Enter Kent, Gloucester, and Edmund.

KENT I thought the King had more affected the Duke
of Albany than Cornwall.
GLOUCESTER It did always seem so to us, but now in
the division of the kingdom, it appears not which
of the dukes he values most, for equalities are so
weighed that curiosity in neither can make choice
of either’s moiety.
KENT Is not this your son, my lord?
GLOUCESTER His breeding, sir, hath been at my
charge. I have so often blushed to acknowledge
him that now I am brazed to ’t.
KENT I cannot conceive you.
GLOUCESTER Sir, this young fellow’s mother could,
whereupon she grew round-wombed and had indeed,
sir, a son for her cradle ere she had a husband
for her bed. Do you smell a fault?
KENT I cannot wish the fault undone, the issue of it
being so proper.
GLOUCESTER But I have a son, sir, by order of law,
some year elder than this, who yet is no dearer in
my account. Though this knave came something
saucily to the world before he was sent for, yet was
his mother fair, there was good sport at his making,

---

and the whoreson must be acknowledged.—Do you
know this noble gentleman, Edmund?
EDMUND No, my lord.
GLOUCESTER My lord of Kent. Remember him hereafter
as my honorable friend.
EDMUND My services to your Lordship.
KENT I must love you and sue to know you better.
EDMUND Sir, I shall study deserving.
GLOUCESTER He hath been out nine years, and away he
shall again. ( Sennet. ) The King is coming.

Enter King Lear, Cornwall, Albany, Goneril, Regan,
Cordelia, and Attendants.

LEAR
Attend the lords of France and Burgundy,
Gloucester.
GLOUCESTER I shall, my lord. He exits.
LEAR
Meantime we shall express our darker purpose.—
Give me the map there. He is handed a map.
Know that we have divided
In three our kingdom, and ’tis our fast intent
To shake all cares and business from our age,
Conferring them on younger strengths, while we
Unburdened crawl toward death. Our son of
Cornwall
And you, our no less loving son of Albany,
We have this hour a constant will to publish
Our daughters’ several dowers, that future strife
May be prevented now.
The two great princes, France and Burgundy,
Great rivals in our youngest daughter’s love,
Long in our court have made their amorous sojourn
And here are to be answered. Tell me, my
daughters—
Since now we will divest us both of rule,

---

Interest of territory, cares of state—
Which of you shall we say doth love us most,
That we our largest bounty may extend
Where nature doth with merit challenge. Goneril,
Our eldest born, speak first.
GONERIL
Sir, I love you more than word can wield the
matter,
Dearer than eyesight, space, and liberty,
Beyond what can be valued, rich or rare,
No less than life, with grace, health, beauty, honor;
As much as child e’er loved, or father found;
A love that makes breath poor, and speech unable.
Beyond all manner of so much I love you.
CORDELIA , aside
What shall Cordelia speak? Love, and be silent.
LEAR , pointing to the map
Of all these bounds, even from this line to this,
With shadowy forests and with champains riched,
With plenteous rivers and wide-skirted meads,
We make thee lady. To thine and Albany’s issue
Be this perpetual.—What says our second
daughter,
Our dearest Regan, wife of Cornwall? Speak .
REGAN
I am made of that self mettle as my sister
And prize me at her worth. In my true heart
I find she names my very deed of love;
Only she comes too short, that I profess
Myself an enemy to all other joys
Which the most precious square of sense
possesses ,
And find I am alone felicitate
In your dear Highness’ love.
CORDELIA , aside Then poor Cordelia!
And yet not so, since I am sure my love’s
More ponderous than my tongue.

---

LEAR
To thee and thine hereditary ever
Remain this ample third of our fair kingdom,
No less in space, validity, and pleasure
Than that conferred on Goneril.—Now, our joy,
Although our last and least, to whose young love
The vines of France and milk of Burgundy
Strive to be interessed, what can you say to draw
A third more opulent than your sisters’? Speak.
CORDELIA Nothing, my lord.
LEAR Nothing?
CORDELIA Nothing.
LEAR
Nothing will come of nothing. Speak again.
CORDELIA
Unhappy that I am, I cannot heave
My heart into my mouth. I love your Majesty
According to my bond, no more nor less.
LEAR
How, how, Cordelia? Mend your speech a little,
Lest you may mar your fortunes.
CORDELIA Good my lord,
You have begot me, bred me, loved me.
I return those duties back as are right fit:
Obey you, love you, and most honor you.
Why have my sisters husbands if they say
They love you all? Haply, when I shall wed,
That lord whose hand must take my plight shall
carry
Half my love with him, half my care and duty.
Sure I shall never marry like my sisters,
To love my father all.
LEAR But goes thy heart with this?
CORDELIA Ay, my good lord.
LEAR So young and so untender?
CORDELIA So young, my lord, and true.

---

LEAR
Let it be so. Thy truth, then, be thy dower,
For by the sacred radiance of the sun,
The mysteries of Hecate and the night,
By all the operation of the orbs
From whom we do exist and cease to be,
Here I disclaim all my paternal care,
Propinquity, and property of blood,
And as a stranger to my heart and me
Hold thee from this forever. The barbarous
Scythian,
Or he that makes his generation messes
To gorge his appetite, shall to my bosom
Be as well neighbored, pitied, and relieved
As thou my sometime daughter.
KENT Good my liege—
LEAR Peace, Kent.
Come not between the dragon and his wrath.
I loved her most and thought to set my rest
On her kind nursery. To Cordelia. Hence and avoid
my sight!—
So be my grave my peace as here I give
Her father’s heart from her.—Call France. Who stirs?
Call Burgundy. An Attendant exits. Cornwall and
Albany,
With my two daughters’ dowers digest the third.
Let pride, which she calls plainness, marry her.
I do invest you jointly with my power,
Preeminence, and all the large effects
That troop with majesty. Ourself by monthly course,
With reservation of an hundred knights
By you to be sustained, shall our abode
Make with you by due turn. Only we shall retain
The name and all th’ addition to a king.
The sway, revenue, execution of the rest,

---

Belovèd sons, be yours, which to confirm,
This coronet part between you.
KENT Royal Lear,
Whom I have ever honored as my king,
Loved as my father, as my master followed,
As my great patron thought on in my prayers—
LEAR
The bow is bent and drawn. Make from the shaft.
KENT
Let it fall rather, though the fork invade
The region of my heart. Be Kent unmannerly
When Lear is mad. What wouldst thou do, old man?
Think’st thou that duty shall have dread to speak
When power to flattery bows? To plainness honor’s
bound
When majesty falls to folly. Reserve thy state,
And in thy best consideration check
This hideous rashness. Answer my life my
judgment,
Thy youngest daughter does not love thee least,
Nor are those empty-hearted whose low sounds
Reverb no hollowness.
LEAR Kent, on thy life, no more.
KENT
My life I never held but as a pawn
To wage against thine enemies, nor fear to lose
it,
Thy safety being motive.
LEAR Out of my sight!
KENT
See better, Lear, and let me still remain
The true blank of thine eye.
LEAR Now, by Apollo—
KENT Now, by Apollo, king,
Thou swear’st thy gods in vain.
LEAR O vassal! Miscreant!

