Part 103

LEAR. The King would speak with Cornwall; the dear father Would with his daughter speak, commands, tends, service, Are they inform’d of this? My breath and blood! Fiery? The fiery Duke, tell the hot Duke that— No, but not yet: maybe he is not well: Infirmity doth still neglect all office Whereto our health is bound: we are not ourselves When nature, being oppress’d, commands the mind To suffer with the body: I’ll forbear; And am fallen out with my more headier will, To take the indispos’d and sickly fit For the sound man. [_Looking on Kent._] Death on my state! Wherefore Should he sit here? This act persuades me That this remotion of the Duke and her Is practice only. Give me my servant forth. Go tell the Duke and’s wife I’d speak with them, Now, presently: bid them come forth and hear me, Or at their chamber door I’ll beat the drum Till it cry sleep to death.

GLOUCESTER. I would have all well betwixt you.

[_Exit._]

LEAR. O me, my heart, my rising heart! But down!

FOOL. Cry to it, nuncle, as the cockney did to the eels when she put ’em i’ the paste alive; she knapped ’em o’ the coxcombs with a stick and cried ‘Down, wantons, down!’ ’Twas her brother that, in pure kindness to his horse buttered his hay.

Enter Cornwall, Regan, Gloucester and Servants.

LEAR. Good morrow to you both.

CORNWALL. Hail to your grace!

[_Kent here set at liberty._]

REGAN. I am glad to see your highness.

LEAR. Regan, I think you are; I know what reason I have to think so: if thou shouldst not be glad, I would divorce me from thy mother’s tomb, Sepulchring an adultress. [_To Kent_] O, are you free? Some other time for that.—Beloved Regan, Thy sister’s naught: O Regan, she hath tied Sharp-tooth’d unkindness, like a vulture, here.

[_Points to his heart._]

I can scarce speak to thee; thou’lt not believe With how deprav’d a quality—O Regan!

REGAN. I pray you, sir, take patience. I have hope You less know how to value her desert Than she to scant her duty.

LEAR. Say, how is that?

REGAN. I cannot think my sister in the least Would fail her obligation. If, sir, perchance She have restrain’d the riots of your followers, ’Tis on such ground, and to such wholesome end, As clears her from all blame.

LEAR. My curses on her.

REGAN. O, sir, you are old; Nature in you stands on the very verge Of her confine: you should be rul’d and led By some discretion, that discerns your state Better than you yourself. Therefore I pray you, That to our sister you do make return; Say you have wrong’d her, sir.

LEAR. Ask her forgiveness? Do you but mark how this becomes the house? ‘Dear daughter, I confess that I am old; [_Kneeling._] Age is unnecessary: on my knees I beg That you’ll vouchsafe me raiment, bed, and food.’

REGAN. Good sir, no more! These are unsightly tricks: Return you to my sister.

LEAR. [_Rising._] Never, Regan: She hath abated me of half my train; Look’d black upon me; struck me with her tongue, Most serpent-like, upon the very heart. All the stor’d vengeances of heaven fall On her ingrateful top! Strike her young bones, You taking airs, with lameness!

CORNWALL. Fie, sir, fie!

LEAR. You nimble lightnings, dart your blinding flames Into her scornful eyes! Infect her beauty, You fen-suck’d fogs, drawn by the powerful sun, To fall and blast her pride!

REGAN. O the blest gods! So will you wish on me when the rash mood is on.

LEAR. No, Regan, thou shalt never have my curse. Thy tender-hefted nature shall not give Thee o’er to harshness. Her eyes are fierce; but thine Do comfort, and not burn. ’Tis not in thee To grudge my pleasures, to cut off my train, To bandy hasty words, to scant my sizes, And, in conclusion, to oppose the bolt Against my coming in. Thou better know’st The offices of nature, bond of childhood, Effects of courtesy, dues of gratitude; Thy half o’ the kingdom hast thou not forgot, Wherein I thee endow’d.

REGAN. Good sir, to the purpose.

LEAR. Who put my man i’ the stocks?

[_Tucket within._]

CORNWALL. What trumpet’s that?

