2.13 WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

(1564-1616)

Shakespeare was born on April 23, and he died on April 23. He was born in Stratford-upon-Avon, and he died in Stratford-upon-Avon. These facts frame many additional facts and many conjectures. He probably received an education in Latin studies at the town’s grammar school, as his father was a municipal officer (mayor and justice of the peace) so could send his son to the school for free. At the age of eighteen, Shakespeare married Anne Hathaway (1556-1623), a woman who was eight years his senior and who lived in nearby Shottery. Their child Susanna (1583-1649) was born five months later. Two years after that, their twins Hamnet and Judith were born, with Hamnet dying at the age of eleven and Judith surviving to the age of seventy-seven. Anne outlived Shakespeare by seven years, receiving in his will his second-best bed and being buried next to him in the Church of the Holy Trinity, Stratford-upon-Avon.

Seven years after the birth of the twins, Robert Greene (1558-1592) writes of Shakespeare as an actor and playwright in London, describing him in Greenes Groatsworth of Wit (1592) as “an upstart crow, beautified with our feathers, that with his Tiger’s heart wrapt in a player’s hide, supposes he is as well able to bombast out a blank verse as the best of you: and being an absolute Johannes Factotum, is in his own conceit the only Shake-scene in a country.” Green was a member of the “University Wits,” a group of Cambridge and Oxford young men—including Christopher Marlowe—that sought to bring their classical learning to the stage. Although Shakespeare attended neither Cambridge nor Oxford, his early plays echo Marlowe’s blank verse; indeed, Shakespeare’s Henry VI Parts I, II, and III, according to the Oxford University Press, may have been co-written by Marlowe, so Marlowe’s influence may have been direct. Shakespeare also demonstrated classical learning on the stage with his Plautean Comedy of Errors (performed in 1594) and his Senecan tragedy Titus Andronicus (performed in 1594).

He dedicated two classically-themed poems to his patron Henry Wriothesley, third earl of Southampton. Both Venus and Adonis (1593) and The Rape of Lucrece (1594) were published as quarto pamphlets, with Venus and Adonis running through eighteen editions and The Rape of Lucrece, eight editions by 1655. In 1594, Shakespeare was a partner in the Lord Chamberlain’s Men, a theater company from which he derived profits for such plays as Romeo and Juliet (performed around 1595-1596), The Merchant of Venice (performed around 15996-97), Henry IV Parts I and II (performed around 1597-1598), and Twelfth Night: Or, What You Will (performed around 1600-1602).

From 1595, he also probably worked on his sonnet sequence that was not published until 1609. These sonnets employ numerous conventions, such as the idealized and aloof woman. He also used the already-extant rhyme scheme of ABAB CDCD EFEF GG. Yet he used it so deftly and naturally that the form is now known as the Shakespearean sonnet. His sonnets reflect on the power of poetry and the matters of poetic art, such as romantic love, in language that compels belief in their truth and authenticity—even though their possibly autobiographical elements have not been proven. For example, they trace a friendship with a beautiful young man and a romance with a dark lady. The identity of either of these figures is unknown, though early conjectures identify the young man as Shakespeare’s patron Wriothesley and the dark lady as a sonnet convention along the lines of Petrarch’s Laura. When published, the sequence was dedicated to an unknown Mr. W. H., described as the sonnets’ only begetter.

In 1599, Shakespeare’s company built the Globe Theater, with Shakespeare being one of six shareholders; the others included the great actor Richard Burbage (1567-1619) and John Heminges (1566-1630) who, with Henry Condell (1576-1627), edited the First Folio (1623) collection of Shakespeare’s plays. In 1613, during a performance of Shakespeare’s Henry VIII, the Globe was destroyed by fire but was rebuilt the next year. Upon the accession of James I (1603), the Lord Chamberlain’s Men was renamed the King’s Men, and Shakespeare began writing his greatest tragedies, including Othello (performed around 1604), King Lear (performed around 1605-1606), and Macbeth (performed around 1606). With his profits, Shakespeare built New Place, the second largest house in Stratford-upon-Avon. In 1606, the King’s Men acquired a private theater, Blackfriars, along with its playwrights Francis Beaumont (1584-1616) and John Fletcher (1579-1625), whose style may have influenced Shakespeare’s final romances, including Cymbeline (performed around 1609-1610), The Winter’s Tale (performed around 1610-1611), and TheTempest (performed in 1611). Shakespeare collaborated with Fletcher on Henry VIII (performed around 1612-1613), The Two Noble Kinsmen (performed around 1612-1613), and Cardenio (performed around 1612-1613). In 1613, Shakespeare retired to Stratford-upon-Avon. He died in 1616, a little over two months after his daughter Judith married Thomas Quiney (1589-1663).

Although these facts seem sparse, they are more in number than facts known about other playwrights of Shakespeare’s time. Yet, they still offer too little knowledge to those around the world who have loved Shakespeare’s works over the course of four hundred years—a man whose invented words enrich the English language; whose characters fill imaginations; and whose range of style, sheer beauty of expression, and depth and breadth of insight authenticate the most profound of human emotions.

The interpretation of Shakespeare over time provides a mirror to the history of interpretation itself. In 1693, Thomas Rymer attacked Othello as not a tragedy but a farce due to its offering, in his opinion, neither meaning nor moral. In 1699, James Drake similarly demonstrated the expectation for moral lessons in art when he admired the poetic justice of Hamlet (first performed around 1609). The eighteenth century evinced interest in the particularities of Shakespeare’s characters; for example, in 1777, Maurice Morgann wrote an essay on the character of Falstaff describing him as not a coward but a sensible man.

Shakespeare’s King Lear suggests a way to interpret or gain meaning from this play (and perhaps his others). This extraordinarily dynamic work, with wheels within wheels of meaning, depicts extreme betrayal, cruelty, and suffering of such intensity that an audience may wish to turn away from it. The character Edgar serves as a type of audience, as almost a pure observer of a painful scene between the mad King Lear and the blinded Duke of Gloucester, Edgar’s own father. But Edgar will not turn away, saying in an aside—presumably to the actual audience— that he would not take this scene from report. And he offers a possible explanation for the purpose and effect of art when he describes himself as one who has gained compassion through suffering, as one who “by the art of known and feeling sorrows,/ Am pregnant to good pity” (220-21).

2.13.1 Selected Sonnets

(1598)

2

When forty winters shall besiege thy brow,

And dig deep trenches in thy beauty’s field,

Thy youth’s proud livery, so gaz’d on now,

Will be a tatter’d weed, of small worth held;

Then being ask’d where all thy beauty lies,

Where all the treasure of thy lusty days,

To say, within thine own deep-sunken eyes,

Were an all-eating shame and thriftless praise.

How much more praise deserv’d thy beauty’s use,

If thou couldst answer ‘This fair child of mine

Shall sum my count, and make my old excuse,’

Proving his beauty by succession thine!

This were to be new made when thou art old,

And see thy blood warm when thou feel’st it cold.

12

When I do count the clock that tells the time,

And see the brave day sunk in hideous night;

When I behold the violet past prime,

And sable curls, all silvered o’er with white;

When lofty trees I see barren of leaves,

Which erst from heat did canopy the herd,

And summer’s green all girded up in sheaves,

Borne on the bier with white and bristly beard,

Then of thy beauty do I question make,

That thou among the wastes of time must go,

Since sweets and beauties do themselves forsake

And die as fast as they see others grow;

And nothing ’gainst Time’s scythe can make defence

Save breed, to brave him when he takes thee hence

13

O! that you were your self; but, love you are

No longer yours, than you your self here live:

Against this coming end you should prepare,

And your sweet semblance to some other give:

So should that beauty which you hold in lease

Find no determination; then you were

Yourself again, after yourself’s decease,

When your sweet issue your sweet form should bear.

Who lets so fair a house fall to decay,

Which husbandry in honour might uphold,

Against the stormy gusts of winter’s day

And barren rage of death’s eternal cold?

O! none but unthrifts. Dear my love, you know,

You had a father: let your son say so.

15

When I consider every thing that grows

Holds in perfection but a little moment,

That this huge stage presenteth nought but shows

Whereon the stars in secret influence comment;

When I perceive that men as plants increase,

Cheered and checked even by the self-same sky,

Vaunt in their youthful sap, at height decrease,

And wear their brave state out of memory;

Then the conceit of this inconstant stay

Sets you most rich in youth before my sight,

Where wasteful Time debateth with decay

To change your day of youth to sullied night,

And all in war with Time for love of you,

As he takes from you, I engraft you new.

18

Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?

Thou art more lovely and more temperate:

Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May,

And summer’s lease hath all too short a date:

Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines,

And often is his gold complexion dimm’d,

And every fair from fair sometime declines,

By chance, or nature’s changing course untrimm’d:

But thy eternal summer shall not fade, Nor lose possession of that fair thou ow’st,

Nor shall death brag thou wander’st in his shade,

When in eternal lines to time thou grow’st,

So long as men can breathe, or eyes can see,

So long lives this, and this gives life to thee.

22

My glass shall not persuade me I am old,

So long as youth and thou are of one date;

But when in thee time’s furrows I behold,

Then look I death my days should expiate.

For all that beauty that doth cover thee,

Is but the seemly raiment of my heart,

Which in thy breast doth live, as thine in me:

How can I then be elder than thou art?

O! therefore love, be of thyself so wary

As I, not for myself, but for thee will;

Bearing thy heart, which I will keep so chary

As tender nurse her babe from faring ill.

Presume not on th’ heart when mine is slain,

Thou gav’st me thine not to give back again.

23

As an unperfect actor on the stage,

Who with his fear is put beside his part,

Or some fierce thing replete with too much rage,

Whose strength’s abundance weakens his own heart;

So I, for fear of trust, forget to say

The perfect ceremony of love’s rite,

And in mine own love’s strength seem to decay,

O’ercharg’d with burthen of mine own love’s might.

O! let my looks be then the eloquence

And dumb presagers of my speaking breast,

Who plead for love, and look for recompense,

More than that tongue that more hath more express’d.

O! learn to read what silent love hath writ:

To hear with eyes belongs to love’s fine wit.

29

When in disgrace with fortune and men’s eyes

I all alone beweep my outcast state,

And trouble deaf heaven with my bootless cries, And look upon myself, and curse my fate,

Wishing me like to one more rich in hope,

Featur’d like him, like him with friends possess’d,

Desiring this man’s art, and that man’s scope,

With what I most enjoy contented least;

Yet in these thoughts my self almost despising,

Haply I think on thee,—and then my state,

Like to the lark at break of day arising

From sullen earth, sings hymns at heaven’s gate;

For thy sweet love remember’d such wealth brings

That then I scorn to change my state with kings.

40

Take all my loves, my love, yea take them all;

What hast thou then more than thou hadst before?

No love, my love, that thou mayst true love call;

All mine was thine, before thou hadst this more.

Then if for my love thou my love receivest,

I cannot blame thee, for my love thou usest;

But yet be blam’d, if thou thyself deceivest

By wilful taste of what thyself refusest.

I do forgive thy robbery, gentle thief,

Although thou steal thee all my poverty;

And yet, love knows, it is a greater grief

To bear love’s wrong, than hate’s known injury.

Lascivious grace, in whom all ill well shows,

Kill me with spites, yet we must not be foes.

55

Not marble, nor the gilded monuments

Of princes, shall outlive this powerful rhyme;

But you shall shine more bright in these contents

Than unswept stone, besmear’d with sluttish time.

When wasteful war shall statues overturn,

And broils root out the work of masonry,

Nor Mars his sword, nor war’s quick fire shall burn

The living record of your memory.

’Gainst death, and all-oblivious enmity

Shall you pace forth; your praise shall still find room

Even in the eyes of all posterity

That wear this world out to the ending doom.

So, till the judgment that yourself arise,

You live in this, and dwell in lovers’ eyes.

71

No longer mourn for me when I am dead

Than you shall hear the surly sullen bell

Give warning to the world that I am fled

From this vile world with vilest worms to dwell:

Nay, if you read this line, remember not

The hand that writ it, for I love you so,

That I in your sweet thoughts would be forgot,

If thinking on me then should make you woe.

O! if,—I say you look upon this verse,

When I perhaps compounded am with clay,

Do not so much as my poor name rehearse;

But let your love even with my life decay;

Lest the wise world should look into your moan,

And mock you with me after I am gone.

78

So oft have I invoked thee for my Muse,

And found such fair assistance in my verse

As every alien pen hath got my use

And under thee their poesy disperse.

Thine eyes, that taught the dumb on high to sing

And heavy ignorance aloft to fly,

Have added feathers to the learned’s wing

And given grace a double majesty.

Yet be most proud of that which I compile,

Whose influence is thine, and born of thee:

In others’ works thou dost but mend the style,

And arts with thy sweet graces graced be;

But thou art all my art, and dost advance

As high as learning, my rude ignorance.

87

Farewell! thou art too dear for my possessing,

And like enough thou know’st thy estimate,

The charter of thy worth gives thee releasing:

My bonds in thee are all determinate.

For how do I hold thee but by thy granting,

And for that riches where is my deserving?

The cause of this fair gift in me is wanting,

And so my patent back again is swerving.

Thy self thou gav’st, thy own worth then not knowing, Or me to whom thou gav’st it, else mistaking,

So thy great gift, upon misprision growing,

Comes home again, on better judgement making.

Thus have I had thee as a dream doth flatter,

In sleep a King, but waking no such matter.

96

Some say thy fault is youth, some wantonness;

Some say thy grace is youth and gentle sport;

Both grace and faults are lov’d of more and less:

Thou mak’st faults graces that to thee resort.

As on the finger of a throned queen

The basest jewel will be well esteem’d,

So are those errors that in thee are seen

To truths translated, and for true things deem’d.

How many lambs might the stern wolf betray,

If like a lamb he could his looks translate!

How many gazers mightst thou lead away,

If thou wouldst use the strength of all thy state!

But do not so; I love thee in such sort,

As, thou being mine, mine is thy good report.

106

When in the chronicle of wasted time

I see descriptions of the fairest wights,

And beauty making beautiful old rime,

In praise of ladies dead and lovely knights,

Then, in the blazon of sweet beauty’s best,

Of hand, of foot, of lip, of eye, of brow,

I see their antique pen would have express’d

Even such a beauty as you master now.

So all their praises are but prophecies

Of this our time, all you prefiguring;

And for they looked but with divining eyes,

They had not skill enough your worth to sing:

For we, which now behold these present days,

Have eyes to wonder, but lack tongues to praise.

127

In the old age black was not counted fair,

Or if it were, it bore not beauty’s name;

But now is black beauty’s successive heir, And beauty slander’d with a bastard shame:

For since each hand hath put on Nature’s power,

Fairing the foul with Art’s false borrowed face,

Sweet beauty hath no name, no holy bower,

But is profan’d, if not lives in disgrace.

Therefore my mistress’ eyes are raven black,

Her eyes so suited, and they mourners seem

At such who, not born fair, no beauty lack,

Sland’ring creation with a false esteem:

Yet so they mourn becoming of their woe,

That every tongue says beauty should look so.

130

My mistress’ eyes are nothing like the sun;

Coral is far more red, than her lips red:

If snow be white, why then her breasts are dun;

If hairs be wires, black wires grow on her head.

I have seen roses damask’d, red and white,

But no such roses see I in her cheeks;

And in some perfumes is there more delight

Than in the breath that from my mistress reeks.

I love to hear her speak, yet well I know

That music hath a far more pleasing sound:

I grant I never saw a goddess go,—

My mistress, when she walks, treads on the ground:

And yet by heaven, I think my love as rare,

As any she belied with false compare.

135

Whoever hath her wish, thou hast thy ‘Will,’

And ‘Will’ to boot, and ‘Will’ in over-plus;

More than enough am I that vex’d thee still,

To thy sweet will making addition thus.

Wilt thou, whose will is large and spacious,

Not once vouchsafe to hide my will in thine?

Shall will in others seem right gracious,

And in my will no fair acceptance shine?

The sea, all water, yet receives rain still,

And in abundance addeth to his store;

So thou, being rich in ‘Will,’ add to thy ‘Will’

One will of mine, to make thy large will more.

Let no unkind ‘No’ fair beseechers kill;

Think all but one, and me in that one ‘Will.’

138

When my love swears that she is made of truth,

I do believe her though I know she lies,

That she might think me some untutor’d youth,

Unlearned in the world’s false subtleties.

Thus vainly thinking that she thinks me young,

Although she knows my days are past the best,

Simply I credit her false-speaking tongue;

On both sides thus is simple truth suppressed.

But wherefore says she not she is unjust?

And wherefore say not I that I am old?

O! love’s best habit is in seeming trust,

And age in love loves not to have years told:

Therefore I lie with her, and she with me,

And in our faults by lies we flatter’d be.

144

Two loves I have of comfort and despair,

Which like two spirits do suggest me still:

The better angel is a man right fair,

The worser spirit a woman colour’d ill.

To win me soon to hell, my female evil,

Tempteth my better angel from my side,

And would corrupt my saint to be a devil,

Wooing his purity with her foul pride.

And whether that my angel be turn’d fiend,

Suspect I may, yet not directly tell;

But being both from me, both to each friend,

I guess one angel in another’s hell:

Yet this shall I ne’er know, but live in doubt,

Till my bad angel fire my good one out.

2.13.2 Much Ado About Nothing

Act I

Scene I. Before LEONATO’S House.

[Enter LEONATO, HERO, BEATRICE and others, with a Messenger.]

LEONATO.

I learn in this letter that Don Pedro of Arragon comes this night to Messina.

MESSENGER.

He is very near by this: he was not three leagues off when I left him.

LEONATO.

How many gentlemen have you lost in this action?

MESSENGER.

But few of any sort, and none of name.

LEONATO.

A victory is twice itself when the achiever brings home full numbers. I find here that Don Pedro hath bestowed much honour on a young Florentine called Claudio.

MESSENGER.

Much deserved on his part, and equally remembered by Don Pedro. He hath borne himself beyond the promise of his age, doing in the figure of a lamb the feats of a lion: he hath indeed better bettered expectation than you must expect of me to tell you how.

LEONATO.

He hath an uncle here in Messina will be very much glad of it.

MESSENGER.

I have already delivered him letters, and there appears much joy in him; even so much that joy could not show itself modest enough without a badge of bitterness.

LEONATO.

Did he break out into tears?

MESSENGER.

In great measure.

LEONATO.

A kind overflow of kindness. There are no faces truer than those that are so washed; how much better is it to weep at joy than to joy at weeping!

BEATRICE.

I pray you, is Signior Mountanto returned from the wars or no?

MESSENGER.

I know none of that name, lady: there was none such in the army of any sort.

LEONATO.

What is he that you ask for, niece?

HERO.

My cousin means Signior Benedick of Padua.

MESSENGER.

O! he is returned, and as pleasant as ever he was.

BEATRICE.

He set up his bills here in Messina and challenged Cupid at the flight; and my uncle’s fool, reading the challenge, subscribed for Cupid, and challenged him at the bird-bolt. I pray you, how many hath he killed and eaten in these wars? But how many hath he killed? for, indeed, I promised to eat all of his killing.

LEONATO.

Faith, niece, you tax Signior Benedick too much; but he’ll be meet with you, I doubt it not.

MESSENGER.

He hath done good service, lady, in these wars.

BEATRICE.

You had musty victual, and he hath holp to eat it; he is a very valiant trencher-man; he hath an excellent stomach.

MESSENGER.

And a good soldier too, lady.

BEATRICE.

And a good soldier to a lady; but what is he to a lord?

MESSENGER.

A lord to a lord, a man to a man; stuffed with all honourable virtues.

BEATRICE.

It is so indeed; he is no less than a stuffed man; but for the stuffing,—well, we are all mortal.

LEONATO.

You must not, sir, mistake my niece. There is a kind of merry war betwixt Signior Benedick and her; they never meet but there’s a skirmish of wit between them.

BEATRICE.

Alas! he gets nothing by that. In our last conflict four of his five wits went halting off, and now is the whole man governed with one! so that if he have wit enough to keep himself warm, let him bear it for a difference between himself and his horse; for it is all the wealth that he hath left to be known a reasonable creature. Who is his companion now? He hath every month a new sworn brother.

MESSENGER.

Is’t possible?

BEATRICE.

Very easily possible: he wears his faith but as the fashion of his hat; it ever changes with the next block.

MESSENGER.

I see, lady, the gentleman is not in your books.

BEATRICE.

No; an he were, I would burn my study. But, I pray you, who is his companion? Is there no young squarer now that will make a voyage with him to the devil?

MESSENGER.

He is most in the company of the right noble Claudio.

BEATRICE.

O Lord, he will hang upon him like a disease: he is sooner caught than the pestilence, and the taker runs presently mad. God help the noble Claudio! If he have caught the Benedick, it will cost him a thousand pound ere a’ be cured.

MESSENGER.

I will hold friends with you, lady.

BEATRICE.

Do, good friend.

LEONATO.

You will never run mad, niece.

BEATRICE.

No, not till a hot January.

MESSENGER.

Don Pedro is approached.

[Enter DON PEDRO, DON JOHN, CLAUDIO, BENEDICK, BALTHAZAR, and Others.]

DON PEDRO.

Good Signior Leonato, you are come to meet your trouble: the fashion of the world is to avoid cost, and you encounter it.

LEONATO.

Never came trouble to my house in the likeness of your Grace, for trouble being gone, comfort should remain; but when you depart from me, sorrow abides and happiness takes his leave.

DON PEDRO.

You embrace your charge too willingly. I think this is your daughter.

LEONATO.

Her mother hath many times told me so.

BENEDICK.

Were you in doubt, sir, that you asked her?

LEONATO.

Signior Benedick, no; for then were you a child.

DON PEDRO.

You have it full, Benedick: we may guess by this what you are, being a man. Truly the lady fathers herself. Be happy, lady, for you are like an honourable father.

BENEDICK.

If Signior Leonato be her father, she would not have his head on her shoulders for all Messina, as like him as she is.

BEATRICE.

I wonder that you will still be talking, Signior Benedick: nobody marks you.

BENEDICK.

What! my dear Lady Disdain, are you yet living?

BEATRICE.

Is it possible Disdain should die while she hath such meet food to feed it as Signior Benedick? Courtesy itself must convert to disdain if you come in her presence.

BENEDICK.

Then is courtesy a turncoat. But it is certain I am loved of all ladies, only you excepted; and I would I could find in my heart that I had not a hard heart; for, truly, I love none.

BEATRICE.

A dear happiness to women: they would else have been troubled with a pernicious suitor. I thank God and my cold blood, I am of your humour for that. I had rather hear my dog bark at a crow than a man swear he loves me.

BENEDICK.

God keep your ladyship still in that mind; so some gentleman or other shall ’scape a predestinate scratched face.

BEATRICE.

Scratching could not make it worse, an ’twere such a face as yours were.

BENEDICK.

Well, you are a rare parrot-teacher.

BEATRICE.

A bird of my tongue is better than a beast of yours.

BENEDICK.

I would my horse had the speed of your tongue, and so good a continuer. But keep your way, i’ God’s name; I have done.

BEATRICE.

You always end with a jade’s trick: I know you of old.

DON PEDRO.

That is the sum of all, Leonato: Signior Claudio, and Signior Benedick, my dear friend Leonato hath invited you all. I tell him we shall stay here at the least a month, and he heartly prays some occasion may detain us longer: I dare swear he is no hypocrite, but prays from his heart.

LEONATO.

If you swear, my lord, you shall not be forsworn. [To DON JOHN] Let me bid you welcome, my lord: being reconciled to the prince your brother, I owe you all duty.

DON JOHN.

I thank you: I am not of many words, but I thank you.

LEONATO.

Please it your Grace lead on?

DON PEDRO.

Your hand, Leonato; we will go together.

[Exeunt all but BENEDICK and CLAUDIO.]

CLAUDIO.

Benedick, didst thou note the daughter of Signior Leonato?

BENEDICK.

I noted her not; but I looked on her.

CLAUDIO.

Is she not a modest young lady?

BENEDICK.

Do you question me, as an honest man should do, for my simple true judgment; or would you have me speak after my custom, as being a professed tyrant to their sex?

CLAUDIO.

No; I pray thee speak in sober judgment.

BENEDICK.

Why, i’ faith, methinks she’s too low for a high praise, too brown for a fair praise, and too little for a great praise; only this commendation I can afford her, that were she other than she is, she were unhandsome, and being no other but as she is, I do not like her.

CLAUDIO.

Thou thinkest I am in sport: I pray thee tell me truly how thou likest her.

BENEDICK.

Would you buy her, that you enquire after her?

CLAUDIO.

Can the world buy such a jewel?

BENEDICK.

Yea, and a case to put it into. But speak you this with a sad brow, or do you play the flouting Jack, to tell us Cupid is a good hare-finder, and Vulcan a rare carpenter? Come, in what key shall a man take you, to go in the song?

CLAUDIO.

In mine eye she is the sweetest lady that ever I looked on.

BENEDICK.

I can see yet without spectacles and I see no such matter: there’s her cousin an she were not possessed with a fury, exceeds her as much in beauty as the first of May doth the last of December. But I hope you have no intent to turn husband, have you?

CLAUDIO.

I would scarce trust myself, though I had sworn to the contrary, if Hero would be my wife.

BENEDICK.

Is’t come to this, i’ faith? Hath not the world one man but he will wear his cap with suspicion? Shall I never see a bachelor of threescore again? Go to, i’ faith; an thou wilt needs thrust thy neck into a yoke, wear the print of it and sigh away Sundays. Look! Don Pedro is returned to seek you.

[Re-enter DON PEDRO.]

DON PEDRO.

What secret hath held you here, that you followed not to Leonato’s?

BENEDICK.

I would your Grace would constrain me to tell.

DON PEDRO.

I charge thee on thy allegiance.

BENEDICK.

You hear, Count Claudio: I can be secret as a dumb man; I would have you think so; but on my allegiance mark you this, on my allegiance: he is in love. With who? now that is your Grace’s part. Mark how short his answer is: with Hero, Leonato’s short daughter.

CLAUDIO.

If this were so, so were it uttered.

BENEDICK.

Like the old tale, my lord: ‘it is not so, nor ’twas not so; but indeed, God forbid it should be so.’

CLAUDIO.

If my passion change not shortly. God forbid it should be otherwise.

DON PEDRO.

Amen, if you love her; for the lady is very well worthy.

CLAUDIO.

You speak this to fetch me in, my lord.

DON PEDRO.

By my troth, I speak my thought.

CLAUDIO.

And in faith, my lord, I spoke mine.

BENEDICK.

And by my two faiths and troths, my lord, I spoke mine.

CLAUDIO.

That I love her, I feel.

DON PEDRO.

That she is worthy, I know.

BENEDICK.

That I neither feel how she should be loved nor know how she should be worthy, is the opinion that fire cannot melt out of me: I will die in it at the stake.

DON PEDRO.

Thou wast ever an obstinate heretic in the despite of beauty.

CLAUDIO.

And never could maintain his part but in the force of his will.

BENEDICK.

That a woman conceived me, I thank her; that she brought me up, I likewise give her most humble thanks; but that I will have a recheat winded in my forehead, or hang my bugle in an invisible baldrick, all women shall pardon me. Because I will not do them the wrong to mistrust any, I will do myself the right to trust none; and the fine is,—for the which I may go the finer,—I will live a bachelor.

DON PEDRO.

I shall see thee, ere I die, look pale with love.

BENEDICK.

With anger, with sickness, or with hunger, my lord; not with love: prove that ever I lose more blood with love than I will get again with drinking, pick out mine eyes with a ballad-maker’s pen and hang me up at the door of a brothel-house for the sign of blind Cupid.

DON PEDRO.

Well, if ever thou dost fall from this faith, thou wilt prove a notable argument.

BENEDICK.

If I do, hang me in a bottle like a cat and shoot at me; and he that hits me, let him be clapped on the shoulder and called Adam.

DON PEDRO.

Well, as time shall try: ‘In time the savage bull doth bear the yoke.’

BENEDICK.

The savage bull may; but if ever the sensible Benedick bear it, pluck off the bull’s horns and set them in my forehead; and let me be vilely painted, and in such great letters as they write, ‘Here is good horse to hire,’ let them signify under my sign ‘Here you may see Benedick the married man.’

CLAUDIO.

If this should ever happen, thou wouldst be horn-mad.

DON PEDRO.

Nay, if Cupid have not spent all his quiver in Venice, thou wilt quake for this shortly.

BENEDICK.

I look for an earthquake too then.

DON PEDRO.

Well, you will temporize with the hours. In the meantime, good Signior Benedick, repair to Leonato’s: commend me to him and tell him I will not fail him at supper; for indeed he hath made great preparation.

BENEDICK.

I have almost matter enough in me for such an embassage; and so I commit you—

CLAUDIO.

To the tuition of God: from my house, if I had it,—

DON PEDRO.

The sixth of July: your loving friend, Benedick.

BENEDICK.

Nay, mock not, mock not. The body of your discourse is sometime guarded with fragments, and the guards are but slightly basted on neither: ere you flout old ends any further, examine your conscience: and so I leave you. [Exit.]

CLAUDIO.

My liege, your highness now may do me good.

DON PEDRO.

My love is thine to teach: teach it but how,

And thou shalt see how apt it is to learn

hard lesson that may do thee good.

CLAUDIO.

Hath Leonato any son, my lord?

DON PEDRO.

No child but Hero’s he’s his only heir.

Dost thou affect her, Claudio?

CLAUDIO.

O! my lord,

When you went onward on this ended action,

I looked upon her with a soldier’s eye,

That lik’d, but had a rougher task in hand

Than to drive liking to the name of love;

But now I am return’d, and that war-thoughts

Have left their places vacant, in their rooms

Come thronging soft and delicate desires,

All prompting me how fair young Hero is,

Saying, I lik’d her ere I went to wars.