---

ALBANY/CORNWALL Dear sir, forbear.
KENT
Kill thy physician, and thy fee bestow
Upon the foul disease. Revoke thy gift,
Or whilst I can vent clamor from my throat,
I’ll tell thee thou dost evil.
LEAR
Hear me, recreant; on thine allegiance, hear me!
That thou hast sought to make us break our vows—
Which we durst never yet—and with strained pride
To come betwixt our sentence and our power,
Which nor our nature nor our place can bear,
Our potency made good, take thy reward:
Five days we do allot thee for provision
To shield thee from disasters of the world,
And on the sixth to turn thy hated back
Upon our kingdom. If on the tenth day following
Thy banished trunk be found in our dominions,
The moment is thy death. Away! By Jupiter,
This shall not be revoked.
KENT
Fare thee well, king. Sith thus thou wilt appear,
Freedom lives hence, and banishment is here.
To Cordelia. The gods to their dear shelter take
thee, maid,
That justly think’st and hast most rightly said.
To Goneril and Regan. And your large speeches
may your deeds approve,
That good effects may spring from words of love.—
Thus Kent, O princes, bids you all adieu.
He’ll shape his old course in a country new.
He exits.

Flourish. Enter Gloucester with France, and Burgundy,
and Attendants.

GLOUCESTER
Here’s France and Burgundy, my noble lord.

---

LEAR My lord of Burgundy,
We first address toward you, who with this king
Hath rivaled for our daughter. What in the least
Will you require in present dower with her,
Or cease your quest of love?
BURGUNDY Most royal Majesty,
I crave no more than hath your Highness offered,
Nor will you tender less.
LEAR Right noble Burgundy,
When she was dear to us, we did hold her so,
But now her price is fallen. Sir, there she stands.
If aught within that little seeming substance,
Or all of it, with our displeasure pieced
And nothing more, may fitly like your Grace,
She’s there, and she is yours.
BURGUNDY I know no answer.
LEAR
Will you, with those infirmities she owes,
Unfriended, new-adopted to our hate,
Dowered with our curse and strangered with our
oath,
Take her or leave her?
BURGUNDY Pardon me, royal sir,
Election makes not up in such conditions.
LEAR
Then leave her, sir, for by the power that made me
I tell you all her wealth.—For you, great king,
I would not from your love make such a stray
To match you where I hate. Therefore beseech you
T’ avert your liking a more worthier way
Than on a wretch whom Nature is ashamed
Almost t’ acknowledge hers.
FRANCE This is most strange,
That she whom even but now was your best
object,
The argument of your praise, balm of your age,

---

The best, the dearest, should in this trice of time
Commit a thing so monstrous to dismantle
So many folds of favor. Sure her offense
Must be of such unnatural degree
That monsters it, or your forevouched affection
Fall into taint; which to believe of her
Must be a faith that reason without miracle
Should never plant in me.
CORDELIA , to Lear I yet beseech your Majesty—
If 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 make known
It is no vicious blot, murder, or foulness,
No unchaste action or dishonored step
That hath deprived me of your grace and favor,
But even for want of that for which I am richer:
A still-soliciting eye and such a tongue
That I am glad I have not, though not to have it
Hath lost me in your liking.
LEAR Better thou
Hadst not been born than not t’ have pleased me
better.
FRANCE
Is it but this—a tardiness in nature
Which often leaves the history unspoke
That it intends to do?—My lord of Burgundy,
What say you to the lady? Love’s not love
When it is mingled with regards that stands
Aloof from th’ entire point. Will you have her?
She is herself a dowry.
BURGUNDY , to Lear Royal king,
Give but that portion which yourself proposed,
And here I take Cordelia by the hand,
Duchess of Burgundy.
LEAR
Nothing. I have sworn. I am firm.

---

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 respect and fortunes 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 enflamed respect.—
Thy dowerless daughter, king, thrown to my
chance,
Is queen of us, of ours, and our fair France.
Not all the dukes of wat’rish Burgundy
Can 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. To Cordelia. Therefore
begone
Without our grace, our love, our benison.—
Come, noble Burgundy.
Flourish. All but France, Cordelia,
Goneril, and Regan exit.
FRANCE Bid farewell to your sisters.
CORDELIA
The 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. Love well our
father.
To your professèd 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.
REGAN
Prescribe not us our duty.
GONERIL 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 want that you have wanted.
CORDELIA
Time shall unfold what plighted cunning hides,
Who covers faults at last with shame derides.
Well may you prosper.
FRANCE Come, my fair Cordelia.
France and Cordelia exit.
GONERIL Sister, it is not 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.
GONERIL 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 judgment he hath now cast her off
appears too grossly.
REGAN ’Tis the infirmity of his age. Yet he hath ever
but slenderly known himself.
GONERIL The best and soundest of his time hath been
but rash. Then must we look from his age to
receive not alone the imperfections of long-engraffed
condition, but therewithal the 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.
GONERIL There is further compliment of leave-taking
between France and him. Pray you, let us sit
together. If our father carry authority with such
disposition as he bears, this last surrender of his will
but offend us.
REGAN We shall further think of it.
GONERIL We must do something, and i’ th’ heat.
They exit.

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,” with “baseness,” “bastardy,” “base,”
“base,”
Who, in the lusty stealth of nature, take
More composition and fierce quality
Than doth within a dull, stale, tired bed
Go to th’ creating a whole tribe of fops
Got ’tween asleep and wake? Well then,
Legitimate Edgar, I must have your land.
Our father’s love is to the bastard Edmund
As to th’ legitimate. Fine word, “legitimate.”
Well, my legitimate, if this letter speed

---

And my invention thrive, Edmund the base
Shall top th’ legitimate. I grow, I prosper.
Now, gods, stand up for bastards!

Enter Gloucester.

GLOUCESTER
Kent banished thus? And France in choler parted?
And the King gone tonight, prescribed his power,
Confined to exhibition? All this done
Upon the gad?—Edmund, how now? What news?
EDMUND So please your Lordship, none. He puts a
paper in his pocket.
GLOUCESTER Why so earnestly seek you to put up that
letter?
EDMUND I know no news, my lord.
GLOUCESTER What paper were you reading?
EDMUND Nothing, my lord.
GLOUCESTER No? What needed then that terrible dispatch
of it into your pocket? The quality of nothing
hath not such need to hide itself. Let’s see. Come, if
it be nothing, I shall not need spectacles.
EDMUND I beseech you, sir, pardon me. It is a letter
from my brother that I have not all o’erread; and
for so much as I have perused, I find it not fit for
your o’erlooking.
GLOUCESTER Give me the letter, sir.
EDMUND I shall offend either to detain or give it. The
contents, as in part I understand them, are to
blame.
GLOUCESTER Let’s see, let’s see.
Edmund gives him the paper.
EDMUND I hope, for my brother’s justification, he
wrote this but as an essay or taste of my virtue.
GLOUCESTER ( reads ) This policy and reverence of age
makes the world bitter to the best of our times, keeps
our fortunes from us till our oldness cannot relish

