the sun and air of a mongrel-beach, one whom I will beat into clamorous whining if thou deniest the least syllable of thy addition. Why, what a monstrous fellow art thou, thus to rail on one that's neither known of thee nor knows thee. What a brazen-faced, varlant art thou. To deny thou notes'dt me. Is it two days ago since I beat thee and tripped up thy heels before the king? Draw, you rogue, for though it be night, yet the moon shines. I'll make a sap of the moonshine of you. Draw, you horson, colony barber-monger. Draw! Away! I have nothing to do with thee. Draw, you rascal! You come with letters against the king and take vanity, the puppet's part against the royalty of her father. Draw, you rogue, or also carbonado your shanks. Draw, you rascal! Come your ways. Help! Oh! Murder! Help! Strike, you slave! Oswald tries to escape. Stand, rogue! Stand! You neat slave, strike! He beats him. Help! Oh! Murder! Murder! Enter Edmund Cornwall, Regan Gloucester, and servants. How now? What's the matter? With you, Goodman Boy, and you please. Come, I'll flesh you. Come on, young master. Weapons, arms. What's the matter here? Keep peace upon your lives. He dies that strikes again. What is the matter? The messengers from our sister and the king. What is your difference? Speak. I'm scarce in breath, my lord. Ha! No, Marvel, you have so bestowed your valor. You cowardly rascal. Nature disclaims in thee. A tailor made thee. Thou art a strange fellow. A tailor make a man. A tailor, sir. A stone cutter or a painter could not have made him so ill, though he had been but two hours at the trade. To Oswald. Speak yet. How grew your quarrel? This ancient ruffian, sir, whose life I have spared at suit of his grey beard. Thou horse and zed, thou unnecessary letter. My lord, if you'll give me leave, I will tread this unbolted villain into mortar and dob the walls of a jakes with him. Spare my grey beard, you wag-tail. Peace, sirrah. You beastly knave. Know you no reverence. Yes, sir. But anger hath a privilege. Why art thou angry? That such a knave as this should wear a sword. Who wears no honesty. Such smiling rogues as these, like rats, off-bite the holy cords atwain, which are too entrance-ton-loose. Smooth every passion that in the natures of their lords rebel. Bring oil to the fire. Snow to their colder moods. Renig, a firm, and turn their halcyon beaks with every gale and very of their masters, knowing not, like dogs, but following. A plague upon your epileptic visage. Smile you, my speeches, as if I were a fool, goose, and I had you upon Sarram plain. I'd drive ye cackling home to Camelot. What, art thou mad, old fellow? How fell you out? Say that. No contraries hold more antipathy than I and such a knave. Why dost thou call him knave? What is his fault? His countenance likes me not. No more perchance does mine, or his, or hers. Sir, tis my preoccupation to be plain. I have seen better faces in my time than stands on any shoulder that I see before me at this instant. This is some fellow, who, having been praised for bluntness, doth effect a saucy roughness, and constrains the garb quite from his nature. He cannot flatter, he an honest mind and plain, he must speak truth, and they will take it so, if not he's plain. These kinds of knaves, I know which in this plainness, harbour more craft and more corrupta ends than twenty silly ducking observance that stretch their duties nicely. Sir, in good faith, in sincere verity, under the allowance of your great aspect, whose influence, like the wreath of radiant fire on flickering Phoebus' front. What, means'd by this? To go out of my dialect, which you discomment 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 it. What was the offence you gave him? I never gave him any. It pleased the king his master very late to strike at me upon his misconstruction. When he, compact and flattering his displeasure, tripped me behind, being down, insulted, railed, 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. None of these rogues and cowards but Ajax is their fool. Fetch forth the stocks. You stubborn ancient knave, you reverent braggart. We'll teach you. 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. Fetch forth the stocks. As I have life and honour, there shall he sit till noon. Till noon, till night, my lord, and all night too. Why, madam, if I were your father's dog, you should not use me so. Sir, being his knave, I will. This is a fellow of the self-same colour our sister speaks of. Come, bring away the stocks. Stocks brought out. Let me beseech your grace not to do so. His fault is much, and the good king, his master, will check him for it. Your purposed low correction is such as basest and contemptadness dretches for pilferings and most common trespasses are punished with. The king must take it ill that he, so slightly valued in his messenger, should have him thus restrained. I'll answer that. My sister may receive it much more worse. To have a gentleman abused is all did for