Was 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 favour. Sure, her offence

Must be of such unnatural degree

That monsters it, or your fore-vouched affections

Fall’n into taint; which to believe of her

Must be a faith that reason without miracle

Could never plant in me.

CORDELIA (to Lear)

I yet beseech your majestyIf for I want that glib and oily art

To speak and purpose not—since what I well intend,

I’ll do’t before I speak—that you acknow

It is no vicious blot, murder, or foulness,

No unclean action or dishonoured step

That hath deprived me of your grace and favour,

But even the want of that for which I am rich—

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.

LEAR Go to, go to.

Better thou hadst not been born than not to have

pleased me better.

FRANCE

Is it no more but this—a tardiness in nature,

That often leaves the history unspoke

That it intends to do?—My lord of Burgundy,

What say you to the lady? Love is not love

When it is mingled with respects that stands

Aloof from the entire point. Will you have her?

She is herself a dower.

BURGUNDY Royal Lear,

Give but that portion which yourself proposed,

And here I take Cordelia by the hand,

Duchess of Burgundy—

LEAR Nothing. I have sworn.

BURGUNDY (to Cordelia)

I am sorry, then, you have so lost a father

That you must lose a husband.

CORDELIA

Peace be with Burgundy; since that respects

Of fortune are his love, I shall not be his wife.

FRANCE

Fairest Cordelia, that art most rich, being poor;

Most choice, forsaken; and most loved, despised:

Thee and thy virtues here I seize upon.

Be it lawful, I take up what’s cast away.

Gods, gods! ‘Tis strange that from their cold’st neglect

My love should kindle to inflamed respect.—

Thy dowerless daughter, King, thrown to my chance,

Is queen of us, of ours, and our fair France.

Not all the dukes in wat’rish Burgundy

Shall buy this unprized precious maid of me.—

Bid them farewell, Cordelia, though unkind.

Thou losest here, a better where to find.

LEAR

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.! Exeunt Lear and Burgundy, then

Albany, Cornwall, Gloucester, ⌈Edmund,⌉

and followers

FRANCE (to Cordelia) Bid farewell to your sisters.

CORDELIA

Ye jewels of our father, with washed eyes

Cordelia leaves you. I know you what you are,

And like a sister am most loath to call

Your faults as they are named. Use 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.

GONORIL Prescribe not us our duties.

REGAN Let your study

Be to content your lord, who hath received you

At fortune’s alms. You have obedience scanted,

And well are worth the worst that you have wanted.

CORDELIA

Time shall unfold what pleated cunning hides.

Who covers faults, at last shame them derides.

Well may you prosper.

FRANCE Come, fair Cordelia.

Exeunt France and Cordelia

GONORIL Sister, it is not a little I have to say of what most nearly appertains to us both. I think our father will hence tonight.

REGAN That’s most certain, and with you. Next month with us.

GONORIL 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 judgement he hath now cast her off appears too gross.

REGAN ’Tis the infirmity of his age; yet he hath ever but slenderly known himself.

GONORIL The best and soundest of his time hath been but rash; then must we look to receive from his age not alone the imperfection of long-engrafted condition, but therewithal unruly waywardness that infirm and choleric years bring with them.

REGAN Such unconstant starts are we like to have from him as this of Kent’s banishment.

GONORIL There is further compliment of leave-taking between France and him. Pray, let’s hit together. If our father carry authority with such dispositions as he bears, this last surrender of his will but offend us.

REGAN We shall further think on’t.

GONORIL We must do something, and l’th’ heat. Exeunt

Sc. 2 Enter Edmund the bastard

EDMUND

Thou, nature, art my goddess. To thy law

My services are bound. 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

Lag of a brother? Why ‘bastard’? Wherefore ‘base’,

When my dimensions are as well compact,

My mind as generous, and my shape as true

As honest madam’s issue?

Why brand they us with ‘base, base bastardy’,

Who in the lusty stealth of nature take

More composition and fierce quality