---

33

King Lear

ACT 1. SC. 2

them. I begin to find an idle and fond bondage in the
oppression of aged tyranny, who sways not as it hath
power but as it is suffered. Come to me, that of this I
may speak more. If our father would sleep till I waked
him, you should enjoy half his revenue forever and
live the beloved of your brother. Edgar.
Hum? Conspiracy? “Sleep till I wake him, you
should enjoy half his revenue.” My son Edgar! Had
he a hand to write this? A heart and brain to breed it
in?—When came you to this? Who brought it?
EDMUND It was not brought me, my lord; there’s the
cunning of it. I found it thrown in at the casement
of my closet.
GLOUCESTER You know the character to be your
brother’s?
EDMUND If the matter were good, my lord, I durst
swear it were his; but in respect of that, I would
fain think it were not.
GLOUCESTER It is his.
EDMUND It is his hand, my lord, but I hope his heart is
not in the contents.
GLOUCESTER Has he never before sounded you in this
business?
EDMUND Never, my lord. But I have heard him oft
maintain it to be fit that, sons at perfect age and
fathers declined, the father should be as ward to the
son, and the son manage his revenue.
GLOUCESTER O villain, villain! His very opinion in the
letter. Abhorred villain! Unnatural, detested, brutish
villain! Worse than brutish!—Go, sirrah, seek
him. I’ll apprehend him.—Abominable villain!—
Where is he?
EDMUND I do not well know, my lord. If it shall please
you to suspend your indignation against my brother
till you can derive from him better testimony of his
intent, you should run a certain course; where, if

---

you violently proceed against him, mistaking his
purpose, it would make a great gap in your own
honor and shake in pieces the heart of his obedience.
I dare pawn down my life for him that he hath
writ this to feel my affection to your Honor, and to
no other pretense of danger.
GLOUCESTER Think you so?
EDMUND If your Honor judge it meet, I will place you
where you shall hear us confer of this, and by an
auricular assurance have your satisfaction, and that
without any further delay than this very evening.
GLOUCESTER He cannot be such a monster.
EDMUND Nor is not, sure.
GLOUCESTER To his father, that so tenderly and entirely
loves him! Heaven and Earth! Edmund, seek him
out; wind me into him, I pray you. Frame the
business after your own wisdom. I would unstate
myself to be in a due resolution.
EDMUND I will seek him, sir, presently, convey the
business as I shall find means, and acquaint you
withal.
GLOUCESTER These late eclipses in the sun and moon
portend no good to us. Though the wisdom of
nature can reason it thus and thus, yet nature finds
itself scourged by the sequent effects. Love cools,
friendship falls off, brothers divide; in cities, mutinies;
in countries, discord; in palaces, treason; and
the bond cracked ’twixt son and father. This villain
of mine comes under the prediction: there’s son
against father. The King falls from bias of nature:
there’s father against child. We have seen the best of
our time. Machinations, hollowness, treachery, and
all ruinous disorders follow us disquietly to our
graves. —Find out this villain, Edmund. It shall
lose thee nothing. Do it carefully.—And the noble
and true-hearted Kent banished! His offense, honesty!
’Tis strange. He exits.

---

EDMUND This is the excellent foppery of the world, that
when we are sick in fortune (often the surfeits of
our own behavior) we make guilty of our disasters
the sun, the moon, and stars, as if we were villains
on necessity; fools by heavenly compulsion; knaves,
thieves, and treachers by spherical predominance;
drunkards, liars, and adulterers by an enforced
obedience of planetary influence; and all that we
are evil in, by a divine thrusting on. An admirable
evasion of whoremaster man, to lay his goatish
disposition on the charge of a star! My father
compounded with my mother under the Dragon’s
tail, and my nativity was under Ursa Major, so that it
follows I am rough and lecherous. Fut , I should
have been that I am, had the maidenliest star in the
firmament twinkled on my bastardizing. Edgar —

Enter Edgar.

and pat he comes like the catastrophe of the old
comedy. My cue is villainous melancholy, with a
sigh like Tom o’ Bedlam.—O, these eclipses do
portend these divisions. Fa, sol, la, mi.
EDGAR How now, brother Edmund, what serious contemplation
are you in?
EDMUND I am thinking, brother, of a prediction I read
this other day, what should follow these eclipses.
EDGAR Do you busy yourself with that?
EDMUND I promise you, the effects he writes of succeed
unhappily, as of unnaturalness between the
child and the parent, death, dearth, dissolutions of
ancient amities, divisions in state, menaces and
maledictions against king and nobles, needless diffidences,
banishment of friends, dissipation of cohorts,
nuptial breaches, and I know not what.
EDGAR How long have you been a sectary
astronomical?

---

EDMUND Come, come, when saw you my father last?
EDGAR The night gone by.
EDMUND Spake you with him?
EDGAR Ay, two hours together.
EDMUND Parted you in good terms? Found you no
displeasure in him by word nor countenance?
EDGAR None at all.
EDMUND Bethink yourself wherein you may have offended
him, and at my entreaty forbear his presence
until some little time hath qualified the heat
of his displeasure, which at this instant so rageth in
him that with the mischief of your person it would
scarcely allay.
EDGAR Some villain hath done me wrong.
EDMUND That’s my fear. I pray you have a continent
forbearance till the speed of his rage goes slower;
and, as I say, retire with me to my lodging, from
whence I will fitly bring you to hear my lord speak.
Pray you go. There’s my key. If you do stir abroad,
go armed.
EDGAR Armed, brother?
EDMUND Brother, I advise you to the best. I am no
honest man if there be any good meaning toward
you. I have told you what I have seen and heard, but
faintly, nothing like the image and horror of it. Pray
you, away.
EDGAR Shall I hear from you anon?
EDMUND I do serve you in this business. Edgar exits.
A credulous father and a brother noble,
Whose nature is so far from doing harms
That he suspects none; on whose foolish honesty
My practices ride easy. I see the business.
Let me, if not by birth, have lands by wit.
All with me’s meet that I can fashion fit.
He exits.

Enter Goneril and Oswald , her Steward.

GONERIL Did my father strike my gentleman for chiding
of his Fool?
OSWALD Ay, madam.
GONERIL
By day and night he wrongs me. Every hour
He flashes into one gross crime or other
That sets us all at odds. I’ll not endure it.
His knights grow riotous, and himself upbraids us
On every trifle. When he returns from hunting,
I will not speak with him. Say I am sick.
If you come slack of former services,
You shall do well. The fault of it I’ll answer.
OSWALD He’s coming, madam. I hear him.
GONERIL
Put on what weary negligence you please,
You and your fellows. I’d have it come to question.
If he distaste it, let him to my sister,
Whose mind and mine I know in that are one,
Not to be overruled. Idle old man
That still would manage those authorities
That he hath given away. Now, by my life,
Old fools are babes again and must be used
With checks as flatteries, when they are seen
abused.
Remember what I have said.
OSWALD Well, madam.
GONERIL
And let his knights have colder looks among you.
What grows of it, no matter. Advise your fellows so.
I would breed from hence occasions, and I shall,
That I may speak. I’ll write straight to my sister
To hold my very course. Prepare for dinner.
They exit in different directions.

Enter Kent in disguise.

KENT
If but as well I other accents borrow
That can my speech diffuse, my good intent
May carry through itself to that full issue
For which I razed my likeness. Now, banished Kent,
If thou canst serve where thou dost stand
condemned,
So may it come thy master, whom thou lov’st,
Shall find thee full of labors.

Horns within. Enter Lear, Knights , and Attendants.

LEAR Let me not stay a jot for dinner. Go get it ready.
An Attendant exits.
How now, what art thou?
KENT A man, sir.
LEAR What dost thou profess? What wouldst thou with
us?
KENT I do profess to be no less than I seem, to serve
him truly that will put me in trust, to love him that
is honest, to converse with him that is wise and says
little, to fear judgment, to fight when I cannot
choose, and to eat no fish.
LEAR What art thou?
KENT A very honest-hearted fellow, and as poor as the
King.
LEAR If thou be’st as poor for a subject as he’s for a
king, thou art poor enough. What wouldst thou?
KENT Service.
LEAR Who wouldst thou serve?
KENT You.
LEAR Dost thou know me, fellow?
KENT No, sir, but you have that in your countenance
which I would fain call master.