DON PEDRO.

Thou wilt be like a lover presently,

And tire the hearer with a book of words.

If thou dost love fair Hero, cherish it,

And I will break with her, and with her father,

And thou shalt have her. Was’t not to this end

That thou began’st to twist so fine a story?

CLAUDIO.

How sweetly you do minister to love,

That know love’s grief by his complexion!

But lest my liking might too sudden seem,

I would have salv’d it with a longer treatise.

DON PEDRO.

What need the bridge much broader than the flood?

The fairest grant is the necessity.

Look, what will serve is fit: ’tis once, thou lov’st,

And I will fit thee with the remedy.

I know we shall have revelling to-night:

I will assume thy part in some disguise,

And tell fair Hero I am Claudio;

And in her bosom I’ll unclasp my heart,

And take her hearing prisoner with the force And strong encounter of my amorous tale:

Then, after to her father will I break;

And the conclusion is, she shall be thine.

In practice let us put it presently.

[Exeunt.]

Scene II. A room in LEONATO’S house.

[Enter LEONATO and ANTONIO, meeting.]

LEONATO.

How now, brother! Where is my cousin your son? Hath he provided this music?

ANTONIO.

He is very busy about it. But, brother, I can tell you strange news that you yet dreamt not of.

LEONATO.

Are they good?

ANTONIO.

As the event stamps them: but they have a good cover; they show well outward. The prince and Count Claudio, walking in a thick-pleached alley in my orchard, were thus much overheard by a man of mine: the prince discovered to Claudio that he loved my niece your daughter and meant to acknowledge it this night in a dance; and if he found her accordant, he meant to take the present time by the top and instantly break with you of it.

LEONATO.

Hath the fellow any wit that told you this?

ANTONIO.

A good sharp fellow: I will send for him; and question him yourself.

LEONATO.

No, no; we will hold it as a dream till it appear itself: but I will acquaint my daughter withal, that she may be the better prepared for an answer, if peradventure this be true. Go you, and tell her of it.

[Several persons cross the stage.]

Cousins, you know what you have to do. O!I cry you mercy, friend; go you with me, and I will use your skill. Good cousin, have a care this busy time. [Exeunt.]

Scene III. Another room in LEONATO’S house.

[Enter DON JOHN and CONRADE.]

CONRADE.

What the good-year, my lord! why are you thus out of measure sad?

DON JOHN.

There is no measure in the occasion that breeds; therefore the sadness is without limit.

CONRADE.

You should hear reason.

DON JOHN.

And when I have heard it, what blessings brings it?

CONRADE.

If not a present remedy, at least a patient sufferance.

DON JOHN.

I wonder that thou, being,—as thou say’st thou art,—born under Saturn, goest about to apply a moral medicine to a mortifying mischief. I cannot hide what I am: I must be sad when I have cause, and smile at no man’s jests; eat when I have stomach, and wait for no man’s leisure; sleep when I am drowsy, and tend on no man’s business; laugh when I am merry, and claw no man in his humour.

CONRADE.

Yea; but you must not make the full show of this till you may do it without controlment. You have of late stood out against your brother, and he hath ta’en you newly into his grace; where it is impossible you should take true root but by the fair weather that you make yourself: it is needful that you frame the season for your own harvest.

DON JOHN.

I had rather be a canker in a hedge than a rose in his grace; and it better fits my blood to be disdained of all than to fashion a carriage to rob love from any: in this, though I cannot be said to be a flattering honest man, it must not be denied but I am a plain-dealing villain. I am trusted with a muzzle and enfranchised with a clog; therefore I have decreed not to sing in my cage. If I had my mouth, I would bite; if I had my liberty, I would do my liking: in the meantime, let me be that I am, and seek not to alter me.

CONRADE.

Can you make no use of your discontent?

DON JOHN.

I make all use of it, for I use it only. Who comes here?

[Enter Borachio.]

What news, Borachio?

BORACHIO.

I came yonder from a great supper: the prince your brother is royally entertained by Leonato; and I can give you intelligence of an intended marriage.

DON JOHN.

Will it serve for any model to build mischief on? What is he for a fool that betroths himself to unquietness?

BORACHIO.

Marry, it is your brother’s right hand.

DON JOHN.

Who? the most exquisite Claudio?

BORACHIO.

Even he.

DON JOHN.

A proper squire! And who, and who? which way looks he?

BORACHIO.

Marry, on Hero, the daughter and heir of Leonato.

DON JOHN.

A very forward March-chick! How came you to this?

BORACHIO.

Being entertained for a perfumer, as I was smoking a musty room, comes me the prince and Claudio, hand in hand, in sad conference: I whipt me behind the arras, and there heard it agreed upon that the prince should woo Hero for himself, and having obtained her, give her to Count Claudio.

DON JOHN.

Come, come; let us thither: this may prove food to my displeasure. That young start-up hath all the glory of my overthrow: if I can cross him any way, I bless myself every way. You are both sure, and will assist me?

CONRADE.

To the death, my lord.

DON JOHN.

Let us to the great supper: their cheer is the greater that I am subdued. Would the cook were of my mind! Shall we go to prove what’s to be done?

BORACHIO.

We’ll wait upon your lordship.

[Exeunt.]

Act II

Scene I. A hall in LEONATO’S house.

[Enter LEONATO, ANTONIO, HERO, BEATRICE, and Others.]

LEONATO.

Was not Count John here at supper?

ANTONIO.

I saw him not.

BEATRICE.

How tartly that gentleman looks! I never can see him but I am heart-burned an hour after.

HERO.

He is of a very melancholy disposition.

BEATRICE.

He were an excellent man that were made just in the mid-way between him and Benedick: the one is too like an image, and says nothing; and the other too like my lady’s eldest son, evermore tattling.

LEONATO.

Then half Signior Benedick’s tongue in Count John’s mouth, and half Count John’s melancholy in Signior Benedick’s face,—

BEATRICE.

With a good leg and a good foot, uncle, and money enough in his purse, such a man would win any woman in the world if he could get her good will.

LEONATO.

By my troth, niece, thou wilt never get thee a husband, if thou be so shrewd of thy tongue.

ANTONIO.

In faith, she’s too curst.

BEATRICE.

Too curst is more than curst: I shall lessen God’s sending that way; for it is said, ‘God sends a curst cow short horns;’ but to a cow too curst he sends none.

LEONATO.

So, by being too curst, God will send you no horns?

BEATRICE.

Just, if he send me no husband; for the which blessing I am at him upon my knees every morning and evening. Lord! I could not endure a husband with a beard on his face: I had rather lie in the woollen.

LEONATO.

You may light on a husband that hath no beard.

BEATRICE.

What should I do with him? dress him in my apparel and make him my waiting-gentlewoman? He that hath a beard is more than a youth, and he that hath no beard is less than a man; and he that is more than a youth is not for me; and he that is less than a man, I am not for him: therefore I will even take sixpence in earnest of the bear-ward, and lead his apes into hell.

LEONATO.

Well then, go you into hell?

BEATRICE.

No; but to the gate; and there will the devil meet me, like an old cuckold, with horns on his head, and say, ‘Get you to heaven, Beatrice, get you to heaven; here’s no place for you maids.’ So deliver I up my apes, and away to Saint Peter for the heavens; he shows me where the bachelors sit, and there live we as merry as the day is long.

ANTONIO.

[To Hero.] Well, niece, I trust you will be ruled by your father.

BEATRICE.

Yes, faith; it is my cousin’s duty to make curtsy, and say, ‘Father, as it please you:’— but yet for all that, cousin, let him be a handsome fellow, or else make another curtsy, and say, ‘Father, as it please me.’

LEONATO.

Well, niece, I hope to see you one day fitted with a husband.

BEATRICE.

Not till God make men of some other metal than earth. Would it not grieve a woman to be over-mastered with a piece of valiant dust? to make an account of her life to a clod of wayward marl? No, uncle, I’ll none: Adam’s sons are my brethren; and truly, I hold it a sin to match in my kinred.

LEONATO.

Daughter, remember what I told you: if the prince do solicit you in that kind, you know your answer.

BEATRICE.

The fault will be in the music, cousin, if you be not wooed in good time: if the prince be too important, tell him there is measure in everything, and so dance out the answer. For, hear me, Hero: wooing, wedding, and repenting is as a Scotch jig, a measure, and a cinque- pace: the first suit is hot and hasty, like a Scotch jig, and full as fantastical; the wedding, mannerly-modest, as a measure, full of state and ancientry; and then comes Repentance, and with his bad legs, falls into the cinque-pace faster and faster, till he sink into his grave.

LEONATO.

Cousin, you apprehend passing shrewdly.

BEATRICE.

I have a good eye, uncle: I can see a church by daylight.

LEONATO.

The revellers are entering, brother: make good room.

[Enter, DON PEDRO, CLAUDIO, BENEDICK, BALTHASAR, DON JOHN, BORACHIO, MARGARET, URSULA, and Others, masked.]

DON PEDRO.

Lady, will you walk about with your friend?

HERO.

So you walk softly and look sweetly and say nothing, I am yours for the walk; and especially when I walk away.

DON PEDRO.

With me in your company?

HERO.

I may say so, when I please.

DON PEDRO.

And when please you to say so?

HERO.

When I like your favour; for God defend the lute should be like the case!

DON PEDRO.

My visor is Philemon’s roof; within the house is Jove.

HERO.

Why, then, your visor should be thatch’d.

DON PEDRO.

Speak low, if you speak love.

[Takes her aside.]

BALTHAZAR.

Well, I would you did like me.

MARGARET.

So would not I, for your own sake; for I have many ill qualities.

BALTHAZAR.

Which is one?

MARGARET.

I say my prayers aloud.

BALTHAZAR.

I love you the better; the hearers may cry Amen.

MARGARET.

God match me with a good dancer!

BALTHAZAR.

Amen.

MARGARET.

And God keep him out of my sight when the dance is done! Answer, clerk.

BALTHAZAR.

No more words: the clerk is answered.

URSULA.

I know you well enough: you are Signior Antonio.

ANTONIO.

At a word, I am not.

URSULA.

I know you by the waggling of your head.

ANTONIO.

To tell you true, I counterfeit him.

URSULA.

You could never do him so ill-well, unless you were the very man. Here’s his dry hand up and down: you are he, you are he.

ANTONIO.

At a word, I am not.

URSULA.

Come, come; do you think I do not know you by your excellent wit? Can virtue hide itself? Go to, mum, you are he: graces will appear, and there’s an end.

BEATRICE.

Will you not tell me who told you so?

BENEDICK.

No, you shall pardon me.

BEATRICE.

Nor will you not tell me who you are?

BENEDICK.

Not now.

BEATRICE.

That I was disdainful, and that I had my good wit out of the ‘Hundred Merry Tales.’ Well, this was Signior Benedick that said so.

BENEDICK.

What’s he?

BEATRICE.

I am sure you know him well enough.

BENEDICK.

Not I, believe me.

BEATRICE.

Did he never make you laugh?

BENEDICK.

I pray you, what is he?

BEATRICE.

Why, he is the prince’s jester: a very dull fool; only his gift is in devising impossible slanders: none but libertines delight in him; and the commendation is not in his wit, but in his villany; for he both pleases men and angers them, and then they laugh at him and beat him. I am sure he is in the fleet: I would he had boarded me!

BENEDICK.

When I know the gentleman, I’ll tell him what you say.

BEATRICE.

Do, do: he’ll but break a comparison or two on me; which, peradventure not marked or not laughed at, strikes him into melancholy; and then there’s a partridge wing saved, for the fool will eat no supper that night. [Music within.] We must follow the leaders.

BENEDICK.

In every good thing.

BEATRICE.

Nay, if they lead to any ill, I will leave them at the next turning. [Dance. Then exeunt all but DON JOHN, BORACHIO, and CLAUDIO.]

DON JOHN.

Sure my brother is amorous on Hero, and hath withdrawn her father to break with him about it. The ladies follow her and but one visor remains.

BORACHIO.

And that is Claudio: I know him by his bearing.

DON JOHN.

Are you not Signior Benedick?

CLAUDIO.

You know me well; I am he.

DON JOHN.

Signior, you are very near my brother in his love: he is enamoured on Hero; I pray you, dissuade him from her; she is no equal for his birth: you may do the part of an honest man in it.

CLAUDIO.

How know you he loves her?

DON JOHN.

I heard him swear his affection.

BORACHIO.

So did I too; and he swore he would marry her to-night.

DON JOHN.

Come, let us to the banquet.

[Exeunt DON JOHN and BORACHIO.]

CLAUDIO.

Thus answer I in name of Benedick,

But hear these ill news with the ears of Claudio.

’Tis certain so; the prince wooes for himself.

Friendship is constant in all other things

Save in the office and affairs of love:

herefore all hearts in love use their own tongues;

Let every eye negotiate for itself

And trust no agent; for beauty is a witch

Against whose charms faith melteth into blood.

This is an accident of hourly proof,

Which I mistrusted not. Farewell, therefore, Hero!

[Re-enter Benedick.]

BENEDICK.

Count Claudio?

CLAUDIO.

Yea, the same.

BENEDICK.

Come, will you go with me?

CLAUDIO.

Whither?

BENEDICK.

Even to the next willow, about your own business, count. What fashion will you wear the garland of? About your neck, like a usurer’s chain? or under your arm, like a lieutenant’s scarf? You must wear it one way, for the prince hath got your Hero.

CLAUDIO.

I wish him joy of her.

BENEDICK.

Why, that’s spoken like an honest drovier: so they sell bullocks. But did you think the prince would have served you thus?

CLAUDIO.

I pray you, leave me.

BENEDICK.

Ho! now you strike like the blind man: ’twas the boy that stole your meat, and you’ll beat the post.

CLAUDIO.

If it will not be, I’ll leave you.

[Exit.]

BENEDICK.

Alas! poor hurt fowl. Now will he creep into sedges. But, that my Lady Beatrice should know me, and not know me! The prince’s fool! Ha! it may be I go under that title because I am merry. Yea, but so I am apt to do myself wrong; I am not so reputed: it is the base though bitter disposition of Beatrice that puts the world into her person, and so gives me out. Well, I’ll be revenged as I may. [Re-enter Don Pedro.]

DON PEDRO.

Now, signior, where’s the count? Did you see him?

BENEDICK.

Troth, my lord, I have played the part of Lady Fame. I found him here as melancholy as a lodge in a warren. I told him, and I think I told him true, that your Grace had got the good will of this young lady; and I offered him my company to a willow tree, either to make him a garland, as being forsaken, or to bind him up a rod, as being worthy to be whipped.

DON PEDRO.

To be whipped! What’s his fault?

BENEDICK.

The flat transgression of a school-boy, who, being overjoy’d with finding a bird’s nest, shows it his companion, and he steals it.

DON PEDRO.

Wilt thou make a trust a transgression? The transgression is in the stealer.

BENEDICK.

Yet it had not been amiss the rod had been made, and the garland too; for the garland he might have worn himself, and the rod he might have bestowed on you, who, as I take it, have stolen his bird’s nest.

DON PEDRO.

I will but teach them to sing, and restore them to the owner.

BENEDICK.

If their singing answer your saying, by my faith, you say honestly.

DON PEDRO.

The Lady Beatrice hath a quarrel to you: the gentleman that danced with her told her she is much wronged by you.

BENEDICK.

O! she misused me past the endurance of a block: an oak but with one green leaf on it, would have answered her: my very visor began to assume life and scold with her. She told me, not thinking I had been myself, that I was the prince’s jester, that I was duller than a great thaw; huddling jest upon jest with such impossible conveyance upon me, that I stood like a man at a mark, with a whole army shooting at me. She speaks poniards, and every word stabs: if her breath were as terrible as her terminations, there were no living near her; she would infect to the north star. I would not marry her, though she were endowed with all that Adam had left him before he transgressed: she would have made Hercules have turned spit, yea, and have cleft his club to make the fire too. Come, talk not of her; you shall find her the infernal Ate in good apparel. I would to God some scholar would conjure her, for certainly, while she is here, a man may live as quiet in hell as in a sanctuary; and people sin upon purpose because they would go thither; so indeed, all disquiet, horror and perturbation follow her.

[Re-enter CLAUDIO, BEATRICE, HERO, and LEONATO.]

DON PEDRO.

Look! here she comes.

BENEDICK.

Will your Grace command me any service to the world’s end? I will go on the slightest errand now to the Antipodes that you can devise to send me on; I will fetch you a toothpicker now from the furthest inch of Asia; bring you the length of Prester John’s foot; fetch you a hair off the Great Cham’s beard; do you any embassage to the Pygmies, rather than hold three words’ conference with this harpy. You have no employment for me?

DON PEDRO.

None, but to desire your good company.

BENEDICK.

O God, sir, here’s a dish I love not: I cannot endure my Lady Tongue. [Exit.]

DON PEDRO.

Come, lady, come; you have lost the heart of Signior Benedick.

BEATRICE.

Indeed, my lord, he lent it me awhile; and I gave him use for it, a double heart for a single one: marry, once before he won it of me with false dice, therefore your Grace may well say I have lost it.

DON PEDRO.

You have put him down, lady, you have put him down.

BEATRICE.

So I would not he should do me, my lord, lest I should prove the mother of fools. I have brought Count Claudio, whom you sent me to seek.

DON PEDRO.

Why, how now, count! wherefore are you sad?

CLAUDIO.

Not sad, my lord.

DON PEDRO.

How then? Sick?

CLAUDIO.

Neither, my lord.

BEATRICE.

The count is neither sad, nor sick, nor merry, nor well; but civil count, civil as an orange, and something of that jealous complexion.

DON PEDRO.

I’ faith, lady, I think your blazon to be true; though, I’ll be sworn, if he be so, his conceit is false. Here, Claudio, I have wooed in thy name, and fair Hero is won; I have broke with her father, and, his good will obtained; name the day of marriage, and God give thee joy!

LEONATO.

Count, take of me my daughter, and with her my fortunes: his Grace hath made the match, and all grace say Amen to it!

BEATRICE.

Speak, Count, ’tis your cue.

CLAUDIO.

Silence is the perfectest herald of joy: I were but little happy, if I could say how much. Lady, as you are mine, I am yours: I give away myself for you and dote upon the exchange.

BEATRICE.

Speak, cousin; or, if you cannot, stop his mouth with a kiss, and let not him speak neither.

DON PEDRO.

In faith, lady, you have a merry heart.

BEATRICE.

Yea, my lord; I thank it, poor fool, it keeps on the windy side of care. My cousin tells him in his ear that he is in her heart.

CLAUDIO.

And so she doth, cousin.

BEATRICE.

Good Lord, for alliance! Thus goes every one to the world but I, and I am sunburnt. I may sit in a corner and cry heigh-ho for a husband!

DON PEDRO.

Lady Beatrice, I will get you one.

BEATRICE.

I would rather have one of your father’s getting. Hath your Grace ne’er a brother like you? Your father got excellent husbands, if a maid could come by them.

DON PEDRO.

Will you have me, lady?

BEATRICE.

No, my lord, unless I might have another for working days: your Grace is too costly to wear every day. But, I beseech your Grace, pardon me; I was born to speak all mirth and no matter.

DON PEDRO.

Your silence most offends me, and to be merry best becomes you; for out of question, you were born in a merry hour.

BEATRICE.

No, sure, my lord, my mother cried; but then there was a star danced, and under that was I born. Cousins, God give you joy!

LEONATO.

Niece, will you look to those things I told you of?

BEATRICE.

I cry you mercy, uncle. By your Grace’s pardon.

[Exit.]

DON PEDRO.

By my troth, a pleasant spirited lady.

LEONATO.

There’s little of the melancholy element in her, my lord: she is never sad but when she sleeps; and not ever sad then, for I have heard my daughter say, she hath often dreamed of unhappiness and waked herself with laughing.

DON PEDRO.

She cannot endure to hear tell of a husband.

LEONATO.

O! by no means: she mocks all her wooers out of suit.

DON PEDRO.

She were an excellent wife for Benedick.

LEONATO.

O Lord! my lord, if they were but a week married, they would talk themselves mad.

DON PEDRO.

Count Claudio, when mean you to go to church?

CLAUDIO.

To-morrow, my lord. Time goes on crutches till love have all his rites.

LEONATO.

Not till Monday, my dear son, which is hence a just seven-night; and a time too brief too, to have all things answer my mind.

DON PEDRO.

Come, you shake the head at so long a breathing; but, I warrant thee, Claudio, the time shall not go dully by us. I will in the interim undertake one of Hercules’ labours, which is, to bring Signior Benedick and the Lady Beatrice into a mountain of affection the one with the other. I would fain have it a match; and I doubt not but to fashion it, if you three will but minister such assistance as I shall give you direction.

LEONATO.

My lord, I am for you, though it cost me ten nights’ watchings.

CLAUDIO.

And I, my lord.

DON PEDRO.

And you too, gentle Hero?

HERO.

I will do any modest office, my lord, to help my cousin to a good husband.

DON PEDRO.

And Benedick is not the unhopefullest husband that I know. Thus far can I praise him; he is of a noble strain, of approved valour, and confirmed honesty. I will teach you how to humour your cousin, that she shall fall in love with Benedick; and I, with your two helps, will so practise on Benedick that, in despite of his quick wit and his queasy stomach, he shall fall in love with Beatrice. If we can do this, Cupid is no longer an archer: his glory shall be ours, for we are the only love-gods. Go in with me, and I will tell you my drift.

[Exeunt.]

Scene II. Another room in LEONATO’S house.

[Enter DON JOHN and BORACHIO.]

DON JOHN.

It is so; the Count Claudio shall marry the daughter of Leonato.

BORACHIO.

Yea, my lord; but I can cross it.

DON JOHN.

Any bar, any cross, any impediment will be medicinable to me: I am sick in displeasure to him, and whatsoever comes athwart his affection ranges evenly with mine. How canst thou cross this marriage?

BORACHIO.

Not honestly, my lord; but so covertly that no dishonesty shall appear in me.

DON JOHN.

Show me briefly how.

BORACHIO.

I think I told your lordship, a year since, how much I am in the favour of Margaret, the waiting-gentlewoman to Hero.

DON JOHN.

I remember.

BORACHIO.

I can, at any unseasonable instant of the night, appoint her to look out at her lady’s chamber window.

DON JOHN.

What life is in that, to be the death of this marriage?

BORACHIO.

The poison of that lies in you to temper. Go you to the prince your brother; spare not to tell him, that he hath wronged his honour in marrying the renowned Claudio,— whose estimation do you mightily hold up,—to a contaminated stale, such a one as Hero.

DON JOHN.

What proof shall I make of that?

BORACHIO.

Proof enough to misuse the prince, to vex Claudio, to undo Hero, and kill

LEONATO.

Look you for any other issue?

DON JOHN.

Only to despite them, I will endeavour anything.

BORACHIO.

Go then; find me a meet hour to draw Don Pedro and the Count Claudio alone: tell them that you know that Hero loves me; intend a kind of zeal both to the prince and Claudio, as—in love of your brother’s honour, who hath made this match, and his friend’s reputation, who is thus like to be cozened with the semblance of a maid,— that you have discovered thus. They will scarcely believe this without trial: offer them instances, which shall bear no less likelihood than to see me at her chamber-window, hear me call Margaret Hero, hear Margaret term me Claudio; and bring them to see this the very night before the intended wedding: for in the meantime I will so fashion the matter that Hero shall be absent; and there shall appear such seeming truth of Hero’s disloyalty, that jealousy shall be called assurance, and all the preparation overthrown.

DON JOHN.

Grow this to what adverse issue it can, I will put it in practice. Be cunning in the working this, and thy fee is a thousand ducats.

BORACHIO.

Be you constant in the accusation, and my cunning shall not shame me.

DON JOHN.

I will presently go learn their day of marriage.

[Exeunt.]

Scene III. LEONATO’S Garden.

[Enter Benedick.]

BENEDICK.

Boy!

[Enter a Boy.]

BOY.

Signior?

BENEDICK.

In my chamber-window lies a book; bring it hither to me in the orchard.

BOY.

I am here already, sir.

BENEDICK.

I know that; but I would have thee hence, and here again. [Exit Boy.] I do much wonder that one man, seeing how much another man is a fool when he dedicates his behaviours to love, will, after he hath laughed at such shallow follies in others, become the argument of his own scorn by falling in love: and such a man is Claudio. I have known, when there was no music with him but the drum and the fife; and now had he rather hear the tabor and the pipe: I have known when he would have walked ten mile afoot to see a good armour; and now will he lie ten nights awake, carving the fashion of a new doublet. He was wont to speak plain and to the purpose, like an honest man and a soldier; and now is he turned orthography; his words are a very fantastical banquet, just so many strange dishes. May I be so converted, and see with these eyes? I cannot tell; I think not: I will not be sworn but love may transform me to an oyster; but I’ll take my oath on it, till he have made an oyster of me, he shall never make me such a fool. One woman is fair, yet I am well; another is wise, yet I am well; another virtuous, yet I am well; but till all graces be in one woman, one woman shall not come in my grace. Rich she shall be, that’s certain; wise, or I’ll none; virtuous, or I’ll never cheapen her; fair, or I’ll never look on her; mild, or come not near me; noble, or not I for an angel; of good discourse, an excellent musician, and her hair shall be of what colour it please God. Ha! the prince and Monsieur Love! I will hide me in the arbour.

[Withdraws.]

[Enter DON PEDRO, LEONATO, and CLAUDIO, followed by BALTHAZAR and Musicians.]

DON PEDRO.

Come, shall we hear this music?

CLAUDIO.

Yea, my good lord. How still the evening is, As hush’d on purpose to grace harmony!

DON PEDRO.

See you where Benedick hath hid himself?

CLAUDIO.

O! very well, my lord: the music ended, We’ll fit the kid-fox with a penny-worth.

DON PEDRO.

Come, Balthazar, we’ll hear that song again.

BALTHAZAR.

O! good my lord, tax not so bad a voice To slander music any more than once.

DON PEDRO.

It is the witness still of excellency, To put a strange face on his own perfection. I pray thee, sing, and let me woo no more.

BALTHAZAR.

Because you talk of wooing, I will sing; Since many a wooer doth commence his suit To her he thinks not worthy; yet he wooes; Yet will he swear he loves.

DON PEDRO.

Nay, pray thee come; Or if thou wilt hold longer argument, Do it in notes.

BALTHAZAR.

Note this before my notes; There’s not a note of mine that’s worth the noting.

DON PEDRO.

Why these are very crotchets that he speaks; Notes, notes, forsooth, and nothing! [Music.]

BENEDICK.

Now, divine air! now is his soul ravished! Is it not strange that sheep’s guts should hale souls out of men’s bodies? Well, a horn for my money, when all’s done. [Balthasar sings.]

Sigh no more, ladies, sigh no more,

Men were deceivers ever;

One foot in sea, and one on shore,

To one thing constant never.

Then sigh not so,

But let them go,

And be you blithe and bonny,

Converting all your sounds of woe

Into Hey nonny, nonny.

Sing no more ditties, sing no mo

Of dumps so dull and heavy;

The fraud of men was ever so,

Since summer first was leavy.

Then sigh not so,

But let them go,

And be you blithe and bonny,

Converting all your sounds of woe

Into Hey nonny, nonny.

DON PEDRO.

By my troth, a good song.

BALTHAZAR.

And an ill singer, my lord.

DON PEDRO.

Ha, no, no, faith; thou singest well enough for a shift.

BENEDICK.

[Aside.] An he had been a dog that should have howled thus, they would have hanged him; and I pray God his bad voice bode no mischief. I had as lief have heard the night-raven, come what plague could have come after it.

DON PEDRO.

Yea, marry; dost thou hear, Balthazar? I pray thee, get us some excellent music, for to-morrow night we would have it at the Lady Hero’s chamber-window.

BALTHAZAR.

The best I can, my lord.

DON PEDRO.

Do so: farewell.

[Exeunt BALTHAZAR and Musicians.]

Come hither, Leonato: what was it you told me of to-day, that your niece Beatrice was in love with Signior Benedick?

CLAUDIO.

O! ay:— [Aside to DON PEDRO] Stalk on, stalk on; the fowl sits. I did never think that lady would have loved any man.

LEONATO.

No, nor I neither; but most wonderful that she should so dote on Signior Benedick, whom she hath in all outward behaviours seemed ever to abhor.

BENEDICK.

[Aside.] Is’t possible? Sits the wind in that corner?

LEONATO.

By my troth, my lord, I cannot tell what to think of it but that she loves him with an enraged affection: it is past the infinite of thought.

DON PEDRO.

May be she doth but counterfeit.

CLAUDIO.

Faith, like enough.

LEONATO.

O God! counterfeit! There was never counterfeit of passion came so near the life of passion as she discovers it.

DON PEDRO.

Why, what effects of passion shows she?

CLAUDIO.

[Aside.] Bait the hook well: this fish will bite.

LEONATO.

What effects, my lord? She will sit you; [To Claudio.] You heard my daughter tell you how.

CLAUDIO.

She did, indeed.

DON PEDRO.

How, how, I pray you? You amaze me: I would have thought her spirit had been invincible against all assaults of affection.

LEONATO.

I would have sworn it had, my lord; especially against Benedick.

BENEDICK.

[Aside] I should think this a gull, but that the white-bearded fellow speaks it: knavery cannot, sure, hide itself in such reverence.

CLAUDIO.

[Aside.] He hath ta’en the infection: hold it up.

DON PEDRO.

Hath she made her affection known to Benedick?

LEONATO.

No; and swears she never will: that’s her torment.

CLAUDIO.

Tis true, indeed;so your daughter says: ‘Shall I,’ says she, ‘that have so oft encountered him with scorn, write to him that I love him?’

LEONATO.

This says she now when she is beginning to write to him; for she’ll be up twenty times a night, and there will she sit in her smock till she have writ a sheet of paper: my daughter tells us all.

