Great rivals in our youngest daughter's love, Gon. Sir, I They love you all? Haply, when I shall wed, That lord, whose hand must take my plight, shall carry Half my love with him, half my care, and duty: 5 Sure, I shall never marry like my sisters, To love my father all. [neril, [ter, 10 Do love you more than words can wield the mat- Lear. But goes thy heart with this? Lear. So young, and so untender? Cor. So young, my lord, and true. [dower: Lear. Let it be so-Thy truth then be thy 15 From whom we do exist, and cease to be; Lear. Of all these bounds, even from this line 20 With shadowy forests and with champains rich'd, Reg. I am made of that self metal as my sister, Which the most precious square of sense pos- In your dear highness' love. (sesses; 30 [Aside. 35 And yet not so; since I am sure, my love's Lear. To thee, and thine, hereditary ever, Or he that makes his generation messes Kent. Good my liege,- Come not between the dragon and his wrath: Call Burgundy.Cornwall, and Albany, [tain By you to be sustain'd, shall our abode A third, more opulent than your sisters? Speak. 45 Beloved sons, be yours: which to confirm, Cor. Nothing, my lord. Lear. Nothing? Cor. Nothing. [again. Lear. Nothing can come of nothing: speak Lear. How, how, Cordelia! mend your speech Lest it may mar your fortunes. Cor. Good my lord, You have begot me, bred me, lov'd me: I 1 That is, beyond all assignable quantity. 60 When majesty stoops to folly. Reverse thy doom; 2 That seems to stand without relation, but is referred to find; the first conjunction being inaccurately suppressed.-I find that she names my deed, I find that I profess, &c. Square here means compass, comprehension. i. e. from this time. gi, e. the execution of all the other business. Validity, for worth, value. 5 10 15 20 Since thou hast sought to make us break our vow, 25 (Which we durst never yet,) and, with strain'd pride', To come betwixt our sentence and our power*, Kent. Why, fare thee well, king: since thus Bur. I know no answer. [owes', [oath, Lear. Sir, will you, with those infirmities she Bur. Pardon me, royal sir; Election makes not up on such conditions. I tell you all her wealth.-For you, great king, France. This is most strange! That she, who even but now was your best object, 35 40 Freedom lives hence, and banishment is here.- - Re-enter Gloster, with France, Burgundy, and Glo. Here's France and Burgundy, my noble lord. Lear. My lord of Burgundy, We first address towards you, who with this king Bur. Most royal majesty, Means the same as reverberates. 50 55 That monsters it, or your fore-vouch'd affection Cor. I yet beseech your majesty, (If for I want that glib and oily art, [tend, To speak and purpose not; since what I well in- No unchaste action, or dishonour'd step, Lear. Better thou [better. Hadst not been born, than not to have pleas'd me France. Is it no more but this? a tardiness in 2 The blank is the white or exact mark at which the arrow is shot. See better, says Kent, and keep me always in your view. i. e. pride exorbitant; pride passing due bounds. i. e. our power to execute that sentence. "Quest of love is amorous expe dition. The term originated from romance. A quest was the expedition in which a knight was engaged. Seeming is specious. 'i. e. is possessed of. i. e. makes not advances. is here used for corruption and for disgrace. 10 Entire for single. 6 302 8 9 Taint Ani And here I take Cordelia by the hand, Lear. Nothing; I have sworn: I am firm. Bur. I am sorry then you have so lost a father, That you must lose a husband. Cor. Peace be with Burgundy! Since that respects of fortune are his love, France. Fairest Cordelia, thou art most rich, Most choice, forsaken; and most lov'd, despis'd! neglect My love should kindle to inflam'd respect. Is queen of us, and ours, and our fair France: Lear. Thou hast her, France: let her be thine; Have no such daughter, nor shall ever see Gon. You see how full of changes his age is! the observation we have made of it hath not been little! he always lov'd our sister most; and with what poor judgement he hath now cast her off, 5 appears too grossly. Reg. 