---

LEAR What’s that?
KENT Authority.
LEAR What services canst do?
KENT I can keep honest counsel, ride, run, mar a
curious tale in telling it, and deliver a plain message
bluntly. That which ordinary men are fit for I
am qualified in, and the best of me is diligence.
LEAR How old art thou?
KENT Not so young, sir, to love a woman for singing,
nor so old to dote on her for anything. I have years
on my back forty-eight.
LEAR Follow me. Thou shalt serve me—if I like thee
no worse after dinner. I will not part from thee
yet.—Dinner, ho, dinner!—Where’s my knave, my
Fool? Go you and call my Fool hither.
An Attendant exits.

Enter Oswald , the Steward.

You, you, sirrah, where’s my daughter?
OSWALD So please you— He exits.
LEAR What says the fellow there? Call the clotpole
back. A Knight exits. Where’s my Fool? Ho! I think
the world’s asleep.

Enter Knight again.

How now? Where’s that mongrel?
KNIGHT He says, my lord, your daughter is not well.
LEAR Why came not the slave back to me when I
called him?
KNIGHT Sir, he answered me in the roundest manner,
he would not.
LEAR He would not?
KNIGHT My lord, I know not what the matter is, but to
my judgment your Highness is not entertained
with that ceremonious affection as you were wont.
There’s a great abatement of kindness appears as

---

well in the general dependents as in the Duke
himself also, and your daughter.
LEAR Ha? Sayst thou so?
KNIGHT I beseech you pardon me, my lord, if I be
mistaken, for my duty cannot be silent when I think
your Highness wronged.
LEAR Thou but remembrest me of mine own conception.
I have perceived a most faint neglect of late,
which I have rather blamed as mine own jealous
curiosity than as a very pretense and purpose of
unkindness. I will look further into ’t. But where’s
my Fool? I have not seen him this two days.
KNIGHT Since my young lady’s going into France, sir,
the Fool hath much pined away.
LEAR No more of that. I have noted it well.—Go you
and tell my daughter I would speak with her. An
Attendant exits. Go you call hither my Fool.
Another exits.

Enter Oswald , the Steward.

O you, sir, you, come you hither, sir. Who am I, sir?
OSWALD My lady’s father.
LEAR “My lady’s father”? My lord’s knave! You whoreson
dog, you slave, you cur!
OSWALD I am none of these, my lord, I beseech your
pardon.
LEAR Do you bandy looks with me, you rascal?
Lear strikes him.
OSWALD I’ll not be strucken, my lord.
KENT , tripping him Nor tripped neither, you base
football player?
LEAR I thank thee, fellow. Thou serv’st me, and I’ll
love thee.
KENT , to Oswald Come, sir, arise. Away. I’ll teach you
differences. Away, away. If you will measure your
lubber’s length again, tarry. But away. Go to. Have
you wisdom? So. Oswald exits.

---

LEAR Now, my friendly knave, I thank thee. There’s
earnest of thy service. He gives Kent a purse.

Enter Fool.

FOOL Let me hire him too. To Kent. Here’s my
coxcomb. He offers Kent his cap.
LEAR How now, my pretty knave, how dost thou?
FOOL , to Kent Sirrah, you were best take my
coxcomb.
LEAR Why, my boy?
FOOL Why? For taking one’s part that’s out of favor.
To Kent. Nay, an thou canst not smile as the
wind sits, thou ’lt catch cold shortly. There, take my
coxcomb. Why, this fellow has banished two on ’s
daughters and did the third a blessing against his
will. If thou follow him, thou must needs wear my
coxcomb.—How now, nuncle? Would I had two
coxcombs and two daughters.
LEAR Why, my boy?
FOOL If I gave them all my living, I’d keep my coxcombs
myself. There’s mine. Beg another of thy
daughters.
LEAR Take heed, sirrah—the whip.
FOOL Truth’s a dog must to kennel; he must be
whipped out, when the Lady Brach may stand by th’
fire and stink.
LEAR A pestilent gall to me!
FOOL Sirrah, I’ll teach thee a speech.
LEAR Do.
FOOL Mark it, nuncle:
Have more than thou showest.
Speak less than thou knowest,
Lend less than thou owest,
Ride more than thou goest,
Learn more than thou trowest,
Set less than thou throwest;

---

51

King Lear

ACT 1. SC. 4

Leave thy drink and thy whore
And keep in-a-door,
And thou shalt have more
Than two tens to a score.
KENT This is nothing, Fool.
FOOL Then ’tis like the breath of an unfee’d lawyer.
You gave me nothing for ’t.—Can you make no use
of nothing, nuncle?
LEAR Why no, boy. Nothing can be made out of
nothing.
FOOL , to Kent Prithee tell him, so much the rent of his
land comes to. He will not believe a Fool.
LEAR A bitter Fool!
FOOL Dost know the difference, my boy, between a
bitter fool and a sweet one?
LEAR No, lad, teach me.
FOOL That lord that counseled thee
To give away thy land,
Come place him here by me;
Do thou for him stand.
The sweet and bitter fool
Will presently appear:
The one in motley here,
The other found out there.
LEAR Dost thou call me “fool,” boy?
FOOL All thy other titles thou hast given away. That
thou wast born with.
KENT This is not altogether fool, my lord.
FOOL No, faith, lords and great men will not let me. If
I had a monopoly out, they would have part on ’t.
And ladies too, they will not let me have all the fool
to myself; they’ll be snatching. —Nuncle, give me
an egg, and I’ll give thee two crowns.
LEAR What two crowns shall they be?
FOOL Why, after I have cut the egg i’ th’ middle and eat
up the meat, the two crowns of the egg. When thou

---

clovest thy crown i’ th’ middle and gav’st away
both parts, thou bor’st thine ass on thy back o’er
the dirt. Thou hadst little wit in thy bald crown
when thou gav’st thy golden one away. If I speak
like myself in this, let him be whipped that first
finds it so. Sings .
Fools had ne’er less grace in a year,
For wise men are grown foppish
And know not how their wits to wear,
Their manners are so apish.
LEAR When were you wont to be so full of songs,
sirrah?
FOOL I have used it, nuncle, e’er since thou mad’st thy
daughters thy mothers. For when thou gav’st them
the rod and put’st down thine own breeches,
Sings .
Then they for sudden joy did weep,
And I for sorrow sung,
That such a king should play bo-peep
And go the fools among.
Prithee, nuncle, keep a schoolmaster that can teach
thy Fool to lie. I would fain learn to lie.
LEAR An you lie, sirrah, we’ll have you whipped.
FOOL I marvel what kin thou and thy daughters are.
They’ll have me whipped for speaking true, thou ’lt
have me whipped for lying, and sometimes I am
whipped for holding my peace. I had rather be any
kind o’ thing than a Fool. And yet I would not be
thee, nuncle. Thou hast pared thy wit o’ both sides
and left nothing i’ th’ middle. Here comes one o’ the
parings.

Enter Goneril.

LEAR
How now, daughter? What makes that frontlet on?
Methinks you are too much of late i’ th’ frown.