CLAUDIO.

Now you talk of a sheet of paper, I remember a pretty jest your daughter told us of.

LEONATO.

O! when she had writ it, and was reading it over, she found Benedick and Beatrice between the sheet?

CLAUDIO.

That.

LEONATO.

O! she tore the letter into a thousand halfpence; railed at herself, that she should be so immodest to write to one that she knew would flout her: ‘I measure him,’ says she, ‘by my own spirit; for I should flout him, if he writ to me; yea, though I love him, I should.’

CLAUDIO.

Then down upon her knees she falls, weeps, sobs, beats her heart, tears her hair, prays, curses; ‘O sweet Benedick! God give me patience!’

LEONATO.

She doth indeed; my daughter says so; and the ecstasy hath so much overborne her, that my daughter is sometimes afeard she will do a desperate outrage to herself. It is very true.

DON PEDRO.

It were good that Benedick knew of it by some other, if she will not discover it.

CLAUDIO.

To what end? he would make but a sport of it and torment the poor lady worse.

DON PEDRO.

An he should, it were an alms to hang him. She’s an excellent sweet lady, and, out of all suspicion, she is virtuous.

CLAUDIO.

And she is exceeding wise.

DON PEDRO.

In everything but in loving Benedick.

LEONATO.

O! my lord, wisdom and blood combating in so tender a body, we have ten proofs to one that blood hath the victory. I am sorry for her, as I have just cause, being her uncle and her guardian.

DON PEDRO.

I would she had bestowed this dotage on me; I would have daffed all other respects and made her half myself. I pray you, tell Benedick of it, and hear what a’ will say.

LEONATO.

Were it good, think you?

CLAUDIO.

Hero thinks surely she will die; for she says she will die if he love her not, and she will die ere she make her love known, and she will die if he woo her, rather than she will bate one breath of her accustomed crossness.

DON PEDRO.

She doth well: if she should make tender of her love, ’tis very possible he’ll scorn it; for the man,—as you know all,—hath a contemptible spirit.

CLAUDIO.

He is a very proper man.

DON PEDRO.

He hath indeed a good outward happiness.

CLAUDIO.

Fore God, and in my mind, very wise.

DON PEDRO.

He doth indeed show some sparks that are like wit.

CLAUDIO.

And I take him to be valiant.

DON PEDRO.

As Hector, I assure you: and in the managing of quarrels you may say he is wise; for either he avoids them with great discretion, or undertakes them with a most Christian-like fear.

LEONATO.

If he do fear God, a’ must necessarily keep peace: if he break the peace, he ought to enter into a quarrel with fear and trembling.

DON PEDRO.

And so will he do; for the man doth fear God, howsoever it seems not in him by some large jests he will make. Well, I am sorry for your niece. Shall we go seek Benedick and tell him of her love?

CLAUDIO.

Never tell him, my lord: let her wear it out with good counsel.

LEONATO.

Nay, that’s impossible: she may wear her heart out first.

DON PEDRO.

Well, we will hear further of it by your daughter: let it cool the while. I love Benedick well, and I could wish he would modestly examine himself, to see how much he is unworthy so good a lady.

LEONATO.

My lord, will you walk? dinner is ready.

CLAUDIO.

[Aside.] If he do not dote on her upon this, I will never trust my expectation.

DON PEDRO.

[Aside.] Let there be the same net spread for her; and that must your daughter and her gentle-woman carry. The sport will be, when they hold one an opinion of another’s dotage, and no such matter: that’s the scene that I would see, which will be merely a dumb-show. Let us send her to call him in to dinner. [Exeunt DON PEDRO, CLAUDIO, and LEONATO.]

BENEDICK.

[Advancing from the arbour.] This can be no trick: the conference was sadly borne. They have the truth of this from Hero. They seem to pity the lady: it seems her affections have their full bent. Love me! why, it must be requited. I hear how I am censured: they say I will bear myself proudly, if I perceive the love come from her;they say too that she will rather die than give any sign of affection. I did never think to marry: I must not seem proud: happy are they that hear their detractions, and can put them to mending. They say the lady is fair: ’tis a truth, I can bear them witness; and virtuous: ’tis so, I cannot reprove it; and wise, but for loving me: by my troth, it is no addition to her wit, nor no great argument of her folly, for I will be horribly in love with her. I may chance have some odd quirks and remnants of wit broken on me, because I have railed so long against marriage; but doth not the appetite alter? A man loves the meat in his youth that he cannot endure in his age. Shall quips and sentences and these paper bullets of the brain awe a man from the career of his humour? No; the world must be peopled. When I said I would die a bachelor, I did not think I should live till I were married. Here comes Beatrice. By this day! she’s a fair lady: I do spy some marks of love in her. [Enter BEATRICE.]

BEATRICE.

Against my will I am sent to bid you come in to dinner.

BENEDICK.

Fair Beatrice, I thank you for your pains.

BEATRICE.

I took no more pains for those thanks than you take pains to thank me: if it had been painful, I would not have come.

BENEDICK.

You take pleasure then in the message?

BEATRICE.

Yea, just so much as you may take upon a knife’s point, and choke a daw withal. You have no stomach, signior: fare you well.

[Exit.]

BENEDICK.

Ha! ‘Against my will I am sent to bid you come in to dinner,’ there’s a double meaning in that. ‘I took no more pains for those thanks than you took pains to thank me,’ that’s as much as to say, Any pains that I take for you is as easy as thanks. If I do not take pity of her, I am a villain; if I do not love her, I am a Jew. I will go get her picture.

[Exit.]

Act III

Scene I. Leonato’s Garden

[Enter HERO, MARGARET, and URSULA.]

HERO.

Good Margaret, run thee to the parlour;

There shalt thou find my cousin Beatrice

Proposing with the prince and Claudio:

Whisper her ear, and tell her, I and Ursala

Walk in the orchard, and our whole discourse

Is all of her; say that thou overheard’st us,

And bid her steal into the pleached bower,

Where honey-suckles, ripen’d by the sun,

Forbid the sun to enter; like favourites,

Made proud by princes, that advance their pride

Against that power that bred it. There will she hide her,

To listen our propose. This is thy office;

Bear thee well in it and leave us alone.

MARGARET.

I’ll make her come, I warrant you, presently.

[Exit.]

HERO.

Now, Ursula, when Beatrice doth come,

As we do trace this alley up and down,

Our talk must only be of Benedick:

When I do name him, let it be thy part

To praise him more than ever man did merit.

My talk to thee must be how Benedick

Is sick in love with Beatrice: of this matter

Is little Cupid’s crafty arrow made,

That only wounds by hearsay.

[Enter BEATRICE, behind.]

Now begin; For look where Beatrice, like a lapwing, runs

Close by the ground, to hear our conference.

URSULA.

The pleasant’st angling is to see the fish

Cut with her golden oars the silver stream,

And greedily devour the treacherous bait:

So angle we for Beatrice; who even now

Is couched in the woodbine coverture.

Fear you not my part of the dialogue.

HERO.

Then go we near her, that her ear lose nothing

Of the false sweet bait that we lay for it.

[They advance to the bower.]

No, truly, Ursula, she is too disdainful;

I know her spirits are as coy and wild

As haggards of the rock.

URSULA.

But are you sure

That Benedick loves Beatrice so entirely?

HERO.

So says the prince, and my new-trothed lord.

URSULA.

And did they bid you tell her of it, madam?

HERO.

They did entreat me to acquaint her of it;

But I persuaded them, if they lov’d Benedick,

To wish him wrestle with affection,

And never to let Beatrice know of it.

URSULA.

Why did you so? Doth not the gentleman

Deserve as full as fortunate a bed

As ever Beatrice shall couch upon?

HERO.

O god of love! I know he doth deserve

As much as may be yielded to a man;

But nature never fram’d a woman’s heart

Of prouder stuff than that of Beatrice;

Disdain and scorn ride sparkling in her eyes,

Misprising what they look on, and her wit

Values itself so highly, that to her

All matter else seems weak. She cannot love,

Nor take no shape nor project of affection,

She is so self-endear’d.

URSULA.

Sure I think so; And therefore certainly it were not good

She knew his love, lest she make sport at it.

HERO.

Why, you speak truth. I never yet saw man,

How wise, how noble, young, how rarely featur’d,

But she would spell him backward: if fair-fac’d,

She would swear the gentleman should be her sister;

If black, why, Nature, drawing of an antick, Made a foul blot; if tall, a lance ill-headed;

If low, an agate very vilely cut;

If speaking, why, a vane blown with all winds;

If silent, why, a block moved with none.

So turns she every man the wrong side out,

And never gives to truth and virtue that

Which simpleness and merit purchaseth.

URSULA.

Sure, sure, such carping is not commendable.

HERO.

No; not to be so odd, and from all fashions,

As Beatrice is, cannot be commendable.

But who dare tell her so? If I should speak,

She would mock me into air: O! she would laugh me

Out of myself, press me to death with wit.

Therefore let Benedick, like cover’d fire,

Consume away in sighs, waste inwardly:

It were a better death than die with mocks,

Which is as bad as die with tickling.

URSULA.

Yet tell her of it: hear what she will say.

HERO.

No; rather I will go to Benedick,

And counsel him to fight against his passion.

And, truly, I’ll devise some honest slanders

To stain my cousin with. One doth not know

How much an ill word may empoison liking.

URSULA.

O! do not do your cousin such a wrong.

She cannot be so much without true judgment,—

Having so swift and excellent a wit

As she is priz’d to have,—as to refuse

So rare a gentleman as Signior Benedick.

HERO.

He is the only man of Italy,

Always excepted my dear Claudio.

URSULA.

I pray you, be not angry with me, madam,

Speaking my fancy: Signior Benedick,

For shape, for bearing, argument and valour,

Goes foremost in report through Italy.

HERO.

Indeed, he hath an excellent good name.

URSULA.

His excellence did earn it, ere he had it.

When are you married, madam?

HERO.

Why, every day, to-morrow. Come, go in:

I’ll show thee some attires, and have thy counsel

Which is the best to furnish me to-morrow.

URSULA.

She’s lim’d, I warrant you: we have caught her, madam.

HERO.

If it prove so, then loving goes by haps:

Some Cupid kills with arrows, some with traps.

[Exeunt HERO and URSULA.]

BEATRICE.

[Advancing.] What fire is in mine ears? Can this be true?

Stand I condemn’d for pride and scorn so much?

Contempt, farewell! and maiden pride, adieu!

No glory lives behind the back of such.

And, Benedick, love on; I will requite thee,

Taming my wild heart to thy loving hand:

If thou dost love, my kindness shall incite thee

To bind our loves up in a holy band;

For others say thou dost deserve, and I

Believe it better than reportingly.

[Exit.]

Scene II. A Room in LEONATO’S House

[Enter DON PEDRO, CLAUDIO, BENEDICK, and LEONATO.]

DON PEDRO.

I do but stay till your marriage be consummate, and then go I toward Arragon.

CLAUDIO.

I’ll bring you thither, my lord, if you’ll vouchsafe me.

DON PEDRO.

Nay, that would be as great a soil in the new gloss of your marriage, as to show a child his new coat and forbid him to wear it. I will only be bold with Benedick for his company; for, from the crown of his head to the sole of his foot, he is all mirth; he hath twice or thrice cut Cupid’s bowstring, and the little hangman dare not shoot at him. He hath a heart as sound as a bell, and his tongue is the clapper; for what his heart thinks his tongue speaks.

BENEDICK.

Gallants, I am not as I have been.

LEONATO.

So say I: methinks you are sadder.

CLAUDIO.

I hope he be in love.

DON PEDRO.

Hang him, truant! there’s no true drop of blood in him, to be truly touched with love. If he be sad, he wants money.

BENEDICK.

I have the tooth-ache.

DON PEDRO.

Draw it.

BENEDICK.

Hang it.

CLAUDIO.

You must hang it first, and draw it afterwards.

DON PEDRO.

What! sigh for the tooth-ache?

LEONATO.

Where is but a humour or a worm?

BENEDICK.

Well, every one can master a grief but he that has it.

CLAUDIO.

Yet say I, he is in love.

DON PEDRO.

There is no appearance of fancy in him, unless it be a fancy that he hath to strange disguises; as to be a Dutchman to-day, a Frenchman to-morrow; or in the shape of two countries at once, as a German from the waist downward, all slops, and a Spaniard from the hip upward, no doublet. Unless he have a fancy to this foolery, as it appears he hath, he is no fool for fancy, as you would have it appear he is.

CLAUDIO.

If he be not in love with some woman, there is no believing old signs: a’ brushes his hat a mornings; what should that bode?

DON PEDRO.

Hath any man seen him at the barber’s?

CLAUDIO.

No, but the barber’s man hath been seen with him; and the old ornament of his cheek hath already stuffed tennis-balls.

LEONATO.

Indeed he looks younger than he did, by the loss of a beard.

DON PEDRO.

Nay, a’ rubs himself with civet: can you smell him out by that?

CLAUDIO.

That’s as much as to say the sweet youth’s in love.

DON PEDRO.

The greatest note of it is his melancholy.

CLAUDIO.

And when was he wont to wash his face?

DON PEDRO.

Yea, or to paint himself? for the which, I hear what they say of him.

CLAUDIO.

Nay, but his jesting spirit; which is now crept into a lute-string, and new-governed by stops.

DON PEDRO.

Indeed, that tells a heavy tale for him. Conclude, conclude he is in love.

CLAUDIO.

Nay, but I know who loves him.

DON PEDRO.

That would I know too: I warrant, one that knows him not.

CLAUDIO.

Yes, and his ill conditions; and in despite of all, dies for him.

DON PEDRO.

She shall be buried with her face upwards.

BENEDICK.

Yet is this no charm for the tooth-ache. Old signior, walk aside with me: I have studied eight or nine wise words to speak to you, which these hobby-horses must not hear.

[Exeunt BENEDICK and LEONATO.]

DON PEDRO.

For my life, to break with him about Beatrice.

CLAUDIO.

’Tis even so. Hero and Margaret have by this played their parts with Beatrice, and then the two bears will not bite one another when they meet. [Enter DON JOHN.]

DON JOHN.

My lord and brother, God save you!

DON PEDRO.

Good den, brother.

DON JOHN.

If your leisure served, I would speak with you.

DON PEDRO.

In private?

DON JOHN.

If it please you; yet Count Claudio may hear, for what I would speak of concerns him.

DON PEDRO.

What’s the matter?

DON JOHN.

[To CLAUDIO.] Means your lordship to be married to-morrow?

DON PEDRO.

You know he does.

DON JOHN.

I know not that, when he knows what I know.

CLAUDIO.

If there be any impediment, I pray you discover it.

DON JOHN.

You may think I love you not: let that appear hereafter, and aim better at me by that I now will manifest. For my brother, I think he holds you well, and in dearness of heart hath holp to effect your ensuing marriage; surely suit ill-spent and labour ill bestowed!

DON PEDRO.

Why, what’s the matter?

DON JOHN.

I came hither to tell you; and circumstances shortened,—for she has been too long a talking of,—the lady is disloyal.

CLAUDIO.

Who, Hero?

DON JOHN.

Even she: Leonato’s Hero, your Hero, every man’s Hero.

CLAUDIO.

Disloyal?

DON JOHN.

The word’s too good to paint out her wickedness; I could say, she were worse: think you of a worse title, and I will fit her to it. Wonder not till further warrant: go but with me to-night, you shall see her chamber-window entered, even the night before her wedding-day: if you love her then, to-morrow wed her; but it would better fit your honour to change your mind.

CLAUDIO.

May this be so?

DON PEDRO.

I will not think it.

DON JOHN.

If you dare not trust that you see, confess not that you know. If you will follow me, I will show you enough; and when you have seen more and heard more, proceed accordingly.

CLAUDIO.

If I see anything to-night why I should not marry her to-morrow, in the congre-gation, where I should wed, there will I shame her.

DON PEDRO.

And, as I wooed for thee to obtain her, I will join with thee to disgrace her.

DON JOHN.

I will disparage her no farther till you are my witnesses: bear it coldly but till midnight, and let the issue show itself.

DON PEDRO.

O day untowardly turned!

CLAUDIO.

O mischief strangely thwarting!

DON JOHN.

O plague right well prevented! So will you say when you have seen the sequel. [Exeunt.]

Scene III. A Street

[Enter DOGBERRY and VERGES, with the Watch.]

DOGBERRY.

Are you good men and true?

VERGES.

Yea, or else it were pity but they should suffer salvation, body and soul.

DOGBERRY.

Nay, that were a punishment too good for them, if they should have any allegiance in them, being chosen for the prince’s watch.

VERGES.

Well, give them their charge, neighbour Dogberry.

DOGBERRY.

First, who think you the most desartless man to be constable?

FIRST WATCH.

Hugh Oatcake, sir, or George Seacoal; for they can write and read.

DOGBERRY.

Come hither, neighbour Seacoal. God hath blessed you with a good name: to be a well-favoured man is the gift of fortune; but to write and read comes by nature.

SECOND WATCH.

Both which, Master Constable,—

DOGBERRY.

You have: I knew it would be your answer. Well, for your favour, sir, why, give God thanks, and make no boast of it; and for your writing and reading, let that appear when there is no need of such vanity. You are thought here to be the most senseless and fit man for the constable of the watch; therefore bear you the lanthorn. This is your charge: you shall comprehend all vagrom men; you are to bid any man stand, in the prince’s name.

SECOND WATCH.

How, if a’ will not stand?

DOGBERRY.

Why, then, take no note of him, but let him go; and presently call the rest of the watch together, and thank God you are rid of a knave.

VERGES.

If he will not stand when he is bidden, he is none of the prince’s subjects.

DOGBERRY.

True, and they are to meddle with none but the prince’s subjects. You shall also make no noise in the streets: for, for the watch to babble and to talk is most tolerable and not to be endured.

SECOND WATCH.

We will rather sleep than talk: we know what belongs to a watch.

DOGBERRY.

Why, you speak like an ancient and most quiet watchman, for I cannot see how sleeping should offend; only have a care that your bills be not stolen. Well, you are to call at all the alehouses, and bid those that are drunk get them to bed.

SECOND WATCH.

How if they will not?

DOGBERRY.

Why then, let them alone till they are sober: if they make you not then the better answer, you may say they are not the men you took them for.

SECOND WATCH.

Well, sir.

DOGBERRY.

If you meet a thief, you may suspect him, by virtue of your office, to be no true man; and, for such kind of men, the less you meddle or make with them, why, the more is for your honesty.

SECOND WATCH.

If we know him to be a thief, shall we not lay hands on him?

DOGBERRY.

Truly, by your office, you may; but I think they that touch pitch will be defiled. The most peaceable way for you, if you do take a thief, is to let him show himself what he is and steal out of your company.

VERGES.

You have been always called a merciful man, partner.

DOGBERRY.

Truly, I would not hang a dog by my will, much more a man who hath any honesty in him.

VERGES.

If you hear a child cry in the night, you must call to the nurse and bid her still it.

SECOND WATCH.

How if the nurse be asleep and will not hear us?

DOGBERRY.

Why then, depart in peace, and let the child wake her with crying; for the ewe that will not hear her lamb when it baes, will never answer a calf when he bleats.

VERGES.

’Tis very true.

DOGBERRY.

This is the end of the charge. You constable, are to present the prince’s own person: if you meet the prince in the night, you may stay him.

VERGES.

Nay, by’r lady, that I think, a’ cannot.

DOGBERRY.

Five shillings to one on’t, with any man that knows the statutes, he may stay him: marry, not without the prince be willing; for, indeed, the watch ought to offend no man, and it is an offence to stay a man against his will.

VERGES.

By’r lady, I think it be so.

DOGBERRY.

Ha, ah, ha! Well, masters, good night: an there be any matter of weight chances, call up me: keep your fellows’ counsels and your own, and good night. Come, neighbour.

SECOND WATCH.

Well, masters, we hear our charge: let us go sit here upon the church-bench till two, and then all to bed.

DOGBERRY.

One word more, honest neighbours. I pray you, watch about Signior Leonato’s door; for the wedding being there to-morrow, there is a great coil to-night. Adieu; be vigitant, I beseech you.

[Exeunt DOGBERRY and VERGES.]

[Enter BORACHIO and CONRADE.]

BORACHIO.

What, Conrade!

WATCH.

[Aside.] Peace! stir not.

BORACHIO.

Conrade, I say!

CONRADE.

Here, man. I am at thy elbow.

BORACHIO.

Mass, and my elbow itched; I thought there would a scab follow.

CONRADE.

I will owe thee an answer for that; and now forward with thy tale.

BORACHIO.

Stand thee close then under this penthouse, for it drizzles rain, and I will, like a true drunkard, utter all to thee.

WATCH.

[Aside.] Some treason, masters; yet stand close.

BORACHIO.

Therefore know, I have earned of Don John a thousand ducats.

CONRADE.

Is it possible that any villany should be so dear?

BORACHIO.

Thou shouldst rather ask if it were possible any villany should be so rich; for when rich villains have need of poor ones, poor ones may make what price they will.

CONRADE.

I wonder at it.

BORACHIO.

That shows thou art unconfirmed. Thou knowest that the fashion of a doublet, or a hat, or a cloak, is nothing to a man.

CONRADE.

Yes, it is apparel.

BORACHIO.

I mean, the fashion.

CONRADE.

Yes, the fashion is the fashion.

BORACHIO.

Tush! I may as well say the fool’s the fool. But seest thou not what a deformed thief this fashion is?

WATCH.

[Aside.] I know that Deformed; a’ has been a vile thief this seven years; a’ goes up and down like a gentleman: I remember his name.

BORACHIO.

Didst thou not hear somebody?

CONRADE.

No: ’twas the vane on the house.

BORACHIO.

Seest thou not, I say, what a deformed thief this fashion is? how giddily he turns about all the hot bloods between fourteen and five-and-thirty? sometime fashioning them like Pharaoh’s soldiers in the reechy painting; sometime like god Bel’s priests in the old church-window; sometime like the shaven Hercules in the smirched worm-eaten tapestry, where his codpiece seems as massy as his club?

CONRADE.

All this I see, and I see that the fashion wears out more apparel than the man. But art not thou thyself giddy with the fashion too, that thou hast shifted out of thy tale into telling me of the fashion?

BORACHIO.

Not so neither; but know, that I have to-night wooed Margaret, the Lady Hero’s gentlewoman, by the name of Hero: she leans me out at her mistress’ chamber-window, bids me a thousand times good night,—I tell this tale vilely:—I should first tell thee how the prince, Claudio, and my master, planted and placed and possessed by my master Don John, saw afar off in the orchard this amiable encounter.

CONRADE.

And thought they Margaret was Hero?

BORACHIO.

Two of them did, the prince and Claudio; but the devil my master, knew she was Margaret; and partly by his oaths, which first possessed them, partly by the dark night, which did deceive them, but chiefly by my villany, which did confirm any slander that Don John had made, away went Claudio enraged; swore he would meet her, as he was appointed, next morning at the temple, and there, before the whole congregation, shame her with what he saw o’er night, and send her home again without a husband.

FIRST WATCH.

We charge you in the prince’s name, stand!

SECOND WATCH.

Call up the right Master Constable. We have here recovered the most dangerous piece of lechery that ever was known in the commonwealth.

FIRST WATCH.

And one Deformed is one of them: I know him, a’ wears a lock.

CONRADE.

Masters, masters!

SECOND WATCH.

You’ll be made bring Deformed forth, I warrant you.

CONRADE.

Masters,—

FIRST WATCH.

Never speak: we charge you let us obey you to go with us.

BORACHIO.

We are like to prove a goodly commodity, being taken up of these men’s bills.

CONRADE.

A commodity in question, I warrant you. Come, we’ll obey you. [Exeunt.]

Scene IV. A Room in LEONATO’S House.

[Enter HERO, MARGARET, and URSULA.]

HERO.

Good Ursula, wake my cousin Beatrice, and desire her to rise.

URSULA.

I will, lady.

HERO.

And bid her come hither.

URSULA.

Well.

[Exit.]

MARGARET.

Troth, I think your other rabato were better.

HERO.

No, pray thee, good Meg, I’ll wear this.

MARGARET.

By my troth’s not so good; and I warrant your cousin will say so.

HERO.

My cousin’s a fool, and thou art another: I’ll wear none but this.

MARGARET.

I like the new tire within excellently, if the hair were a thought browner; and your gown’s a most rare fashion, i’ faith. I saw the Duchess of Milan’s gown that they praise so.

HERO.

O! that exceeds, they say.

MARGARET.

By my troth’s but a night-gown in respect of yours: cloth o’ gold, and cuts, and laced with silver, set with pearls, down sleeves, side sleeves, and skirts round, underborne with a blush tinsel; but for a fine, quaint, graceful, and excellent fashion, yours is worth ten on’t.

HERO.

God give me joy to wear it! for my heart is exceeding heavy.

MARGARET.

’Twill be heavier soon by the weight of a man.

HERO.

Fie upon thee! art not ashamed?

MARGARET.

Of what, lady? of speaking honourably? is not marriage honourable in a beggar? Is not your lord honourable without marriage? I think you would have me say, ‘saving your reverence, a husband.’ An bad thinking do not wrest true speaking, I’ll offend nobody. Is there any harm in ‘the heavier for a husband’? None, I think, an it be the right husband and the right wife; otherwise ’tis light, and not heavy: ask my Lady Beatrice else; here she comes.

[Enter BEATRICE.]

HERO.

Good morrow, coz.

BEATRICE.

Good morrow, sweet Hero.

HERO.

Why, how now? do you speak in the sick tune?

BEATRICE.

I am out of all other tune, methinks.

MARGARET.

Clap’s into ‘Light o’ love’; that goes without a burden: do you sing it, and I’ll dance it.

BEATRICE.

Ye, light o’ love with your heels! then, if your husband have stables enough, you’ll see he shall lack no barnes.

MARGARET.

O illegitimate construction! I scorn that with my heels.

BEATRICE.

’Tis almost five o’clock, cousin; ’tis time you were ready. By my troth, I am exceeding ill. Heigh-ho!

MARGARET.

For a hawk, a horse, or a husband?

BEATRICE.

For the letter that begins them all, H.

MARGARET.

Well, an you be not turned Turk, there’s no more sailing by the star.

BEATRICE.

What means the fool, trow?

MARGARET.

Nothing I; but God send every one their heart’s desire!

HERO.

These gloves the Count sent me; they are an excellent perfume.

BEATRICE.

I am stuffed, cousin, I cannot smell.

MARGARET.

A maid, and stuffed! there’s goodly catching of cold.

BEATRICE.

O, God help me! God help me! how long have you professed apprehension?

MARGARET.

Ever since you left it. Doth not my wit become me rarely!

BEATRICE.

It is not seen enough, you should wear it in your cap. By my troth, I am sick.

MARGARET.

Get you some of this distilled Carduus Benedictus, and lay it to your heart: it is the only thing for a qualm.

HERO.

There thou prick’st her with a thistle.

BEATRICE.

Benedictus! why benedictus? you have some moral in this Benedictus.

MARGARET.

Moral! no, by my troth, I have no moral meaning; I meant, plain holy-thistle. You may think, perchance, that I think you are in love: nay, by’r lady, I am not such a fool to think what I list; nor I list not to think what I can; nor, indeed, I cannot think, if I would think my heart out of thinking, that you are in love, or that you will be in love, or that you can be in love. Yet Benedick was such another, and now is he become a man: he swore he would never marry; and yet now, in despite of his heart, he eats his meat without grudging: and how you may be converted, I know not; but methinks you look with your eyes as other women do.

BEATRICE.

What pace is this that thy tongue keeps?

MARGARET.

Not a false gallop.

[Re-enter URSULA.]

URSULA.

Madam, withdraw: the prince, the count, Signior Benedick, Don John, and all the gallants of the town, are come to fetch you to church.

HERO.

Help to dress me, good coz, good Meg, good Ursula.

[Exeunt.]

Scene V. Another Room in LEONATO’S House

[Enter LEONATO and DOGBERRY and VERGES.]

LEONATO.

What would you with me, honest neighbour?

DOGBERRY.

Marry, sir, I would have some confidence with you, that decerns you nearly.

LEONATO.

Brief, I pray you; for you see it is a busy time with me.

DOGBERRY.

Marry, this it is, sir.

VERGES.

Yes, in truth it is, sir.

LEONATO.

What is it, my good friends?

DOGBERRY.

Goodman Verges, sir, speaks a little off the matter: an old man, sir, and his wits are not so blunt as, God help, I would desire they were; but, in faith, honest as the skin between his brows.

VERGES.

Yes, I thank God, I am as honest as any man living, that is an old man and no honester than I.

DOGBERRY.

Comparisons are odorous: palabras, neighbour Verges.

LEONATO.

Neighbours, you are tedious.

DOGBERRY.

It pleases your worship to say so, but we are the poor duke’s officers; but truly, for mine own part, if I were as tedious as a king, I could find in my heart to bestow it all of your worship.

LEONATO.

All thy tediousness on me! ha?

DOGBERRY.

Yea, an’t were a thousand pound more than ’tis; for I hear as good exclamation on your worship, as of any man in the city, and though I be but a poor man, I am glad to hear it.

VERGES.

And so am I.

LEONATO.

I would fain know what you have to say.

VERGES.

Marry, sir, our watch to-night, excepting your worship’s presence, ha’ ta’en a couple of as arrant knaves as any in Messina.

DOGBERRY.

A good old man, sir; he will be talking; as they say, ‘when the age is in, the wit is out.’ God help us! it is a world to see! Well said, i’ faith, neighbour Verges: well, God’s a good man; an two men ride of a horse, one must ride behind. An honest soul, i’ faith, sir; by my troth he is, as ever broke bread; but God is to be worshipped: all men are not alike; alas! good neighbour.

LEONATO.

