Complete Plays, The (136 page)

Exeunt King Lear and Cordelia, guarded

Edmund

Come hither, captain; hark.
Take thou this note;

Giving a paper

go follow them to prison:
One step I have advanced 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.

Captain

I’ll do ’t, my lord.

Edmund

About it; and write happy when thou hast done.
Mark, I say, instantly; and carry it so
As I have set it down.

Captain

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, another Captain, and Soldiers

Albany

Sir, you have shown to-day your valiant strain,
And fortune led you well: you have the captives
That 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.

Edmund

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,
An 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 cursed
By those that feel their sharpness:
The question of Cordelia and her father
Requires a fitter place.

Albany

Sir, by your patience,
I hold you but a subject of this war,
Not as a brother.

Regan

 
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.

Goneril

Not so hot:
In his own grace he doth exalt himself,
More than in your addition.

Regan

In my rights,
By me invested, he compeers the best.

Goneril

That were the most, if he should husband you.

Regan

Jesters do oft prove prophets.

Goneril

Holla, holla!
That eye that told you so look’d but a-squint.

Regan

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.

Goneril

Mean you to enjoy him?

Albany

The let-alone lies not in your good will.

Edmund

Nor in thine, lord.

Albany

Half-blooded fellow, yes.

Regan

[To Edmund]
 
Let the drum strike, and prove my title thine.

Albany

Stay yet; hear reason. Edmund, I arrest thee
On capital treason; and, in thine attaint,
This gilded serpent

Pointing to Goneril

For your claim, fair sister,
I bar it in the interest of my wife:
’Tis she is sub-contracted to this lord,
And I, her husband, contradict your bans.
If you will marry, make your loves to me,
My lady is bespoke.

Goneril

An interlude!

Albany

Thou art arm’d, Gloucester: let the trumpet sound:
If none appear to prove upon thy head
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.

Regan

Sick, O, sick!

Goneril

[Aside]
 
If not, I’ll ne’er trust medicine.

Edmund

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.

Albany

A herald, ho!

Edmund

 
A herald, ho, a herald!

Albany

Trust to thy single virtue; for thy soldiers,
All levied in my name, have in my name
Took their discharge.

Regan

My sickness grows upon me.

Albany

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.

Captain

Sound, trumpet!

A trumpet sounds

Herald

[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.’

Edmund

Sound!

First trumpet

Herald

Again!

Second trumpet

Herald

Again!

Third trumpet

Trumpet answers within

Enter Edgar, at the third sound, armed, with a trumpet before him

Albany

Ask him his purposes, why he appears
Upon this call o’ the trumpet.

Herald

What are you?
Your name, your quality? and why you answer
This present summons?

Edgar

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.

Albany

 
Which is that adversary?

Edgar

What’s he that speaks for Edmund Earl of Gloucester?

Edmund

Himself: what say’st thou to him?

Edgar

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 below 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.

Edmund

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 these 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

Albany

Save him, save him!

Goneril

This is practise, Gloucester:
By the law of arms thou wast not bound to answer
An unknown opposite; thou art not vanquish’d,
But cozen’d and beguiled.

Albany

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

Goneril

Say, if I do, the laws are mine, not thine:
Who can arraign me for’t.

Albany

Most monstrous! oh!
Know’st thou this paper?

Goneril

Ask me not what I know.

Exit

Albany

Go after her: she’s desperate; govern her.

Edmund

What you have charged 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.

Edgar

 
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.

Edmund

 
Thou hast spoken right, ’tis true;
The wheel is come full circle: I am here.

Albany

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!

Edgar

Worthy prince, I know’t.

Albany

Where have you hid yourself?
How have you known the miseries of your father?

Edgar

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 we the pain of death would 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, saved 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.

Edmund

This speech of yours hath moved me,
And shall perchance do good: but speak you on;
You look as you had something more to say.

Albany

If there be more, more woeful, hold it in;
For I am almost ready to dissolve,
Hearing of this.

Edgar

 
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 in a man,
Who, having seen me in my worst estate,
Shunn’d my abhorr’d society; but then, finding
Who ’twas that so endured, with his strong arms
He fastened on my neck, and bellow’d out
As he’ld burst heaven; threw him on my father;
Told the most piteous tale of Lear and him
That ever ear received: 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 tranced.

Albany

But who was this?

Edgar

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, with a bloody knife

Gentleman

Help, help, O, help!

Edgar

What kind of help?

Albany

Speak, man.

Edgar

What means that bloody knife?

Gentleman

’Tis hot, it smokes;
It came even from the heart of — O, she’s dead!

Albany

Who dead? speak, man.

Gentleman

Your lady, sir, your lady: and her sister
By her is poisoned; she hath confess’d it.

Edmund

I was contracted to them both: all three
Now marry in an instant.

Edgar

Here comes Kent.

Albany

Produce their bodies, be they alive or dead:
This judgment 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
Which very manners urges.

Kent

I am come
To bid my king and master aye good night:
Is he not here?

Albany

 
Great thing of us forgot!
Speak, Edmund, where’s the king? and where’s Cordelia?
See’st thou this object, Kent?

The bodies of Goneril and Regan are brought in

Kent

Alack, why thus?

Edmund

 
Yet Edmund was beloved:
The one the other poison’d for my sake,
And after slew herself.

Albany

Even so. Cover their faces.

Edmund

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.

Albany

 
Run, run, O, run!

Edgar

To who, my lord? Who hath the office? send
Thy token of reprieve.

Edmund

Well thought on: take my sword,
Give it the captain.

Albany

Haste thee, for thy life.

Exit Edgar

Edmund

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.

Albany

The gods defend her! Bear him hence awhile.

Edmund is borne off

Re-enter King Lear, with Cordelia dead in his arms; Edgar, Captain, and others following