To be such men as may besort your age,

Which know themselves and you.

LEAR Darkness and devils!

Saddle my horses, call my train together!—

⌈Exit one or more⌉

Degenerate bastard, I’ll not trouble thee.

Yet have I left a daughter.

GONERIL

You strike my people, and your disordered rabble

Make servants of their betters.

Enter the Duke of Albany

LEAR

Woe that too late repents!

Is it your will? Speak, sir.—Prepare my horses.

⌈Exit one or more⌉

Ingratitude, thou marble-hearted fiend,

More hideous when thou show’st thee in a child

Than the sea-monster—

ALBANY Pray sir, be patient.

LEAR (to Goneril) Detested kite, thou liest.

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. O 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,

And added to the gall! O Lear, Lear, Lear!

Beat at this gate that let thy folly in

And thy dear judgement out.—Go, go, my people!

ALBANY

My lord, I am guiltless, as I am ignorant

Of what hath moved you.

LEAR It may be so, my lord.

Hear, nature; hear, dear goddess, hear:

Suspend thy purpose if thou didst 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 teem,

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—

That she may feel

How sharper than a serpent’s tooth it is

To have a thankless child. Away, away!

Exeunt Lear, ⌈Kent, and attendants⌉

ALBANY

Now, gods that we adore, whereof comes this?

GONERIL

Never afflict yourself to know more of it,

But let his disposition have that scope

As dotage gives it.

Enter King Lear

LEAR

What, fifty of my followers at a clap?

Within a fortnight?

ALBANY

What’s the matter, sir?

LEAR

I’ll tell thee. (To Goneril) Life and death! I am ashamed

That thou hast power to shake my manhood thus,

That these hot tears, which break from me perforce,

Should make thee worth them. Blasts and fogs upon

thee!

Th’untented woundings of a father’s curse

Pierce every sense about thee! Old fond eyes,

Beweep this cause again I’ll pluck ye out

And cast you, with the waters that you loose,

To temper clay. Ha! Let it be so.

I have another daughter

Who, I am sure, is kind and comfortable.

When she shall hear this of thee, with her nails

She’ll flay thy wolvish visage. Thou shalt find

That I’ll resume the shape which thou dost think

I have cast off for ever.

Exit

GONERIL

Do you mark that?

ALBANY

I cannot be so partial, Goneril,

To the great love I bear you—

GONERIL

Pray you, content. What, Oswald, ho!—

You, sir, more knave than fool, after your master.

FOOL

Nuncle Lear, nuncle Lear,

Tarry, 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

GONERIL

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,

Each buzz, each fancy, each complaint, dislike,

He may enguard his dotage with their powers

And hold our lives in mercy.—Oswald, I say!

ALBANY

Well, you may fear too far.

GONERIL

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 my sister.

If she sustain him and his hundred knights

When I have showed th’unfitness—

Enter Oswald the steward

How now, Oswald?

What, have you writ that letter to my sister?

OSWALD Ay, madam.

GONERIL

Take you some company, and away to horse.

Inform her full of my particular fear,

And thereto 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 not, yet under pardon

You are much more attasked for want of wisdom

Than praised for harmful mildness.

ALBANY

How far your eyes may pierce I cannot tell.

Striving to better, oft we mar what’s well.

GONERIL Nay, then—

ALBANY Well, well, th’event.

Exeunt

1.5 Enter King Lear, the Earl of Kent disguised, the First Gentleman, and Lear’s Fool

LEAR ⌈to the Gentleman, giving him a letter⌉ Go you before to Gloucester with these letters. ⌈Exit Gentleman⌉ ⌈To Kent, giving him a letter⌉ Acquaint my daughter no further with anything you know than comes from her demand out of the letter. If your diligence be not speedy, I shall be there afore you.