Indeed, neighbour, he comes too short of you.

DOGBERRY.

Gifts that God gives.

LEONATO.

I must leave you.

DOGBERRY.

One word, sir: our watch, sir, hath indeed comprehended two aspicious persons, and we would have them this morning examined before your worship.

LEONATO.

Take their examination yourself, and bring it me: I am now in great haste, as may appear unto you.

DOGBERRY.

It shall be suffigance.

LEONATO.

Drink some wine ere you go: fare you well.

[Enter a Messenger.]

MESSENGER.

My lord, they stay for you to give your daughter to her husband.

LEONATO.

I’ll wait upon them: I am ready.

[Exeunt LEONATO and Messenger.]

DOGBERRY.

Go, good partner, go, get you to Francis Seacoal; bid him bring his pen and inkhorn to the gaol: we are now to examination these men.

VERGES.

And we must do it wisely.

DOGBERRY.

We will spare for no wit, I warrant you; here’s that shall drive some of them to a non-come: only get the learned writer to set down our excommunication, and meet me at the gaol.

[Exeunt.]

Act IV

Scene I. The Inside of a Church.

[Enter DON PEDRO, DON JOHN, LEONATO, FRIAR FRANCIS, CLAUDIO, BENEDICK, HERO, BEATRICE, &c.]

LEONATO.

Come, Friar Francis, be brief: only to the plain form of marriage, and you shall recount their particular duties afterwards.

FRIAR.

You come hither, my lord, to marry this lady?

CLAUDIO.

No.

LEONATO.

To be married to her, friar; you come to marry her.

FRIAR.

Lady, you come hither to be married to this count?

HERO.

I do.

FRIAR.

If either of you know any inward impediment, why you should not be conjoined, I charge you, on your souls, to utter it.

CLAUDIO.

Know you any, Hero?

HERO.

None, my lord.

FRIAR.

Know you any, count?

LEONATO.

I dare make his answer; none.

CLAUDIO.

O! what men dare do! what men may do! what men daily do, not knowing what they do!

BENEDICK.

How now! Interjections? Why then, some be of laughing, as ah! ha! he!

CLAUDIO.

Stand thee by, friar. Father, by your leave: Will you with free and unconstrained soul Give me this maid, your daughter?

LEONATO.

As freely, son, as God did give her me.

CLAUDIO.

And what have I to give you back whose worth

May counterpoise this rich and precious gift?

DON PEDRO.

Nothing, unless you render her again.

CLAUDIO.

Sweet prince, you learn me noble thankfulness.

There, Leonato, take her back again:

Give not this rotten orange to your friend;

She’s but the sign and semblance of her honour.

Behold! how like a maid she blushes here.

O! what authority and show of truth

Can cunning sin cover itself withal.

Comes not that blood as modest evidence

To witness simple virtue? Would you not swear,

All you that see her, that she were a maid,

By these exterior shows? But she is none:

She knows the heat of a luxurious bed;

Her blush is guiltiness, not modesty.

LEONATO.

What do you mean, my lord?

CLAUDIO.

Not to be married,

Not to knit my soul to an approved wanton.

LEONATO.

Dear my lord, if you, in your own proof,

Have vanquish’d the resistance of her youth,

And made defeat of her virginity,—

CLAUDIO.

I know what you would say: if I have known her,

You’ll say she did embrace me as a husband,

And so extenuate the ’forehand sin: No, Leonato,

I never tempted her with word too large;

But, as a brother to his sister, show’d

Bashful sincerity and comely love.

HERO.

And seem’d I ever otherwise to you?

CLAUDIO.

Out on thee! Seeming! I will write against it:

You seem to me as Dian in her orb,

As chaste as is the bud ere it be blown;

But you are more intemperate in your blood

Than Venus, or those pamper’d animals

That rage in savage sensuality.

HERO.

Is my lord well, that he doth speak so wide?

LEONATO.

Sweet prince, why speak not you?

DON PEDRO.

What should I speak?

I stand dishonour’d, that have gone about

To link my dear friend to a common stale.

LEONATO.

Are these things spoken, or do I but dream?

DON JOHN.

Sir, they are spoken, and these things are true.

BENEDICK.

This looks not like a nuptial.

HERO.

True! O God!

CLAUDIO.

Leonato, stand I here? Is this the prince?

Is this the prince’s brother?

Is this face Hero’s? Are our eyes our own?

LEONATO.

All this is so; but what of this, my lord?

CLAUDIO.

Let me but move one question to your daughter,

And by that fatherly and kindly power

That you have in her, bid her answer truly.

LEONATO.

I charge thee do so, as thou art my child.

HERO.

O, God defend me! how am I beset!

What kind of catechizing call you this?

CLAUDIO.

To make you answer truly to your name.

HERO.

Is it not Hero? Who can blot that name

With any just reproach?

CLAUDIO.

Marry, that can Hero:

Hero itself can blot out Hero’s virtue.

What man was he talk’d with you yesternight

Out at your window, betwixt twelve and one?

Now, if you are a maid, answer to this.

HERO.

I talk’d with no man at that hour, my lord.

DON PEDRO.

Why, then are you no maiden.

Leonato, I am sorry you must hear: upon my honour,

Myself, my brother, and this grieved count,

Did see her, hear her, at that hour last night,

Talk with a ruffian at her chamber-window;

Who hath indeed, most like a liberal villain,

Confess’d the vile encounters they have had

A thousand times in secret.

DON JOHN.

Fie, fie! they are not to be nam’d, my lord,

Not to be spoke of;

There is not chastity enough in language

Without offence to utter them. Thus, pretty lady,

I am sorry for thy much misgovernment.

CLAUDIO.

O Hero! what a Hero hadst thou been,

If half thy outward graces had been plac’d About thy thoughts and counsels of thy heart!

But fare thee well, most foul, most fair! farewell,

Thou pure impiety, and impious purity!

For thee I’ll lock up all the gates of love,

And on my eyelids shall conjecture hang,

To turn all beauty into thoughts of harm,

And never shall it more be gracious.

LEONATO.

Hath no man’s dagger here a point for me?

[HERO swoons.]

BEATRICE.

Why, how now, cousin! wherefore sink you down?

DON JOHN.

Come, let us go. These things, come thus to light,

Smother her spirits up.

[Exeunt DON PEDRO, DON JOHN and CLAUDIO.]

BENEDICK.

How doth the lady?

BEATRICE.

Dead, I think! help, uncle! Hero! why, Hero! Uncle! Signior Benedick! Friar!

LEONATO.

O Fate! take not away thy heavy hand:

Death is the fairest cover for her shame

That may be wish’d for.

BEATRICE.

How now, cousin Hero?

FRIAR.

Have comfort, lady.

LEONATO.

Dost thou look up?

FRIAR.

Yea; wherefore should she not?

LEONATO.

Wherefore! Why, doth not every earthly thing

Cry shame upon her? Could she here deny

The story that is printed in her blood?

Do not live, Hero; do not ope thine eyes;

For, did I think thou wouldst not quickly die,

Thought I thy spirits were stronger than thy shames,

Myself would, on the rearward of reproaches,

Strike at thy life. Griev’d I, I had but one?

Chid I for that at frugal nature’s frame?

O! one too much by thee. Why had I one?

Why ever wast thou lovely in mine eyes?

Why had I not with charitable hand

Took up a beggar’s issue at my gates,

Who smirched thus, and mir’d with infamy,

I might have said, ‘No part of it is mine;

This shame derives itself from unknown loins?’

But mine, and mine I lov’d, and mine I prais’d,

And mine that I was proud on, mine so much

That I myself was to myself not mine,

Valuing of her; why, she—O! she is fallen

Into a pit of ink, that the wide sea

Hath drops too few to wash her clean again,

And salt too little which may season give

To her foul-tainted flesh.

BENEDICK.

Sir, sir, be patient.

For my part, I am so attir’d in wonder,

I know not what to say.

BEATRICE.

O! on my soul, my cousin is belied!

BENEDICK.

Lady, were you her bedfellow last night?

BEATRICE.

No, truly, not; although, until last night I have this twelvemonth been her bedfellow.

LEONATO.

Confirm’d, confirm’d! O! that is stronger made,

Which was before barr’d up with ribs of iron.

Would the two princes lie? and Claudio lie,

Who lov’d her so, that, speaking of her foulness,

Wash’d it with tears? Hence from her! let her die.

FRIAR.

Hear me a little;

For I have only been silent so long,

And given way unto this course of fortune,

By noting of the lady: I have mark’d

A thousand blushing apparitions

To start into her face; a thousand innocent shames

In angel whiteness bear away those blushes;

And in her eye there hath appear’d a fire,

To burn the errors that these princes hold

Against her maiden truth. Call me a fool;

Trust not my reading nor my observations,

Which with experimental seal doth warrant

The tenure of my book; trust not my age,

My reverence, calling, nor divinity,

If this sweet lady lie not guiltless here

Under some biting error.

LEONATO.

Friar, it cannot be.

Thou seest that all the grace that she hath left

Is that she will not add to her damnation

A sin of perjury: she not denies it.

Why seek’st thou then to cover with excuse

That which appears in proper nakedness?

FRIAR.

Lady, what man is he you are accus’d of?

HERO.

They know that do accuse me, I know none;

If I know more of any man alive

Than that which maiden modesty doth warrant,

Let all my sins lack mercy! O, my father!

Prove you that any man with me convers’d

At hours unmeet, or that I yesternight

Maintain’d the change of words with any creature,

Refuse me, hate me, torture me to death.

FRIAR.

There is some strange misprision in the princes.

BENEDICK.

Two of them have the very bent of honour;

And if their wisdoms be misled in this,

The practice of it lives in John the bastard,

Whose spirits toil in frame of villanies.

LEONATO.

I know not. If they speak but truth of her,

These hands shall tear her;if they wrong her honour,

The proudest of them shall well hear of it.

Time hath not yet so dried this blood of mine,

Nor age so eat up my invention,

Nor fortune made such havoc of my means,

Nor my bad life reft me so much of friends,

But they shall find, awak’d in such a kind,

Both strength of limb and policy of mind,

Ability in means and choice of friends,

To quit me of them throughly.

FRIAR.

Pause awhile, And let my counsel sway you in this case.

Your daughter here the princes left for dead;

Let her awhile be secretly kept in,

And publish it that she is dead indeed:

Maintain a mourning ostentation;

And on your family’s old monument

Hang mournful epitaphs and do all rites

That appertain unto a burial.

LEONATO.

What shall become of this? What will this do?

FRIAR.

Marry, this well carried shall on her behalf

Change slander to remorse; that is some good.

But not for that dream I on this strange course,

But on this travail look for greater birth.

She dying, as it must be so maintain’d,

Upon the instant that she was accus’d,

Shall be lamented, pitied and excus’d Of every hearer; for it so falls out

That what we have we prize not to the worth

Whiles we enjoy it, but being lack’d and lost,

Why, then we rack the value, then we find

The virtue that possession would not show us

Whiles it was ours. So will it fare with Claudio:

When he shall hear she died upon his words,

The idea of her life shall sweetly creep

Into his study of imagination,

And every lovely organ of her life

Shall come apparell’d in more precious habit,

More moving-delicate, and full of life

Into the eye and prospect of his soul,

Than when she liv’d indeed: then shall he mourn,—

If ever love had interest in his liver,—

And wish he had not so accused her,

No, though be thought his accusation true.

Let this be so, and doubt not but success

Will fashion the event in better shape

Than I can lay it down in likelihood.

But if all aim but this be levell’d false,

The supposition of the lady’s death

Will quench the wonder of her infamy:

And if it sort not well, you may conceal her,—

As best befits her wounded reputation,—

In some reclusive and religious life,

Out of all eyes, tongues, minds, and injuries.

BENEDICK.

Signior Leonato, let the friar advise you:

And though you know my inwardness and love

Is very much unto the prince and Claudio,

Yet, by mine honour, I will deal in this

As secretly and justly as your soul

Should with your body.

LEONATO.

Being that I flow in grief, The smallest twine may lead me.

FRIAR.

’Tis well consented: presently away;

For to strange sores strangely they strain the cure.

Come, lady, die to live: this wedding day Perhaps is but prolong’d: have patience and endure.

[Exeunt FRIAR, HERO, and LEONATO.]

BENEDICK.

Lady Beatrice, have you wept all this while?

BEATRICE.

Yea, and I will weep a while longer.

BENEDICK.

I will not desire that.

BEATRICE.

You have no reason; I do it freely.

BENEDICK.

Surely I do believe your fair cousin is wronged.

BEATRICE.

Ah! how much might the man deserve of me that would right her.

BENEDICK.

Is there any way to show such friendship?

BEATRICE.

A very even way, but no such friend.

BENEDICK.

May a man do it?

BEATRICE.

It is a man’s office, but not yours.

BENEDICK.

I do love nothing in the world so well as you: is not that strange?

BEATRICE.

As strange as the thing I know not. It were as possible for me to say I loved nothing so well as you; but believe me not, and yet I lie not; I confess nothing, nor I deny nothing. I am sorry for my cousin.

BENEDICK.

By my sword, Beatrice, thou lovest me.

BEATRICE.

Do not swear by it, and eat it.

BENEDICK.

I will swear by it that you love me; and I will make him eat it that says I love not you.

BEATRICE.

Will you not eat your word?

BENEDICK.

With no sauce that can be devised to it. I protest I love thee.

BEATRICE.

Why then, God forgive me!

BENEDICK.

What offence, sweet Beatrice?

BEATRICE.

You have stayed me in a happy hour: I was about to protest I loved you.

BENEDICK.

And do it with all thy heart.

BEATRICE.

I love you with so much of my heart that none is left to protest.

BENEDICK.

Come, bid me do anything for thee.

BEATRICE.

Kill Claudio.

BENEDICK.

Ha! not for the wide world.

BEATRICE.

You kill me to deny it. Farewell.

BENEDICK.

Tarry, sweet Beatrice.

BEATRICE.

I am gone, though I am here: there is no love in you: nay, I pray you, let me go.

BENEDICK.

Beatrice,—

BEATRICE.

In faith, I will go.

BENEDICK.

We’ll be friends first.

BEATRICE.

You dare easier be friends with me than fight with mine enemy.

BENEDICK.

Is Claudio thine enemy?

BEATRICE.

Is he not approved in the height a villain, that hath slandered, scorned, dishonoured my kinswoman? O! that I were a man. What! bear her in hand until they come to take hands, and then, with public accusation, uncovered slander, unmitigated rancour,—O God, that I were a man! I would eat his heart in the market-place.

BENEDICK.

Hear me, Beatrice,—

BEATRICE.

Talk with a man out at a window! a proper saying!

BENEDICK.

Nay, but Beatrice,—

BEATRICE.

Sweet Hero! she is wronged, she is slandered, she is undone.

BENEDICK.

Beat—-

BEATRICE.

Princes and counties! Surely, a princely testimony, a goodly Count Comfect; a sweet gallant, surely! O! that I were a man for his sake, or that I had any friend would be a man for my sake! But manhood is melted into cursies, valour into compliment, and men are only turned into tongue, and trim ones too: he is now as valiant as Hercules, that only tells a lie and swears it. I cannot be a man with wishing, therefore I will die a woman with grieving.

BENEDICK.

Tarry, good Beatrice. By this hand, I love thee.

BEATRICE.

Use it for my love some other way than swearing by it.

BENEDICK.

Think you in your soul the Count Claudio hath wronged Hero?

BEATRICE.

Yea, as sure is I have a thought or a soul.

BENEDICK.

Enough! I am engaged, I will challenge him. I will kiss your hand, and so leave you. By this hand, Claudio shall render me a dear account. As you hear of me, so think of me. Go, comfort your cousin: I must say she is dead; and so, farewell. [Exeunt.]

Scene II. A Prison

[Enter DOGBERRY, VERGES, and SEXTON, in gowns; and the Watch, with CONRADE and BORACHIO.]

DOGBERRY.

Is our whole dissembly appeared?

VERGES.

O! a stool and a cushion for the sexton.

SEXTON.

Which be the malefactors?

DOGBERRY.

Marry, that am I and my partner.

VERGES.

Nay, that’s certain: we have the exhibition to examine.

SEXTON.

But which are the offenders that are to be examined? let them come before Master constable.

DOGBERRY.

Yea, marry, let them come before me. What is your name, friend?

BORACHIO.

Borachio.

DOGBERRY.

Pray write down Borachio. Yours, sirrah?

CONRADE.

I am a gentleman, sir, and my name is Conrade.

DOGBERRY.

Write down Master gentleman Conrade. Masters, do you serve God?

BOTH.

Yea, sir, we hope.

DOGBERRY.

Write down that they hope they serve God: and write God first; for God defend but God should go before such villains! Masters, it is proved already that you are little better than false knaves, and it will go near to be thought so shortly. How answer you for yourselves?

CONRADE.

Marry, sir, we say we are none.

DOGBERRY.

A marvellous witty fellow, I assure you; but I will go about with him. Come you hither, sirrah; a word in your ear: sir, I say to you, it is thought you are false knaves.

BORACHIO.

Sir, I say to you we are none.

DOGBERRY.

Well, stand aside. Fore God, they are both in a tale. Have you writ down, that they are none?

SEXTON.

Master constable, you go not the way to examine: you must call forth the watch that are their accusers.

DOGBERRY.

Yea, marry, that’s the eftest way. Let the watch come forth. Masters, I charge you, in the prince’s name, accuse these men.

FIRST WATCH.

This man said, sir, that Don John, the prince’s brother, was a villain.

DOGBERRY.

Write down Prince John a villain. Why, this is flat perjury, to call a prince’s brother villain.

BORACHIO.

Master Constable,—

DOGBERRY.

Pray thee, fellow, peace: I do not like thy look, I promise thee.

SEXTON.

What heard you him say else?

SECOND WATCH.

Marry, that he had received a thousand ducats of Don John for accusing the Lady Hero wrongfully.

DOGBERRY.

Flat burglary as ever was committed.

VERGES.

Yea, by the mass, that it is.

SEXTON.

What else, fellow?

FIRST WATCH.

And that Count Claudio did mean, upon his words, to disgrace Hero before the whole assembly, and not marry her.

DOGBERRY.

O villain! thou wilt be condemned into everlasting redemption for this.

SEXTON.

What else?

SECOND WATCH.

This is all.

SEXTON.

And this is more, masters, than you can deny. Prince John is this morning secretly stolen away: Hero was in this manner accused, in this manner refused, and, upon the grief of this, suddenly died. Master Constable, let these men be bound, and brought to Leonato’s: I will go before and show him their examination. [Exit.]

DOGBERRY.

Come, let them be opinioned.

VERGES.

Let them be in the hands—

CONRADE.

Off, coxcomb!

DOGBERRY.

God’s my life! where’s the sexton? let him write down the prince’s officer coxcomb. Come, bind them. Thou naughty varlet!

CONRADE.

Away! you are an ass; you are an ass.

DOGBERRY.

Dost thou not suspect my place? Dost thou not suspect my years? O that he were here to write me down an ass! but, masters, remember that I am an ass; though it be not written down, yet forget not that I am an ass. No, thou villain, thou art full of piety, as shall be proved upon thee by good witness. I am a wise fellow; and, which is more, an officer; and, which is more, a householder; and, which is more, as pretty a piece of flesh as any in Messina; and one that knows the law, go to; and a rich fellow enough, go to; and a fellow that hath had losses; and one that hath two gowns, and everything handsome about him. Bring him away. O that I had been writ down an ass!

[Exeunt.]

Act V

Scene I. Before LEONATO’S House.

[Enter LEONATO and ANTONIO.]

ANTONIO.

If you go on thus, you will kill yourself

And ’tis not wisdom thus to second grief

Against yourself.

LEONATO.

I pray thee, cease thy counsel,

Which falls into mine ears as profitless

As water in a sieve: give not me counsel;

Nor let no comforter delight mine ear

But such a one whose wrongs do suit with mine:

Bring me a father that so lov’d his child,

Whose joy of her is overwhelm’d like mine,

And bid him speak to me of patience;

Measure his woe the length and breadth of mine,

And let it answer every strain for strain,

As thus for thus and such a grief for such,

In every lineament, branch, shape, and form:

If such a one will smile, and stroke his beard;

Bid sorrow wag, cry ‘hem’ when he should groan,

Patch grief with proverbs; make misfortune drunk

With candle-wasters; bring him yet to me,

And I of him will gather patience.

But there is no such man; for, brother, men

Can counsel and speak comfort to that grief

Which they themselves not feel; but, tasting it,

Their counsel turns to passion, which before

Would give preceptial medicine to rage,

Fetter strong madness in a silken thread,

Charm ache with air and agony with words.

No, no; ’tis all men’s office to speak patience

To those that wring under the load of sorrow,

But no man’s virtue nor sufficiency

To be so moral when he shall endure

The like himself. Therefore give me no counsel:

My griefs cry louder than advertisement.

ANTONIO.

Therein do men from children nothing differ.

LEONATO.

I pray thee peace! I will be flesh and blood;

For there was never yet philosopher That could endure the toothache patiently,

However they have writ the style of gods

And made a push at chance and sufferance.

ANTONIO.

Yet bend not all the harm upon yourself;

Make those that do offend you suffer too.

LEONATO.

There thou speak’st reason: nay, I will do so.

My soul doth tell me Hero is belied;

And that shall Claudio know; so shall the prince,

And all of them that thus dishonour her.

ANTONIO.

Here comes the prince and Claudio hastily.

[Enter DON PEDRO and CLAUDIO.]

DON PEDRO.

Good den, good den.

CLAUDIO.

Good day to both of you.

LEONATO.

Hear you, my lords,—

DON PEDRO.

We have some haste, Leonato.

LEONATO.

Some haste, my lord! well, fare you well, my lord:

Are you so hasty now?—well, all is one.

DON PEDRO.

Nay, do not quarrel with us, good old man.

ANTONIO.

If he could right himself with quarrelling,

Some of us would lie low.

CLAUDIO.

Who wrongs him?

LEONATO.

Marry, thou dost wrong me; thou dissembler, thou.

Nay, never lay thy hand upon thy sword; I fear thee not.

CLAUDIO.

Marry, beshrew my hand,

If it should give your age such cause of fear.

In faith, my hand meant nothing to my sword.

LEONATO.

Tush, tush, man! never fleer and jest at me:

I speak not like a dotard nor a fool,

As, under privilege of age, to brag

What I have done being young, or what would do,

Were I not old. Know, Claudio, to thy head,

Thou hast so wrong’d mine innocent child and me

That I am forc’d to lay my reverence by,

And, with grey hairs and bruise of many days,

Do challenge thee to trial of a man.

I say thou hast belied mine innocent child:

Thy slander hath gone through and through her heart,

And she lied buried with her ancestors;

O! in a tomb where never scandal slept,

Save this of hers, fram’d by thy villany!

CLAUDIO.

My villany?

LEONATO.

Thine, Claudio; thine, I say.

DON PEDRO.

You say not right, old man,

LEONATO.

My lord, my lord,

I’ll prove it on his body, if he dare,

Despite his nice fence and his active practice,

His May of youth and bloom of lustihood.

CLAUDIO.

Away! I will not have to do with you.

LEONATO.

Canst thou so daff me? Thou hast kill’d my child;

If thou kill’st me, boy, thou shalt kill a man.

ANTONIO.

He shall kill two of us, and men indeed:

But that’s no matter; let him kill one first:

Win me and wear me; let him answer me.

Come, follow me, boy; come, sir boy, come, follow me.

Sir boy, I’ll whip you from your foining fence;

Nay, as I am a gentleman, I will.

LEONATO.

Brother,—

ANTONIO.

Content yourself. God knows I lov’d my niece;

And she is dead, slander’d to death by villains,

That dare as well answer a man indeed

As I dare take a serpent by the tongue.

Boys, apes, braggarts, Jacks, milksops!

LEONATO.

Brother Antony,—

ANTONIO.

Hold your content. What, man! I know them, yea,

And what they weigh, even to the utmost scruple,

Scambling, out-facing, fashion-monging boys,

That lie and cog and flout, deprave and slander,

Go antickly, show outward hideousness,

And speak off half a dozen dangerous words,

How they might hurt their enemies, if they durst;

And this is all!

LEONATO.

But, brother Antony,—

ANTONIO.

Come, ’tis no matter:

Do not you meddle, let me deal in this.

DON PEDRO.

Gentlemen both, we will not wake your patience.

My heart is sorry for your daughter’s death;

But, on my honour, she was charg’d with nothing

But what was true and very full of proof.

LEONATO.

My lord, my lord—

DON PEDRO.

I will not hear you.

LEONATO.

No? Come, brother, away. I will be heard.—

ANTONIO.

And shall, or some of us will smart for it.

[Exeunt LEONATO and ANTONIO.]

[Enter BENEDICK.]

DON PEDRO.

See, see; here comes the man we went to seek.

CLAUDIO.

Now, signior, what news?

BENEDICK.

Good day, my lord.

DON PEDRO.

Welcome, signior: you are almost come to part almost a fray.

CLAUDIO.

We had like to have had our two noses snapped off with two old men without teeth.

DON PEDRO.

Leonato and his brother. What think’st thou? Had we fought, I doubt we should have been too young for them.

BENEDICK.

In a false quarrel there is no true valour. I came to seek you both.

CLAUDIO.

We have been up and down to seek thee; for we are high-proof melancholy, and would fain have it beaten away. Wilt thou use thy wit?

BENEDICK.

It is in my scabbard; shall I draw it?

DON PEDRO.

Dost thou wear thy wit by thy side?

CLAUDIO.

Never any did so, though very many have been beside their wit. I will bid thee draw, as we do the minstrels; draw, to pleasure us.

DON PEDRO.

As I am an honest man, he looks pale. Art thou sick, or angry?

CLAUDIO.

What, courage, man! What though care killed a cat, thou hast mettle enough in thee to kill care.

BENEDICK.

Sir, I shall meet your wit in the career, an you charge it against me. I pray you choose another subject.

CLAUDIO.

Nay then, give him another staff: this last was broke cross.

DON PEDRO.

By this light, he changes more and more: I think he be angry indeed.

CLAUDIO.

If he be, he knows how to turn his girdle.

BENEDICK.

Shall I speak a word in your ear?

CLAUDIO.

God bless me from a challenge!

BENEDICK.

[Aside to CLAUDIO.]

] You are a villain, I jest not: I will make it good how you dare, with what you dare, and when you dare. Do me right, or I will protest your cowardice. You have killed a sweet lady, and her death shall fall heavy on you. Let me hear from you.

CLAUDIO.

Well I will meet you, so I may have good cheer.

DON PEDRO.

What, a feast, a feast?

CLAUDIO.

I’ faith, I thank him; he hath bid me to a calf’s-head and a capon, the which if I do not carve most curiously, say my knife’s naught. Shall I not find a woodcock too?

BENEDICK.

Sir, your wit ambles well; it goes easily.

DON PEDRO.

I’ll tell thee how Beatrice praised thy wit the other day. I said, thou hadst a fine wit. ‘True,’ says she, ‘a fine little one.’

‘No,’ said I, ‘a great wit.’

‘Right,’ said she, ‘a great gross one.’

‘Nay,’ said I, ‘a good wit.’

‘Just,’ said she, ‘it hurts nobody.’

‘Nay,’ said I, ‘the gentleman is wise.’

‘Certain,’ said she,a wise gentleman.’

‘Nay,’ said I, ‘he hath the tongues.’

‘That I believe’ said she, ‘for he swore a thing to me on Monday night, which he forswore on Tuesday morning: there’s a double tongue; there’s two tongues.’

Thus did she, an hour together, trans-shape thy particular virtues; yet at last she concluded with a sigh, thou wast the properest man in Italy.

CLAUDIO.

For the which she wept heartily and said she cared not.

DON PEDRO.

Yea, that she did; but yet, for all that, an if she did not hate him deadly, she would love him dearly. The old man’s daughter told us all.

CLAUDIO.

All, all; and moreover, God saw him when he was hid in the garden.

DON PEDRO.

But when shall we set the savage bull’s horns on the sensible Benedick’s head?

CLAUDIO.

Yea, and text underneath, ‘Here dwells Benedick the married man!’

BENEDICK.

Fare you well, boy: you know my mind. I will leave you now to your gossip-like humour; you break jests as braggarts do their blades, which, God be thanked, hurt not. My lord, for your many courtesies I thank you: I must discontinue your company. Your brother the bastard is fled from Messina: you have, among you, killed a sweet and innocent lady. For my Lord Lack-beard there, he and I shall meet; and till then, peace be with him.

[Exit.]

DON PEDRO.

He is in earnest.

CLAUDIO.

In most profound earnest; and, I’ll warrant you, for the love of Beatrice.

DON PEDRO.

And hath challenged thee?

CLAUDIO.

Most sincerely.

DON PEDRO.

What a pretty thing man is when he goes in his doublet and hose and leaves off his wit!

CLAUDIO.

He is then a giant to an ape; but then is an ape a doctor to such a man.

DON PEDRO.

But, soft you; let me be: pluck up, my heart, and be sad! Did he not say my brother was fled?

[Enter DOGBERRY, VERGES, and the Watch, with CONRADE and BORACHIO.]

DOGBERRY.

Come you, sir: if justice cannot tame you, she shall ne’er weigh more reasons in her balance. Nay, an you be a cursing hypocrite once, you must be looked to.

DON PEDRO.

How now! two of my brother’s men bound! Borachio, one!

CLAUDIO.

Hearken after their offence, my lord.

DON PEDRO.

Officers, what offence have these men done?

DOGBERRY.

Marry, sir, they have committed false report; moreover, they have spoken untruths; secondarily, they are slanders; sixth and lastly, they have belied a lady; thirdly, they have verified unjust things; and to conclude, they are lying knaves.

DON PEDRO.

