(To Hermione) ’Tis time. Descend. Be stone no more.

Approach.

Strike all that look upon with marvel. Come,

I’ll fill your grave up. Stir. Nay, come away.

Bequeath to death your numbness, for from him

Dear life redeems you.

(To Leontes) You perceive she stirs.

Hermione slowly descends

Start not. Her actions shall be holy as

You hear my spell is lawful. Do not shun her

Until you see her die again, for then

You kill her double. Nay, present your hand.

When she was young, you wooed her. Now, in age,

Is she become the suitor?

LEONTES

O, she’s warm!

If this be magic, let it be an art

Lawful as eating.

POLIXENES She embraces him.

CAMILLO She hangs about his neck.

If she pertain to life, let her speak too.

POLIXENES

Ay, and make it manifest where she has lived,

Or how stol’n from the dead.

PAULINA That she is living,

Were it but told you, should be hooted at

Like an old tale. But it appears she lives,

Though yet she speak not. Mark a little while.

(To Perdita) Please you to interpose, fair madam.

Kneel,

And pray your mother’s blessing.—Turn, good lady,

Our Perdita is found.

HERMIONE

You gods, look down,

And from your sacred vials pour your graces

Upon my daughter’s head.—Tell me, mine own,

Where hast thou been preserved? Where lived? How

found

Thy father’s court? For thou shalt hear that I,

Knowing by Paulina that the oracle

Gave hope thou wast in being, have preserved

Myself to see the issue.

PAULINA

There’s time enough for that,

Lest they desire upon this push to trouble

Your joys with like relation. Go together,

You precious winners all; your exultation

Partake to everyone. I, an old turtle,

Will wing me to some withered bough, and there

My mate, that’s never to be found again,

Lament till I am lost.

LEONTES

O peace, Paulina!

Thou shouldst a husband take by my consent,

As I by thine a wife. This is a match,

And made between’s by vows. Thou hast found mine,

But how is to be questioned, for I saw her,

As I thought, dead, and have in vain said many

A prayer upon her grave. I’ll not seek far—

For him, I partly know his mind—to find thee

An honourable husband. Come, Camillo,

And take her by the hand, whose worth and honesty

Is richly noted, and here justified

By us, a pair of kings. Let’s from this place.

(To Hermione) What, look upon my brother. Both your

pardons,

That e’er I put between your holy looks

My ill suspicion. This’ your son-in-law

And son unto the King, whom heavens directing

Is troth-plight to your daughter. Good Paulina,

Lead us from hence, where we may leisurely

Each one demand and answer to his part

Performed in this wide gap of time since first

We were dissevered. Hastily lead away.

Exeunt

THE TRAGEDY OF KING LEAR

THE FOLIO TEXT

THE text of King Lear given here represents the revision made probably three or four years after the first version had been written and performed; it is based on the text printed in the 1623 Folio. This is the more obviously theatrical text. It makes a number of significant cuts, amounting to some 300 lines. The most conspicuous ones are the dialogue in which Lear’s Fool implicitly calls his master a fool (Quarto Sc. 4, 136―51); Kent’s account of the French invasion of England (Quarto Sc. 8, 21―33); Lear’s mock-trial, in his madness, of his daughters (Quarto Sc. 13, 13―52); Edgar’s generalizing couplets at the end of that scene (Quarto Sc. 13, 97―110); the brief, compassionate dialogue of two of Gloucester’s servants after his blinding (Quarto Sc. 14, 97―106); parts of Albany’s protest to Goneril about the sisters’ treatment of Lear (in Quarto Sc. 16); the entire scene (Quarto Sc. 17) in which a Gentleman tells Kent of Cordelia’s grief on hearing of her father’s condition; the presence of the Doctor and the musical accompaniment to the reunion of Lear and Cordelia (Quarto Sc. 21); and Edgar’s account of his meeting with Kent in which Kent’s ’strings of life | Began to crack’ (Quarto Sc. 24, 201―18). The Folio also adds about 100 lines that are not in the Quarto—mostly in short passages, including Kent’s statement that Albany and Cornwall have servants who are in the pay of France (3.1.13―20), Merlin’s prophecy spoken by the Fool at the end of 3.2, and the last lines of both the Fool and Lear. In addition, several speeches are differently assigned, and there are many variations in wording.

The reasons for these variations, and their effect on the play, are to some extent matters of speculation and of individual interpretation. Certainly they streamline the play’s action, removing some reflective passages, particularly at the ends of scenes. They affect the characterization of, especially, Edgar, Albany, and Kent, and there are significant differences in the play’s closing passages. Structurally the principal differences lie in the presentation of the military actions in the later part of the play; in the Folio-based text Cordelia is more clearly in charge of the forces that come to Lear’s assistance, and they are less clearly a French invasion force. The absence from this text of passages that appeared in the 1608 text implies no criticism of them in themselves. The play’s revision may have been dictated in whole or in part by theatrical exigencies, or it may have emerged from Shakespeare’s own dissatisfaction with what he had first written. Each version has its own integrity, which is distorted by the practice, traditional since the early eighteenth century, of conflation.

THE PERSONS OF THE PLAY

LEAR, King of Britain

GONERIL, Lear’s eldest daughter

Duke of ALBANY, her husband

REGAN, Lear’s second daughter

Duke of CORNWALL, her husband

CORDELIA, Lear’s youngest daughter