---

FOOL Thou wast a pretty fellow when thou hadst no
need to care for her frowning. Now thou art an O
without a figure. I am better than thou art now. I
am a Fool. Thou art nothing. To Goneril. Yes,
forsooth, I will hold my tongue. So your face bids
me, though you say nothing.
Mum, mum,
He that keeps nor crust nor crumb,
Weary of all, shall want some.
He points at Lear.
That’s a shelled peascod.
GONERIL
Not only, sir, this your all-licensed Fool,
But other of your insolent retinue
Do hourly carp and quarrel, breaking forth
In rank and not-to-be-endurèd riots. Sir,
I had thought by making this well known unto you
To have found a safe redress, but now grow fearful,
By what yourself too late have spoke and done,
That you protect this course and put it on
By your allowance; which if you should, the fault
Would not ’scape censure, nor the redresses sleep
Which in the tender of a wholesome weal
Might in their working do you that offense,
Which else were shame, that then necessity
Will call discreet proceeding.
FOOL For you know, nuncle,
The hedge-sparrow fed the cuckoo so long,
That it’s had it head bit off by it young.
So out went the candle, and we were left darkling.
LEAR Are you our daughter?
GONERIL
I would you would make use of your good wisdom,
Whereof I know you are fraught, and put away
These dispositions which of late transport you
From what you rightly are.

---

FOOL May not an ass know when the cart draws the
horse? Whoop, Jug, I love thee!
LEAR
Does any here know me? This is not Lear.
Does Lear walk thus, speak thus? Where are his
eyes?
Either his notion weakens, his discernings
Are lethargied—Ha! Waking? ’Tis not so.
Who is it that can tell me who I am?
FOOL Lear’s shadow.
LEAR
I would learn that, for, by the marks of
sovereignty,
Knowledge, and reason, I should be false persuaded
I had daughters.
FOOL Which they will make an obedient father.
LEAR Your name, fair gentlewoman?
GONERIL
This admiration, sir, is much o’ th’ savor
Of other your new pranks. I do beseech you
To understand my purposes aright.
As you are old and reverend, should be wise.
Here do you keep a hundred knights and squires,
Men so disordered, so debauched and bold,
That this our court, infected with their manners,
Shows like a riotous inn. Epicurism and lust
Makes it more like a tavern or a brothel
Than a graced palace. The shame itself doth speak
For instant remedy. Be then desired,
By her that else will take the thing she begs,
A little to disquantity your train,
And the remainders that shall still depend
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.
Some exit.

---

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 Albany.

LEAR
Woe that too late repents!— O , sir, are you
come?
Is it your will? Speak, sir.—Prepare my horses.
Some exit.
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!
He strikes his head.
Beat at this gate that let thy folly in
And thy dear judgment out. Go, go, my people.
Some exit.
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 honor 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
How sharper than a serpent’s tooth it is
To have a thankless child.—Away, away!
Lear and the rest of his train exit.
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 Lear and the Fool.

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 you out

---

And cast you, with the waters that you loose,
To temper clay. Yea , is ’t come to this?
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 forever. He exits.
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. He exits.
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. Oswald exits. No, no, my
lord,
This milky gentleness and course of yours,
Though I condemn not, yet, under pardon,
You are much more at task 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.
They exit.

Enter Lear, Kent in disguise, Gentleman, and Fool.

LEAR , to Kent Go you before to Gloucester with these
letters. 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.
KENT I will not sleep, my lord, till I have delivered
your letter. He exits.
FOOL If a man’s brains were in ’s heels, were ’t not in
danger of kibes?
LEAR Ay, boy.

---

FOOL Then, I prithee, be merry; thy wit shall not go
slipshod.
LEAR Ha, ha, ha!
FOOL Shalt see thy other daughter will use thee kindly,
for, though she’s as like this as a crab’s like an
apple, yet I can tell what I can tell.
LEAR What canst tell, boy?
FOOL She will taste as like this as a crab does to a crab.
Thou canst tell why one’s nose stands i’ th’ middle
on ’s face?
LEAR No.
FOOL Why, to keep one’s eyes of either side ’s nose,
that what a man cannot smell out he may spy into.
LEAR I did her wrong.
FOOL Canst tell how an oyster makes his shell?
LEAR No.
FOOL Nor I neither. But I can tell why a snail has a
house.
LEAR Why?
FOOL Why, to put ’s head in, not to give it away to his
daughters and leave his horns without a case.
LEAR I will forget my nature. So kind a father!—Be
my horses ready? Gentleman exits.
FOOL Thy asses are gone about ’em. The reason why
the seven stars are no more than seven is a pretty
reason.
LEAR Because they are not eight.
FOOL Yes, indeed. Thou wouldst make a good Fool.
LEAR To take ’t again perforce! Monster ingratitude!
FOOL If thou wert my Fool, nuncle, I’d have thee
beaten for being old before thy time.
LEAR How’s that?
FOOL Thou shouldst not have been old till thou hadst
been wise.
LEAR
O, let me not be mad, not mad, sweet heaven!
Keep me in temper. I would not be mad!

---

Enter Gentleman.

How now, are the horses ready?
GENTLEMAN Ready, my lord.
LEAR Come, boy.
FOOL
She that’s a maid now and laughs at my departure,
Shall not be a maid long, unless things be cut
shorter.
They exit.

Enter Edmund , the Bastard and Curan, severally.

EDMUND Save thee, Curan.
CURAN And you , sir. I have been with your father and
given him notice that the Duke of Cornwall and
Regan his duchess will be here with him this night.
EDMUND How comes that?
CURAN Nay, I know not. You have heard of the news
abroad?—I mean the whispered ones, for they are
yet but ear-kissing arguments.
EDMUND Not I. Pray you, what are they?
CURAN Have you heard of no likely wars toward ’twixt
the dukes of Cornwall and Albany?
EDMUND Not a word.
CURAN You may do, then, in time. Fare you well, sir.
He exits.
EDMUND
The Duke be here tonight? The better, best.
This weaves itself perforce into my business.
My father hath set guard to take my brother,
And I have one thing of a queasy question
Which I must act. Briefness and fortune work!—
Brother, a word. Descend. Brother, I say!

Enter Edgar.

My father watches. O sir, fly this place!

---

Intelligence is given where you are hid.
You have now the good advantage of the night.
Have you not spoken ’gainst the Duke of Cornwall?
He’s coming hither, now, i’ th’ night, i’ th’ haste,
And Regan with him. Have you nothing said
Upon his party ’gainst the Duke of Albany?
Advise yourself.
EDGAR I am sure on ’t, not a word.
EDMUND
I hear my father coming. Pardon me.
In cunning I must draw my sword upon you.
Draw. Seem to defend yourself. Now, quit you
well. They draw.
Yield! Come before my father! Light, hoa, here!
Aside to Edgar. Fly, brother.—Torches, torches!
—So, farewell. Edgar exits.
Some blood drawn on me would beget opinion
Of my more fierce endeavor. I have seen drunkards
Do more than this in sport. He wounds his arm.
Father, father!
Stop, stop! No help?

Enter Gloucester, and Servants with torches.

