Since that respect and fortunes263 are his love,
I shall not be his wife.
FRANCE Fairest Cordelia, that art most rich being poor,
Most choice forsaken266, and most loved despised,
Thee and thy virtues here I seize upon267:
Takes her hand
Be it lawful268, I take up what’s cast away.
Gods, gods! ’Tis strange that from their269 cold’st neglect
My love should kindle to inflamed270 respect.—
Thy dowerless daughter, king, thrown to my chance271,
Is queen of us, of ours and our fair France:
Not all the dukes of wat’rish273 Burgundy
Can buy this unprized274 precious maid of me.—
Bid them farewell, Cordelia, though unkind275.
Thou losest here, a better where276 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 benison280.
Come, noble Burgundy.
Flourish. Exeunt. [France and the sisters remain]
FRANCE Bid farewell to your sisters.
CORDELIA The jewels of our father, with washèd283 eyes
Cordelia leaves you. I know you what you are,
And like a sister am most loath to call
Your faults as they are named286. Love well our father:
To your professèd bosoms I commit287 him,
But yet, alas, stood I within his grace,
I would prefer289 him to a better place.
So farewell to you both.
REGAN Prescribe not us our duty.
GONERIL Let your study292
Be to content your lord who hath received you
At fortune’s alms. You have obedience scanted294,
And well are worth the want that you have wanted295.
CORDELIA Time shall unfold what plighted cunning296 hides:
Who covers faults, at last with shame derides297.
Well may you prosper.
FRANCE Come, my fair Cordelia.
Exit France and Cordelia
GONERIL Sister, it is not little I have to say of what most nearly300
appertains to us both. I think our father will hence tonight.
REGAN That’s most certain, and with you: next month with
us.
GONERIL You see how full of changes his age is: the
observation we have made of it hath not been little. He
always loved our sister most, and with what poor judgement
he hath now cast her off appears too grossly307.
REGAN ’Tis the infirmity of his age: yet he hath ever308 but
slenderly309 known himself.
GONERIL The best and soundest of his time hath been but310
rash. Then must we look311 from his age to receive not alone the
imperfections of long-engrafted condition, but therewithal312
the unruly waywardness that infirm and choleric313 years
bring with them.
REGAN Such unconstant starts315 are we like to have from him
as this of Kent’s banishment.
GONERIL There is further compliment317 of leave-taking
between France and him. Pray you let us sit together318: if our
father carry authority with such disposition319 as he bears, this
last surrender of his will but offend320 us.
REGAN We shall further think of it.
GONERIL We must do something, and i’th’heat322.
Exeunt
Act 1 Scene 2
running scene 2
Enter Bastard [Edmund]
With a letter
EDMUND Thou, nature, art my goddess: to thy law
My services are bound. Wherefore2 should I
Stand in3 the plague of custom and permit
The curiosity of nations4 to deprive me
For that I am some twelve or fourteen moonshines5
Lag of a brother? Why bastard? Wherefore base6?
When my dimensions are as well compact7,
My mind as generous, and my shape as true8,
As honest madam’s issue9? Why brand they us
With base? With baseness? Bastardy? Base, base?
Who in the lusty stealth of nature take11
More composition and fierce quality12
Than doth within a dull, stale, tirèd bed,
Go to th’creating a whole tribe of fops14
Got15 ’tween a sleep and wake? Well then,
Legitimate Edgar, I must have your land:
Our father’s love is to the bastard Edmund
As18 to th’legitimate — fine word, ‘legitimate’ —
Well, my legitimate, if this letter speed19
And my invention20 thrive, Edmund the base
Shall to th’legitimate21. I grow, I prosper:
Now, gods, stand up for bastards!
Enter Gloucester
GLOUCESTER Kent banished thus? And France in choler parted23?
And the king gone tonight? Prescribed24 his power,
Confined to exhibition25? All this done
Upon the gad26? Edmund, how now? What news?
Hides the letter
EDMUND So please your lordship, none.
GLOUCESTER Why so earnestly seek you to put up28 that letter?
EDMUND I know no news, my lord.
GLOUCESTER What paper were you reading?
EDMUND Nothing, my lord.
GLOUCESTER No? What needed, then, that terrible dispatch32 of it
into your pocket? The quality of nothing hath not such need
to hide itself. Let’s see: come, if it be nothing I shall not need
spectacles.
EDMUND I beseech you, sir, pardon me: it is a letter from my
brother that I have not all o’er-read; and for37 so much as I
have perused, I find it not fit for your o’erlooking38.
GLOUCESTER Give me the letter, sir.
EDMUND I shall offend either to detain or give it: the contents,
as in part I understand them, are to blame.
Edmund gives the letter
GLOUCESTER Let’s see, let’s see.
EDMUND I hope for my brother’s justification he wrote this
but as an essay or taste44 of my virtue.
GLOUCESTER Reads ‘This policy and reverence of age45 makes the
world bitter to the best of our times, keeps our fortunes46 from
us till our oldness cannot relish them. I begin to find an idle47
and fond48 bondage in the oppression of aged tyranny, who
sways, not as it hath power, but as it is suffered49. 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 wake him, you should enjoy
half his revenue.’ My son Edgar? Had he a hand to write this?
A heart and brain to breed it in? When came you to this?
Who brought it?
EDMUND It was not brought me, my lord; there’s the cunning
of it: I found it thrown in at the casement of my closet58.
GLOUCESTER You know the character59 to be your brother’s?
EDMUND If the matter60 were good, my lord, I durst swear it
were his, but in respect of that I would fain61 think it were not.
GLOUCESTER It is his.