First, I ask thee what they have done; thirdly, I ask thee what’s their offence; sixth and lastly, why they are committed; and, to conclude, what you lay to their charge?

CLAUDIO.

Rightly reasoned, and in his own division; and, by my troth, there’s one meaning well suited.

DON PEDRO.

Who have you offended, masters, that you are thus bound to your answer? this learned constable is too cunning to be understood. What’s your offence?

BORACHIO.

Sweet prince, let me go no further to mine answer: do you hear me, and let this count kill me. I have deceived even your very eyes: what your wisdoms could not discover, these shallow fools have brought to light; who, in the night overheard me confessing to this man how Don John your brother incensed me to slander the Lady Hero; how you were brought into the orchard and saw me court Margaret in Hero’s garments; how you disgraced her, when you should marry her. My villany they have upon record; which I had rather seal with my death than repeat over to my shame. The lady is dead upon mine and my master’s false accusation; and, briefly, I desire nothing but the reward of a villain.

DON PEDRO.

Runs not this speech like iron through your blood?

CLAUDIO.

I have drunk poison whiles he utter’d it.

DON PEDRO.

But did my brother set thee on to this?

BORACHIO.

Yea; and paid me richly for the practice of it.

DON PEDRO.

He is compos’d and fram’d of treachery: And fled he is upon this villany.

CLAUDIO.

Sweet Hero! now thy image doth appear In the rare semblance that I lov’d it first.

DOGBERRY.

Come, bring away the plaintiffs: by this time our sexton hath reformed Signior Leonato of the matter. And masters, do not forget to specify, when time and place shall serve, that I am an ass.

VERGES.

Here, here comes Master Signior Leonato, and the sexton too. [Re-enter LEONATO, ANTONIO, and the Sexton.]

LEONATO.

Which is the villain? Let me see his eyes,

That, when I note another man like him,

I may avoid him. Which of these is he?

BORACHIO.

If you would know your wronger, look on me.

LEONATO.

Art thou the slave that with thy breath hast kill’d

Mine innocent child?

BORACHIO.

Yea, even I alone.

LEONATO.

No, not so, villain; thou beliest thyself:

Here stand a pair of honourable men;

A third is fled, that had a hand in it.

I thank you, princes, for my daughter’s death:

Record it with your high and worthy deeds.

’Twas bravely done, if you bethink you of it.

CLAUDIO.

I know not how to pray your patience;

Yet I must speak. Choose your revenge yourself;

Impose me to what penance your invention

Can lay upon my sin: yet sinn’d I not

But in mistaking.

DON PEDRO.

By my soul, nor I:

And yet, to satisfy this good old man,

I would bend under any heavy weight

That he’ll enjoin me to.

LEONATO.

I cannot bid you bid my daughter live;

That were impossible; but, I pray you both,

Possess the people in Messina here

How innocent she died; and if your love

Can labour aught in sad invention,

Hang her an epitaph upon her tomb,

And sing it to her bones: sing it to-night.

To-morrow morning come you to my house,

And since you could not be my son-in-law,

Be yet my nephew. My brother hath a daughter,

Almost the copy of my child that’s dead,

And she alone is heir to both of us:

Give her the right you should have given her cousin,

And so dies my revenge.

CLAUDIO.

O noble sir,

Your over-kindness doth wring tears from me!

I do embrace your offer; and dispose

For henceforth of poor Claudio.

LEONATO.

To-morrow then I will expect your coming;

To-night I take my leave. This naughty man

Shall face to face be brought to Margaret,

Who, I believe, was pack’d in all this wrong,

Hir’d to it by your brother.

BORACHIO.

No, by my soul she was not;

Nor knew not what she did when she spoke to me;

But always hath been just and virtuous

In anything that I do know by her.

DOGBERRY.

Moreover, sir,—which, indeed, is not under white and black,— this plaintiff here, the offender, did call me ass: I beseech you, let it be remembered in his punishment. And also, the watch heard them talk of one Deformed: they say he wears a key in his ear and a lock hanging by it, and borrows money in God’s name, the which he hath used so long and never paid, that now men grow hard-hearted, and will lend nothing for God’s sake. Pray you, examine him upon that point.

LEONATO.

I thank thee for thy care and honest pains.

DOGBERRY.

Your worship speaks like a most thankful and reverent youth, and I praise God for you.

LEONATO.

There’s for thy pains.

DOGBERRY.

God save the foundation!

LEONATO.

Go, I discharge thee of thy prisoner, and I thank thee.

DOGBERRY.

I leave an arrant knave with your worship; which I beseech your worship to correct yourself, for the example of others. God keep your worship! I wish your worship well; God restore you to health! I humbly give you leave to depart, and if a merry meeting may be wished, God prohibit it! Come, neighbour. [Exeunt DOGBERRY and VERGES.]

LEONATO.

Until to-morrow morning, lords, farewell.

ANTONIO.

Farewell, my lords: we look for you to-morrow.

DON PEDRO.

We will not fail.

CLAUDIO.

To-night I’ll mourn with Hero.

[Exeunt DON PEDRO and CLAUDIO.]

LEONATO.

[To the Watch.] Bring you these fellows on. We’ll talk with Margaret, How her acquaintance grew with this lewd fellow.

[Exeunt.]

Scene 2 . LEONATO’S Garden

[Enter BENEDICK and MARGARET, meeting.]

BENEDICK.

Pray thee, sweet Mistress Margaret, deserve well at my hands by helping me to the speech of Beatrice.

MARGARET.

Will you then write me a sonnet in praise of my beauty?

BENEDICK.

In so high a style, Margaret, that no man living shall come over it; for, in most comely truth, thou deservest it.

MARGARET.

To have no man come over me! why, shall I always keep below stairs?

BENEDICK.

Thy wit is as quick as the greyhound’s mouth; it catches.

MARGARET.

And yours as blunt as the fencer’s foils, which hit, but hurt not.

BENEDICK.

A most manly wit, Margaret; it will not hurt a woman: and so, I pray thee, call Beatrice. I give thee the bucklers.

MARGARET.

Give us the swords, we have bucklers of our own.

BENEDICK.

If you use them, Margaret, you must put in the pikes with a vice; and they are dangerous weapons for maids.

MARGARET.

Well, I will call Beatrice to you, who I think hath legs.

BENEDICK.

And therefore will come.

[Exit MARGARET.]

The god of love,

That sits above,

And knows me, and knows me,

How pitiful I deserve,—

I mean, in singing: but in loving, Leander the good swimmer, Troilus the first employer of panders, and a whole book full of these quondam carpet-mongers, whose names yet run smoothly in the even road of a blank verse, why, they were never so truly turned over and over as my poor self in love. Marry, I cannot show it in rime; I have tried: I can find out no rime to ‘lady’ but ‘baby’, an innocent rhyme; for ‘scorn,’ ‘horn’, a hard rime; for ‘school’, ‘fool’, a babbling rhyme; very ominous endings: no, I was not born under a riming planet, nor I cannot woo in festival terms.

[Enter BEATRICE.]

Sweet Beatrice, wouldst thou come when I called thee?

BEATRICE.

Yea, signior; and depart when you bid me.

BENEDICK.

O, stay but till then!

BEATRICE.

‘Then’ is spoken; fare you well now: and yet, ere I go, let me go with that I came for; which is, with knowing what hath passed between you and Claudio.

BENEDICK.

Only foul words; and thereupon I will kiss thee.

BEATRICE.

Foul words is but foul wind, and foul wind is but foul breath, and foul breath is noisome; therefore I will depart unkissed.

BENEDICK.

Thou hast frighted the word out of his right sense, so forcible is thy wit. But I must tell thee plainly, Claudio undergoes my challenge, and either I must shortly hear from him, or I will subscribe him a coward. And, I pray thee now, tell me, for which of my bad parts didst thou first fall in love with me?

BEATRICE.

For them all together; which maintained so politic a state of evil that they will not admit any good part to intermingle with them. But for which of my good parts did you first suffer love for me?

BENEDICK.

‘Suffer love,’ a good epithet! I do suffer love indeed, for I love thee against my will.

BEATRICE.

In spite of your heart, I think. Alas, poor heart! If you spite it for my sake, I will spite it for yours; for I will never love that which my friend hates.

BENEDICK.

Thou and I are too wise to woo peaceably.

BEATRICE.

It appears not in this confession: there’s not one wise man among twenty that will praise himself.

BENEDICK.

An old, an old instance, Beatrice, that lived in the time of good neighbours. If a man do not erect in this age his own tomb ere he dies, he shall live no longer in monument than the bell rings and the widow weeps.

BEATRICE.

And how long is that think you?

BENEDICK.

Question: why, an hour in clamour and a quarter in rheum: therefore is it most expedient for the wise,—if Don Worm, his conscience, find no impediment to the contrary,—to be the trumpet of his own virtues, as I am to myself. So much for praising myself, who, I myself will bear witness, is praiseworthy. And now tell me, how doth your cousin?

BEATRICE.

Very ill.

BENEDICK.

And how do you?

BEATRICE.

Very ill too.

BENEDICK.

Serve God, love me, and mend. There will I leave you too, for here comes one in haste.

[Enter URSULA.]

URSULA.

Madam, you must come to your uncle. Yonder’s old coil at home: it is proved, my Lady Hero hath been falsely accused, the prince and Claudio mightily abused; and Don John is the author of all, who is fled and gone. Will you come presently?

BEATRICE.

Will you go hear this news, signior?

BENEDICK.

I will live in thy heart, die in thy lap, and be buried in thy eyes; and moreover I will go with thee to thy uncle’s.

[Exeunt.]

Scene III. The Inside of a Church

[Enter DON PEDRO, CLAUDIO, and Attendants, with music and tapers]

CLAUDIO.

Is this the monument of Leonato?

A LORD.

It is, my lord.

CLAUDIO.

[Reads from a scroll.]

Done to death by slanderous tongues

Was the Hero that here lies:

Death, in guerdon of her wrongs,

Gives her fame which never dies.

So the life that died with shame

Lives in death with glorious fame.

Hang thou there upon the tomb,

Praising her when I am dumb.

Now, music, sound, and sing your solemn hymn.

SONG.

Pardon, goddess of the night,

Those that slew thy virgin knight;

For the which, with songs of woe,

Round about her tomb they go.

Midnight, assist our moan;

Help us to sigh and groan,

Heavily, heavily:

Graves, yawn and yield your dead,

Till death be uttered,

Heavily, heavily.

CLAUDIO.

Now, unto thy bones good night!

Yearly will I do this rite.

DON PEDRO.

Good morrow, masters: put your torches out.

The wolves have prey’d; and look, the gentle day,

Before the wheels of Phoebus, round about

Dapples the drowsy east with spots of grey.

Thanks to you all, and leave us: fare you well.

CLAUDIO.

Good morrow, masters: each his several way.

DON PEDRO.

Come, let us hence, and put on other weeds; And then to Leonato’s we will go.

CLAUDIO.

And Hymen now with luckier issue speed’s,

Than this for whom we rend’red up this woe!

[Exeunt.]

Scene IV. A Room in LEONATO’S House.

[Enter LEONATO, ANTONIO, BENEDICK, BEATRICE, MARGARET, URSULA, FRIAR FRANCIS, and HERO.]

FRIAR.

Did I not tell you she was innocent?

LEONATO.

So are the prince and Claudio, who accus’d her

Upon the error that you heard debated:

But Margaret was in some fault for this,

Although against her will, as it appears

In the true course of all the question.

ANTONIO.

Well, I am glad that all things sort so well.

BENEDICK.

And so am I, being else by faith enforc’d

To call young Claudio to a reckoning for it.

LEONATO.

Well, daughter, and you gentlewomen all,

Withdraw into a chamber by yourselves,

And when I send for you, come hither mask’d:

The prince and Claudio promis’d by this hour

To visit me.

[Exeunt Ladies.]

You know your office, brother;

You must be father to your brother’s daughter,

And give her to young Claudio.

ANTONIO.

Which I will do with confirm’d countenance.

BENEDICK.

Friar, I must entreat your pains, I think.

FRIAR.

To do what, signior?

BENEDICK.

To bind me, or undo me; one of them.

Signior Leonato, truth it is, good signior,

Your niece regards me with an eye of favour.

LEONATO.

That eye my daughter lent her: ’tis most true.

BENEDICK.

And I do with an eye of love requite her.

LEONATO.

The sight whereof I think, you had from me,

From Claudio, and the prince. But what’s your will?

BENEDICK.

Your answer, sir, is enigmatical:

But, for my will, my will is your good will

May stand with ours, this day to be conjoin’d In the state of honourable marriage:

In which, good friar, I shall desire your help.

LEONATO.

My heart is with your liking.

FRIAR.

And my help. Here comes the prince and Claudio.

[Enter DON PEDRO and CLAUDIO, with Attendants.]

DON PEDRO.

Good morrow to this fair assembly.

LEONATO.

Good morrow, prince; good morrow, Claudio:

We here attend you. Are you yet determin’d

To-day to marry with my brother’s daughter?

CLAUDIO.

I’ll hold my mind, were she an Ethiope.

LEONATO.

Call her forth, brother: here’s the friar ready.

[Exit ANTONIO.]

DON PEDRO.

Good morrow, Benedick. Why, what’s the matter,

That you have such a February face,

So full of frost, of storm and cloudiness?

CLAUDIO.

I think he thinks upon the savage bull.

Tush! fear not, man, we’ll tip thy horns with gold,

And all Europa shall rejoice at thee,

As once Europa did at lusty Jove,

When he would play the noble beast in love.

BENEDICK.

Bull Jove, sir, had an amiable low:

And some such strange bull leap’d your father’s cow,

And got a calf in that same noble feat,

Much like to you, for you have just his bleat.

CLAUDIO.

For this I owe you: here comes other reckonings.

[Re-enter ANTONIO, with the ladies masked.]

Which is the lady I must seize upon?

ANTONIO.

This same is she, and I do give you her.

CLAUDIO.

Why then, she’s mine. Sweet, let me see your face.

LEONATO.

No, that you shall not, till you take her hand

Before this friar, and swear to marry her.

CLAUDIO.

Give me your hand: before this holy friar,

I am your husband, if you like of me.

HERO.

And when I liv’d, I was your other wife:

[Unmasking.] And when you lov’d, you were my other husband.

CLAUDIO.

Another Hero!

HERO.

Nothing certainer:

One Hero died defil’d, but I do live,

And surely as I live, I am a maid.

DON PEDRO.

The former Hero! Hero that is dead!

LEONATO.

She died, my lord, but whiles her slander liv’d.

FRIAR.

All this amazement can I qualify:

When after that the holy rites are ended,

I’ll tell you largely of fair Hero’s death:

Meantime, let wonder seem familiar,

And to the chapel let us presently.

BENEDICK.

Soft and fair, friar. Which is Beatrice?

BEATRICE.

[Unmasking.] I answer to that name. What is your will?

BENEDICK.

Do not you love me?

BEATRICE.

Why, no; no more than reason.

BENEDICK.

Why, then, your uncle and the prince and Claudio

Have been deceived; for they swore you did.

BEATRICE.

Do not you love me?

BENEDICK.

Troth, no; no more than reason.

BEATRICE.

Why, then my cousin, Margaret, and Ursula,

Are much deceiv’d; for they did swear you did.

BENEDICK.

They swore that you were almost sick for me.

BEATRICE.

They swore that you were well-nigh dead for me.

BENEDICK.

Tis no such matter. Then you do not love me?

BEATRICE.

No, truly, but in friendly recompense.

LEONATO.

Come, cousin, I am sure you love the gentleman.

CLAUDIO.

And I’ll be sworn upon’t that he loves her;

For here’s a paper written in his hand, A halting sonnet of his own pure brain,

Fashion’d to Beatrice.

HERO.

And here’s another,

Writ in my cousin’s hand, stolen from her pocket,

Containing her affection unto Benedick.

BENEDICK.

A miracle! here’s our own hands against our hearts. Come, I will have thee; but, by this light, I take thee for pity.

BEATRICE.

I would not deny you; but, by this good day, I yield upon great persuasion, and partly to save your life, for I was told you were in a consumption.

BENEDICK.

Peace! I will stop your mouth. [Kisses her.]

DON PEDRO.

How dost thou, Benedick, the married man?

BENEDICK.

I’ll tell thee what, prince; a college of witcrackers cannout flout me out of my humour. Dost thou think I care for a satire or an epigram? No; if man will be beaten with brains, a’ shall wear nothing handsome about him. In brief, since I do purpose to marry, I will think nothing to any purpose that the world can say against it; and therefore never flout at me for what I have said against it, for man is a giddy thing, and this is my conclusion. For thy part, Claudio, I did think to have beaten thee; but, in that thou art like to be my kinsman, live unbruised, and love my cousin.

CLAUDIO.

I had well hoped thou wouldst have denied Beatrice, that I might have cudgelled thee out of thy single life, to make thee a double-dealer; which, out of question, thou wilt be, if my cousin do not look exceeding narrowly to thee.

BENEDICK.

Come, come, we are friends. Let’s have a dance ere we are married, that we may lighten our own hearts and our wives’ heels.

LEONATO.

We’ll have dancing afterward.

BENEDICK.

First, of my word; therefore play, music! Prince, thou art sad; get thee a wife, get thee a wife: there is no staff more reverent than one tipped with horn. [Enter Messenger.]

MESSENGER.

My lord, your brother John is ta’en in flight, And brought with armed men back to Messina.

BENEDICK.

Think not on him till to-morrow: I’ll devise thee brave punishments for him. Strike up, pipers!

[Dance. Exeunt.]

2.13.3 King Lear

Act I

Scene I. A Room of State in King Lear’s Palace

[Enter KENT, GLOUCESTER, and EDMUND]

KENT.

I thought the King had more affected the Duke of Albany than Cornwall.

GLOU.

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?

GLOU.

His breeding, sir, hath been at my charge: I have so often blush’d to acknowledge him that now I am braz’d to’t.

KENT.

I cannot conceive you.

GLOU.

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.

GLOU.

But I have, sir, a son by order of law, some year elder than this, who yet is no dearer in my account: though this knave came something saucily into 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?

EDM.

No, my lord.

GLOU.

My Lord of Kent: remember him hereafter as my honourable friend.

EDM.

My services to your lordship.

KENT.

I must love you, and sue to know you better.

EDM.

Sir, I shall study deserving.

GLOU.

He hath been out nine years, and away he shall again.—The king is coming.

[Sennet within.]

[Enter LEAR, CORNWALL, ALBANY, GONERIL, REGAN, CORDELIA, and ATTENDANTS.]

LEAR.

Attend the lords of France and Burgundy,

Gloucester.

GLOU.

I shall, my liege.

[Exeunt GLOUCESTER and EDMUND.]

LEAR.

Meantime we shall express our darker purpose.—

Give me the map there.—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

Unburden’d 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 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 answer’d.—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.

GON.

Sir, I love you more than words can wield the matter;

Dearer than eyesight, space, and liberty;

Beyond what can be valu’d, rich or rare;

No less than life, with grace, health, beauty, honour;

As much as child e’er lov’d, or father found;

A love that makes breath poor and speech unable;

Beyond all manner of so much I love you.

COR.

[Aside.] What shall Cordelia speak? Love, and be silent.

LEAR.

Of all these bounds, even from this line to this,

With shadowy forests and with champains rich’d,

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 to Cornwall? Speak.

REG.

Sir, I am made of the selfsame metal that my sister is,

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.

COR.

[Aside.] Then poor Cordelia!

And yet not so; since, I am sure, my love’s

More richer 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 conferr’d on Goneril.—Now, our joy,

Although the last, not least; to whose young love

The vines of France and milk of Burgundy

Strive to be interess’d; what can you say to draw

A third more opulent than your sisters? Speak.

COR.

Nothing, my lord.

LEAR.

Nothing!

COR.

Nothing.

LEAR.

Nothing can 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; no more nor less.

LEAR.

How, how, Cordelia! mend your speech a little,

Lest you may mar your fortunes.

COR.

Good my lord,

You have begot me, bred me, lov’d 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

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:

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 for ever. The barbarous Scythian,

Or he that makes his generation messes

To gorge his appetite, shall to my bosom

Be as well neighbour’d, pitied, and reliev’d,

As thou my sometime daughter.

KENT.

Good my liege,—

LEAR.

Peace, Kent!

Come not between the dragon and his wrath.

I lov’d her most, and thought to set my rest On her kind nursery.—Hence, and avoid my sight!—[To Cordelia.] So be my grave my peace, as here I give

Her father’s heart from her!—Call France;—who stirs?

Call Burgundy!—Cornwall and Albany,

With my two daughters’ dowers digest this third:

Let pride, which she calls plainness, marry her.

I do invest you jointly in my power,

Pre-eminence, and all the large effects

That troop with majesty.—Ourself, by monthly course,

With reservation of an hundred knights,

By you to be sustain’d, shall our abode

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,

Lov’d 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 wouldst thou do, old man?

Think’st thou that duty shall have dread to speak

When power to flattery bows? To plainness honour’s bound When majesty falls to folly. Reverse 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 sound

Reverbs 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 the 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!

[Laying his hand on his sword.]

ALB. and CORN.

Dear sir, forbear!

KENT.

Do;

Kill thy physician, and the fee bestow

Upon the foul disease. Revoke thy gift,

Or, whilst I can vent clamour from my throat,

I’ll tell thee thou dost evil.

LEAR.

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 revok’d.

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 REGAN and GONERIL.]

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.

[Exit.]

[Flourish. Re-enter GLOUCESTER, with FRANCE, BURGUNDY, and ATTENDANTS.]

GLOU.

Here’s France and Burgundy, my noble lord.

LEAR.

My Lord of Burgundy,

We first address toward you, who with this king

Hath rivall’d for our daughter: what in the least

Will you require in present dower with her,

Or cease your quest of love?

BUR.

Most royal majesty,

I crave no more than hath your highness offer’d,

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 fall’n. Sir, there she stands:

If aught within that little seeming substance,

Or all of it, with our displeasure piec’d,

And nothing more, may fitly like your grace,

She’s there, and she is yours.

BUR.

I know no answer.

LEAR.

Will you, with those infirmities she owes,

Unfriended, new-adopted to our hate,

Dower’d with our curse, and stranger’d with our oath,

Take her, or leave her?

BUR.

Pardon me, royal sir;

Election makes not up on such conditions.

LEAR.

Then leave her, sir; for, by the power that made me,

I tell you all her wealth.—[To France] For you, great king, I would not from your love make such a stray

To match you where I hate; therefore beseech you

To avert your liking a more worthier way

Than on a wretch whom nature is asham’d

Almost to acknowledge hers.

FRANCE.

This is most strange,

That she, who even but now was your best object,

The argument of your praise, balm of your age,

Most best, most dearest, should in this trice of time

Commit a thing so monstrous, to dismantle

So many folds of favour. Sure her offence

Must be of such unnatural degree

That monsters it, or your fore-vouch’d affection

Fall’n into taint; which to believe of her

Must be a faith that reason without miracle

Should never plant in me.

COR.

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 dishonour’d step,

That hath depriv’d me of your grace and favour;

But even for want of that for which I am richer,—

A still-soliciting eye, and such a tongue

As 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 to have pleas’d 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 the entire point. Will you have her?

She is herself a dowry.

BUR.

Royal king,

Give but that portion which yourself propos’d,

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!

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 lov’d, despis’d!

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 inflam’d respect.—

Thy dowerless daughter, king, thrown to my chance,

Is queen of us, of ours, and our fair France:

Not all the dukes of waterish Burgundy

Can buy this unpriz’d 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 LEAR, BURGUNDY, CORNWALL, ALBANY, GLOUCESTER, and ATTENDANTS.]

FRANCE.

Bid farewell to your sisters.

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 nam’d. Love 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

Be to content your lord, who hath receiv’d you

At fortune’s alms. You have obedience scanted,

And well are worth the want that you have wanted.

COR.

Time shall unfold what plighted 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 little I have to say of what most nearly

appertains to us both. I think our father will hence to-night.

REG.

That’s most certain, and with you; next month with us.

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 judgment 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 long-ingraffed 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 leave-taking between France and him. Pray you let us hit together: if our father carry authority with such dispositions as he bears, this last surrender of his will but offend us.

REG.

We shall further think of it.

GON.

We must do something, and i’ th’ heat.

[Exeunt.]

Scene II. A Hall in 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

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 in choler parted!

And the king gone to-night! subscrib’d his pow’r!

Confin’d to exhibition! All this done

Upon the gad!—Edmund, how now! What news?

EDM.

So please your lordship, none.

[Putting up the letter.]

GLOU.

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’er-read; and for so much as I have perus’d, I find it not fit for your o’erlooking.

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.

GLOU.

It is his.

EDM.

It is his hand, my lord; but I hope his heart is not in the

contents.

GLOU.

Hath he never before 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 declined, 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 should 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 writ this to feel my affection to your honour, and to no other pretence of danger.

GLOU.

Think you so?

EDM.

If your honour 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.

GLOU.

He cannot be such a monster.

EDM.

Nor is not, sure.

GLOU.

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.

EDM.

I will seek him, sir, presently; convey the business as I shall find means, and acquaint you withal.

GLOU.

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 offence, honesty!—’Tis strange.

[Exit.]

EDM.

This is the excellent foppery of the world, that, when we are sick in fortune,—often the surfeit of our own behaviour,—we make guilty of our disasters the sun, the moon, and the stars; as if we were villains on necessity; fools by heavenly compulsion; knaves, thieves, and treachers by spherical pre-dominance; 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 to 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.—Tut! I should have been that I am, had the maidenliest star in the firmament twinkled on my bastardizing.

[Enter Edgar.]

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.

EDG.

How now, brother Edmund! what serious contemplation are you in?

EDM.

I am thinking, brother, of a prediction I read this other day, what should follow these eclipses.

EDG.

Do you busy yourself with that?

EDM.

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.

EDG.

How long have you been a sectary astronomical?

EDM.

Come, come! when saw you my father last?

EDG.

The night gone by.

EDM.

Spake you with him?

EDG.

Ay, two hours together.

EDM.

Parted you in good terms? Found you no displeasure in him by word or countenance?

EDG.

None at all.

EDM.

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.

EDG.

Some villain hath done me wrong.

EDM.

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.

EDG.

Armed, brother!

EDM.

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!

EDG.

Shall I hear from you anon?

EDM.

I do serve you in this business.

[Exit Edgar.]

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.

[Exit.]

Scene III. A Room in the Duke of Albany’s Palace.

[Enter Goneril and Oswald.]

GON.

Did my father strike my gentleman for chiding of his fool?

OSW.

Ay, madam.

GON.

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.

OSW.

He’s coming, madam; I hear him.

[Horns within.]

GON.

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 our 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 us’d

With checks as flatteries,—when they are seen abus’d.

Remember what I have said.

OSW.

Very well, madam.

GON.

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.

[Exeunt.]

Scene IV. A Hall in Albany’s Palace.

[Enter Kent, disguised.]

KENT.

If but as well I other accents borrow,

That can my speech defuse, my good intent

May carry through itself to that full issue

For which I rais’d my likeness.—Now, banish’d Kent,

If thou canst serve where thou dost stand condemn’d,

So may it come, thy master, whom thou lov’st,

Shall find thee full of labours.

[Horns within. Enter King Lear, Knights, and Attendants.]

LEAR.

Let me not stay a jot for dinner; go get it ready.

[Exit an Attendant.]

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 thou 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. [Exit an attendant.]

[Enter Oswald.]

You, you, sirrah, where’s my daughter?

OSW.

So please you,—

[Exit.]

LEAR.

What says the fellow there? Call the clotpoll back.—

[Exit a KNIGHT.]

Where’s my fool, ho?—I think the world’s asleep.

[Re-enter KNIGHT.]

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 dependants as in the duke himself also and your daughter.

LEAR.

Ha! say’st 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 rememberest 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 pretence 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.—

[Exit Attendant.]

Go you, call hither my fool.

[Exit another Attendant.]

[Re-enter Oswald.]

O, you, sir, you, come you hither, sir: who am I, sir?

OSW.

My lady’s father.

LEAR.

My lady’s father! my lord’s knave: you whoreson dog! you slave! you cur!

OSW.

I am none of these, my lord; I beseech your pardon.

LEAR.

Do you bandy looks with me, you rascal?

[Striking him.]

OSW.

I’ll not be struck, my lord.

KENT.

Nor tripp’d neither, you base football player.

[Tripping up his heels.]

LEAR.

I thank thee, fellow; thou servest me, and I’ll love thee.

KENT.

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.

[Pushes Oswald out.]

LEAR.

Now, my friendly knave, I thank thee: there’s earnest of thy service.

[Giving Kent money.]

[Enter FOOL.]

FOOL.

Let me hire him too; here’s my coxcomb.

[Giving Kent his cap.]

LEAR.

How now, my pretty knave! how dost thou?

FOOL.

Sirrah, you were best take my coxcomb.

KENT.

Why, fool?

FOOL.

Why, for taking one’s part that’s out of favour. Nay, an thou canst not smile as the wind sits, thou’lt catch cold shortly: there, take my coxcomb: why, this fellow hath banish’d 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 the 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;

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] Pr’ythee tell him, so much the rent of his land

comes to: he will not believe a fool.

LEAR.

A bitter fool!

FOOL.

Dost thou know the difference, my boy, between a bitter fool and a sweet one?

LEAR.

No, lad; teach me.

FOOL.

That lord that counsell’d 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 loads 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’ the middle and eat up the

meat, the two crowns of the egg. When thou clovest thy crown i’ the middle and gav’st away both parts, thou borest thine ass on thy back o’er the dirt: thou hadst little wit in thy bald crown when thou gavest thy golden one away. If I speak like myself in this, let him be whipped that first finds it so.

[Singing.]

Fools had ne’er less wit 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 puttest down thine own breeches,

[Singing.]

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.

