Complete Plays, The (128 page)

Edmund

I shall serve you, sir,
Truly, however else.

Gloucester

For him I thank your grace.

Cornwall

You know not why we came to visit you,—

Regan

Thus out of season, threading dark-eyed night:
Occasions, noble Gloucester, of some poise,
Wherein we must have use of your advice:
Our father he hath writ, so hath our sister,
Of differences, which I least thought it fit
To answer from our home; the several messengers
From hence attend dispatch. Our good old friend,
Lay comforts to your bosom; and bestow
Your needful counsel to our business,
Which craves the instant use.

Gloucester

I serve you, madam:
Your graces are right welcome.

Exeunt

S
CENE
II. B
EFORE
G
LOUCESTER
’
S
CASTLE
.

Enter Kent and Oswald, severally

Oswald

Good dawning to thee, friend: art of this house?

Kent

Ay.

Oswald

Where may we set our horses?

Kent

I’ the mire.

Oswald

Prithee, if thou lovest me, tell me.

Kent

I love thee not.

Oswald

Why, then, I care not for thee.

Kent

If I had thee in Lipsbury pinfold, I would make thee care for me.

Oswald

Why dost thou use me thus? I know thee not.

Kent

Fellow, I know thee.

Oswald

What dost thou know me for?

Kent

A knave; a rascal; an eater of broken meats; a base, proud, shallow, beggarly, three-suited, hundred-pound, filthy, worsted-stocking knave; a lily-livered, action-taking knave, a whoreson, glass-gazing, super-serviceable 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, pandar, and the son and heir of a mongrel bitch: one whom I will beat into clamorous whining, if thou deniest the least syllable of thy addition.

Oswald

Why, what a monstrous fellow art thou, thus to rail on one that is neither known of thee nor knows thee!

Kent

What a brazen-faced varlet art thou, to deny thou knowest me! Is it two days ago since I tripped up thy heels, and beat thee before the king? 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 barber-monger, draw.

Drawing his sword

Oswald

Away! I have nothing to do with thee.

Kent

Draw, you rascal: you come with letters against the king; and take vanity the puppet’s part against the royalty of her father: draw, you rogue, or I’ll so carbonado your shanks: draw, you rascal; come your ways.

Oswald

Help, ho! murder! help!

Kent

Strike, you slave; stand, rogue, stand; you neat slave, strike.

Beating him

Oswald

Help, ho! murder! murder!

Enter Edmund, with his rapier drawn, Cornwall, Regan, Gloucester, and Servants

Edmund

How now! What’s the matter?

Kent

With you, goodman boy, an you please: come, I’ll flesh ye; come on, young master.

Gloucester

Weapons! arms! What ’s the matter here?

Cornwall

Keep peace, upon your lives:
He dies that strikes again. What is the matter?

Regan

The messengers from our sister and the king.

Cornwall

What is your difference? speak.

Oswald

I am scarce in breath, my lord.

Kent

No marvel, you have so bestirred your valour. You cowardly rascal, nature disclaims in thee: a tailor made thee.

Cornwall

Thou art a strange fellow: a tailor make a man?

Kent

Ay, a tailor, sir: a stone-cutter or painter could not have made him so ill, though he had been but two hours at the trade.

Cornwall

Speak yet, how grew your quarrel?

Oswald

This ancient ruffian, sir, whose life I have spared at suit of his gray beard,—

Kent

Thou whoreson zed! thou unnecessary letter! My lord, if you will give me leave, I will tread this unbolted villain into mortar, and daub the wall of a jakes with him. Spare my gray beard, you wagtail?

Cornwall

Peace, sirrah!
You beastly knave, know you no reverence?

Kent

Yes, sir; but anger hath a privilege.

Cornwall

Why art thou angry?

Kent

That such a slave as this should wear a sword,
Who wears no honesty. Such smiling rogues as these,
Like rats, oft bite the holy cords 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 nought, like dogs, but following.
A plague upon your epileptic visage!
Smile you my speeches, as I were a fool?
Goose, if I had you upon Sarum plain,
I’ld drive ye cackling home to Camelot.

Cornwall

Why, art thou mad, old fellow?

Gloucester

How fell you out? say that.

Kent

No contraries hold more antipathy
Than I and such a knave.