GLOUCESTER Now, Edmund, where’s the
villain?
EDMUND
Here stood he in the dark, his sharp sword out,
Mumbling of wicked charms, conjuring the moon
To stand auspicious mistress.
GLOUCESTER But where is he?
EDMUND
Look, sir, I bleed.
GLOUCESTER Where is the villain,
Edmund?
EDMUND
Fled this way, sir, when by no means he could—

---

GLOUCESTER
Pursue him, ho! Go after. Servants exit. By no
means what?
EDMUND
Persuade me to the murder of your Lordship,
But that I told him the revenging gods
’Gainst parricides did all the thunder bend,
Spoke with how manifold and strong a bond
The child was bound to th’ father—sir, in fine,
Seeing how loathly opposite I stood
To his unnatural purpose, in fell motion
With his preparèd sword he charges home
My unprovided body, lanced mine arm;
And when he saw my best alarumed spirits,
Bold in the quarrel’s right, roused to th’ encounter,
Or whether ghasted by the noise I made,
Full suddenly he fled.
GLOUCESTER Let him fly far!
Not in this land shall he remain uncaught,
And found—dispatch. The noble duke my master,
My worthy arch and patron, comes tonight.
By his authority I will proclaim it
That he which finds him shall deserve our thanks,
Bringing the murderous coward to the stake;
He that conceals him, death.
EDMUND
When I dissuaded him from his intent
And found him pight to do it, with curst speech
I threatened to discover him. He replied
“Thou unpossessing bastard, dost thou think
If I would stand against thee, would the reposal
Of any trust, virtue, or worth in thee
Make thy words faithed? No. What I should
deny—
As this I would, though thou didst produce

---

My very character—I’d turn it all
To thy suggestion, plot, and damnèd practice.
And thou must make a dullard of the world
If they not thought the profits of my death
Were very pregnant and potential spurs
To make thee seek it.”
GLOUCESTER O strange and fastened villain!
Would he deny his letter, said he?
I never got him. Tucket within.
Hark, the Duke’s trumpets. I know not why he
comes.
All ports I’ll bar. The villain shall not ’scape.
The Duke must grant me that. Besides, his picture
I will send far and near, that all the kingdom
May have due note of him. And of my land,
Loyal and natural boy, I’ll work the means
To make thee capable.

Enter Cornwall, Regan, and Attendants.

CORNWALL
How now, my noble friend? Since I came hither,
Which I can call but now, I have heard strange
news .
REGAN
If it be true, all vengeance comes too short
Which can pursue th’ offender. How dost, my
lord?
GLOUCESTER
O madam, my old heart is cracked; it’s cracked.
REGAN
What, did my father’s godson seek your life?
He whom my father named, your Edgar?
GLOUCESTER
O lady, lady, shame would have it hid!
REGAN
Was he not companion with the riotous knights
That tended upon my father?

---

GLOUCESTER
I know not, madam. ’Tis too bad, too bad.
EDMUND
Yes, madam, he was of that consort.
REGAN
No marvel, then, though he were ill affected.
’Tis they have put him on the old man’s death,
To have th’ expense and waste of his revenues.
I have this present evening from my sister
Been well informed of them, and with such cautions
That if they come to sojourn at my house
I’ll not be there.
CORNWALL Nor I, assure thee, Regan.—
Edmund, I hear that you have shown your father
A childlike office.
EDMUND It was my duty, sir.
GLOUCESTER
He did bewray his practice, and received
This hurt you see striving to apprehend him.
CORNWALL Is he pursued?
GLOUCESTER Ay, my good lord.
CORNWALL
If he be taken, he shall never more
Be feared of doing harm. Make your own purpose,
How in my strength you please.—For you, Edmund,
Whose virtue and obedience doth this instant
So much commend itself, you shall be ours.
Natures of such deep trust we shall much need.
You we first seize on.
EDMUND I shall serve you, sir,
Truly, however else.
GLOUCESTER For him I thank your Grace.
CORNWALL
You know not why we came to visit you—
REGAN
Thus out of season, threading dark-eyed night.

---

Occasions, noble Gloucester, of some poise ,
Wherein we must have use of your advice.
Our father he hath writ, so hath our sister,
Of differences, which I best thought it fit
To answer from our home. The several messengers
From hence attend dispatch. Our good old friend,
Lay comforts to your bosom and bestow
Your needful counsel to our businesses,
Which craves the instant use.
GLOUCESTER I serve you, madam.
Your Graces are right welcome.
Flourish. They exit.

Enter Kent in disguise and Oswald , the Steward,
severally.

OSWALD Good dawning to thee, friend. Art of this
house?
KENT Ay.
OSWALD Where may we set our horses?
KENT I’ th’ mire.
OSWALD Prithee, if thou lov’st me, tell me.
KENT I love thee not.
OSWALD Why then, I care not for thee.
KENT If I had thee in Lipsbury pinfold, I would make
thee care for me.
OSWALD Why dost thou use me thus? I know thee not.
KENT Fellow, I know thee.
OSWALD What dost thou know me for?
KENT A knave, a rascal, an eater of broken meats; a
base, proud, shallow, beggarly, three-suited, hundred-pound,
filthy worsted-stocking knave; a lily-livered,
action-taking, whoreson, glass-gazing, superserviceable,
finical rogue; one-trunk-inheriting

---

slave; one that wouldst be a bawd in way of good
service, and art nothing but the composition of a
knave, beggar, coward, pander, and the son and heir
of a mongrel bitch; one whom I will beat into
clamorous whining if thou deny’st the least syllable
of thy addition.
OSWALD Why, what a monstrous fellow art thou thus
to rail on one that is neither known of thee nor
knows thee!
KENT What a brazen-faced varlet art thou to deny thou
knowest me! Is it two days ago since I tripped up
thy heels and beat thee before the King? He draws
his sword. Draw, you rogue, for though it be night,
yet the moon shines. I’ll make a sop o’ th’ moonshine
of you, you whoreson, cullionly barbermonger.
Draw!
OSWALD Away! I have nothing to do with thee.
KENT Draw, you rascal! You come with letters against
the King and take Vanity the puppet’s part against
the royalty of her father. Draw, you rogue, or I’ll so
carbonado your shanks! Draw, you rascal! Come
your ways.
OSWALD Help, ho! Murder! Help!
KENT Strike, you slave! Stand, rogue! Stand, you neat
slave! Strike! He beats Oswald.
OSWALD Help, ho! Murder, murder!

Enter Bastard Edmund , with his rapier drawn,
Cornwall, Regan, Gloucester, Servants.

EDMUND How now, what’s the matter? Part!
KENT With you, goodman boy, if you please. Come, I’ll
flesh you. Come on, young master.
GLOUCESTER
Weapons? Arms? What’s the matter here?
CORNWALL Keep peace, upon your lives! He dies that
strikes again. What is the matter?

---

REGAN
The messengers from our sister and the King.
CORNWALL What is your difference? Speak.
OSWALD I am scarce in breath, my lord.
KENT No marvel, you have so bestirred your valor.
You cowardly rascal, nature disclaims in thee; a
tailor made thee.
CORNWALL Thou art a strange fellow. A tailor make a
man?
KENT A tailor, sir. A stonecutter or a painter could not
have made him so ill, though they had been but two
years o’ th’ trade.
CORNWALL Speak yet, how grew your quarrel?
OSWALD This ancient ruffian, sir, whose life I have
spared at suit of his gray beard—
KENT Thou whoreson zed, thou unnecessary letter!
—My lord, if you will give me leave, I will tread
this unbolted villain into mortar and daub the wall
of a jakes with him.—Spare my gray beard, you
wagtail?
CORNWALL Peace, sirrah!
You beastly knave, know you no reverence?
KENT
Yes, sir, but anger hath a privilege.
CORNWALL Why art thou angry?
KENT
That such a slave as this should wear a sword,
Who wears no honesty. Such smiling rogues as
these,
Like rats, oft bite the holy cords atwain
Which are too intrinse t’ unloose; smooth every
passion
That in the natures of their lords rebel—
Being oil to fire, snow to the colder moods—
Renege , affirm, and turn their halcyon beaks
With every gale and vary of their masters,

