Our youngest born, I could as well be brought
To knee his throne and, squire-like, pension412 beg
To keep base life afoot413. Return with her?
Persuade me rather to be slave and sumpter414
To this detested groom415.
Points at Oswald
GONERIL At your choice, sir.
LEAR I prithee, daughter, do not make me mad.
I will not trouble thee, my child, farewelclass="underline"
We’ll no more meet, no more see one another.
But yet thou art my flesh, my blood, my daughter —
Or rather a disease that’s in my flesh,
Which I must needs call mine: thou art a boil,
A plague-sore, or embossèd carbuncle423,
In my corrupted blood424. 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.
Mend428 when thou canst, be better at thy leisure:
I can be patient, I can stay with Regan,
I and my hundred knights.
REGAN Not altogether so:
I looked not for432 you yet, nor am provided
For your fit welcome. Give ear, sir, to my sister,
For those that mingle reason with your passion434
Must be content to think you old, and so —
But she knows what she does.
LEAR Is this well spoken?
REGAN I dare avouch438 it, sir: what, fifty followers?
Is it not well? What should you need of more?
Yea, or so many, sith that both charge and danger440
Speak gainst so great a number? How in one house
Should many people under two commands
Hold amity? ’Tis hard, almost impossible.
GONERIL Why might not you, my lord, receive attendance
From those that she calls servants, or from mine?
REGAN Why not, my lord? If then they chanced to slack ye446,
We could control447 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 notice450.
LEAR I gave you all—
REGAN And in good time you gave it452.
LEAR Made you my guardians, my depositaries453,
But kept a reservation454 to be followed
With such a number. What, must I come to you
With five-and-twenty? Regan, said you so?
REGAN And speak’t again, my lord: no more with me.
LEAR Those wicked creatures yet do look well-favoured458
When others are more wicked: not being the worst
To Goneril
Stands in some rank of praise460.— I’ll go with thee:
Thy fifty yet doth double five-and-twenty,
And thou art twice her love.
GONERIL Hear me, my lord:
What need you five-and-twenty, ten, or five,
To follow in a house where twice so many
Have a command to tend you?
REGAN What need one?
LEAR O, reason not the need! Our basest beggars468
Are in the poorest thing superfluous:
Allow not470 nature more than nature needs,
Man’s life is cheap as beast’s. Thou art a lady;
If only to go warm were gorgeous472,
Why, nature needs not what thou gorgeous wear’st473,
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 much479
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,
Storm and tempest
But this heart shall break into a hundred thousand flaws488,
Or ere489 I’ll weep. O fool, I shall go mad!
Exeunt [Lear, Gloucester, Kent and Fool]
CORNWALL Let us withdraw: ’twill be a storm.
REGAN This house is little: the old man and’s491 people
Cannot be well bestowed492.
GONERIL ’Tis his own blame hath put himself from rest493
And must needs taste his folly.
REGAN For his particular495, I’ll receive him gladly,
But not one follower.
GONERIL So am I purposed.
Where is my lord of Gloucester?
Enter Gloucester
CORNWALL Followed the old man forth: he is returned.
GLOUCESTER The king is in high rage.
CORNWALL Whither is he going?
GLOUCESTER He calls to horse, but will502 I know not whither.
CORNWALL ’Tis best to give him way503: he leads himself.
GONERIL My lord, entreat him by no means to stay.
GLOUCESTER Alack, the night comes on, and the high winds
Do sorely ruffle506, for many miles about
There’s scarce a bush.
REGAN O, sir, to wilful men
The injuries that they themselves procure509
Must be their schoolmasters. Shut up your doors:
He is attended with a desperate train511,
And what they may incense him to, being apt
To have his ear abused513, wisdom bids fear.
CORNWALL Shut up your doors, my lord, ’tis a wild night.
My Regan counsels welclass="underline" come out o’th’storm.
Exeunt
Act 3 Scene 1
running scene 6
Storm still. Enter Kent and a Gentleman, severally3
KENT Who’s there, besides foul weather?
GENTLEMAN One minded like the weather, most unquietly2.
KENT I know you. Where’s the king?
GENTLEMAN Contending4 with the fretful elements;
Bids the wind blow the earth into the sea
Or swell the curlèd waters ’bove the main6,
That things might change or cease.
KENT But who is with him?
GENTLEMAN None but the fool, who labours to out-jest9
His heart-struck injuries10.
KENT Sir, I do know you,
And dare, upon the warrant of my note12
Commend a dear thing to you13. There is division —
Although as yet the face of it is covered
With mutual cunning — ’twixt Albany and Cornwall,
Who have — as who have not, that their great stars16
Throned and set high? — servants, who seem no less17,
Which are to France the spies and speculations18
Intelligent of19 our state. What hath been seen,
Either in snuffs and packings20 of the dukes,
Or the hard rein which both of them hath borne21
Against the old kind king, or something deeper,
Whereof perchance these are but furnishings23.
GENTLEMAN I will talk further with you.
KENT No, do not.
For confirmation that I am much more
Than my out-wall27, open this purse and take
Gives a purse
What it contains. If you shall see Cordelia —
Gives a ring
As fear not but you shall — show her this ring,