Complete Plays, The (132 page)

Come, come, away.

Exeunt all but Edgar

Edgar

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’er skip,
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 father’d! 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

S
CENE
V
II
. G
LOUCESTER
’
S
CASTLE
.

Enter Cornwall, Regan, Goneril, Edmund, and Servants

Cornwall

Post speedily to my lord your husband; show him this letter: the army of France is landed. Seek out the villain Gloucester.

Exeunt some of the Servants

Regan

Hang him instantly.

Goneril

Pluck out his eyes.

Cornwall

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?

Oswald

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 lords dependants,
Are gone with him towards Dover; where they boast
To have well-armed friends.

Cornwall

Get horses for your mistress.

Goneril

Farewell, sweet lord, and sister.

Cornwall

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?

Enter Gloucester, brought in by two or three

Regan

Ingrateful fox! ’tis he.

Cornwall

Bind fast his corky arms.

Gloucester

What mean your graces? Good my friends, consider
You are my guests: do me no foul play, friends.

Cornwall

Bind him, I say.

Servants bind him

Regan

 
Hard, hard. O filthy traitor!

Gloucester

Unmerciful lady as you are, I’m none.

Cornwall

To this chair bind him. Villain, thou shalt find —

Regan plucks his beard

Gloucester

By the kind gods, ’tis most ignobly done
To pluck me by the beard.

Regan

So white, and such a traitor!

Gloucester

Naughty lady,
These hairs, which thou dost ravish from my chin,
Will quicken, and accuse thee: I am your host:
With robbers’ hands my hospitable favours
You should not ruffle thus. What will you do?

Cornwall

Come, sir, what letters had you late from France?

Regan

Be simple answerer, for we know the truth.

Cornwall

And what confederacy have you with the traitors
Late footed in the kingdom?

Regan

To whose hands have you sent the lunatic king? Speak.

Gloucester

I have a letter guessingly set down,
Which came from one that’s of a neutral heart,
And not from one opposed.

Cornwall

Cunning.

Regan

And false.

Cornwall

Where hast thou sent the king?

Gloucester

To Dover.

Regan

Wherefore to Dover? Wast thou not charged at peril —

Cornwall

Wherefore to Dover? Let him first answer that.

Gloucester

I am tied to the stake, and I must stand the course.

Regan

Wherefore to Dover, sir?

Gloucester

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 endured, 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 subscribed: but I shall see
The winged vengeance overtake such children.

Cornwall

See’t shalt thou never. Fellows, hold the chair.
Upon these eyes of thine I’ll set my foot.

Gloucester

He that will think to live till he be old,
Give me some help! O cruel! O you gods!

Regan

One side will mock another; the other too.

Cornwall

If you see vengeance,—

First Servant

Hold your hand, my lord:
I have served you ever since I was a child;
But better service have I never done you
Than now to bid you hold.

Regan

How now, you dog!

First Servant

If you did wear a beard upon your chin,
I’d shake it on this quarrel. What do you mean?

Cornwall

My villain!

They draw and fight

First Servant

Nay, then, come on, and take the chance of anger.

Regan

Give me thy sword. A peasant stand up thus!

Takes a sword, and runs at him behind

First Servant

O, I am slain! My lord, you have one eye left
To see some mischief on him. O!

Dies

Cornwall

Lest it see more, prevent it. Out, vile jelly!
Where is thy lustre now?

Gloucester

All dark and comfortless. Where’s my son Edmund?
Edmund, enkindle all the sparks of nature,
To quit this horrid act.

Regan

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.

Gloucester

O my follies! then Edgar was abused.
Kind gods, forgive me that, and prosper him!

Regan

Go thrust him out at gates, and let him smell
His way to Dover.

Exit one with Gloucester

How is’t, my lord? how look you?

Cornwall

I have received 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

Second Servant

I’ll never care what wickedness I do,
If this man come to good.

Third Servant

If she live long,
And in the end meet the old course of death,
Women will all turn monsters.

Second Servant

Let’s follow the old earl, and get the Bedlam
To lead him where he would: his roguish madness
Allows itself to any thing.

Third Servant

Go thou: I’ll fetch some flax and whites of eggs
To apply to his bleeding face. Now, heaven help him!

Exeunt severally

A
CT
IV

S
CENE
I. T
HE
HEATH
.

Enter Edgar

Edgar

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,
Lie would not yield to age.

Old Man

O, my good lord, I have been your tenant, and your father’s tenant, these fourscore years.

Gloucester

Away, get thee away; good friend, be gone:
Thy comforts can do me no good at all;
Thee they may hurt.

Old Man

Alack, sir, you cannot see your way.

Gloucester

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’ld say I had eyes again!

Old Man

How now! Who’s there?

Edgar

[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.

Edgar

[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?

Gloucester

Is it a beggar-man?

Old Man

Madman and beggar too.

Gloucester

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.

Edgar

[Aside]
 
How should this be?
Bad is the trade that must play fool to sorrow,
Angering itself and others.— Bless thee, master!

Gloucester

Is that the naked fellow?

Old Man

Ay, my lord.

Gloucester

Then, prithee, 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,
Who I’ll entreat to lead me.

Old Man

Alack, sir, he is mad.

Gloucester

’Tis the times’ 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

Gloucester

Sirrah, naked fellow,—

Edgar

Poor Tom’s a-cold.

Aside

I cannot daub it further.

Gloucester

Come hither, fellow.

Edgar

[Aside]
 
And yet I must.— Bless thy sweet eyes, they bleed.

Gloucester

Know’st thou the way to Dover?

Edgar

Both stile and gate, horse-way and foot-path. 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!

Gloucester

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 doth not feel, feel your power quickly;
So distribution should undo excess,
And each man have enough. Dost thou know Dover?

Edgar

Ay, master.

Gloucester

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.

Edgar

Give me thy arm:
Poor Tom shall lead thee.

Exeunt

S
CENE
II. B
EFORE
A
LBANY
’
S
PALACE
.

Enter Goneril and Edmund

Goneril

Welcome, my lord: I marvel our mild husband
Not met us on the way.

Enter Oswald

Now, where’s your master’?

Oswald

Madam, within; but never man so changed.
I told him of the army that was landed;
He smiled 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.

Goneril

[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. Wear this; spare speech;