---

Knowing naught, like dogs, but following.—
A plague upon your epileptic visage!
Smile you my speeches, as I were a fool?
Goose, if I had you upon Sarum plain,
I’d drive you cackling home to Camelot.
CORNWALL What, art thou mad, old fellow?
GLOUCESTER How fell you out? Say that.
KENT
No contraries hold more antipathy
Than I and such a knave.
CORNWALL
Why dost thou call him “knave”? What is his fault?
KENT His countenance likes me not.
CORNWALL
No more, perchance, does mine, nor his, nor hers.
KENT
Sir, ’tis my occupation to be plain:
I have seen better faces in my time
Than stands on any shoulder that I see
Before me at this instant.
CORNWALL This is some fellow
Who, having been praised for bluntness, doth affect
A saucy roughness and constrains the garb
Quite from his nature. He cannot flatter, he.
An honest mind and plain, he must speak truth!
An they will take it, so; if not, he’s plain.
These kind of knaves I know, which in this
plainness
Harbor more craft and more corrupter ends
Than twenty silly-ducking observants
That stretch their duties nicely.
KENT
Sir, in good faith, in sincere verity,
Under th’ allowance of your great aspect,
Whose influence, like the wreath of radiant fire
On flick’ring Phoebus’ front—

---

CORNWALL What mean’st by this?
KENT To go out of my dialect, which you discommend
so much. I know, sir, I am no flatterer. He that
beguiled you in a plain accent was a plain knave,
which for my part I will not be, though I should
win your displeasure to entreat me to ’t.
CORNWALL , to Oswald What was th’ offense you gave
him?
OSWALD I never gave him any.
It pleased the King his master very late
To strike at me, upon his misconstruction;
When he, compact, and flattering his displeasure,
Tripped me behind; being down, insulted, railed,
And put upon him such a deal of man
That worthied him, got praises of the King
For him attempting who was self-subdued;
And in the fleshment of this dread exploit,
Drew on me here again.
KENT None of these rogues and cowards
But Ajax is their fool.
CORNWALL Fetch forth the stocks.—
You stubborn ancient knave, you reverent braggart,
We’ll teach you.
KENT Sir, I am too old to learn.
Call not your stocks for me. I serve the King,
On whose employment I was sent to you.
You shall do small respect , show too bold
malice
Against the grace and person of my master,
Stocking his messenger.
CORNWALL
Fetch forth the stocks.—As I have life and honor,
There shall he sit till noon.
REGAN
Till noon? Till night, my lord, and all night, too.

---

KENT
Why, madam, if I were your father’s dog,
You should not use me so.
REGAN Sir, being his knave, I will.
CORNWALL
This is a fellow of the selfsame color
Our sister speaks of.—Come, bring away the stocks.
Stocks brought out.
GLOUCESTER
Let me beseech your Grace not to do so.
His fault is much, and the good king his master
Will check him for ’t. Your purposed low correction
Is such as basest and contemned’st wretches
For pilf’rings and most common trespasses
Are punished with. The King must take it ill
That he, so slightly valued in his messenger,
Should have him thus restrained.
CORNWALL I’ll answer that.
REGAN
My sister may receive it much more worse
To have her gentleman abused, assaulted
For following her affairs.—Put in his legs.
Kent is put in the stocks.
CORNWALL Come, my good lord, away.
All but Gloucester and Kent exit.
GLOUCESTER
I am sorry for thee, friend. ’Tis the Duke’s
pleasure,
Whose disposition all the world well knows
Will not be rubbed nor stopped. I’ll entreat for thee.
KENT
Pray, do not, sir. I have watched and traveled hard.
Some time I shall sleep out; the rest I’ll whistle.
A good man’s fortune may grow out at heels.
Give you good morrow.

---

GLOUCESTER
The Duke’s to blame in this. ’Twill be ill taken.
He exits.
KENT
Good king, that must approve the common saw,
Thou out of heaven’s benediction com’st
To the warm sun. He takes out a paper.
Approach, thou beacon to this under globe,
That by thy comfortable beams I may
Peruse this letter. Nothing almost sees miracles
But misery. I know ’tis from Cordelia,
Who hath most fortunately been informed
Of my obscurèd course, and shall find time
From this enormous state, seeking to give
Losses their remedies. All weary and o’erwatched,
Take vantage, heavy eyes, not to behold
This shameful lodging.
Fortune, good night. Smile once more; turn thy
wheel.
Sleeps .

Enter Edgar.

EDGAR I heard myself proclaimed,
And by the happy hollow of a tree
Escaped the hunt. No port is free; no place
That guard and most unusual vigilance
Does not attend my taking. Whiles I may ’scape,
I will preserve myself, and am bethought
To take the basest and most poorest shape
That ever penury in contempt of man
Brought near to beast. My face I’ll grime with filth,
Blanket my loins, elf all my hairs in knots,
And with presented nakedness outface

---

The winds and persecutions of the sky.
The country gives me proof and precedent
Of Bedlam beggars who with roaring voices
Strike in their numbed and mortifièd arms
Pins, wooden pricks, nails, sprigs of rosemary,
And, with this horrible object, from low farms,
Poor pelting villages, sheepcotes, and mills,
Sometime with lunatic bans, sometime with prayers,
Enforce their charity. “Poor Turlygod! Poor Tom!”
That’s something yet. “Edgar” I nothing am.
He exits.

Enter Lear, Fool, and Gentleman.

LEAR
’Tis strange that they should so depart from home
And not send back my messenger .
GENTLEMAN As I learned,
The night before there was no purpose in them
Of this remove.
KENT , waking Hail to thee, noble master.
LEAR Ha?
Mak’st thou this shame thy pastime?
KENT No, my lord.
FOOL Ha, ha, he wears cruel garters. Horses are tied
by the heads, dogs and bears by th’ neck, monkeys
by th’ loins, and men by th’ legs. When a man’s
overlusty at legs, then he wears wooden
netherstocks.
LEAR
What’s he that hath so much thy place mistook
To set thee here?
KENT It is both he and she,
Your son and daughter.

---

LEAR No.
KENT Yes.
LEAR No, I say.
KENT I say yea.
LEAR By Jupiter, I swear no.
KENT By Juno, I swear ay.
LEAR They durst not do ’t.
They could not, would not do ’t. ’Tis worse than
murder
To do upon respect such violent outrage.
Resolve me with all modest haste which way
Thou might’st deserve or they impose this usage,
Coming from us.
KENT My lord, when at their home
I did commend your Highness’ letters to them,
Ere I was risen from the place that showed
My duty kneeling, came there a reeking post,
Stewed in his haste, half breathless, panting forth
From Goneril his mistress salutations;
Delivered letters, spite of intermission,
Which presently they read; on whose contents
They summoned up their meiny, straight took
horse,
Commanded me to follow and attend
The leisure of their answer, gave me cold looks;
And meeting here the other messenger,
Whose welcome, I perceived, had poisoned mine,
Being the very fellow which of late
Displayed so saucily against your Highness,
Having more man than wit about me, drew.
He raised the house with loud and coward cries.
Your son and daughter found this trespass worth
The shame which here it suffers.
FOOL Winter’s not gone yet if the wild geese fly that
way.