Pr’ythee, 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’ the 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’ the 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; I am a fool, thou art nothing.—Yes, forsooth, I will hold my tongue. So your face [To Goneril.] bids me, though you say nothing. Mum, mum, He that keeps nor crust nor crum,

Weary of all, shall want some.—

[Pointing to LEAR.] That’s a shealed peascod.

GON.

Not only, sir, this your all-licens’d fool,

But other of your insolent retinue

Do hourly carp and quarrel; breaking forth

In rank and not-to-be-endured 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 offence

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 had it head bit off by it young.

So out went the candle, and we were left darkling.

LEAR.

Are you our daughter?

GON.

Come, sir,

I would you would make use of that good wisdom,

Whereof I know you are fraught; and put away

These dispositions, that of late transform you

From what you rightly are.

FOOL.

May not an ass know when the cart draws the horse?—Whoop, Jug! I love thee!

LEAR.

Doth any here know me?—This is not Lear;

Doth 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?

GON.

This admiration, sir, is much o’ the favour

Of other your new pranks. I do beseech you

To understand my purposes aright:

As you are old and reverend, you should be wise.

Here do you keep a hundred knights and squires;

Men so disorder’d, so debosh’d, and bold

That this our court, infected with their manners,

Shows like a riotous inn: epicurism and lust

Make it more like a tavern or a brothel

Than a grac’d palace. The shame itself doth speak

For instant remedy: be, then, desir’d

By her that else will take the thing she begs

A little to disquantity your train;

And the remainder, 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.—

Degenerate bastard! I’ll not trouble thee:

Yet have I left a daughter.

GON.

You strike my people; and your disorder’d rabble

Make servants of their betters.

[Enter Albany.]

LEAR.

Woe that too late repents!—

[To Albany.] O, sir, are you come?

Is it your will? Speak, sir.—Prepare my horses.—

Ingratitude, thou marble-hearted fiend,

More hideous when thou show’st thee in a child

Than the sea-monster!

ALB.

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, wrench’d my frame of nature

From the fix’d place; drew from my heart all love,

And added to the gall. O Lear, Lear, Lear!

Beat at this gate that let thy folly in [Striking his head.]

And thy dear judgment out!—Go, go, my people.

ALB.

My lord, I am guiltless, as I am ignorant

Of what hath mov’d 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 honour her! If she must teem,

Create her child of spleen, that it may live And be a thwart disnatur’d 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!

[Exit.]

ALB.

Now, gods that we adore, whereof comes this?

GON.

Never afflict yourself to know more of it;

But let his disposition have that scope

That dotage gives it.

[Re-enter LEAR.]

LEAR.

What, fifty of my followers at a clap!

Within a fortnight!

ALB.

What’s the matter, sir?

LEAR.

I’ll tell thee.—Life and death!—[To Goneril] I am asham’d 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 lose,

To temper clay. 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 for ever.

[Exeunt Lear, Kent, and Attendants.]

GON.

Do you mark that?

ALB.

I cannot be so partial, Goneril,

To the great love I bear you,—

GON.

Pray you, content.—What, Oswald, ho!

[To the Fool] 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.

[Exit.]

GON.

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!—

ALB.

Well, you may fear too far.

GON.

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 utter’d I have writ my sister:

If she sustain him and his hundred knights,

When I have show’d th’ unfitness,—

[Re-enter Oswald.]

How now, Oswald!

What, have you writ that letter to my sister?

OSW.

Ay, madam.

GON.

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.

[Exit Oswald.]

No, no, my lord!

This milky gentleness and course of yours,

Though I condemn it not, yet, under pardon,

You are much more attask’d for want of wisdom

Than prais’d for harmful mildness.

ALB.

How far your eyes may pierce I cannot tell:

Striving to better, oft we mar what’s well.

GON.

Nay then,—

ALB.

Well, well; the event.

[Exeunt.]

Scene V. Court before the Duke of Albany’s Palace.

[Enter Lear, Kent, and FOOL.]

LEAR.

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.

[Exit.]

FOOL.

If a man’s brains were in’s heels, were’t not in danger of kibes?

LEAR.

Ay, boy.

FOOL.

Then I pr’ythee 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’ll taste as like this as a crab does to a crab. Thou

canst tell why one’s nose stands i’ the 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?

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 tak’t again perforce!—Monster ingratitude!

FOOL.

If thou wert my fool, nuncle, I’ld 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?

GENT.

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.

[Exeunt.]

Act II

Scene I. A court within the Castle of the Earl of Gloucester. [Enter Edmund and Curan, meeting.]

EDM.

Save thee, Curan.

CUR.

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.

EDM.

How comes that?

CUR.

Nay, I know not.—You have heard of the news abroad; I mean the whispered ones, for they are yet but ear-kissing arguments?

EDM.

Not I: pray you, what are they?

CUR.

Have you heard of no likely wars toward, ’twixt the two dukes of Cornwall and Albany?

EDM.

Not a word.

CUR.

You may do, then, in time. Fare you well, sir.

[Exit.]

EDM.

The Duke be here to-night? 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:—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’ the night, i’ the haste,

And Regan with him: have you nothing said

Upon his party ’gainst the Duke of Albany?

Advise yourself.

EDG.

I am sure on’t, not a word.

EDM.

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.—

Yield:—come before my father.—Light, ho, here!

Fly, brother.—Torches, torches!—So farewell.

[Exit Edgar.]

Some blood drawn on me would beget opinion

Of my more fierce endeavour: [Wounds his arm.]

I have seen drunkards

Do more than this in sport.—Father, father!

Stop, stop! No help?

[Enter Gloucester, and Servants with torches.]

GLOU.

Now, Edmund, where’s the villain?

EDM.

Here stood he in the dark, his sharp sword out,

Mumbling of wicked charms, conjuring the moon

To stand auspicious mistress,—

GLOU.

But where is he?

EDM.

Look, sir, I bleed.

GLOU.

Where is the villain, Edmund?

EDM.

Fled this way, sir. When by no means he could,—

GLOU.

Pursue him, ho!—Go after.

[Exeunt Servants.]

—By no means what?

EDM.

Persuade me to the murder of your lordship;

But that I told him the revenging gods

’Gainst parricides did all their thunders bend;

Spoke with how manifold and strong a bond

The child was bound to the father;—sir, in fine,

Seeing how loathly opposite I stood

To his unnatural purpose, in fell motion

With his prepared sword, he charges home

My unprovided body, lanc’d mine arm;

But when he saw my best alarum’d spirits,

Bold in the quarrel’s right, rous’d to the encounter,

Or whether gasted by the noise I made,

Full suddenly he fled.

GLOU.

Let him fly far;

Not in this land shall he remain uncaught;

And found—dispatch’d.—The noble duke my master,

My worthy arch and patron, comes to-night:

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.

EDM.

When I dissuaded him from his intent,

And found him pight to do it, with curst speech

I threaten’d 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 faith’d? No: what I should deny

As this I would; ay, though thou didst produce

My very character, I’d turn it all

To thy suggestion, plot, and damned 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.’

GLOU.

Strong and fast’ned villain!

Would he deny his letter?—I never got him.

[Trumpets 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.]

CORN.

How now, my noble friend! since I came hither,—

Which I can call but now,—I have heard strange news.

REG.

If it be true, all vengeance comes too short

Which can pursue the offender. How dost, my lord?

GLOU.

O madam, my old heart is crack’d,—it’s crack’d!

REG.

What, did my father’s godson seek your life?

He whom my father nam’d? your Edgar?

GLOU.

O lady, lady, shame would have it hid!

REG.

Was he not companion with the riotous knights

That tend upon my father?

GLOU.

I know not, madam:—

It is too bad, too bad.

EDM.

Yes, madam, he was of that consort.

REG.

No marvel then though he were ill affected:

’Tis they have put him on the old man’s death,

To have the expense and waste of his revenues.

I have this present evening from my sister

Been well inform’d of them; and with such cautions

That if they come to sojourn at my house,

I’ll not be there.

CORN.

Nor I, assure thee, Regan.—

Edmund, I hear that you have shown your father

A childlike office.

EDM.

’Twas my duty, sir.

GLOU.

He did bewray his practice; and receiv’d

This hurt you see, striving to apprehend him.

CORN.

Is he pursu’d?

GLOU.

Ay, my good lord.

CORN.

If he be taken, he shall never more

Be fear’d 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.

EDM.

I shall serve you, sir,

Truly, however else.

GLOU.

For him I thank your grace.

CORN.

You know not why we came to visit you,—

REG.

Thus out of season, threading dark-ey’d 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 despatch. Our good old friend,

Lay comforts to your bosom; and bestow

Your needful counsel to our business,

Which craves the instant use.

GLOU.

I serve you, madam:

Your graces are right welcome.

[Exeunt.]

Scene II. Before Gloucester’s Castle.

[Enter Kent and Oswald, severally.]

OSW.

Good dawning to thee, friend: art of this house?

KENT.

Ay.

OSW.

Where may we set our horses?

KENT.

I’ the mire.

OSW.

Pr’ythee, if thou lov’st me, tell me.

KENT.

I love thee not.

OSW.

Why then, I care not for thee.

KENT.

If I had thee in Lipsbury pinfold, I would make thee care for me.

OSW.

Why dost thou use me thus? I know thee not.

KENT.

Fellow, I know thee.

OSW.

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 denyest the least syllable of thy addition.

OSW.

Why, what a monstrous fellow art thou, thus to rail on one that’s 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 beat thee and tripped up thy heels before the king? Draw, you rogue: for, though it be night, yet the moon shines; I’ll make a sop o’ the moonshine of you: draw, you whoreson cullionly barbermonger, draw!

[Drawing his sword.]

OSW.

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!

OSW.

Help, ho! murder! help!

KENT.

Strike, you slave; stand, rogue, stand; you neat slave, strike! [Beating him.]

OSW.

Help, ho! murder! murder!

[Enter Edmund, Cornwall, Regan, Gloucester, and Servants.]

EDM.

How now! What’s the matter?

KENT.

With you, goodman boy, an you please: come, I’ll flesh you; come on, young master.

GLOU.

Weapons! arms! What’s the matter here?

CORN.

Keep peace, upon your lives;

He dies that strikes again. What is the matter?

REG.

The messengers from our sister and the king.

CORN.

What is your difference? speak.

OSW.

I am scarce in breath, my lord.

KENT.

No marvel, you have so bestirr’d your valour. You cowardly rascal, nature disclaims in thee; a tailor made thee.

CORN.

Thou art a strange fellow: a tailor make a man?

KENT.

Ay, a tailor, sir: a stonecutter or a painter could not have

made him so ill, though he had been but two hours at the trade.

CORN.

Speak yet, how grew your quarrel?

OSW.

This ancient ruffian, sir, whose life I have spared at suit of his grey beard,—

KENT.

Thou whoreson zed! thou unnecessary letter!—My lord, if you’ll give me leave, I will tread this unbolted villain into mortar and daub the walls of a jakes with him.—Spare my grey beard, you wagtail?

CORN.

Peace, sirrah!

You beastly knave, know you no reverence?

KENT.

Yes, sir; but anger hath a privilege.

CORN.

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 a-twain

Which are too intrinse t’ unloose; smooth every passion

That in the natures of their lords rebel;

Bring oil to fire, snow to their 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, an I had you upon Sarum plain,

I’d drive ye cackling home to Camelot.

CORN.

What, art thou mad, old fellow?

GLOU.

How fell you out?

Say that.

KENT.

No contraries hold more antipathy

Than I and such a knave.

CORN.

Why dost thou call him knave? What is his fault?

KENT.

His countenance likes me not.

CORN.

No more perchance does mine, or his, or 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.

CORN.

This is some fellow

Who, having been prais’d 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

Harbour 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 the allowance of your great aspect,

Whose influence, like the wreath of radiant fire

On flickering Phoebus’ front,—

CORN.

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.

CORN.

What was the offence you gave him?

OSW.

I never gave him any:

It pleas’d the king his master very late

To strike at me, upon his misconstruction;

When he, compact, and flattering his displeasure,

Tripp’d me behind; being down, insulted, rail’d

And put upon him such a deal of man,

That worthied him, got praises of the king

For him attempting who was self-subdu’d;

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.

CORN.

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.

CORN.

Fetch forth the stocks!—As I have life and honour,

there shall he sit till noon.

REG.

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.

REG.

Sir, being his knave, I will.

CORN.

This is a fellow of the self-same colour

Our sister speaks of.—Come, bring away the stocks!

[Stocks brought out.]

GLOU.

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 purpos’d low correction

Is such as basest and contemned’st wretches

For pilferings and most common trespasses,

Are punish’d with: the king must take it ill

That he, so slightly valu’d in his messenger,

Should have him thus restrain’d.

CORN.

I’ll answer that.

REG.

My sister may receive it much more worse,

To have her gentleman abus’d, assaulted,

For following her affairs.—Put in his legs.—

[Kent is put in the stocks.]

Come, my good lord, away.

[Exeunt all but Gloucester and KENT.]

GLOU.

I am sorry for thee, friend; ’tis the duke’s pleasure,

Whose disposition, all the world well knows,

Will not be rubb’d nor stopp’d; I’ll entreat for thee.

KENT.

Pray do not, sir: I have watch’d, and travell’d 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!

GLOU.

The duke’s to blame in this: ’twill be ill taken.

[Exit.]

KENT.

Good king, that must approve the common saw,—

Thou out of heaven’s benediction com’st

To the warm sun!

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 inform’d

Of my obscured course; and shall find time

From this enormous state,—seeking to give

Losses their remedies,—All weary and o’erwatch’d,

Take vantage, heavy eyes, not to behold

This shameful lodging.

Fortune, good night: smile once more, turn thy wheel!

[He sleeps.]

Scene III. The open Country.

[Enter Edgar.]

EDG.

I heard myself proclaim’d;

And by the happy hollow of a tree

Escap’d the hunt. No port is free; no place

That guard and most unusual vigilance

Does not attend my taking. While 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 hair 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 numb’d and mortified bare arms

Pins, wooden pricks, nails, sprigs of rosemary;

And with this horrible object, from low farms,

Poor pelting villages, sheep-cotes, and mills, Sometime with lunatic bans, sometime with prayers,

Enforce their charity.—Poor Turlygod! poor Tom!

That’s something yet:—Edgar I nothing am.

[Exit.]

Scene IV. Before Gloucester’s Castle; Kent in the stocks. [Enter Lear, Fool, and Gentleman.]

LEAR.

’Tis strange that they should so depart from home,

And not send back my messenger.

GENT.

As I learn’d,

The night before there was no purpose in them

Of this remove.

KENT.

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

head; dogs and bears by the neck, monkeys by the loins, and men by the legs: when a man is over-lusty at legs, then he wears wooden nether-stocks.

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 would not, could not do’t; ‘tis worse than murder,

To do upon respect such violent outrage:

Resolve me, with all modest haste, which way

Thou mightst 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 show’d

My duty kneeling, came there a reeking post,

Stew’d in his haste, half breathless, panting forth

From Goneril his mistress salutations;

Deliver’d letters, spite of intermission,

Which presently they read: on whose contents,

They summon’d 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 perceiv’d had poison’d mine,—

Being the very fellow which of late

Display’d so saucily against your highness,—

Having more man than wit about me, drew:

He rais’d 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 dolours 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.

Follow me not;

Stay here.

[Exit.]

GENT.

Made you no more offence but what you speak of?

KENT.

None.

How chance the king comes with so small a number?

FOOL.

An thou hadst been set i’ the stocks for that question,

thou hadst well deserved it.

KENT.

Why, fool?

FOOL.

We’ll set thee to school to an ant, to teach thee there’s no

labouring in the 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 it; but the great one that goes up the hill, 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,

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, perdy.

KENT.

Where learn’d you this, fool?

FOOL.

Not i’ the stocks, fool.

[Re-enter Lear, with Gloucester.]

LEAR.

Deny to speak with me? They are sick? they are weary?

They have travell’d all the night? Mere fetches;

The images of revolt and flying off.

Fetch me a better answer.

GLOU.

My dear lord,

You know the fiery quality of the duke;

How unremovable and fix’d 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.

GLOU.

Well, my good lord, I have inform’d them so.

LEAR.

Inform’d them! Dost thou understand me, man?

GLOU.

Ay, my good lord.

LEAR.

The King would speak with Cornwall; the dear father

Would with his daughter speak, commands her service:

Are they inform’d of this?—My breath and blood!—

Fiery? the fiery duke?—Tell the hot duke that—

No, but not yet: may be 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.—Death on my state! Wherefore

[Looking on KENT.]

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.’

GLOU.

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.

CORN.

Hail to your grace!

[Kent is set at liberty.]

REG.

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!

REG.

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?

REG.

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!

REG.

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.’

REG.

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!

CORN.

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!

REG.

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.

REG.

Good sir, to the purpose.

LEAR.

Who put my man i’ the stocks?

[Tucket within.]

CORN.

What trumpet’s that?

REG.

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!

CORN.

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?

GON.

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?

CORN.

I set him there, sir: but his own disorders

Deserv’d much less advancement.

LEAR.

You? did you?

REG.

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.]

GON.

At your choice, sir.

LEAR.

I pr’ythee, 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, an embossed carbuncle

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

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

I do not bid the thunder-bearer shoot

Nor tell tales of thee to high-judging Jove:

Mend when thou canst; be better at thy leisure:

I can be patient; I can stay with Regan,

I and my hundred knights.

REG.

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?

REG.

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.

GON.

Why might not you, my lord, receive attendance

From those that she calls servants, or from mine?

REG.

Why not, my lord? If then they chanc’d 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,—

REG.

And in good time you gave it.

LEAR.

Made you my guardians, my depositaries;

But kept a reservation to be follow’d

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

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

REG.

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.

GON.

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?

REG.

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

Shall break into a hundred thousand flaws

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

[Exeunt Lear, Gloucester, Kent, and FOOL. Storm heard at a distance.]

CORN.

Let us withdraw; ’twill be a storm.

REG.

This house is little: the old man and his people

Cannot be well bestow’d.

GON.

’Tis his own blame; hath put himself from rest

And must needs taste his folly.

REG.

For his particular, I’ll receive him gladly,

But not one follower.

GON.

So am I purpos’d.

Where is my lord of Gloucester?

CORN.

Followed the old man forth:—he is return’d.

[Re-enter Gloucester.]

GLOU.

The king is in high rage.

CORN.

Whither is he going?

GLOU.

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

CORN.

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

GON.

My lord, entreat him by no means to stay.

GLOU.

Alack, the night comes on, and the high winds

Do sorely ruffle; for many miles about

There’s scarce a bush.

REG.

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.

CORN.

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, meeting.]

KENT.

Who’s there, besides foul weather?

GENT.

One minded like the weather, most unquietly.

KENT.

I know you. Where’s the king?

GENT.

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?

GENT.

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 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.

GENT.

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.

GENT.

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 severally.]

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 nether 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 pother 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 man 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 hey, ho, the wind and the rain,—

Must make content with his fortunes fit,

For 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 cutpurses 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.]

GLOU.

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, nor any way sustain him.

EDM.

Most savage and unnatural!

GLOU.

Go to; say you nothing. There is division betwixt 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 seek 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.]

EDM.

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.

Pr’ythee 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.

EDG.

[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.]

EDG.

Away! the foul fiend follows me!—

Through the sharp hawthorn blows the cold wind.—

Hum! go to thy cold bed, and warm thee.

LEAR.

Didst thou give all to thy two daughters?

And art thou come to this?

EDG.

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.

EDG.

Pillicock sat on Pillicock-hill:—

Halloo, halloo, loo loo!

FOOL.

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

EDG.

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?

EDG.

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 brothel, thy hand out of placket, 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.

Pr’ythee, 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.

EDG.

This is the foul fiend Flibbertigibbet: he begins at curfew, and walks till the first cock; he gives the web and the pin,

squints the eye, and makes the harelip; mildews the white wheat, and hurts the poor creature of earth.

Swithold footed thrice the old;

He met the nightmare, and her nine-fold;

Bid her alight

And her troth plight,

And aroint thee, witch, aroint thee!

KENT.

How fares your grace?

[Enter Gloucester with a torch.]

LEAR.

What’s he?

KENT.

Who’s there? What is’t you seek?

GLOU.

What are you there? Your names?

EDG.

Poor Tom; that eats the swimming frog, the toad, the todpole, the wall-newt and the water; that in the fury of his heart, when the foul fiend rages, eats cow-dung for sallets; swallows the old rat and the ditch-dog; drinks the green mantle of the standing pool; who is whipped from tithing to tithing, and stocked, punished, and imprisoned; who hath had three suits to his back, six shirts to his body, horse to ride, and weapons to wear;— But mice and rats, and such small deer,

Have been Tom’s food for seven long year.

Beware my follower.—Peace, Smulkin; peace, thou fiend!

GLOU.

What, hath your grace no better company?

EDG.

The prince of darkness is a gentleman:

Modo he’s call’d, and Mahu.

GLOU.

Our flesh and blood, my lord, is grown so vile

That it doth hate what gets it.

EDG.

Poor Tom’s a-cold.

GLOU.

Go in with me: my duty cannot suffer

To obey in all your daughters’ hard commands;

Though their injunction be to bar my doors,

And let this tyrannous night take hold upon you,

Yet have I ventur’d to come seek you out

And bring you where both fire and food is ready.

LEAR.

First let me talk with this philosopher.—

What is the cause of thunder?

KENT.

Good my lord, take his offer; go into the house.

LEAR.

I’ll talk a word with this same learned Theban.—

What is your study?

EDG.

How to prevent the fiend and to kill vermin.

LEAR.

Let me ask you one word in private.

KENT.

Importune him once more to go, my lord;

His wits begin to unsettle.

GLOU.

Canst thou blame him?

His daughters seek his death:—ah, that good Kent!—

He said it would be thus,—poor banish’d man!—

Thou say’st the king grows mad; I’ll tell thee, friend,

I am almost mad myself: I had a son,

Now outlaw’d from my blood; he sought my life

But lately, very late: I lov’d him, friend,—

No father his son dearer: true to tell thee,

[Storm continues.]

The grief hath craz’d my wits.—What a night’s this!—

I do beseech your grace,—

LEAR.

O, cry you mercy, sir.—

Noble philosopher, your company.

EDG.

Tom’s a-cold.

GLOU.

In, fellow, there, into the hovel; keep thee warm.

LEAR.

Come, let’s in all.

KENT.

This way, my lord.

LEAR.

With him;

I will keep still with my philosopher.

KENT.

Good my lord, soothe him; let him take the fellow.

GLOU.

Take him you on.

KENT.

Sirrah, come on; go along with us.

LEAR.

Come, good Athenian.

GLOU.

No words, no words: hush.

EDG.

Child Rowland to the dark tower came,

His word was still—Fie, foh, and fum,

I smell the blood of a British man.

[Exeunt.]

Scene V. A Room in Gloucester’s Castle.

[Enter Cornwall and Edmund.]

CORN.

I will have my revenge ere I depart his house.

EDM.

How, my lord, I may be censured, that nature thus gives way to loyalty, something fears me to think of.

CORN.

I now perceive it was not altogether your brother’s evil

disposition made him seek his death; but a provoking merit, set a-work by a reproveable badness in himself.

EDM.

How malicious is my fortune, that I must repent to be just! This is the letter he spoke of, which approves him an intelligent party to the advantages of France. O heavens! that this treason were not—or not I the detector!

CORN.

Go with me to the duchess.

EDM.

If the matter of this paper be certain, you have mighty business in hand.

CORN.

True or false, it hath made thee earl of Gloucester. Seek out where thy father is, that he may be ready for our apprehension.

EDM.

[Aside.] If I find him comforting the king, it will stuff his

suspicion more fully.—I will persever in my course of loyalty, though the conflict be sore between that and my blood.

CORN.

I will lay trust upon thee; and thou shalt find a dearer father in my love.

[Exeunt.]

Scene VI. A Chamber in a Farmhouse adjoining the Castle. [Enter Gloucester, Lear, Kent, Fool, and Edgar.]

GLOU.

Here is better than the open air; take it thankfully. I will

piece out the comfort with what addition I can: I will not be long from you.

KENT.

All the power of his wits have given way to his impatience:— the gods reward your kindness!

[Exit Gloucester.]

EDG.

Frateretto calls me; and tells me Nero is an angler in the lake of darkness.—Pray, innocent, and beware the foul fiend.

FOOL.

Pr’ythee, nuncle, tell me whether a madman be a gentleman or a yeoman.

LEAR.

A king, a king!

FOOL.

No, he’s a yeoman that has a gentleman to his son; for he’s a mad yeoman that sees his son a gentleman before him.

LEAR.

To have a thousand with red burning spits

Come hissing in upon ’em,—

EDG.

The foul fiend bites my back.

FOOL.

He’s mad that trusts in the tameness of a wolf, a horse’s health, a boy’s love, or a whore’s oath.

LEAR.

It shall be done; I will arraign them straight.—

[To Edgar.] Come, sit thou here, most learned justicer—

[To the FOOL.] Thou, sapient sir, sit here. Now, you she-foxes!—

EDG.

Look, where he stands and glares!—Want’st thou eyes at trial, madam?

Come o’er the bourn, Bessy, to me,—

FOOL.

Her boat hath a leak,

And she must not speak

Why she dares not come over to thee.

EDG.

The foul fiend haunts poor Tom in the voice of a nightingale. Hoppedance cries in Tom’s belly for two white herring. Croak not, black angel; I have no food for thee.

KENT.

How do you, sir? Stand you not so amaz’d;

Will you lie down and rest upon the cushions?

LEAR.

I’ll see their trial first.—Bring in their evidence.

[To Edgar.] Thou, robed man of justice, take thy place;—

[To the FOOL.] And thou, his yokefellow of equity, Bench by his side:—[To KENT.] you are o’ the commission, Sit you too.

EDG.

Let us deal justly.

Sleepest or wakest thou, jolly shepherd?

Thy sheep be in the corn;

And for one blast of thy minikin mouth

Thy sheep shall take no harm.

Purr! the cat is gray.

LEAR.

Arraign her first; ’tis Goneril. I here take my oath before

this honourable assembly, she kicked the poor king her father.

FOOL.

Come hither, mistress. Is your name Goneril?

LEAR.

She cannot deny it.

FOOL.

Cry you mercy, I took you for a joint-stool.

LEAR.

And here’s another, whose warp’d looks proclaim

What store her heart is made on.—Stop her there!

Arms, arms! sword! fire!—Corruption in the place!—

False justicer, why hast thou let her ’scape?

EDG.

Bless thy five wits!

KENT.

O pity!—Sir, where is the patience now

That you so oft have boasted to retain?

EDG.

[Aside.] My tears begin to take his part so much

They’ll mar my counterfeiting.

LEAR.

The little dogs and all,

Tray, Blanch, and Sweetheart, see, they bark at me.

EDG.

Tom will throw his head at them.—Avaunt, you curs!

Be thy mouth or black or white,

Tooth that poisons if it bite;

Mastiff, greyhound, mongrel grim,

Hound or spaniel, brach or lym,

Or bobtail tike or trundle-tail,—

Tom will make them weep and wail;

For, with throwing thus my head,

Dogs leap the hatch, and all are fled.

Do de, de, de. Sessa! Come, march to wakes and fairs and market-towns. Poor Tom, thy horn is dry.

LEAR.

Then let them anatomize Regan; see what breeds about her heart. Is there any cause in nature that makes these hard

hearts?—[To Edgar.] You, sir, I entertain you for one of my hundred; only I do not like the fashion of your garments: you’ll say they are Persian; but let them be changed.

KENT.

Now, good my lord, lie here and rest awhile.

LEAR.

Make no noise, make no noise; draw the curtains:

So, so. We’ll go to supper i’ the morning.

FOOL.

And I’ll go to bed at noon.

[Re-enter Gloucester.]

GLOU.

Come hither, friend: where is the king my master?

KENT.

Here, sir; but trouble him not,—his wits are gone.

GLOU.

Good friend, I pr’ythee, take him in thy arms;

I have o’erheard a plot of death upon him;

There is a litter ready; lay him in’t

And drive towards Dover, friend, where thou shalt meet

Both welcome and protection. Take up thy master;

If thou shouldst dally half an hour, his life,

With thine, and all that offer to defend him,

Stand in assured loss: take up, take up;

And follow me, that will to some provision

Give thee quick conduct.

KENT.

Oppressed nature sleeps:—

This rest might yet have balm’d thy broken sinews,

Which, if convenience will not allow,

Stand in hard cure.—Come, help to bear thy master;

[To the FOOL.] Thou must not stay behind.

GLOU.

Come, come, away!

[Exeunt Kent, Gloucester, and the Fool, bearing off LEAR.]

EDG.

When we our betters see bearing our woes,

We scarcely think our miseries our foes.

Who alone suffers suffers most i’ the mind,

Leaving free things and happy shows behind:

But then the mind much sufferance doth o’erskip

When grief hath mates, and bearing fellowship.

How light and portable my pain seems now,

When that which makes me bend makes the king bow;

He childed as I fathered!—Tom, away!

Mark the high noises; and thyself bewray,

When false opinion, whose wrong thought defiles thee,

In thy just proof repeals and reconciles thee.

What will hap more to-night, safe ’scape the king!

Lurk, lurk.

[Exit.]

Scene VII. A Room in Gloucester’s Castle.

[Enter Cornwall, Regan, Goneril, Edmund, and Servants.]

CORN.

Post speedily to my lord your husband, show him this letter:— the army of France is landed.—Seek out the traitor Gloucester. [Exeunt some of the Servants.]

REG.

Hang him instantly.

GON.

Pluck out his eyes.

CORN.

Leave him to my displeasure.—Edmund, keep you our sister company: the revenges we are bound to take upon your traitorous father are not fit for your beholding. Advise the duke where you are going, to a most festinate preparation: we are bound to the like. Our posts shall be swift and intelligent betwixt us.