'Tis the infirmity of his age: yet he hath ever but slenderly known himself. Gon. The best and soundest of his time hath been but rash; then must we look to receive 10 from his age, not alone the imperfections of longengrafted condition, but thesewithal the unruly waywardness that infirm and choleric years bring with them. Reg. Such unconstant starts are we like to 15have from him, as this of Kent's banishment. Gon. There is further compliment of leavetaking between France and him. Pray you, let us hit together: If our father carry authority with such dispositions as he bears, this last sur20 render of his will but offend us. 25 [Flourish. Exeunt Lear, Burgundy, &c. 30 Reg. Prescribe not us our duties. Be, to content your lord; who hath receiv'd you wanted2. Reg. We shall further think of it. SGENE II. A Castle belonging to the Earl of Gloster. 7 Edm. Thou, nature, art my goddess; to thy law 1451 Reg. That's most certain, and with you; next 55 month with us. Enter Gloster. Here and where have the power of nouns.-Thou losest this residence to find a better residence in another place. The meaning is, "You well deserve to meet with that want of love from your husband, which you have professed to want for our father." 3i. e. complicated, involved cunning. i. e. We must strike while the iron's hot. That is, Wherefore should I ac'Curiosity, in the time of Shak * i, e. agree. quiesce, submit tamely to the plagues and injustice of custom? speare, was a word that signified an over-nice scrupulousness in manners, dress, &c.-The curiosity of nations means, the idle, nice distinctions of the world. To deprive was, in our author's time, synonymous to disinherit. ? Subscrib'd for transferred, alienated. 10 Exhibition is allowance. Upon the gad! Edmund! How now? what the letter! news? Edm. So please your lordship, none. [Putting up the letter. Glo. Why so earnestly seek you to put up that 5 Edm. I know no news, my lord. Glo. No? What needed then that terrible dis-10 patch 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. Edm. I beseech you, sir, pardon me: it is a letter from my brother, that I have not all o'er-read; 15 and for so much as I have perus'd, I find it not fit for your overlooking. Glo. Give me the letter, sir. Edm. I shall offend, either to detain or give it. The contents, as in part I understand them, are 20 to blame. Glo. Let's see, let's see. Edm. I hope, for my brother's justification, he wrote this but as an assay or taste of my virtue. Glo. [reads.] "This policy, and reverence of 25 age, makes the world bitter to the best of our “ times; keeps our fortunes from us, 'till our old-| "ness cannot relish them. I begin to find an idle " and fond 'bondage in the oppression of aged ty"ranny; who sways, not as it hath power, but 30 "as it is suffered. Come to me, that of this I may speak more. If our father would sleep 'till I "wak'd him, you should enjoy half his revenue "for ever, and live the beloved of your brother, "Edgar."---Hum!---Conspiracy!-- Sleep, 'till 135 "wak'd him!-you shall enjoy half his reve"nue!"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? Edm. It was not brought me, my lord, there's the cunning of it; I found it thrown in at the casement of my closet. Glo. You know the character to be your brother's? Edm. If the matter were good, my lord, I durst swear it were his; but, in respect of that, I would fain think it were not. Glo. It is his. Edm. It is his hand, my lord; but I hope, his heart is not in the contents. [this business? Glo. Hath he never heretofore sounded you in Edm. Never, my lord: But I have often heard him maintain it to be fit, that, sons at perfect age, and fathers declining, the father should be as ward to the son, and the son manage his revenue. Glo. O villain, villain!-Iis very opinion in Abhorred villain! Unnatural, de tested, brutish villain! worse than brutish!--Go, sirrah, seek him; I'll apprehend him :-Abominable yillain!-Where is he? Edm. 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 dare pawn down my life for him, that he hath writ this to feel my affection to your honour, and to no other pretence of danger. Glo. Think you so? Edm. If your honour judge it meet, I will place you where you shall hear us confer of this, and by an auricular assurance have your satisfaction; and that without any further delay than this very evenGlo. He cannot be such a monster. Edm. Nor is not, sure. [ing. Glo. 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 *. Edm. I will seek him, sir, presently; conveys the business as I shall find means, and acquaint you withal. Glo. 