---

Fathers that wear rags
Do make their children blind,
But fathers that bear bags
Shall see their children kind.
Fortune, that arrant whore,
Ne’er turns the key to th’ poor.
But, for all this, thou shalt have as many dolors for
thy daughters as thou canst tell in a year.
LEAR
O, how this mother swells up toward my heart!
Hysterica passio , down, thou climbing sorrow!
Thy element’s below.—Where is this daughter?
KENT With the Earl, sir, here within.
LEAR , to Fool and Gentleman Follow me not. Stay
here. He exits.
GENTLEMAN
Made you no more offense but what you speak of?
KENT None.
How chance the King comes with so small a number?
FOOL An thou hadst been set i’ th’ stocks for that
question, thou ’dst well deserved it.
KENT Why, Fool?
FOOL We’ll set thee to school to an ant to teach thee
there’s no laboring i’ th’ winter. All that follow
their noses are led by their eyes but blind men, and
there’s not a nose among twenty but can smell him
that’s stinking. Let go thy hold when a great wheel
runs down a hill lest it break thy neck with following;
but the great one that goes upward, let him
draw thee after. When a wise man gives thee better
counsel, give me mine again. I would have none but
knaves follow it, since a Fool gives it.
That sir which serves and seeks for gain,
And follows but for form,
Will pack when it begins to rain

---

103

King Lear

ACT 2. SC. 4

And leave thee in the storm.
But I will tarry; the Fool will stay,
And let the wise man fly.
The knave turns fool that runs away;
The Fool no knave, perdie.
KENT Where learned you this, Fool?
FOOL Not i’ th’ stocks, fool.

Enter Lear and Gloucester.

LEAR
Deny to speak with me? They are sick? They are
weary?
They have traveled all the night? Mere fetches,
The images of revolt and flying off.
Fetch me a better answer.
GLOUCESTER My dear lord,
You know the fiery quality of the Duke,
How unremovable and fixed he is
In his own course.
LEAR
Vengeance, plague, death, confusion!
“Fiery”? What “quality”? Why Gloucester,
Gloucester,
I’d speak with the Duke of Cornwall and his wife.
GLOUCESTER
Well, my good lord, I have informed them so.
LEAR
“Informed them”? Dost thou understand me,
man?
GLOUCESTER Ay, my good lord.
LEAR
The King would speak with Cornwall. The dear
father
Would with his daughter speak, commands, tends
service.
Are they “informed” 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 oppressed, commands the mind
To suffer with the body. I’ll forbear,
And am fallen out with my more headier will,
To take the indisposed and sickly fit
For the sound man. Noticing Kent again. 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.
He exits.
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’ th’ paste alive. She knapped
’em o’ th’ 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, 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,

---

Sepulch’ring an adult’ress. To Kent. O, are you
free?
Some other time for that.—Belovèd Regan,
Thy sister’s naught. O Regan, she hath tied
Sharp-toothed unkindness, like a vulture, here.
I can scarce speak to thee. Thou ’lt not believe
With how depraved 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 restrained 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 his confine. You should be ruled 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 wronged her.
LEAR Ask her forgiveness?
Do you but mark how this becomes the house:
He kneels.
“Dear daughter, I confess that I am old.
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,
Looked black upon me, struck me with her tongue
Most serpentlike upon the very heart.
All the stored 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-sucked fogs drawn by the powerful sun
To fall and blister!
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’ th’ kingdom hast thou not forgot,
Wherein I thee endowed.
REGAN Good sir, to th’ purpose.
Tucket within.
LEAR
Who put my man i’ th’ stocks?
CORNWALL What trumpet’s that?

---

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

Enter Oswald , the Steward.

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 stocked my servant? Regan, I have good hope
Thou didst not know on ’t.

Enter Goneril.

Who comes here? O heavens,
If you do love old men, if your sweet sway
Allow obedience, if you yourselves are old,
Make it your cause. Send down and take my part.
To Goneril. Art not ashamed to look upon this
beard? Regan takes Goneril’s hand.
O Regan, will you take her by the hand?
GONERIL
Why not by th’ hand, sir? How have I offended?
All’s not offense that indiscretion finds
And dotage terms so.
LEAR O sides, you are too tough!
Will you yet hold?—How came my man i’ th’
stocks?
CORNWALL
I set him there, sir, but his own disorders
Deserved 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 dismissed?
No! Rather I abjure all roofs, and choose
To wage against the enmity o’ th’ 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. He indicates 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 embossèd 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 looked 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 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 look well-favored
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.
I have full cause of weeping, but this heart
Storm and tempest.
Shall break into a hundred thousand flaws
Or ere I’ll weep.—O Fool, I shall go mad!
Lear , Kent, and Fool exit
with Gloucester and the Gentleman.
CORNWALL Let us withdraw. ’Twill be a storm.
REGAN
This house is little. The old man and ’s people
Cannot be well bestowed.

---

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 purposed. Where is my lord of Gloucester?
CORNWALL
Followed the old man forth.

Enter Gloucester.

He is returned.
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 , to Gloucester
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 willful 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.
They exit.

Storm still. Enter Kent in disguise, 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 curlèd 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-pinchèd 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 labors to outjest
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 is covered
With mutual cunning, ’twixt Albany and Cornwall,
Who have—as who have not, that their great stars
Throned and set high?—servants, who seem no less,
Which are to France the spies and speculations
Intelligent of our state. From France there comes
a power
Into this scattered 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: what hath been seen,
Either in snuffs and packings of the dukes,
Or the hard rein which both of them hath borne
Against the old kind king, or something deeper,
Whereof perchance these are but furnishings.
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 outwall, open this purse and take
What it contains.
Kent hands him a purse and a ring.
If you shall see Cordelia
(As fear not but you shall), show her this ring,
And she will tell you who that 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.
They exit separately .

Storm still. Enter Lear and Fool.

LEAR
Blow winds, and crack your cheeks! Rage, blow!
You cataracts and hurricanoes, spout
Till you have drenched our steeples, drowned the
cocks.
You sulph’rous and thought-executing fires,
Vaunt-couriers of oak-cleaving thunderbolts,
Singe my white head. And thou, all-shaking
thunder,
Strike flat the thick rotundity o’ th’ world.
Crack nature’s molds, all germens spill at once
That makes ingrateful man.
FOOL O nuncle, court holy water in a dry house is
better than this rainwater out o’ door. Good nuncle,
in. 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, called you children;
You owe me no subscription. Then let fall
Your horrible pleasure. Here I stand your slave,
A poor, infirm, weak, and despised old man.
But yet I call you servile ministers,
That will with two pernicious daughters join
Your high-engendered battles ’gainst a head
So old and white as this. O, ho, ’tis foul!
FOOL He that has a house to put ’s head in has a good
headpiece.
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 in disguise.

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 undivulgèd crimes
Unwhipped of justice. Hide thee, thou bloody hand,
Thou perjured, and thou simular of virtue
That art incestuous. Caitiff, to pieces shake,
That under covert and convenient seeming
Has practiced on man’s life. Close pent-up guilts,
Rive your concealing continents and cry
These dreadful summoners grace. I am a man
More sinned 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 while I to this hard house—
More harder than the stones whereof ’tis raised,
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
And 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 sings
He that has and a little tiny wit,
With hey, ho, the wind and the rain,
Must make content with his fortunes fit,
Though the rain it raineth every day.
LEAR
True, my good boy.—Come, bring us to this hovel.
Lear and Kent exit.

---

FOOL This is a brave night to cool a courtesan. 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 burned 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 cutpurses come not to throngs,
When usurers tell their gold i’ th’ 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 used with feet.
This prophecy Merlin shall make, for I live before
his time.
He exits.