following her affairs. Put in his legs. Kent is put in the stocks. Exiant all but Gloucester and Kent. I am sorry for thee, friend. Tis the Duke's pleasure, whose disposition all the world well knows, will not be rubbed nor stopped. I'll entreat for thee. Pray, do not, sir. I have watched and travelled hard. Sometime I shall sleep out. The rest I'll whistle. A good man's fortune may grow out at heels. Give you good morrow. The Duke's, to blame in this, will be ill taken. Exit. Good king, that must approve the commonsaw. Thou, out of heaven's benediction, coms'd to the warm sun. Approach, thou beacon to this underglobe, that by thy comfortable beams I may peruse this letter. Nothing almost sees miracles but misery. I note his from Cordelia, who hath most fortunately been informed of my obscured course, and shall find time from this enormous state, seeking to give losses their remedies. All weary and overwatched. Take vantage, heavy eyes, not to behold this shameful lodging. Fortune, good night. Smile once more. Turn thy wheel. He sleeps. Scene three, the open country. Enter Edgar. I heard myself proclaimed, 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. While I may escape, I will preserve myself and am be thought to take the basest and most porous shape that ever-pennery 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 present nakedness outface the winds and persecutions of the sky. The country gives me proof and precedent of bedlam beggars, who with roaring voices strike in their numbed and mortified bare arms, pins, wooden pricks, nails, sprigs of rosemary. And with this horrible object from low farms, poor pelting villages, sheep cuts and mills, some time with lunatic bands, some time with prayers, enforce their charity. Poor Turley God. Poor Tom. That's something yet. Edgar, I nothing am. Exit. Scene four. Before Gloucester's castle. Kent is still in the stocks. Enter Lear, the Fall, and the Gentleman. It is strange that they should so depart from home and not send back my messenger. As I learned, the night before there was no purpose in them of this removal. Hail to thee, noble master. Ha! Makes now this shame thy pastime. No, my lord. Ha! He wears cruel garters. Horses are tied by the head, dogs and bears by the neck, monkeys by the loins, and men by the legs. When a man is overlusty at legs, then he wears wooden nether stocks. What's he that hath so much thy place, Miss Stolt, to set thee here? It is both he and she. Son and daughter. No. Yes. No, I say. I say, yea. No. No, they would not. I guess they have. By Jupiter I swear no. By Juno I swear I. They doth not do it. They would not. Could not do it. 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? My lord, when at their home I did commend your highness's letters to them, ere I was risen from the place that showed my duty kneeling, came there a reeking post, stewed in his haste, half breathless, panting forth from goneral, his mistress salutations, delivered letters, spite of intermission, which presently they read, on whose contents they summoned up their many. Straight took course, commanded me to follow and attend the leisure of their answer, gave me cold looks, and meeting here the other messenger, whose welcome I perceived had poisoned mine, being the very fellow which of late displayed so sossily against your highness, having more man than wit about me, drew he raised the house with loud and coward cries, your son and daughter, found this trespass worth the shame which here it suffers. Winter's not gone yet if the wild geese fly that way, fathers that wear rags do make their children blind, but fathers that bear bags shall see their children kind. Fortune, that errant whore, ne'er turns the key to the poor, but for all this thou shalt have as many dollars for their daughters as thou can't tell in a year. Oh, how this mother swells up toward my heart! Hysterica, pass it down thy climbing sorrow, thy elements below! Where is this daughter? With the earl, sir, here within. Follow me not, stay here. Exit. Made you know more offence but what you speak of? None. How chance the king comes with so small a number. And thou hadst been set in the stalks for that question, thou hadst well deserved it. Heh, why fool? We'll set thee to school to an aunt, to teach thee there's no laboring in the winter. All that follow their noses are led by their eyes but blind men, and there's not a nose among twenty but can smell him that's stinking. Let go thy hold when a great wheel runs down a hill, lest it break thy neck with following it. But the great one that goes up the hill, let him draw thee after. When a wise man gives thee better counsel, give me mine again. I would have none but knaves follow it since a fool gives it. That, sir, which serves and seeks for gain and follows but for form, will pack when it begins to rain and leave thee in the storm. But I will tarry, the fool will stay, and let the wise man fly. The knave turns fool that runs away, the