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 scourg'd by the frequent effects'; love cools, triendship falls off, brothers divide: in cities, mutinies; in countries, discord; in palaces, treason; and the bond crack'd 'twixt son and father. This villain of mine comes under the prediction; there's son against father: the king falls from bias of na40ture; 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: 45-And the noble and true-hearted Kent banish'd! his offence, honesty!Strange! strange! [Exit. 50 Edm. This is the excellent foppery of the world! that, when we are sick in fortune, (often the surfeit of our own behaviour) we make guilty of our disasters, the sun, the moon, and the stars: as if we were villains, by necessity; fools by heavenly compulsion; knaves, thieves, and treachers, by spherical predominance; drunkards, lyars, and adulterers, by an enforc'd obedience of planetary 55 influence; and all that we are evil in, by a divine thrusting on: An admirable evasion of whore To do upon the gad, is, to act by the sudden stimulation of caprice, as cattle run madding when they are stung by the gad-fly. i. e. weak and foolish. Pretence is design, purpose. 4 The meaning is, according to Dr. Johnson, Do you frame the business, who can act with less emotion; I zcould unstate myself; it would in me be a departure from the paternal character, to be in a due resoLution, to be settled and composed on such an occasion.—Mr. Steevens comments on this passage thus: "Edgar has been represented as wishing to possess his father's fortune, i. e. to unstate him; and therefore his father says, he would unstate himself to be sufficiently resolved to punish him."-To enstate is to confer a fortune. To convey, here means to manage artfully. That is, though natural philosophy can give account of eclipses, yet we feel their consequences. 303 master and pat he comes, like the catastrophe of the old comedy. My cue is villainous melancholy, with a 10 sigh like Tom o'Bedlam.-O,these eclipses do portend these divisions! fa, sol, la, mi— Edg. How now, brother Edmund? What serious contemplation are you in? Edm. I am thinking, brother, of a prediction I read this other day, what should follow these eclipses. Edg. Do you busy yourself with that ? 15 Edm. I promise you, the effects he writes of, succeed unhappily; as of unnaturalness between 20 the child and the parent; death, dearth, dissolutions 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. Edg. How long have you been a sectary astronomical? Edm. Come, come; when saw you my father last? Edg. Why, the night gone by. Edm. Parted you in good terms? Found you no displeasure in him, by word or countenance? Edg. None at all. The Duke of Albany's Palace. [Exit. Gon. Did my father strike my gentleman for chiding of his fool? [Horns within. Gon. Put on what weary negligence you please, 35 Edm. Bethink yourself, wherein you may have offended him: and at my entreaty, forbear his presence, until some little time hath qualified the heat of his displeasure; which at this instant so rageth in him, that with the mischief of your person it 40 would scarcely allay. Edg. Some villain hath done me wrong. Edm. 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 lod-45 ging, from whence I will fitly bring you to hear my ford speak: Pray you, go; there's my key:—If you do stir abroad, go arm'd. Edg. Arm'd, brother! Edm. Brother, I advise you to the best; go|50| arm'd; I am no honest man, if there be any good meaning towards you: I have told you what I have seen and heard, but faintly; nothing like the image and horror of it: Pray you, away. Edg. Shall I hear from you anon? Edm. I do serve you in this business.— [Exit Edgar. A credulous father, and a brother noble, 55 Stew. Very well, madam. [us'd', Gen. And let his knights have colder looks among you; [so: What grows of it, no matter; advise your fellows 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. [Exeunt, SCENE IV. An open Place before the Palace. Enter Kent, disguised. Kent. If but as well I other accents borrow, Kent, Horns within. Enter Lear, Knights, and Attend The sense, according to Dr. Johnson, is this: "Old men must be treated with checks, when as they are seen to be deceived with flatteries: or, when they are weak enough to be seen abused by flatteries, they are then weak enough to be used with checks. There is a play on the words used and abused.—To abuse is, in our author, very requently the same as to deceive." 2 Thát is, If I can change my speech as well as I have changed my dress.-To diffuse speech, signifies to disorder it, and so to disguise it. Lear |