Cornwall

Why dost thou call him a knave? What’s his offence?

Kent

His countenance likes me not.

Cornwall

No more, perchance, does mine, nor his, nor hers.

Kent

Sir, ’tis my occupation to be plain:
I have seen better faces in my time
Than stands on any shoulder that I see
Before me at this instant.

Cornwall

This is some fellow,
Who, having been praised for bluntness, doth affect
A saucy roughness, and constrains the garb
Quite from his nature: he cannot flatter, he,
An honest mind and plain, he must speak truth!
An they will take it, so; if not, he’s plain.
These kind of knaves I know, which in this plainness
Harbour more craft and more corrupter ends
Than twenty silly ducking observants
That stretch their duties nicely.

Kent

Sir, in good sooth, in sincere verity,
Under the allowance of your great aspect,
Whose influence, like the wreath of radiant fire
On flickering Phoebus’ front,—

Cornwall

What mean’st by this?

Kent

To go out of my dialect, which you discommend so much. I know, sir, I am no flatterer: he that beguiled you in a plain accent was a plain knave; which for my part I will not be, though I should win your displeasure to entreat me to ’t.

Cornwall

What was the offence you gave him?

Oswald

I never gave him any:
It pleased the king his master very late
To strike at me, upon his misconstruction;
When he, conjunct 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-subdued;
And, in the fleshment of this dread exploit,
Drew on me here again.

Kent

None of these rogues and cowards
But Ajax is their fool.

Cornwall

Fetch forth the stocks!
You stubborn ancient knave, you reverend braggart,
We’ll teach you —

Kent

 
Sir, I am too old to learn:
Call not your stocks for me: I serve the king;
On whose employment I was sent to you:
You shall do small respect, show too bold malice
Against the grace and person of my master,
Stocking his messenger.

Cornwall

Fetch forth the stocks! As I have life and honour,
There shall he sit till noon.

Regan

Till noon! till night, my lord; and all night too.

Kent

Why, madam, if I were your father’s dog,
You should not use me so.

Regan

Sir, being his knave, I will.

Cornwall

This is a fellow of the self-same colour
Our sister speaks of. Come, bring away the stocks!

Stocks brought out

Gloucester

Let me beseech your grace not to do so:
His fault is much, and the good king his master
Will cheque him for ’t: your purposed 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’s so slightly valued in his messenger,
Should have him thus restrain’d.

Cornwall

I’ll answer that.

Regan

My sister may receive it much more worse,
To have her gentleman abused, assaulted,
For following her affairs. Put in his legs.

Kent is put in the stocks

Come, my good lord, away.

Exeunt all but Gloucester and Kent

Gloucester

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 watched 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!

Gloucester

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 comest
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!

Sleeps

S
CENE
III. A
WOOD
.

Enter Edgar

Edgar

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

S
CENE
IV. B
EFORE
G
LOUCESTER
’
S
CASTLE
. K
ENT
IN
THE
STOCKS
.

Enter King Lear, Fool, and Gentleman

King Lear

’Tis strange that they should so depart from home,
And not send back my messenger.

Gentleman

As I learn’d,
The night before there was no purpose in them
Of this remove.

Kent

 
Hail to thee, noble master!

King Lear

Ha!
Makest thou this shame thy pastime?

Kent

No, my lord.

Fool

Ha, ha! he wears cruel garters. Horses are tied by the heads, dogs and bears by the neck, monkeys by the loins, and men by the legs: when a man’s over-lusty at legs, then he wears wooden nether-stocks.

King 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.

King Lear

No.

Kent

Yes.

King Lear

No, I say.

Kent

I say, yea.

King Lear

No, no, they would not.

Kent

Yes, they have.

King Lear

By Jupiter, I swear, no.

Kent

By Juno, I swear, ay.

King Lear

They durst not do ’t;
They could not, would not do ’t; ’tis worse than murder,
To do upon respect such violent outrage:
Resolve me, with all modest haste, which way
Thou 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 perceived, had poison’d mine,—
Being the very fellow that of late
Display’d so saucily against your highness,—
Having more man than wit about me, drew:
He raised the house with loud and coward cries.
Your son and daughter found this trespass worth
The shame which here it suffers.