Farewell, dear sister:—farewell, my lord of Gloucester.

[Enter Oswald.]

How now! Where’s the king?

OSW.

My lord of Gloucester hath convey’d him hence:

Some five or six and thirty of his knights,

Hot questrists after him, met him at gate;

Who, with some other of the lord’s dependants,

Are gone with him towards Dover: where they boast

To have well-armed friends.

CORN.

Get horses for your mistress.

GON.

Farewell, sweet lord, and sister.

CORN.

Edmund, farewell.

[Exeunt Goneril, Edmund, and Oswald.]

Go seek the traitor Gloucester,

Pinion him like a thief, bring him before us.

[Exeunt other Servants.]

Though well we may not pass upon his life

Without the form of justice, yet our power

Shall do a courtesy to our wrath, which men

May blame, but not control.—Who’s there? the traitor?

[Re-enter servants, with Gloucester.]

REG.

Ingrateful fox! ’tis he.

CORN.

Bind fast his corky arms.

GLOU.

What mean your graces?—Good my friends, consider

You are my guests: do me no foul play, friends.

CORN.

Bind him, I say.

[Servants bind him.]

REG.

Hard, hard.—O filthy traitor!

GLOU.

Unmerciful lady as you are, I’m none.

CORN.

To this chair bind him.—Villain, thou shalt find,—

[Regan plucks his beard.]

GLOU.

By the kind gods, ’tis most ignobly done

To pluck me by the beard.

REG.

So white, and such a traitor!

GLOU.

Naughty lady,

These hairs which thou dost ravish from my chin

Will quicken, and accuse thee: I am your host:

With robber’s hands my hospitable favours

You should not ruffle thus. What will you do?

CORN.

Come, sir, what letters had you late from France?

REG.

Be simple-answer’d, for we know the truth.

CORN.

And what confederacy have you with the traitors

Late footed in the kingdom?

REG.

To whose hands have you sent the lunatic king?

Speak.

GLOU.

I have a letter guessingly set down,

Which came from one that’s of a neutral heart,

And not from one oppos’d.

CORN.

Cunning.

REG.

And false.

CORN.

Where hast thou sent the king?

GLOU.

To Dover.

REG.

Wherefore to Dover? Wast thou not charg’d at peril,—

CORN.

Wherefore to Dover? Let him first answer that.

GLOU.

I am tied to the stake, and I must stand the course.

REG.

Wherefore to Dover, sir?

GLOU.

Because I would not see thy cruel nails

Pluck out his poor old eyes; nor thy fierce sister

In his anointed flesh stick boarish fangs.

The sea, with such a storm as his bare head

In hell-black night endur’d, would have buoy’d up,

And quench’d the stelled fires; yet, poor old heart,

He holp the heavens to rain.

If wolves had at thy gate howl’d that stern time,

Thou shouldst have said, ‘Good porter, turn the key.’

All cruels else subscrib’d:—but I shall see

The winged vengeance overtake such children.

CORN.

See’t shalt thou never.—Fellows, hold the chair.

Upon these eyes of thine I’ll set my foot.

[Gloucester is held down in his chair, while Cornwall plucks out one of his eyes and sets his foot on it.]

GLOU.

He that will think to live till he be old,

Give me some help!—O cruel!—O ye gods!

REG.

One side will mock another; the other too!

CORN.

If you see vengeance,—

FIRST SERV.

Hold your hand, my lord:

I have serv’d you ever since I was a child;

But better service have I never done you

Than now to bid you hold.

REG.

How now, you dog!

FIRST SERV.

If you did wear a beard upon your chin,

I’d shake it on this quarrel. What do you mean?

CORN.

My villain!

[Draws, and runs at him.]

FIRST SERV.

Nay, then, come on, and take the chance of anger.

[Draws. They fight. Cornwall is wounded.]

REG.

Give me thy sword [to another servant.]—A peasant stand up thus? [Snatches a sword, comes behind, and stabs him.]

FIRST SERV.

O, I am slain!—My lord, you have one eye left

To see some mischief on thim. O!

[Dies.]

CORN.

Lest it see more, prevent it.—Out, vile jelly!

Where is thy lustre now?

[Tears out Gloucester’s other eye and throws it on the ground.]

GLOU.

All dark and comfortless.—Where’s my son Edmund?

Edmund, enkindle all the sparks of nature

To quit this horrid act.

REG.

Out, treacherous villain!

Thou call’st on him that hates thee: it was he

That made the overture of thy treasons to us;

Who is too good to pity thee.

GLOU.

O my follies! Then Edgar was abus’d.—

Kind gods, forgive me that, and prosper him!

REG.

Go thrust him out at gates, and let him smell

His way to Dover.—How is’t, my lord? How look you?

CORN.

I have receiv’d a hurt:—follow me, lady.—

Turn out that eyeless villain;—throw this slave

Upon the dunghill.—Regan, I bleed apace:

Untimely comes this hurt: give me your arm.

[Exit Cornwall, led by Regan; Servants unbind Gloucester and lead him out.]

SECOND SERV.

I’ll never care what wickedness I do,

If this man come to good.

THIRD SERV.

If she live long,

And in the end meet the old course of death,

Women will all turn monsters.

SECOND SERV.

Let’s follow the old earl, and get the Bedlam

To lead him where he would: his roguish madness

Allows itself to anything.

THIRD SERV.

Go thou: I’ll fetch some flax and whites of eggs

To apply to his bleeding face. Now heaven help him!

[Exeunt severally.]

Act IV

Scene I. The heath.

[Enter Edgar.]

EDG.

Yet better thus, and known to be contemn’d,

Than still contemn’d and flatter’d. To be worst,

The lowest and most dejected thing of fortune,

Stands still in esperance, lives not in fear:

The lamentable change is from the best;

The worst returns to laughter. Welcome, then,

Thou unsubstantial air that I embrace!

The wretch that thou hast blown unto the worst

Owes nothing to thy blasts.—But who comes here?

[Enter Gloucester, led by an Old Man.]

My father, poorly led?—World, world, O world!

But that thy strange mutations make us hate thee,

Life would not yield to age.

Old Man.

O my good lord,

I have been your tenant, and your father’s tenant,

These fourscore years.

GLOU.

Away, get thee away; good friend, be gone:

Thy comforts can do me no good at all;

Thee they may hurt.

Old Man.

You cannot see your way.

GLOU.

I have no way, and therefore want no eyes;

I stumbled when I saw: full oft ’tis seen

Our means secure us, and our mere defects

Prove our commodities.—O dear son Edgar,

The food of thy abused father’s wrath!

Might I but live to see thee in my touch,

I’d say I had eyes again!

Old Man.

How now! Who’s there?

EDG.

[Aside.] O gods! Who is’t can say ‘I am at the worst?’

I am worse than e’er I was.

Old Man.

’Tis poor mad Tom.

EDG.

[Aside.] And worse I may be yet. The worst is not

So long as we can say ‘This is the worst.’

Old Man.

Fellow, where goest?

GLOU.

Is it a beggar-man?

Old Man.

Madman and beggar too.

GLOU.

He has some reason, else he could not beg.

I’ the last night’s storm I such a fellow saw;

Which made me think a man a worm: my son

Came then into my mind, and yet my mind

Was then scarce friends with him: I have heard more since. As flies to wanton boys are we to the gods,—

They kill us for their sport.

EDG.

[Aside.] How should this be?—

Bad is the trade that must play fool to sorrow,

Angering itself and others.—Bless thee, master!

GLOU.

Is that the naked fellow?

Old Man.

Ay, my lord.

GLOU.

Then pr’ythee get thee gone: if for my sake

Thou wilt o’ertake us, hence a mile or twain,

I’ the way toward Dover, do it for ancient love;

And bring some covering for this naked soul,

Which I’ll entreat to lead me.

Old Man.

Alack, sir, he is mad.

GLOU.

’Tis the time’s plague when madmen lead the blind.

Do as I bid thee, or rather do thy pleasure;

Above the rest, be gone.

Old Man.

I’ll bring him the best ’parel that I have,

Come on’t what will.

[Exit.]

GLOU.

Sirrah naked fellow,—

EDG.

Poor Tom’s a-cold.

[Aside.] I cannot daub it further.

GLOU.

Come hither, fellow.

EDG.

[Aside.] And yet I must.—Bless thy sweet eyes, they bleed.

GLOU.

Know’st thou the way to Dover?

EDG.

Both stile and gate, horseway and footpath. Poor Tom hath been scared out of his good wits:—bless thee, good man’s son, from the foul fiend! Five fiends have been in poor Tom at once; of lust, as Obidicut; Hobbididence, prince of dumbness; Mahu, of stealing; Modo, of murder; Flibbertigibbet, of mopping and mowing,—who since possesses chambermaids and waiting women. So, bless thee, master!

GLOU.

Here, take this purse, thou whom the heavens’ plagues

Have humbled to all strokes: that I am wretched

Makes thee the happier;—heavens, deal so still!

Let the superfluous and lust-dieted man,

That slaves your ordinance, that will not see

Because he does not feel, feel your power quickly;

So distribution should undo excess,

And each man have enough.—Dost thou know Dover?

EDG.

Ay, master.

GLOU.

There is a cliff, whose high and bending head

Looks fearfully in the confined deep:

Bring me but to the very brim of it,

And I’ll repair the misery thou dost bear

With something rich about me: from that place

I shall no leading need.

EDG.

Give me thy arm:

Poor Tom shall lead thee.

[Exeunt.]

Scene II. Before the Duke of Albany’s Palace.

Enter Goneril and Edmund; Oswald meeting them.]

GON.

Welcome, my lord: I marvel our mild husband

Not met us on the way.—Now, where’s your master?

OSW.

Madam, within; but never man so chang’d.

I told him of the army that was landed;

He smil’d at it: I told him you were coming;

His answer was, ‘The worse.’ Of Gloucester’s treachery And of the loyal service of his son

When I inform’d him, then he call’d me sot

And told me I had turn’d the wrong side out:—

What most he should dislike seems pleasant to him;

What like, offensive.

GON.

[To Edmund.] Then shall you go no further.

It is the cowish terror of his spirit,

That dares not undertake: he’ll not feel wrongs

Which tie him to an answer. Our wishes on the way

May prove effects. Back, Edmund, to my brother;

Hasten his musters and conduct his powers:

I must change arms at home, and give the distaff

Into my husband’s hands. This trusty servant

Shall pass between us; ere long you are like to hear,

If you dare venture in your own behalf,

A mistress’s command. [Giving a favour.]

Wear this; spare speech;

Decline your head: this kiss, if it durst speak,

Would stretch thy spirits up into the air:—

Conceive, and fare thee well.

EDM.

Yours in the ranks of death!

[Exit Edmund.]

GON.

My most dear Gloucester.

O, the difference of man and man!

To thee a woman’s services are due:

My fool usurps my body.

OSW.

Madam, here comes my lord.

[Exit.]

[Enter Albany.]

GON.

I have been worth the whistle.

ALB.

O Goneril!

You are not worth the dust which the rude wind

Blows in your face! I fear your disposition:

That nature which contemns it origin

Cannot be bordered certain in itself;

She that herself will sliver and disbranch

From her material sap, perforce must wither

And come to deadly use.

GON.

No more; the text is foolish.

ALB.

Wisdom and goodness to the vile seem vile:

Filths savour but themselves. What have you done?

Tigers, not daughters, what have you perform’d?

A father, and a gracious aged man,

Whose reverence even the head-lugg’d bear would lick,

Most barbarous, most degenerate, have you madded.

Could my good brother suffer you to do it?

A man, a prince, by him so benefited!

If that the heavens do not their visible spirits

Send quickly down to tame these vile offences,

It will come,

Humanity must perforce prey on itself,

Like monsters of the deep.

GON.

Milk-liver’d man!

That bear’st a cheek for blows, a head for wrongs;

Who hast not in thy brows an eye discerning

Thine honour from thy suffering; that not know’st

Fools do those villains pity who are punish’d

Ere they have done their mischief. Where’s thy drum?

France spreads his banners in our noiseless land;

With plumed helm thy slayer begins threats;

Whiles thou, a moral fool, sitt’st still, and criest

‘Alack, why does he so?’

ALB.

See thyself, devil!

Proper deformity seems not in the fiend

So horrid as in woman.

GON.

O vain fool!

ALB.

Thou changed and self-cover’d thing, for shame!

Be-monster not thy feature! Were’t my fitness

To let these hands obey my blood.

They are apt enough to dislocate and tear

Thy flesh and bones:—howe’er thou art a fiend,

A woman’s shape doth shield thee.

GON.

Marry, your manhood now!

[Enter a Messenger.]

ALB.

What news?

MESS.

O, my good lord, the Duke of Cornwall’s dead;

Slain by his servant, going to put out

The other eye of Gloucester.

ALB.

Gloucester’s eyes!

MESS.

A servant that he bred, thrill’d with remorse,

Oppos’d against the act, bending his sword

To his great master; who, thereat enrag’d,

Flew on him, and amongst them fell’d him dead;

But not without that harmful stroke which since

Hath pluck’d him after.

ALB.

This shows you are above,

You justicers, that these our nether crimes

So speedily can venge!—But, O poor Gloucester!

Lost he his other eye?

MESS.

Both, both, my lord.—

This letter, madam, craves a speedy answer;

’Tis from your sister.

GON.

[Aside.] One way I like this well;

But being widow, and my Gloucester with her,

May all the building in my fancy pluck

Upon my hateful life: another way

The news is not so tart.—I’ll read, and answer.

[Exit.]

ALB.

Where was his son when they did take his eyes?

MESS.

Come with my lady hither.

ALB.

He is not here.

MESS.

No, my good lord; I met him back again.

ALB.

Knows he the wickedness?

MESS.

Ay, my good lord. ’Twas he inform’d against him;

And quit the house on purpose, that their punishment

Might have the freer course.

ALB.

Gloucester, I live

To thank thee for the love thou show’dst the king,

And to revenge thine eyes.—Come hither, friend:

Tell me what more thou know’st.

[Exeunt.]

Scene III. The French camp near Dover.

[Enter Kent and a Gentleman.]

KENT.

Why the king of France is so suddenly gone back know you the reason?

GENT.

Something he left imperfect in the state, which since his coming forth is thought of, which imports to the kingdom so much fear and danger that his personal return was most required and necessary.

KENT.

Who hath he left behind him general?

GENT.

The Mareschal of France, Monsieur La Far.

KENT.

Did your letters pierce the queen to any demonstration of grief?

GENT.

Ay, sir; she took them, read them in my presence;

And now and then an ample tear trill’d down

Her delicate cheek: it seem’d she was a queen

Over her passion; who, most rebel-like,

Sought to be king o’er her.

KENT.

O, then it mov’d her.

GENT.

Not to a rage: patience and sorrow strove

Who should express her goodliest. You have seen

Sunshine and rain at once: her smiles and tears

Were like, a better day: those happy smilets

That play’d on her ripe lip seem’d not to know

What guests were in her eyes; which parted thence

As pearls from diamonds dropp’d.—In brief, sorrow

Would be a rarity most belov’d, if all

Could so become it.

KENT.

Made she no verbal question?

GENT.

Faith, once or twice she heav’d the name of ‘father’

Pantingly forth, as if it press’d her heart;

Cried ‘Sisters, sisters!—Shame of ladies! sisters!

Kent! father! sisters! What, i’ the storm? i’ the night?

Let pity not be believ’d!’—There she shook

The holy water from her heavenly eyes,

And clamour moisten’d: then away she started

To deal with grief alone.

KENT.

It is the stars,

The stars above us, govern our conditions;

Else one self mate and mate could not beget

Such different issues. You spoke not with her since?

GENT.

No.

KENT.

Was this before the king return’d?

GENT.

No, since.

KENT.

Well, sir, the poor distressed Lear’s i’ the town;

Who sometime, in his better tune, remembers

What we are come about, and by no means

Will yield to see his daughter.

GENT.

Why, good sir?

KENT.

A sovereign shame so elbows him: his own unkindness,

That stripp’d her from his benediction, turn’d her

To foreign casualties, gave her dear rights

To his dog-hearted daughters,—these things sting

His mind so venomously that burning shame

Detains him from Cordelia.

GENT.

Alack, poor gentleman!

KENT.

Of Albany’s and Cornwall’s powers you heard not?

GENT.

’Tis so; they are a-foot.

KENT.

Well, sir, I’ll bring you to our master Lear

And leave you to attend him: some dear cause

Will in concealment wrap me up awhile;

When I am known aright, you shall not grieve

Lending me this acquaintance. I pray you go

Along with me.

[Exeunt.]

Scene IV. The French camp. A Tent.

[Enter Cordelia, Physician, and Soldiers.]

COR.

Alack, ’tis he: why, he was met even now

As mad as the vex’d sea; singing aloud;

Crown’d with rank fumiter and furrow weeds,

With harlocks, hemlock, nettles, cuckoo-flowers,

Darnel, and all the idle weeds that grow

In our sustaining corn.—A century send forth;

Search every acre in the high-grown field,

And bring him to our eye. [Exit an

OFFICER.]

What can man’s wisdom

In the restoring his bereaved sense?

He that helps him take all my outward worth.

PHYS.

There is means, madam:

Our foster nurse of nature is repose,

The which he lacks; that to provoke in him

Are many simples operative, whose power

Will close the eye of anguish.

COR.

All bless’d secrets,

All you unpublish’d virtues of the earth,

Spring with my tears! be aidant and remediate

In the good man’s distress!—Seek, seek for him;

Lest his ungovern’d rage dissolve the life

That wants the means to lead it.

[Enter a Messenger.]

MESS.

News, madam;

The British powers are marching hitherward.

COR.

’Tis known before; our preparation stands

In expectation of them.—O dear father,

It is thy business that I go about;

Therefore great France

My mourning and important tears hath pitied.

No blown ambition doth our arms incite,

But love, dear love, and our ag’d father’s right:

Soon may I hear and see him!

[Exeunt.]

Scene V. A Room in Gloucester’s Castle.

[Enter Regan and Oswald.]

REG.

But are my brother’s powers set forth?

OSW.

Ay, madam.

REG.

Himself in person there?

OSW.

Madam, with much ado.

Your sister is the better soldier.

REG.

Lord Edmund spake not with your lord at home?

OSW.

No, madam.

REG.

What might import my sister’s letter to him?

OSW.

I know not, lady.

REG.

Faith, he is posted hence on serious matter.

It was great ignorance, Gloucester’s eyes being out,

To let him live: where he arrives he moves

All hearts against us: Edmund, I think, is gone,

In pity of his misery, to despatch

His nighted life; moreover, to descry

The strength o’ the enemy.

OSW.

I must needs after him, madam, with my letter.

REG.

Our troops set forth to-morrow: stay with us;

The ways are dangerous.

OSW.

I may not, madam:

My lady charg’d my duty in this business.

REG.

Why should she write to Edmund? Might not you

Transport her purposes by word? Belike,

Something,—I know not what:—I’ll love thee much—

Let me unseal the letter.

OSW.

Madam, I had rather,—

REG.

I know your lady does not love her husband;

I am sure of that: and at her late being here

She gave strange eyeliads and most speaking looks

To noble Edmund. I know you are of her bosom.

OSW.

I, madam?

REG.

I speak in understanding; you are, I know’t:

Therefore I do advise you, take this note:

My lord is dead; Edmund and I have talk’d;

And more convenient is he for my hand Than for your lady’s.—You may gather more.

If you do find him, pray you give him this;

And when your mistress hears thus much from you,

I pray desire her call her wisdom to her

So, fare you well.

If you do chance to hear of that blind traitor,

Preferment falls on him that cuts him off.

OSW.

Would I could meet him, madam! I should show

What party I do follow.

REG.

Fare thee well.

[Exeunt.]

Scene VI. The country near Dover.

[Enter Gloucester, and Edgar dressed like a peasant.]

GLOU.

When shall I come to the top of that same hill?

EDG.

You do climb up it now: look, how we labour.

GLOU.

Methinks the ground is even.

EDG.

Horrible steep.

Hark, do you hear the sea?

GLOU.

No, truly.

EDG.

Why, then, your other senses grow imperfect

By your eyes’ anguish.

GLOU.

So may it be indeed:

Methinks thy voice is alter’d; and thou speak’st

In better phrase and matter than thou didst.

EDG.

You are much deceiv’d: in nothing am I chang’d

But in my garments.

GLOU.

Methinks you’re better spoken.

EDG.

Come on, sir; here’s the place:—stand still.—How fearful

And dizzy ’tis to cast one’s eyes so low!

The crows and choughs that wing the midway air

Show scarce so gross as beetles: half way down

Hangs one that gathers samphire—dreadful trade!

Methinks he seems no bigger than his head:

The fishermen that walk upon the beach

Appear like mice; and yond tall anchoring bark,

Diminish’d to her cock; her cock a buoy

Almost too small for sight: the murmuring surge

That on the unnumber’d idle pebble chafes

Cannot be heard so high.—I’ll look no more;

Lest my brain turn, and the deficient sight

Topple down headlong.

GLOU.

Set me where you stand.

EDG.

Give me your hand:—you are now within a foot

Of th’ extreme verge: for all beneath the moon

Would I not leap upright.

GLOU.

Let go my hand.

Here, friend, ’s another purse; in it a jewel

Well worth a poor man’s taking: fairies and gods

Prosper it with thee! Go thou further off;

Bid me farewell, and let me hear thee going.

EDG.

Now fare ye well, good sir.

[Seems to go.]

GLOU.

With all my heart.

EDG.

[Aside.] Why I do trifle thus with his despair

Is done to cure it.

GLOU.

O you mighty gods!

This world I do renounce, and, in your sights,

Shake patiently my great affliction off:

If I could bear it longer, and not fall

To quarrel with your great opposeless wills,

My snuff and loathed part of nature should

Burn itself out. If Edgar live, O, bless him!—

Now, fellow, fare thee well.

EDG.

Gone, sir:—farewell.—

[Gloucester leaps, and falls along.]

And yet I know not how conceit may rob

The treasury of life when life itself

Yields to the theft: had he been where he thought,

By this had thought been past.—Alive or dead?

Ho you, sir! friend! Hear you, sir?—speak!—

Thus might he pass indeed:—yet he revives.—

What are you, sir?

GLOU.

Away, and let me die.

EDG.

Hadst thou been aught but gossamer, feathers, air,

So many fathom down precipitating,

Thou’dst shiver’d like an egg: but thou dost breathe;

Hast heavy substance; bleed’st not; speak’st; art sound.

Ten masts at each make not the altitude

Which thou hast perpendicularly fell:

Thy life is a miracle.—Speak yet again.

GLOU.

But have I fall’n, or no?

EDG.

From the dread summit of this chalky bourn.

Look up a-height;—the shrill-gorg’d lark so far

Cannot be seen or heard: do but look up.

GLOU.

Alack, I have no eyes.—

Is wretchedness depriv’d that benefit

To end itself by death? ’Twas yet some comfort

When misery could beguile the tyrant’s rage

And frustrate his proud will.

EDG.

Give me your arm:

Up:—so.—How is’t? Feel you your legs? You stand.

GLOU.

Too well, too well.

EDG.

This is above all strangeness.

Upon the crown o’ the cliff what thing was that

Which parted from you?

GLOU.

A poor unfortunate beggar.

EDG.

As I stood here below, methought his eyes

Were two full moons; he had a thousand noses,

Horns whelk’d and wav’d like the enridged sea:

It was some fiend; therefore, thou happy father,

Think that the clearest gods, who make them honours

Of men’s impossibility, have preserv’d thee.

GLOU.

I do remember now: henceforth I’ll bear

Affliction till it do cry out itself,

‘Enough, enough,’ and die. That thing you speak of,

I took it for a man; often ’twould say,

‘The fiend, the fiend:’—he led me to that place.

EDG.

Bear free and patient thoughts.—But who comes here?

[Enter Lear, fantastically dressed up with flowers.]

The safer sense will ne’er accommodate

His master thus.

LEAR.

No, they cannot touch me for coining;

I am the king himself.

EDG.

O thou side-piercing sight!

LEAR.

Nature’s above art in that respect.—There’s your press money. That fellow handles his bow like a crow-keeper: draw me a clothier’s yard.—Look, look, a mouse! Peace, peace;—this piece of toasted cheese will do’t. There’s my gauntlet; I’ll prove it on a giant.—Bring up the brown bills. O, well flown, bird!—i’ the clout, i’ the clout: hewgh!—Give the word.

EDG.

Sweet marjoram.

LEAR.

Pass.

GLOU.

I know that voice.

LEAR.

Ha! Goneril with a white beard!—They flattered me like a dog; and told me I had white hairs in my beard ere the black ones were there. To say ‘ay’ and ‘no’ to everything I said!—‘Ay’ and ‘no’, too, was no good divinity. When the rain came to wet me once, and the wind to make me chatter; when the thunder would not peace at my bidding; there I found ’em, there I smelt ’em out. Go to, they are not men o’ their words: they told me I was everything; ’tis a lie—I am not ague-proof.

GLOU.

The trick of that voice I do well remember:

Is’t not the king?

LEAR.

Ay, every inch a king:

When I do stare, see how the subject quakes.

I pardon that man’s life.—What was thy cause?—

Adultery?—

Thou shalt not die: die for adultery! No:

The wren goes to’t, and the small gilded fly

Does lecher in my sight.

Let copulation thrive; for Gloucester’s bastard son

Was kinder to his father than my daughters

Got ’tween the lawful sheets.

To’t, luxury, pell-mell! for I lack soldiers.—

Behold yond simpering dame,

Whose face between her forks presages snow;

That minces virtue, and does shake the head

To hear of pleasure’s name;—

The fitchew nor the soiled horse goes to’t

With a more riotous appetite.

Down from the waist they are centaurs,

Though women all above:

But to the girdle do the gods inherit,

Beneath is all the fiend’s; there’s hell, there’s darkness,

There is the sulphurous pit; burning, scalding, stench,

consumption; fie, fie, fie! pah, pah!

Give me an ounce of civet, good apothecary, to sweeten my imagination: there’s money for thee.

GLOU.

O, let me kiss that hand!

LEAR.

Let me wipe it first; it smells of mortality.

GLOU.

O ruin’d piece of nature! This great world

Shall so wear out to naught.—Dost thou know me?

LEAR.

I remember thine eyes well enough. Dost thou squiny at me? No, do thy worst, blind Cupid; I’ll not love.—Read thou this challenge; mark but the penning of it.

GLOU.

Were all the letters suns, I could not see one.

EDG.

I would not take this from report;—it is,

And my heart breaks at it.

LEAR.

Read.

GLOU.

What, with the case of eyes?

LEAR.

O, ho, are you there with me? No eyes in your head, nor no money in your purse? Your eyes are in a heavy case, your purse in a light: yet you see how this world goes.

GLOU.

I see it feelingly.

LEAR.

What, art mad? A man may see how the world goes with no eyes. Look with thine ears: see how yond justice rails upon yond simple thief. Hark, in thine ear: change places; and, handy-dandy, which is the justice, which is the thief?—Thou hast seen a farmer’s dog bark at a beggar?

GLOU.

Ay, sir.

LEAR.

And the creature run from the cur? There thou mightst behold the great image of authority: a dog’s obeyed in office.—

Thou rascal beadle, hold thy bloody hand!

Why dost thou lash that whore? Strip thine own back;

Thou hotly lust’st to use her in that kind

For which thou whipp’st her. The usurer hangs the cozener. Through tatter’d clothes small vices do appear;

Robes and furr’d gowns hide all. Plate sin with gold,

And the strong lance of justice hurtless breaks;

Arm it in rags, a pygmy’s straw does pierce it.

None does offend, none.—I say none; I’ll able ’em:

Take that of me, my friend, who have the power

To seal the accuser’s lips. Get thee glass eyes;

And, like a scurvy politician, seem

To see the things thou dost not.—Now, now, now, now:

Pull off my boots: harder, harder:—so.

EDG.

O, matter and impertinency mix’d!

Reason, in madness!

LEAR.

If thou wilt weep my fortunes, take my eyes.

I know thee well enough; thy name is Gloucester:

Thou must be patient; we came crying hither:

Thou know’st, the first time that we smell the air

We wawl and cry.—I will preach to thee: mark.

GLOU.

Alack, alack the day!

LEAR.

When we are born, we cry that we are come

To this great stage of fools—This a good block:—

It were a delicate stratagem to shoe

A troop of horse with felt: I’ll put’t in proof;

And when I have stol’n upon these sons-in-law,

Then kill, kill, kill, kill, kill, kill!

[Enter a Gentleman, with Attendants].

GENT.

O, here he is: lay hand upon him.—Sir,

Your most dear daughter,—

LEAR.

No rescue? What, a prisoner? I am even

The natural fool of fortune.—Use me well;

You shall have ransom. Let me have surgeons;

I am cut to the brains.

GENT.

You shall have anything.

LEAR.

No seconds? all myself?

Why, this would make a man a man of salt,

To use his eyes for garden water-pots,

Ay, and for laying Autumn’s dust.

GENT.

Good sir,—

LEAR.

I will die bravely, like a smug bridegroom. What!

I will be jovial: come, come, I am a king,

My masters, know you that.

GENT.

You are a royal one, and we obey you.

LEAR.

Then there’s life in’t. Nay, an you get it, you shall get it

by running. Sa, sa, sa, sa!

[Exit running. Attendants follow.]

GENT.

A sight most pitiful in the meanest wretch,

Past speaking of in a king!—Thou hast one daughter

Who redeems nature from the general curse

Which twain have brought her to.

EDG.

Hail, gentle sir.

GENT.

Sir, speed you. What’s your will?

EDG.

Do you hear aught, sir, of a battle toward?

GENT.

Most sure and vulgar: every one hears that

Which can distinguish sound.

EDG.

But, by your favour,

How near’s the other army?