fool no knave purdy. Where learned you this fool? Not in the stock's fool. Enter Leah and Gloucester. Deny to speak with me. They are sick, they are weary, they have travelled all the night, mere patches, the images of revolt and flying off, patch me a better answer. My dear lord, you know the fiery quality of the Duke, how unremovable and fixed he is in his own course. Vengeance, plague, death, confusion, fiery, what quality, why, Gloucester, Gloucester, I'll speak with the Duke of Cornwall and his wife. Well, my good lord, I have informed them so. Informed them? Does thou understand me, man? I, my good lord. The king would speak with Cornwall. The dear father would with his daughter speak, commands her service. Are they informed of this? My breath and blood. Fiery, the fiery Duke? Tell the hot Duke. No, but not yet. Maybe he is not well. Infirmity doth still neglect all office, where to our health is bound we are not ourselves. When nature, being oppressed, commands the mind to suffer with the body, I'll forbear, and I'm fallen out with my more headier will, disposed and sickly fit for the sound man. Death on my state. Wherefore should he sit here? This act persuades me that this remotion of the Duke and her is practice only. Give me my servant forth. Go tell the Duke and wife I'd speak with them, now, presently. Bid them come forth and hear me, or at their chamber door I'll beat the drum till it cries sleep to death. I would have all well betwixt you. Exit. Oh, me, my heart, my rising heart, but down. Cry to it, Nunkel, as the cockney did to the eels when she put them in a paste alive. She napped them o' the cockscombs with a stick and cried, down, wantons, down! Twas her brother that, in pure kindness to his horse, buttered his hay. Enter Cornwall, Regan, Gloster and Servants. Good morrow to you both. Hail to your grace. Kent is here set at liberty. I am glad to see your Highness. Regan, I think you are. I know what reason I have to think so. If thou shouldst not be glad I would divorce me from thy mother's tomb. Sepulchring and adulterous. To Kent. Oh, are you free? Some other time for that. Beloved Regan, thy sister's naught. Oh, Regan, she hath tied sharp toothed unkindness like a vulture here. Laying his hand on his heart. I can scare speak to thee, thou wilt not believe with how depraved a quality. Oh, Regan. I pray you, sir. Take patience. I have hope you lest know how to value her desert. Then she descant her duty. Say, how is that? I cannot think my sister would fail her obligation. If so, Pachance, she have restrained the riots of your followers. Tis on such ground, and to such wholesome end as clear sir from all blame. My curse is on her. O sir, you are old. Nature in you stands on the very verge of her confine. You should be ruled and led by some discretion that discerns your state better than yourself. Therefore I pray you that to our sister you do make return. Say, you are wronged, sir. Ask her forgiveness. Do you but mark how this becomes the house? He kneels. Dear daughter, I confess that I am old. Age is unnecessary. On my knees I beg that you'll vouch safe me, Raymond, bed, and food. Good sir, no more. These are unsightly tricks. I turn you to my sister. Rising. Never, Regan. She hath abated me of half my train. Look black upon me, struck me with her tongue most serpent-like, upon the very heart. All the stored vengences of heaven fall on her ingrateful top. Strike her young bones, you taking hairs with lameness. Fie, sir, fie. You nimble lightnings dart your blinding flames in fact her beauty you fenn such fogs drawn by the powerful sun to fall and blast her pride. O the blessed gods, so will you wish on me when the rash mood is on. No, Regan, thou shall never have my curse. Thy tender hefted nature shall not give the order harshness. Her eyes are fierce, but thine do comfort and not burn. It is not in thee to grudge my pleasures to cut off my train to bandy hasty words to scant my sizes and in conclusion to oppose the bolt against my coming in. Thou better nose the offices of nature, bond of childhood, effects of courtesy, dues of gratitude. Thy half of the kingdom hast thou not forgot wherein I thee endowed. Good sir, to the purpose. Who put my man in the stocks? Ta-da! What's trumpets that? I know it, my sister's. This approves her letter that she would soon be here. Enter Oswald. Is your lady come? This is a slave who's easy borrowed pride dwells in the fickle grace of her he follows, out violator of my sight. What means your grace? Who's stocked my servant, Regan? I have good hope thou didst not know on. Enter gonorrill. Who comes here? Oh, the heavens! If you do love old men, sweet sway, allow obedience. If yourselves are old, make it your cause. Send down and take my part. To gonorrill. Oh, not a shame to look upon this beard. No, Regan. Will thou take her by the hand? Why not by the hand, sir? How have I offended? All's not offence that indiscretion finds and dodage term