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.