GENT.

Near and on speedy foot; the main descry

Stands on the hourly thought.

EDG.

I thank you sir: that’s all.

GENT.

Though that the queen on special cause is here,

Her army is mov’d on.

EDG.

I thank you, sir.

[Exit Gentleman.]

GLOU.

You ever-gentle gods, take my breath from me;

Let not my worser spirit tempt me again

To die before you please!

EDG.

Well pray you, father.

GLOU.

Now, good sir, what are you?

EDG.

A most poor man, made tame to fortune’s blows;

Who, by the art of known and feeling sorrows,

Am pregnant to good pity. Give me your hand,

I’ll lead you to some biding.

GLOU.

Hearty thanks:

The bounty and the benison of heaven

To boot, and boot!

[Enter Oswald.]

OSW.

A proclaim’d prize! Most happy!

That eyeless head of thine was first fram’d flesh

To raise my fortunes.—Thou old unhappy traitor,

Briefly thyself remember:—the sword is out

That must destroy thee.

GLOU.

Now let thy friendly hand

Put strength enough to it.

[Edgar interposes.]

OSW.

Wherefore, bold peasant,

Dar’st thou support a publish’d traitor? Hence;

Lest that the infection of his fortune take

Like hold on thee. Let go his arm.

EDG.

Chill not let go, zir, without vurther ’casion.

OSW.

Let go, slave, or thou diest!

EDG.

Good gentleman, go your gait, and let poor voke pass. An chud ha’ bin zwaggered out of my life, ’twould not ha’ bin zo long as ’tis by a vortnight. Nay, come not near the old man; keep out, che vore ye, or ise try whether your costard or my bat be the harder: chill be plain with you.

OSW.

Out, dunghill!

EDG.

Chill pick your teeth, zir. Come! No matter vor your foins. [They fight, and Edgar knocks him down.]

OSW.

Slave, thou hast slain me:—villain, take my purse:

If ever thou wilt thrive, bury my body;

And give the letters which thou find’st about me

To Edmund Earl of Gloucester; seek him out

Upon the British party: O, untimely death!

[Dies.]

EDG.

I know thee well: a serviceable villain;

As duteous to the vices of thy mistress

As badness would desire.

GLOU.

What, is he dead?

EDG.

Sit you down, father; rest you.—

Let’s see these pockets; the letters that he speaks of

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

He had no other death’s-man. Let us see:—

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

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

Their papers is more lawful.

[Reads.] ‘Let our reciprocal vows be remembered. You have many opportunities to cut him off: if your will want not, time and place will be fruitfully offered. There is nothing done if he return the conqueror: then am I the prisoner, and his bed my gaol; from the loathed warmth whereof deliver me, and supply the place for your labour.

Your (wife, so I would say) affectionate servant,

Goneril.’

O indistinguish’d space of woman’s will!

A plot upon her virtuous husband’s life;

And the exchange my brother!—Here in the sands

Thee I’ll rake up, the post unsanctified

Of murderous lechers: and in the mature time

With this ungracious paper strike the sight

Of the death-practis’d duke: for him ’tis well

That of thy death and business I can tell.

[Exit Edgar, dragging out the body.]

GLOU.

The king is mad: how stiff is my vile sense,

That I stand up, and have ingenious feeling

Of my huge sorrows! Better I were distract:

So should my thoughts be sever’d from my griefs,

And woes by wrong imaginations lose

The knowledge of themselves.

EDG.

Give me your hand:

[A drum afar off.]

Far off methinks I hear the beaten drum:

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

[Exeunt.]

Scene VII. A Tent in the French Camp.

[Lear on a bed, asleep, soft music playing; Physician, Gentleman, and others attending.]

[Enter Cordelia, and KENT.]

COR.

O thou good Kent, how shall I live and work

To match thy goodness? My life will be too short

And every measure fail me.

KENT.

To be acknowledg’d, madam, is o’erpaid.

All my reports go with the modest truth;

Nor more nor clipp’d, but so.

COR.

Be better suited:

These weeds are memories of those worser hours:

I pr’ythee, put them off.

KENT.

Pardon, dear madam;

Yet to be known shortens my made intent:

My boon I make it that you know me not

Till time and I think meet.

COR.

Then be’t so, my good lord. [To the Physician.] How, does the king?

PHYS.

Madam, sleeps still.

COR.

O you kind gods,

Cure this great breach in his abused nature!

The untun’d and jarring senses, O, wind up

Of this child-changed father!

PHYS.

So please your majesty

That we may wake the king: he hath slept long.

COR.

Be govern’d by your knowledge, and proceed

I’ the sway of your own will. Is he array’d?

GENT.

Ay, madam. In the heaviness of sleep

We put fresh garments on him.

PHYS.

Be by, good madam, when we do awake him;

I doubt not of his temperance.

COR.

Very well.

PHYS.

Please you draw near.—Louder the music there!

COR.

O my dear father! Restoration hang

Thy medicine on my lips; and let this kiss

Repair those violent harms that my two sisters

Have in thy reverence made!

KENT.

Kind and dear princess!

COR.

Had you not been their father, these white flakes

Had challeng’d pity of them. Was this a face

To be oppos’d against the warring winds?

To stand against the deep dread-bolted thunder?

In the most terrible and nimble stroke

Of quick cross lightning? to watch—,poor perdu!—

With this thin helm? Mine enemy’s dog,

Though he had bit me, should have stood that night

Against my fire; and wast thou fain, poor father,

To hovel thee with swine and rogues forlorn,

In short and musty straw? Alack, alack!

’Tis wonder that thy life and wits at once

Had not concluded all.—He wakes; speak to him.

DOCT.

Madam, do you; ’tis fittest.

COR.

How does my royal lord? How fares your majesty?

LEAR.

You do me wrong to take me out o’ the grave:—

Thou art a soul in bliss; but I am bound

Upon a wheel of fire, that mine own tears

Do scald like molten lead.

COR.

Sir, do you know me?

LEAR.

You are a spirit, I know: when did you die?

COR.

Still, still, far wide!

PHYS.

He’s scarce awake: let him alone awhile.

LEAR.

Where have I been? Where am I?—Fair daylight,—

I am mightily abus’d.—I should e’en die with pity,

To see another thus.—I know not what to say.—

I will not swear these are my hands:—let’s see;

I feel this pin prick. Would I were assur’d

Of my condition!

COR.

O, look upon me, sir,

And hold your hands in benediction o’er me.—

No, sir, you must not kneel.

LEAR.

Pray, do not mock me:

I am a very foolish fond old man,

Fourscore and upward, not an hour more nor less;

And, to deal plainly,

I fear I am not in my perfect mind.

Methinks I should know you, and know this man;

Yet I am doubtful: for I am mainly ignorant

What place this is; and all the skill I have

Remembers not these garments; nor I know not

Where I did lodge last night. Do not laugh at me;

For, as I am a man, I think this lady

To be my child Cordelia.

COR.

And so I am. I am.

LEAR.

Be your tears wet? yes, faith. I pray, weep not:

If you have poison for me, I will drink it.

I know you do not love me; for your sisters

Have, as I do remember, done me wrong:

You have some cause, they have not.

COR.

No cause, no cause.

LEAR.

Am I in France?

KENT.

In your own kingdom, sir.

LEAR.

Do not abuse me.

PHYS.

Be comforted, good madam: the great rage,

You see, is kill’d in him: and yet it is danger

To make him even o’er the time he has lost.

Desire him to go in; trouble him no more

Till further settling.

COR.

Will’t please your highness walk?

LEAR.

You must bear with me:

Pray you now, forget and forgive: I am old and foolish.

[Exeunt Lear, Cordelia, Physician, and Attendants.]

GENT.

Holds it true, sir, that the Duke of Cornwall was so slain?

KENT.

Most certain, sir.

GENT.

Who is conductor of his people?

KENT.

As ’tis said, the bastard son of Gloucester.

GENT.

They say Edgar, his banished son, is with the Earl of Kent in Germany.

KENT.

Report is changeable. ’Tis time to look about; the powers of the kingdom approach apace.

GENT.

The arbitrement is like to be bloody.

Fare you well, sir.

[Exit.]

KENT.

My point and period will be throughly wrought,

Or well or ill, as this day’s battle’s fought.

[Exit.]

Act V

Scene I . The Camp of the British Forces near Dover .

[Enter, with drum and colours, Edmund, Regan, Officers, Soldiers, and others.]

EDM.

Know of the duke if his last purpose hold,

Or whether since he is advis’d by aught

To change the course: he’s full of alteration

And self-reproving:—bring his constant pleasure.

[To an Officer, who goes out.]

REG.

Our sister’s man is certainly miscarried.

EDM.

Tis to be doubted, madam.

REG.

Now, sweet lord,

You know the goodness I intend upon you:

Tell me,—but truly,—but then speak the truth,

Do you not love my sister?

EDM.

In honour’d love.

REG.

But have you never found my brother’s way

To the forfended place?

EDM.

That thought abuses you.

REG.

I am doubtful that you have been conjunct

And bosom’d with her, as far as we call hers.

EDM.

No, by mine honour, madam.

REG.

I never shall endure her: dear my lord,

Be not familiar with her.

EDM.

Fear me not:—

She and the duke her husband!

[Enter, with drum and colours, Albany, Goneril, and Soldiers.]

GON.

[Aside.] I had rather lose the battle than that sister

Should loosen him and me.

ALB.

Our very loving sister, well be-met.—

Sir, this I heard,—the king is come to his daughter,

With others whom the rigour of our state

Forc’d to cry out. Where I could not be honest,

I never yet was valiant: for this business,

It toucheth us, as France invades our land, Not bolds the king, with others whom, I fear,

Most just and heavy causes make oppose.

EDM.

Sir, you speak nobly.

REG.

Why is this reason’d?

GON.

Combine together ’gainst the enemy;

For these domestic and particular broils

Are not the question here.

ALB.

Let’s, then, determine

With the ancient of war on our proceeding.

EDM.

I shall attend you presently at your tent.

REG.

Sister, you’ll go with us?

GON.

No.

REG.

’Tis most convenient; pray you, go with us.

GON.

[Aside.] O, ho, I know the riddle.—I will go.

[As they are going out, enter Edgar disguised.]

EDG.

If e’er your grace had speech with man so poor,

Hear me one word.

ALB.

I’ll overtake you.—Speak.

[Exeunt Edmund, Regan, Goneril, Officers, Soldiers, and Attendants.]

EDG.

Before you fight the battle, ope this letter.

If you have victory, let the trumpet sound

For him that brought it: wretched though I seem,

I can produce a champion that will prove

What is avouched there. If you miscarry,

Your business of the world hath so an end,

And machination ceases. Fortune love you!

ALB.

Stay till I have read the letter.

EDG.

I was forbid it.

When time shall serve, let but the herald cry,

And I’ll appear again.

ALB.

Why, fare thee well: I will o’erlook thy paper.

[Exit Edgar.]

[Re-enter Edmund.]

EDM.

The enemy’s in view; draw up your powers.

Here is the guess of their true strength and forces

By diligent discovery;—but your haste

Is now urg’d on you.

ALB.

We will greet the time.

[Exit.]

EDM.

To both these sisters have I sworn my love;

Each jealous of the other, as the stung

Are of the adder. Which of them shall I take?

Both? one? or neither? Neither can be enjoy’d,

If both remain alive: to take the widow

Exasperates, makes mad her sister Goneril;

And hardly shall I carry out my side,

Her husband being alive. Now, then, we’ll use

His countenance for the battle; which being done,

Let her who would be rid of him devise His speedy taking off. As for the mercy

Which he intends to Lear and to Cordelia,—

The battle done, and they within our power,

Shall never see his pardon: for my state

Stands on me to defend, not to debate.

[Exit.]

Scene II. A field between the two Camps.

[Alarum within. Enter, with drum and colours, Lear, Cordelia, and their Forces, and exeunt.]

[Enter Edgar and Gloucester.]

EDG.

Here, father, take the shadow of this tree

For your good host; pray that the right may thrive:

If ever I return to you again,

I’ll bring you comfort.

GLOU.

Grace go with you, sir!

[Exit Edgar].

[Alarum and retreat within. R-enter Edgar.]

EDG.

Away, old man,—give me thy hand,—away!

King Lear hath lost, he and his daughter ta’en:

Give me thy hand; come on!

GLOU.

No further, sir; a man may rot even here.

EDG.

What, in ill thoughts again? Men must endure

Their going hence, even as their coming hither;

Ripeness is all:—come on.

GLOU.

And that’s true too.

[Exeunt.]

Scene III. The British Camp near Dover.

[Enter, in conquest, with drum and colours, Edmund; Lear and Cordelia prisoners; Officers, Soldiers, &c.]

EDM.

Some officers take them away: good guard

Until their greater pleasures first be known

That are to censure them.

COR.

We are not the first

Who with best meaning have incurr’d the worst.

For thee, oppressed king, am I cast down;

Myself could else out-frown false fortune’s frown.—

Shall we not see these daughters and these sisters?

LEAR.

No, no, no, no! Come, let’s away to prison:

We two alone will sing like birds i’ the cage:

When thou dost ask me blessing I’ll kneel down

And ask of thee forgiveness: so we’ll live,

And pray, and sing, and tell old tales, and laugh

At gilded butterflies, and hear poor rogues

Talk of court news; and we’ll talk with them too,—

Who loses and who wins; who’s in, who’s out;—

And take upon’s the mystery of things,

As if we were God’s spies: and we’ll wear out,

In a wall’d prison, packs and sects of great ones

That ebb and flow by the moon.

EDM.

Take them away.

LEAR.

Upon such sacrifices, my Cordelia,

The gods themselves throw incense. Have I caught thee?

He that parts us shall bring a brand from heaven

And fire us hence like foxes. Wipe thine eyes;

The goodyears shall devour them, flesh and fell,

Ere they shall make us weep: we’ll see ’em starve first.

Come.

[Exeunt Lear and Cordelia, guarded.]

EDM.

Come hither, captain; hark.

Take thou this note [giving a paper]; go follow them to prison: One step I have advanc’d thee; if thou dost As this instructs thee, thou dost make thy way To noble fortunes: know thou this,—that men

Are as the time is: to be tender-minded

Does not become a sword:—thy great employment

Will not bear question; either say thou’lt do’t,

Or thrive by other means.

Capt.

I’ll do’t, my lord.

EDM.

About it; and write happy when thou hast done.

Mark,—I say, instantly; and carry it so

As I have set it down.

Capt.

I cannot draw a cart, nor eat dried oats;

If it be man’s work, I’ll do’t.

[Exit.]

[Flourish. Enter Albany, Goneril, Regan, Officers, and Attendants.]

ALB.

Sir, you have show’d to-day your valiant strain,

And fortune led you well: you have the captives

Who were the opposites of this day’s strife:

We do require them of you, so to use them

As we shall find their merits and our safety

May equally determine.

EDM.

Sir, I thought it fit

To send the old and miserable king

To some retention and appointed guard;

Whose age has charms in it, whose title more,

To pluck the common bosom on his side,

And turn our impress’d lances in our eyes

Which do command them. With him I sent the queen;

My reason all the same; and they are ready

To-morrow, or at further space, to appear

Where you shall hold your session. At this time

We sweat and bleed: the friend hath lost his friend;

And the best quarrels, in the heat, are curs’d

By those that feel their sharpness:—

The question of Cordelia and her father

Requires a fitter place.

ALB.

Sir, by your patience,

I hold you but a subject of this war,

Not as a brother.

REG.

That’s as we list to grace him.

Methinks our pleasure might have been demanded

Ere you had spoke so far. He led our powers;

Bore the commission of my place and person;

The which immediacy may well stand up

And call itself your brother.

GON.

Not so hot:

In his own grace he doth exalt himself,

More than in your addition.

REG.

In my rights

By me invested, he compeers the best.

GON.

That were the most if he should husband you.

REG.

Jesters do oft prove prophets.

GON.

Holla, holla!

That eye that told you so look’d but asquint.

REG.

Lady, I am not well; else I should answer

From a full-flowing stomach.—General,

Take thou my soldiers, prisoners, patrimony;

Dispose of them, of me; the walls are thine:

Witness the world that I create thee here

My lord and master.

GON.

Mean you to enjoy him?

ALB.

The let-alone lies not in your good will.

EDM.

Nor in thine, lord.

ALB.

Half-blooded fellow, yes.

REG.

[To Edmund.] Let the drum strike, and prove my title thine.

ALB.

Stay yet; hear reason.—Edmund, I arrest thee

On capital treason; and, in thine arrest,

This gilded serpent [pointing to Goneril.],—For your claim, fair sister,

I bar it in the interest of my wife;

’Tis she is subcontracted to this lord,

And I, her husband, contradict your bans.

If you will marry, make your loves to me,—

My lady is bespoke.

GON.

An interlude!

ALB.

Thou art arm’d, Gloucester:—let the trumpet sound:

If none appear to prove upon thy person

Thy heinous, manifest, and many treasons,

There is my pledge [throwing down a glove]; I’ll prove it on thy heart,

Ere I taste bread, thou art in nothing less

Than I have here proclaim’d thee.

REG.

Sick, O, sick!

GON.

[Aside.] If not, I’ll ne’er trust medicine.

EDM.

There’s my exchange [throwing down a glove]: what in the world he is That names me traitor, villain-like he lies:

Call by thy trumpet: he that dares approach,

On him, on you, who not? I will maintain

My truth and honour firmly.

ALB.

A herald, ho!

EDM.

A herald, ho, a herald!

ALB.

Trust to thy single virtue; for thy soldiers,

All levied in my name, have in my name

Took their discharge.

REG.

My sickness grows upon me.

ALB.

She is not well. Convey her to my tent.

[Exit Regan, led.]

[Enter a Herald.]

Come hither, herald.—Let the trumpet sound,—

And read out this.

OFFICER.

Sound, trumpet!

[A trumpet sounds.]

HER.

[Reads.] ‘If any man of quality or degree within the lists of the army will maintain upon Edmund, supposed Earl of Gloucester, that he is a manifold traitor, let him appear by the third sound of the trumpet. He is bold in his defence.’

EDM.

Sound!

[First trumpet.]

HER.

Again!

[Second trumpet.]

HER.

Again!

[Third trumpet. Trumpet answers within. Enter Edgar, armed, preceded by a trumpet.]

ALB.

Ask him his purposes, why he appears

Upon this call o’ the trumpet.

HER.

What are you?

Your name, your quality? and why you answer

This present summons?

EDG.

Know, my name is lost;

By treason’s tooth bare-gnawn and canker-bit.

Yet am I noble as the adversary

I come to cope.

ALB.

Which is that adversary?

EDG.

What’s he that speaks for Edmund Earl of Gloucester?

EDM.

Himself:—what say’st thou to him?

EDG.

Draw thy sword,

That, if my speech offend a noble heart,

Thy arm may do thee justice: here is mine.

Behold, it is the privilege of mine honours,

My oath, and my profession: I protest,—

Maugre thy strength, youth, place, and eminence,

Despite thy victor sword and fire-new fortune,

Thy valour and thy heart,—thou art a traitor;

False to thy gods, thy brother, and thy father;

Conspirant ’gainst this high illustrious prince;

And, from the extremest upward of thy head

To the descent and dust beneath thy foot,

A most toad-spotted traitor. Say thou ‘No,’

This sword, this arm, and my best spirits are bent

To prove upon thy heart, whereto I speak,

Thou liest.

EDM.

In wisdom I should ask thy name;

But since thy outside looks so fair and warlike,

And that thy tongue some say of breeding breathes,

What safe and nicely I might well delay

By rule of knighthood, I disdain and spurn:

Back do I toss those treasons to thy head;

With the hell-hated lie o’erwhelm thy heart;

Which,—for they yet glance by and scarcely bruise,—

This sword of mine shall give them instant way,

Where they shall rest for ever.—Trumpets, speak!

[Alarums. They fight. Edmund falls.]

ALB.

Save him, save him!

GON.

This is mere practice, Gloucester:

By the law of arms thou wast not bound to answer

An unknown opposite; thou art not vanquish’d,

But cozen’d and beguil’d.

ALB.

Shut your mouth, dame,

Or with this paper shall I stop it:—Hold, sir;

Thou worse than any name, read thine own evil:—

No tearing, lady; I perceive you know it.

[Gives the letter to Edmund.]

GON.

Say if I do,—the laws are mine, not thine:

Who can arraign me for’t?

ALB.

Most monstrous!

Know’st thou this paper?

GON.

Ask me not what I know.

[Exit.]

ALB.

Go after her: she’s desperate; govern her.

[To an Officer, who goes out.]

EDM.

What, you have charg’d me with, that have I done;

And more, much more; the time will bring it out:

’Tis past, and so am I.—But what art thou

That hast this fortune on me? If thou’rt noble,

I do forgive thee.

EDG.

Let’s exchange charity.

I am no less in blood than thou art, Edmund;

If more, the more thou hast wrong’d me.

My name is Edgar, and thy father’s son.

The gods are just, and of our pleasant vices

Make instruments to plague us:

The dark and vicious place where thee he got

Cost him his eyes.

EDM.

Thou hast spoken right; ’tis true;

The wheel is come full circle; I am here.

ALB.

Methought thy very gait did prophesy

A royal nobleness:—I must embrace thee:

Let sorrow split my heart if ever I

Did hate thee or thy father!

EDG.

Worthy prince, I know’t.

ALB.

Where have you hid yourself?

How have you known the miseries of your father?

EDG.

By nursing them, my lord.—List a brief tale;—

And when ’tis told, O that my heart would burst!—

The bloody proclamation to escape,

That follow’d me so near,—O, our lives’ sweetness!

That with the pain of death we’d hourly die

Rather than die at once!)—taught me to shift

Into a madman’s rags; to assume a semblance

That very dogs disdain’d; and in this habit

Met I my father with his bleeding rings,

Their precious stones new lost; became his guide,

Led him, begg’d for him, sav’d him from despair;

Never,—O fault!—reveal’d myself unto him

Until some half hour past, when I was arm’d;

Not sure, though hoping of this good success,

I ask’d his blessing, and from first to last

Told him my pilgrimage: but his flaw’d heart,—

Alack, too weak the conflict to support!—

’Twixt two extremes of passion, joy and grief,

Burst smilingly.

EDM.

This speech of yours hath mov’d me,

And shall perchance do good: but speak you on;

You look as you had something more to say.

ALB.

If there be more, more woeful, hold it in;

For I am almost ready to dissolve,

Hearing of this.

EDG.

This would have seem’d a period

To such as love not sorrow; but another,

To amplify too much, would make much more,

And top extremity.

Whilst I was big in clamour, came there a man

Who, having seen me in my worst estate,

Shunn’d my abhorr’d society; but then, finding

Who ’twas that so endur’d, with his strong arms

He fastened on my neck, and bellow’d out

As he’d burst heaven; threw him on my father;

Told the most piteous tale of Lear and him

That ever ear receiv’d: which in recounting

His grief grew puissant, and the strings of life

Began to crack: twice then the trumpets sounded,

And there I left him tranc’d.

ALB.

But who was this?

EDG.

Kent, sir, the banish’d Kent; who in disguise

Follow’d his enemy king and did him service

Improper for a slave.

[Enter a Gentleman hastily, with a bloody knife.]

GENT.

Help, help! O, help!

EDG.

What kind of help?

ALB.

Speak, man.

EDG.

What means that bloody knife?

GENT.

’Tis hot, it smokes;

It came even from the heart of—O! she’s dead!

ALB.

Who dead? speak, man.

GENT.

Your lady, sir, your lady: and her sister

By her is poisoned; she hath confess’d it.

EDM.

I was contracted to them both: all three

Now marry in an instant.

EDG.

Here comes KENT.

ALB.

Produce their bodies, be they alive or dead:—

This judgement of the heavens, that makes us tremble

Touches us not with pity. [Exit Gentleman.]

[Enter KENT.]

O, is this he?

The time will not allow the compliment

That very manners urges.

KENT.

I am come

To bid my king and master aye good night:

Is he not here?

ALB.

Great thing of us forgot!

Speak, Edmund, where’s the king? and where’s Cordelia? [The bodies of Goneril and Regan are brought in.]

Seest thou this object, Kent?

KENT.

Alack, why thus?

EDM.

Yet Edmund was belov’d.

The one the other poisoned for my sake,

And after slew herself.

ALB.

Even so.—Cover their faces.

EDM.

I pant for life:—some good I mean to do,

Despite of mine own nature. Quickly send,—

Be brief in it,—to the castle; for my writ

Is on the life of Lear and on Cordelia:—

Nay, send in time.

ALB.

Run, run, O, run!

EDG.

To who, my lord?—Who has the office? send

Thy token of reprieve.

EDM.

Well thought on: take my sword,

Give it the Captain.

ALB.

Haste thee for thy life.

[Exit Edgar.]

EDM.

He hath commission from thy wife and me

To hang Cordelia in the prison, and

To lay the blame upon her own despair,

That she fordid herself.

ALB.

The gods defend her!—Bear him hence awhile.

[Edmund is borne off.]

[Re-enter Lear, with Cordelia dead in his arms; Edgar, Officer, and others following.]

LEAR.

Howl, howl, howl, howl!—O, you are men of stone.

Had I your tongues and eyes, I’ld use them so

That heaven’s vault should crack.—She’s gone for ever!—

I know when one is dead, and when one lives;

She’s dead as earth.—Lend me a looking glass;

If that her breath will mist or stain the stone,

Why, then she lives.

KENT.

Is this the promis’d end?

EDG.

Or image of that horror?

ALB.

Fall, and cease!

LEAR.

This feather stirs; she lives! If it be so,

It is a chance which does redeem all sorrows

That ever I have felt.

KENT.

O my good master! [Kneeling.]

LEAR.

Pr’ythee, away!

EDG.

’Tis noble Kent, your friend.

LEAR.

A plague upon you, murderers, traitors all!

I might have sav’d her; now she’s gone for ever!—

Cordelia, Cordelia! stay a little. Ha!

What is’t thou say’st?—Her voice was ever soft,

Gentle, and low,—an excellent thing in woman.—

I kill’d the slave that was a-hanging thee.

OFF.

’Tis true, my lords, he did.

LEAR.

Did I not, fellow?

I have seen the day, with my good biting falchion

I would have made them skip: I am old now,

And these same crosses spoil me.—Who are you?

Mine eyes are not o’ the best:—I’ll tell you straight.

KENT.

If fortune brag of two she lov’d and hated,

One of them we behold.

LEAR.

This is a dull sight. Are you not Kent?

KENT.

The same,

Your servant Kent.—Where is your servant Caius?

LEAR.

He’s a good fellow, I can tell you that;

He’ll strike, and quickly too:—he’s dead and rotten.

KENT.

No, my good lord; I am the very man,—

LEAR.

I’ll see that straight.

KENT.

That from your first of difference and decay

Have follow’d your sad steps.

LEAR.

You are welcome hither.

KENT.

Nor no man else:—All’s cheerless, dark, and deadly.—

Your eldest daughters have fordone themselves,

And desperately are dead.

LEAR.

Ay, so I think.

ALB.

He knows not what he says; and vain is it

That we present us to him.

EDG.

Very bootless.

[Enter a OFFICER.]

OFF.

Edmund is dead, my lord.

ALB.

That’s but a trifle here.—

You lords and noble friends, know our intent.

What comfort to this great decay may come

Shall be applied: for us, we will resign,

During the life of this old majesty,

To him our absolute power:—[to Edgar and Kent] you to your rights;

With boot, and such addition as your honours

Have more than merited.—All friends shall taste

The wages of their virtue, and all foes

The cup of their deservings.—O, see, see!

LEAR.

And my poor fool is hang’d! No, no, no life!

Why should a dog, a horse, a rat, have life,

And thou no breath at all? Thou’lt come no more, Never, never, never, never, never!—

Pray you undo this button:—thank you, sir.—

Do you see this? Look on her!—look!—her lips!—

Look there, look there!—

[He dies.]

EDG.

He faints!—My lord, my lord!—

KENT.

Break, heart; I pr’ythee break!

EDG.

Look up, my lord.

KENT.

Vex not his ghost: O, let him pass! he hates him

That would upon the rack of this rough world

Stretch him out longer.

EDG.

He is gone indeed.

KENT.

The wonder is, he hath endur’d so long:

He but usurp’d his life.

ALB.

Bear them from hence.—Our present business

Is general woe.—[To Kent and Edgar.] Friends of my soul, you twain

Rule in this realm, and the gor’d state sustain.

KENT.

I have a journey, sir, shortly to go;

My master calls me,—I must not say no.

EDG.

The weight of this sad time we must obey;

Speak what we feel, not what we ought to say.

The oldest have borne most: we that are young

Shall never see so much, nor live so long.

[Exeunt, with a dead march.]

2.13.4 Reading and Review Questions

1. What do his sonnets suggest are matters of importance to Shakespeare? What purpose(s), if any, do they serve? How do you know? How does the subject matter of Shakespeare’s sonnets compare with Wyatt’s, Surrey’s, or Sydney’s?

2. With its aristocratic milieu, masques, veils, and people spying on each other, the wit of Much Ado About Nothing is based a good deal on sight. What does this play suggest about the problem of seeing? What does it suggest is the relationship (real and ideal) between appearances and reality? What do the play’s series of “plays” (masques, acting) suggest about art’s relationship to truth and reality?

3. What metaphorical or symbolic purposes does “blindness” serve in King Lear, and why? What metaphorical or symbolic purposes does “madness” serve, and why? What connection, if any, exists between them?

4. In King Lear, what is the effect of Edmund’s viewing himself as a “natural man,” that is, a man without the grace that allows humans to distinguish between “right” and “wrong?” What motivates him? How does his character connect with others in the play; consider not only Goneril and Regan but also Edgar and Gloucester.

5. Is there any justice, or moral, in King Lear? How do you know?