Am pregnant to good pity. Give me your hand,

I’ll lead you to some biding.

GLOUCESTER ⌈rising⌉ Hearty thanks.

The bounty and the benison of heaven

To send thee boot to boot.

Enter Oswald the steward

OSWALD A proclaimed prize! Most happy!

That eyeless head of thine was first framed flesh

To raise my fortunes. Thou most unhappy traitor,

Briefly thyself remember. The sword is out

That must destroy thee.

GLOUCESTER Now let thy friendly hand

Put strength enough to’t.

OSWALD (to Edgar) Wherefore, bold peasant,

Durst thou support a published traitor? Hence,

Lest the infection of his fortune take

Like hold on thee. Let go his arm.

EDGAR ‘Chill not let go, sir, without ’cagion.

OSWALD Let go, slave, or thou diest.

EDGAR Good gentleman, go your gate. Let poor volk pass. An ‘chud have been swaggered out of my life, it would not have been so long by a vortnight. Nay, come not near the old man. Keep out, ’che vor’ ye, or I’ll try whether your costard or my baton be the harder; I’ll be plain with you.

OSWALD Out, dunghill!

They fight

EDGAR ’Chill pick your teeth, sir. Come, no matter for your foins.

⌈Edgar knocks him down⌉

OSWALD

Slave, thou hast slain me. Villain, take my purse.

If ever thou wilt thrive, bury my body,

And give the letters which thou find’st about me

To Edmund, Earl of Gloucester. Seek him out

Upon the British party. O untimely death! Death!

He dies

EDGAR

I know thee well—a serviceable villain,

As duteous to the vices of thy mistress

As badness would desire.

GLOUCESTER What, is he dead?

EDGAR Sit you down, father. Rest you.

Gloucester sits

Let’s see his pockets. These letters that he speaks of

May be my friends. He’s dead; I am only sorrow

He had no other deathsman. Let us see.

Leave, gentle wax; and manners, blame us not.

To know our enemies’ minds we’d rip their hearts;

Their papers is more lawful.

He reads a letter

‘Let your reciprocal vows be remembered. You have

many opportunities to cut him off. If your will want

not, time and place will be fruitfully offered. There is

nothing done if he return the conqueror; then am I

the prisoner, and his bed my jail, from the loathed

warmth whereof, deliver me, and supply the place for

your labour.

Your—wife, so I would say—your affectionate

servant, and for you her own for venture,

Gonoril.’

O indistinguished space of woman’s wit—

A plot upon her virtuous husband’s life,

And the exchange my brother!—Here in the sands

Thee I’ll rake up, the post unsanctified

Of murderous lechers, and in the mature time

With this ungracious paper strike the sight

Of the death-practised Duke. For him ’tis well

That of thy death and business I can tell.

[Exit with the body]

GLOUCESTER

The King is mad. How stiff is my vile sense,

That I stand up and have ingenious feeling

Of my huge sorrows! Better I were distraught;

So should my thoughts be fenced from my griefs,

And woes by wrong imaginations lose

The knowledge of themselves.

A drum afar off. [Enter Edgar]

EDGAR Give me your hand.

Far off methinks I hear the beaten drum.

Come, father, I’ll bestow you with a friend.

Exit Edgar guiding Gloucester

Sc. 21 ⌈Soft music.⌉ Enter Queen Cordelia, and the Earl of Kent, disguised

CORDELIA O thou good Kent,

How shall I live and work to match thy goodness?

My life will be too short, and every measure fail me.

KENT

To be acknowledged, madam, is o’erpaid.

All my reports go with the modest truth,

Nor more, nor clipped, but so.

CORDELIA Be better suited.

These weeds are memories of those worser hours.

I prithee put them off.

KENT Pardon me, dear madam.

Yet to be known shortens my made intent.

My boon I make it that you know me not

Till time and I think meet.

CORDELIA Then be’t so, my good lord.

[Enter the Doctor and First Gentleman]

How does the King?

DOCTOR Madam, sleeps still.

CORDELIA O you kind gods,

Cure this great breach in his abused nature;

The untuned and hurrying senses O wind up

Of this child-changed father!

DOCTOR So please your majesty

That we may wake the King? He hath slept long.

CORDELIA

Be governed by your knowledge, and proceed

I’th’ sway of your own will. Is he arrayed?

[FIRST GENTLEMAN]

Ay, madam. In the heaviness of his sleep

We put fresh garments on him.

[DOCTOR]

Good madam, be by when we do awake him.

I doubt not of his temperance.

CORDELIA Very well.

DOCTOR

Please you draw near. Louder the music there!

King Lear is [discovered] asleep

CORDELIA

O my dear father, restoration hang

Thy medicine on my lips, and let this kiss

Repair those violent harms that my two sisters

Have in thy reverence made!

KENT Kind and dear princess!

CORDELIA

Had you not been their father, these white flakes

Had challenged pity of them. Was this a face

To be exposed against the warring winds,

To stand against the deep dread-bolted thunder

In the most terrible and nimble stroke

Of quick cross-lightning, to watch—poor perdu—

With this thin helm? Mine injurer’s mean‘st dog,

Though he had bit me, should have stood that night