REGAN. I know’t, my sister’s: this approves her letter, That she would soon be here.

Enter Oswald.

Is your lady come?

LEAR. This is a slave, whose easy borrowed pride Dwells in the fickle grace of her he follows. Out, varlet, from my sight!

CORNWALL. What means your grace?

LEAR. Who stock’d my servant? Regan, I have good hope Thou didst not know on’t. Who comes here? O heavens!

Enter Goneril.

If you do love old men, if your sweet sway Allow obedience, if yourselves are old, Make it your cause; send down, and take my part! [_To Goneril._] Art not asham’d to look upon this beard? O Regan, wilt thou take her by the hand?

GONERIL. Why not by the hand, sir? How have I offended? All’s not offence that indiscretion finds And dotage terms so.

LEAR. O sides, you are too tough! Will you yet hold? How came my man i’ the stocks?

CORNWALL. I set him there, sir: but his own disorders Deserv’d much less advancement.

LEAR. You? Did you?

REGAN. I pray you, father, being weak, seem so. If, till the expiration of your month, You will return and sojourn with my sister, Dismissing half your train, come then to me: I am now from home, and out of that provision Which shall be needful for your entertainment.

LEAR. Return to her, and fifty men dismiss’d? No, rather I abjure all roofs, and choose To wage against the enmity o’ the air; To be a comrade with the wolf and owl, Necessity’s sharp pinch! Return with her? Why, the hot-blooded France, that dowerless took Our youngest born, I could as well be brought To knee his throne, and, squire-like, pension beg To keep base life afoot. Return with her? Persuade me rather to be slave and sumpter To this detested groom.

[_Pointing to Oswald._]

GONERIL. At your choice, sir.

LEAR. I prithee, daughter, do not make me mad: I will not trouble thee, my child; farewell: 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’s in my flesh, Which I must needs call mine. Thou art a boil, A plague sore, or 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, I look’d 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 old, and so— But she knows what she does.

LEAR. Is this well spoken?

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 Speak ’gainst so great a number? How in one house Should many people, under two commands, Hold amity? ’Tis hard; almost impossible.

GONERIL. 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 chanc’d to slack ye, 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 look well-favour’d When others are more wicked; not being the worst Stands in some rank of praise. [_To Goneril._] I’ll go with thee: Thy fifty yet doth double five-and-twenty, And thou art twice her love.

GONERIL. 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 need 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 wear’st 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 man, 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, And 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 and tempest._] 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 and Fool._]

CORNWALL. Let us withdraw; ’twill be a storm.

REGAN. This house is little: the old man and his people Cannot be well bestow’d.

GONERIL. ’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.

GONERIL. So am I purpos’d. Where is my lord of Gloucester?

Enter Gloucester.

CORNWALL. Followed the old man forth, he is return’d.

GLOUCESTER. The King is in high rage.

CORNWALL. Whither is he going?

GLOUCESTER. He calls to horse; but will I know not whither.

CORNWALL. ’Tis best to give him way; he leads himself.

GONERIL. My lord, entreat him by no means to stay.

GLOUCESTER. Alack, the night comes on, and the high winds Do sorely ruffle; for many miles about There’s scarce 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 abus’d, wisdom bids fear.

CORNWALL. Shut up your doors, my lord; ’tis a wild night. My Regan counsels well: come out o’ the storm.

[_Exeunt._]

ACT III

SCENE I. A Heath

A storm with thunder and lightning. Enter Kent and a Gentleman, severally.

KENT. Who’s there, besides foul weather?

GENTLEMAN. One minded like the weather, most unquietly.

KENT. I know you. Where’s the King?

GENTLEMAN. Contending with the fretful elements; 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, Catch in their fury and make nothing of; Strives in his little world of man to outscorn The to-and-fro-conflicting wind and rain. This night, wherein the cub-drawn bear would couch, The lion and the belly-pinched wolf Keep their fur dry, unbonneted he runs, And bids what will take all.

KENT. But who is with him?

GENTLEMAN. None but the fool, who labours to out-jest His heart-struck injuries.