so. Oh, sides, you are too tough. Will you yet help? How came my man in the stocks? I set him there, sir, but his own disorders deserved much less advancement. You? You did? I pray you, Father, being weak seems so, if till the expiration of your month you will return and so join with my sister. Dismissing half your train, come then to me. I am now from home and out of that provision which I'll be needful for your entertainment. Return to her, and fifty men dismissed. No, rather I abjure all ruse and choose to wage against the enmity air to be a comrade with the wolf and owl. Necessity's sharp pinch. Return with her. Why, the hot-blooded France that dourless took our youngest born, I could as well be brought to knee his throne and squire like pension-beck to keep base-life afoot. Return with her. Persuade me rather to be slave and sumter to this detested groom. He points to Oswald. At your choice, sir. I, pretty daughter, do not make me mad. I will not trouble thee, my child, farewell. We'll no more meet, no more see one another. But yet thou art my flesh, my blood, my daughter. Or rather a disease that in my flesh which I must needs call mine, thou art a boil, a plague-saw, an embossed carb-uncle in my corrupted blood. But I'll not chide thee, let shame come when it will. I do not call it. I do not bid the thunder-bearer shoot, nor tell tales of thee to hide judging Jove. Men, when thou canst, be better at thy leisure. I can be patient. I can stay with Regan. I earn my hundred knights. Not altogether, though. I look not for you yet, nor am provided for your fit welcome. Give thee as a to my sister. For those that mingle reason with your passion must be content to think you old. And so, but she knows what she does. Is this well-spoken? I dare avouch it, sir. What fifty followers? Is it not well? What did you need of more? There were so many, sit there both charged and dangerous, be kints so great a number. How in one house should many people endure due commands, old amity? Tis odd, almost impossible. Why might not you, my lord, receive attendance from those that she calls servants, or from mine? Why not, my lord? If then they chance to slack you, we would control them. If you will come to me. For now I spy a danger. I entreat you to bring but five and twenty. To no more will I give place or notice. I gave you all. And in good time you gave it. Made you my guardians, my depositaries, but kept a reservation to be followed with such a number. What must I come to you with five and twenty, Regan? Said you so? And speak it again, my lord, no more with me. Those wicked creatures yet do look well favoured. When others are more wicked, not being the worst stands in some rank of praise. To goneril. I'll go with thee. Thy fifty yet doth double five and twenty, and thou art twice her love. Hear me, my lord, what need you five and twenty, ten or five, to follow in a house where twice so many have a command to tend you? What need one? Oh, reason not the need. Our basest beggars are in the poorest things who purfl us. Allow not nature more than nature needs. Man's life is cheaper's beasts. Thou art a lady. If only to go warm were gorgeous. Why, nature needs not what thou gorgeous wears'd, which scarcely keeps thee warm. But for true need. You haven't given me that patience. Patience I need. You see me here, you gods, a poor old man as full of grief as age, wretched in both. If it be you that stirs these daughters' hearts against their father, fool me not so much to bear it tamely. Touch me with noble anger, and let not woman's weapons, water-drops, stain my man's cheeks. No, you unnatural hags, I will have such revenges on you, both that all the world shall I will do such things. Want they are yet I know not, but they shall be the terrors of the earth. You think I'll weep? No, I'll not weep. I have full cause of weeping, but this heart shall break into a hundred thousand floors, or ere I'll weep. Oh, fool, I shall go mad. Exiant, leer, gloster, kent, the fool, and gentleman. Let us withdraw, it will be a storm. This house is little. The old man and his people cannot be well bestowed. It is his own blame. hath put himself from rest for his particular. I'll receive him gladly, but not one follower. So I am purposed. Where is my lord of Gloster? Followed the old man forth, he is returned. Enter Gloster. The king is in high rage. Wither is he going? He calls to horse, but will I know not wither? It is best to give him way, he leads himself. My lord, entreat him by no means to stay. Back the night comes on, and the high winds do sorely ruffle, for many miles about, they're scarce a bush. Oh, sir, do willful men, the injuries that they themselves procure must be their school masters. Shut up your doors. He is attended with a desperate train, and what they may incense him to, being apt to have his ear abused. Wisdom bids fear. Shut up your doors, my lord. It is a wild night. My Regan counsels well. Come out of the storm. Exiant. End of act two.