Lear. Nothing will come of nothing: speak again.

Cor. Unhappy that I am, I cannot heave
My heart into my mouth: I love your majesty
According to my bond; nor more nor less.
Lear. How, how, Cordelia! mend your speech
a little,

Lest it may mar your fortunes.
Cor.
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 honour 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

100

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?
Cor.

Ay, good my lord.
Lear. So young, and so untender?
Cor. So young, my lord, and true.
Lear. Let it be so; thy truth, then, be thy

dower:

The barbarous

Or he that makes his generation messes
To gorge his appetite, shall to my bosom
Be as well neighbour'd, pitied, and relieved,
As thou my sometime daughter.
Kent.

J20

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. 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?

12)

Call Burgundy. Cornwall and Albany,
With my two daughters' dowers digest this third:
Let pride, which she calls plainness, marry her.

With reservation of an hundred knights, By you to be sustain'd, shall our abode

140

Make with you by due turns. Only we still retain
The name, and all the additions to a king;
The sway, revenue, execution of the rest,
Beloved sons, be yours: which to confirm,
This coronet part betwixt you. [Giving the crown.
Kent.
Royal Lear,
Whom I have ever honour'd as my king,
Loved as my father, as my master follow'd,
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 wilt thou do, old man? Think'st thou that duty shall have dread to speak, When power to flattery bows? To plainness honour's bound,

150

Lear.

170

Hear me, recreant!
On thine allegiance, hear me!
Since thou hast sought to make us break our vow,
Which we durst never yet, and with strain'd
pride

To come between 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 diseases of the world;
And on the sixth to turn thy hated back
Upon our kingdom: if, on the tenth day following,
Thy banish'd 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,

Hath lost me in your liking.
Lear.
Better thou
Hadst not been born than not to 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 241
When it is mingled with regards that stand
Aloof from the entire point. Will you have her?
She is herself a dowry.
Bur.
Royal Lear,

Give but that portion which yourself proposed, And here I take Cordelia by the hand, Duchess of Burgundy.

Lear. Nothing: I have sworn; I am firm. Bur. I am sorry, then, you have so lost a father

That you must lose a husband.

Cor.

Peace be with Burgundy! 250 Since that respects of fortune are his love, I shall not be his wife.

France. Fairest Cordelia, that art most rich, being poor;

Most choice, forsaken; and most loved, despised!
Thee and thy virtues here I seize upon:
Be it lawful I take up what's cast away.
Gods, gods! 'tis strange that from their cold'st
neglect

My love should kindle to inflamed respect.
Thy dowerless daughter, king, thrown to my
chance,

Is queen of us, of ours, and our fair France: 260
Not all the dukes of waterish 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.
Therefore be gone
Without our grace, our love, our benison.
Come, noble Burgundy.

[Flourish. Exeunt all but France, Goneril, Regan, and Cordelia. France. Bid farewell to your sisters. 270 Cor. The jewels of our father, with wash'd eyes

Cordelia leaves you: I know you what you are; And like a sister am most loath to call

Your faults as they are named. Use well our father:

To your professed bosoms I commit him:
But yet, alas, stood I within his grace,

I would prefer him to a better place.
So, farewell to you both.

Reg. Prescribe not us our duties.
Gon.

Let your study 279

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.

Cor. Time shall unfold what plaited cunning hides:

Who cover faults, at last shame them derides.
Well may you prosper!
France.

Come, my fair Cordelia. [Exeunt France and Cordelia. Gon. Sister, it is not a little I have to say of

Reg. That's most certain, and with you; next month with us. 200 Gon. You see how full of changes his age is; the observation we have made of it hath not been little: he always loved our sister most; and with what poor judgement he hath now cast her off appears too grossly.

Reg. 'Tis the infirmity of his age: yet he hath ever but slenderly known himself.

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

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

Gon. There is further compliment of leavetaking between France and him. Pray you, let's hit together: if our father carry authority with such dispositions as he bears, this last surrender of his will but offend us. 310

Reg. We shall further think on't.
Gon. We must do something, and i' the heat.
[Exeunt.
SCENE II. The Earl of Gloucester's castle.
Enter EDMUND, with a letter.
Edm. 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

11

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 the 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 the legitimate: fine word,-legitimate!
Well, my legitimate, if this letter speed,
And my invention thrive, Edmund the base
Shall top the legitimate. I grow; I prosper:
Now, gods, stand up for bastards!

Enter GLOUCESTER.

Glou Kent banish'd thus! and France choler parted!

20

in

And the king gone to-night! subscribed his power!

Confined to exhibition! All this done
Upon the gad! Edmund, how now! what news?
Edm. So please your lordship, none.
[Putting up the letter.
Glow. Why so earnestly seek you to put up
that letter?

Edm. I know no news, my lord.
Glou

What paper were you reading?

Edm. Nothing, my lord.

Glou. 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.

Edm. 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'er-looking.

Glou. Give me the letter, sir.

Edm. I shall offend, either to detain or give it. The contents, as in part I understand them, are to blame.

Glou. Let's see, let's see.

Edm. I hope, for my brother's justification, he wrote this but as an essay or taste of my virtue. Glou. [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 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 for ever, and live the beloved of your brother, EDGAR.' Hum-conspiracy!-Sleep till I waked 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 this to you? who brought it?

Edm. It was not brought me, my lord: there's the cunning of it; I found it thrown in at the casement of my closet.

Glou You know the character to be your brother's?

Edm. 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.

It is his.

70

Glou. Edm. It is his hand, my lord; but I hope his heart is not in the contents.

Glou. Hath he never heretofore sounded you in this business?

Edm. Never, my lord: but I have heard him oft maintain it to be fit, that, sons at perfect age, and fathers declining, the father should be as ward to the son, and the son manage his revenue.

Glou. 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?

Edm. 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 shall run a certain course; where, if you violently proceed against him, mistaking his purpose, it would make a great gap in your own honour, and shake in pieces the heart of his obedience. I dare pawn down my life for him, that he hath wrote this to feel my affection to your honour, and to no further pretence of danger.

Glou. Think you so?