We’ll no more meet, no more see one another.

But yet thou art my flesh, my blood, my daughter—

Or rather a disease that lies within my flesh,

Which I must needs call mine. Thou art a boil,

A plague-sore, an embossed carbuncle

In my corrupted blood. But I’ll not chide thee.

Let shame come when it will, I do not call it.

I do not bid the thunder-bearer shoot,

Nor tell tales of thee to high-judging Jove.

Mend when thou canst; be better at thy leisure.

I can be patient, I can stay with Regan,

I and my hundred knights.

REGAN Not altogether so, sir.

I look not for you yet, nor am provided

For your fit welcome. Give ear, sir, to my sister;

For those that mingle reason with your passion

Must be content to think you are old, and so—

But she knows what she does.

LEAR Is this well spoken now?

REGAN

I dare avouch it, sir. What, fifty followers?

Is it not well? What should you need of more,

Yea, or so many, sith that both charge and danger

Speaks ‘gainst so great a number? How in a house

Should many people under two commands

Hold amity? ’Tis hard, almost impossible.

GONORIL

Why might not you, my lord, receive attendance

From those that she calls servants, or from mine?

REGAN

Why not, my lord? If then they chanced to slack you,

We could control them. If you will come to me—

For now I spy a danger—I entreat you

To bring but five-and-twenty; to no more

Will I give place or notice.

LEAR I gave you all.

REGAN And in good time you gave it.

LEAR

Made you my guardians, my depositaries,

But kept a reservation to be followed

With such a number. What, must I come to you

With five-and-twenty, Regan? Said you so?

REGAN

And speak’t again, my lord. No more with me.

LEAR

Those wicked creatures yet do seem well favoured

When others are more wicked. Not being the worst

Stands in some rank of praise. (To Gonoril) I’ll go with

thee.

Thy fifty yet doth double five-and-twenty,

And thou art twice her love.

GONORIL Hear me, my lord.

What need you five-and-twenty, ten, or five,

To follow in a house where twice so many

Have a command to tend you?

REGAN What needs one?

LEAR

O, reason not the need! Our basest beggars

Are in the poorest thing superfluous.

Allow not nature more than nature needs,

Man’s life is cheap as beast’s. Thou art a lady.

If only to go warm were gorgeous,

Why, nature needs not what thou, gorgeous, wearest,

Which scarcely keeps thee warm. But for true need—

You heavens, give me that patience, patience I need.

You see me here, you gods, a poor old fellow,

As full of grief as age, wretched in both.

If it be you that stirs these daughters’ hearts

Against their father, fool me not so much

To bear it tamely. Touch me with noble anger.

O, let not women’s weapons, water-drops,

Stain my man’s cheeks! No, you unnatural hags,

I will have such revenges on you both

That all the world shall—I will do such things—

What they are, yet I know not; but they shall be

The terrors of the earth. You think I’ll weep.

No, I’ll not weep.

⌈Storm within⌉

I have full cause of weeping, but this heart

Shall break into a hundred thousand flaws

Or ere I’ll weep.—O fool, I shall go mad!

Exeunt Lear, Gloucester, Kent, ⌈Knight,⌉ and Fool

CORNWALL

Let us withdraw. ’Twill be a storm.

REGAN

This house is little. The old man and his people

Cannot be well bestowed.

GONORIL ’Tis his own blame;

Hath put himself from rest, and must needs taste his folly.

REGAN

For his particular I’ll receive him gladly,

But not one follower.

CORNWALL

So am I purposed. Where is my lord of Gloucester?

REGAN

Followed the old man forth.

Enter the Duke of Gloucester

He is returned.

GLOUCESTER

The King is in high rage, and will I know not whither.

REGAN

’Tis good to give him way. He leads himself.

GONORIL (to Gloucester)

My lord, entreat him by no means to stay.

GLOUCESTER

Alack, the night comes on, and the bleak winds

Do sorely rustle. For many miles about

There’s not a bush.

REGAN O sir, to wilful men

The injuries that they themselves procure

Must be their schoolmasters. Shut up your doors.

He is attended with a desperate train,

And what they may incense him to, being apt

To have his ear abused, wisdom bids fear.

CORNWALL

Shut up your doors, my lord. ‘Tis a wild night.

My Regan counsels well. Come out o’th’ storm. Exeunt

Sc. 8 Storm. Enter the Earl of Kent disguised, and First Gentleman, at several doors

KENT

What’s here, beside foul weather?

FIRST GENTLEMAN One minded like the weather,

Most unquietly.

KENT I know you. Where’s the King?

FIRST GENTLEMAN

Contending with the fretful element;

Bids the wind blow the earth into the sea

Or swell the curled waters ’bove the main,

That things might change or cease; tears his white

hair,

Which the impetuous blasts, with eyeless rage,