KENT. Sir, I do know you; And dare, upon the warrant of my note Commend a dear thing to you. There is division, Although as yet the face of it be cover’d With mutual cunning, ’twixt Albany and Cornwall; Who have, as who have not, that their great stars Throne’d and set high; servants, who seem no less, Which are to France the spies and speculations Intelligent of our state. What hath been seen, Either in snuffs and packings of the Dukes; Or the hard rein which both of them have borne Against the old kind King; or something deeper, Whereof, perchance, these are but furnishings;— But, true it is, from France there comes a power Into this scatter’d kingdom; who already, Wise in our negligence, have secret feet In some of our best ports, and are at point To show their open banner.—Now to you: If on my credit you dare build so far To make your speed to Dover, you shall find Some that will thank you making just report Of how unnatural and bemadding sorrow The King hath cause to plain. I am a gentleman of blood and breeding; And from some knowledge and assurance Offer this office to you.

GENTLEMAN. I will talk further with you.

KENT. No, do not. For confirmation that I am much more Than my out-wall, open this purse, and take What it contains. If you shall see Cordelia, As fear not but you shall, show her this ring; And she will tell you who your fellow is That yet you do not know. Fie on this storm! I will go seek the King.

GENTLEMAN. Give me your hand: have you no more to say?

KENT. Few words, but, to effect, more than all yet: That, when we have found the King, in which your pain That way, I’ll this; he that first lights on him Holla the other.

[_Exeunt._]

SCENE II. Another part of the heath

Storm continues. Enter Lear and Fool.

LEAR. Blow, winds, and crack your cheeks! Rage! blow! You cataracts and hurricanoes, spout Till you have drench’d our steeples, drown’d the cocks! You sulphurous and thought-executing fires, Vaunt-couriers to oak-cleaving thunderbolts, Singe my white head! And thou, all-shaking thunder, Strike flat the thick rotundity o’ the world! Crack nature’s moulds, all germens spill at once, That make ingrateful man!

FOOL. O nuncle, court holy-water in a dry house is better than this rain-water out o’ door. Good nuncle, in; and ask thy daughters blessing: here’s a night pities neither wise men nor fools.

LEAR. Rumble thy bellyful! Spit, fire! spout, rain! Nor rain, wind, thunder, fire are my daughters; I tax not you, you elements, with unkindness. I never gave you kingdom, call’d you children; You owe me no subscription: then let fall Your horrible pleasure. Here I stand your slave, A poor, infirm, weak, and despis’d old man: But yet I call you servile ministers, That will with two pernicious daughters join Your high-engender’d battles ’gainst a head So old and white as this! O! O! ’tis foul!

FOOL. He that has a house to put’s head in has a good head-piece. The codpiece that will house Before the head has any, The head and he shall louse: So beggars marry many. The man that makes his toe What he his heart should make Shall of a corn cry woe, And turn his sleep to wake. For there was never yet fair woman but she made mouths in a glass.

LEAR. No, I will be the pattern of all patience; I will say nothing.

Enter Kent.

KENT. Who’s there?

FOOL. Marry, here’s grace and a codpiece; that’s a wise man and a fool.

KENT. Alas, sir, are you here? Things that love night Love not such nights as these; the wrathful skies Gallow the very wanderers of the dark, And make them keep their caves. Since I was man, Such sheets of fire, such bursts of horrid thunder, Such groans of roaring wind and rain I never Remember to have heard. Man’s nature cannot carry Th’affliction, nor the fear.

LEAR. Let the great gods, That keep this dreadful pudder o’er our heads, Find out their enemies now. Tremble, thou wretch, That hast within thee undivulged crimes Unwhipp’d of justice. Hide thee, thou bloody hand; Thou perjur’d, and thou simular of virtue That art incestuous. Caitiff, to pieces shake That under covert and convenient seeming Hast practis’d on man’s life: close pent-up guilts, Rive your concealing continents, and cry These dreadful summoners grace. I am a man More sinn’d against than sinning.

KENT. Alack, bareheaded! Gracious my lord, hard by here is a hovel; Some friendship will it lend you ’gainst the tempest: Repose you there, whilst I to this hard house,— More harder than the stones whereof ’tis rais’d; Which even but now, demanding after you, Denied me to come in,—return, and force Their scanted courtesy.

LEAR. My wits begin to turn. Come on, my boy. How dost, my boy? Art cold? I am cold myself. Where is this straw, my fellow? The art of our necessities is strange, That can make vile things precious. Come, your hovel. Poor fool and knave, I have one part in my heart That’s sorry yet for thee.

FOOL. [_Singing._] He that has and a little tiny wit, With heigh-ho, the wind and the rain, Must make content with his fortunes fit, Though the rain it raineth every day.

LEAR. True, boy. Come, bring us to this hovel.

[_Exeunt Lear and Kent._]

FOOL. This is a brave night to cool a courtezan. I’ll speak a prophecy ere I go: When priests are more in word than matter; When brewers mar their malt with water; When nobles are their tailors’ tutors; No heretics burn’d, but wenches’ suitors; When every case in law is right; No squire in debt, nor no poor knight; When slanders do not live in tongues; Nor cut-purses come not to throngs; When usurers tell their gold i’ the field; And bawds and whores do churches build, Then shall the realm of Albion Come to great confusion: Then comes the time, who lives to see’t, That going shall be us’d with feet. This prophecy Merlin shall make; for I live before his time.

[_Exit._]

SCENE III. A Room in Gloucester’s Castle

Enter Gloucester and Edmund.

GLOUCESTER. Alack, alack, Edmund, I like not this unnatural dealing. When I desired their leave that I might pity him, they took from me the use of mine own house; charged me on pain of perpetual displeasure, neither to speak of him, entreat for him, or any way sustain him.

EDMUND. Most savage and unnatural!

GLOUCESTER. Go to; say you nothing. There is division between the Dukes, and a worse matter than that: I have received a letter this night;—’tis dangerous to be spoken;—I have locked the letter in my closet: these injuries the King now bears will be revenged home; there’s part of a power already footed: we must incline to the King. I will look him, and privily relieve him: go you and maintain talk with the Duke, that my charity be not of him perceived: if he ask for me, I am ill, and gone to bed. If I die for it, as no less is threatened me, the King my old master must be relieved. There is some strange thing toward, Edmund; pray you be careful.

[_Exit._]

EDMUND. This courtesy, forbid thee, shall the Duke Instantly know; and of that letter too. This seems a fair deserving, and must draw me That which my father loses, no less than all: The younger rises when the old doth fall.

[_Exit._]

SCENE IV. A part of the Heath with a Hovel

Storm continues. Enter Lear, Kent and Fool.

KENT. Here is the place, my lord; good my lord, enter: The tyranny of the open night’s too rough For nature to endure.

LEAR. Let me alone.

KENT. Good my lord, enter here.

LEAR. Wilt break my heart?

KENT. I had rather break mine own. Good my lord, enter.

LEAR. Thou think’st ’tis much that this contentious storm Invades us to the skin: so ’tis to thee, But where the greater malady is fix’d, The lesser is scarce felt. Thou’dst shun a bear; But if thy flight lay toward the raging sea, Thou’dst meet the bear i’ the mouth. When the mind’s free, The body’s delicate: the tempest in my mind Doth from my senses take all feeling else Save what beats there. Filial ingratitude! Is it not as this mouth should tear this hand For lifting food to’t? But I will punish home; No, I will weep no more. In such a night To shut me out! Pour on; I will endure: In such a night as this! O Regan, Goneril! Your old kind father, whose frank heart gave all, O, that way madness lies; let me shun that; No more of that.

KENT. Good my lord, enter here.

LEAR. Prithee go in thyself; seek thine own ease: This tempest will not give me leave to ponder On things would hurt me more. But I’ll go in. [_To the Fool._] In, boy; go first. You houseless poverty, Nay, get thee in. I’ll pray, and then I’ll sleep.

[_Fool goes in._]

Poor naked wretches, wheresoe’er you are, That bide the pelting of this pitiless storm, How shall your houseless heads and unfed sides, Your loop’d and window’d raggedness, defend you From seasons such as these? O, I have ta’en Too little care of this! Take physic, pomp; Expose thyself to feel what wretches feel, That thou mayst shake the superflux to them And show the heavens more just.

EDGAR. [_Within._] Fathom and half, fathom and half! Poor Tom!

[_The Fool runs out from the hovel._]

FOOL. Come not in here, nuncle, here’s a spirit. Help me, help me!

KENT. Give me thy hand. Who’s there?

FOOL. A spirit, a spirit: he says his name’s poor Tom.

KENT. What art thou that dost grumble there i’ the straw? Come forth.

Enter Edgar, disguised as a madman.

EDGAR. Away! the foul fiend follows me! Through the sharp hawthorn blows the cold wind. Humh! go to thy cold bed, and warm thee.

LEAR. Didst thou give all to thy two daughters? And art thou come to this?

EDGAR. Who gives anything to poor Tom? Whom the foul fiend hath led through fire and through flame, through ford and whirlpool, o’er bog and quagmire; that hath laid knives under his pillow and halters in his pew, set ratsbane by his porridge; made him proud of heart, to ride on a bay trotting horse over four-inched bridges, to course his own shadow for a traitor. Bless thy five wits! Tom’s a-cold. O, do, de, do, de, do, de. Bless thee from whirlwinds, star-blasting, and taking! Do poor Tom some charity, whom the foul fiend vexes. There could I have him now, and there,—and there again, and there.

[_Storm continues._]

LEAR. What, have his daughters brought him to this pass? Couldst thou save nothing? Didst thou give ’em all?

FOOL. Nay, he reserv’d a blanket, else we had been all shamed.

LEAR. Now all the plagues that in the pendulous air Hang fated o’er men’s faults light on thy daughters!

KENT. He hath no daughters, sir.

LEAR. Death, traitor! nothing could have subdu’d nature To such a lowness but his unkind daughters. Is it the fashion that discarded fathers Should have thus little mercy on their flesh? Judicious punishment! ’twas this flesh begot Those pelican daughters.

EDGAR. Pillicock sat on Pillicock hill, Alow, alow, loo loo!

FOOL. This cold night will turn us all to fools and madmen.

EDGAR. Take heed o’ th’ foul fiend: obey thy parents; keep thy word justly; swear not; commit not with man’s sworn spouse; set not thy sweet-heart on proud array. Tom’s a-cold.

LEAR. What hast thou been?

EDGAR. A serving-man, proud in heart and mind; that curled my hair; wore gloves in my cap; served the lust of my mistress’ heart, and did the act of darkness with her; swore as many oaths as I spake words, and broke them in the sweet face of heaven. One that slept in the contriving of lust, and waked to do it. Wine loved I deeply, dice dearly; and in woman out-paramour’d the Turk. False of heart, light of ear, bloody of hand; hog in sloth, fox in stealth, wolf in greediness, dog in madness, lion in prey. Let not the creaking of shoes nor the rustling of silks betray thy poor heart to woman. Keep thy foot out of brothels, thy hand out of plackets, thy pen from lender’s book, and defy the foul fiend. Still through the hawthorn blows the cold wind: says suum, mun, nonny. Dolphin my boy, boy, sessa! let him trot by.

[_Storm still continues._]

LEAR. Why, thou wert better in thy grave than to answer with thy uncovered body this extremity of the skies. Is man no more than this? Consider him well. Thou owest the worm no silk, the beast no hide, the sheep no wool, the cat no perfume. Ha! here’s three on’s are sophisticated! Thou art the thing itself: unaccommodated man is no more but such a poor, bare, forked animal as thou art. Off, off, you lendings! Come, unbutton here.

[_Tears off his clothes._]

FOOL. Prithee, nuncle, be contented; ’tis a naughty night to swim in. Now a little fire in a wild field were like an old lecher’s heart, a small spark, all the rest on’s body cold. Look, here comes a walking fire.