L., meeting.
Kent.
Who's here, beside foul weather?
Gent.
One minded, like the weather, most unquietly.
Kent.
I know you. Where's the king?
Gent.
Contending with the fretful elements:
Bids the wind blow the earth into the sea,
Or swell the curled waters 'bove the main,
That things might change or cease: tears his white hair;
Which the impetuous blasts, with eyeless rage,
Catch in their fury, and make nothing of:
Strives in his little world of man to out-scorn
The to-and-fro-conflicting wind and rain.
This night, wherein the cub-drawn bear would couch,
The lion and the belly-pinched wolf
Keep their fur dry, unbonneted he runs,
And bids what will take all.
(storm)
Kent.
But who is with him?
Gent.
None but the fool; who labors to out-jest
His heart-struck injuries.
Kent.
Sir, I do know you;
And dare, upon the warrant of my note,
Commend a dear thing to you. There is division,
Although as yet the face of it be cover'd
With mutual cunning, 'twixt Albany and Cornwall;
And, true it is, from France there comes a power
Into this scatter'd kingdom; who already,
-- 45 --
Wise is our negligence, have secret feet
In some of our best ports, and are at point
To show their open banner.—Now to you:
If on my credit you dare build so far
To make your speed to Dover, you shall find
Some that will thank you, making just report
Of how unnatural and bemadding sorrow
The king hath cause to plain.
If you shall see Cordelia,
(As fear not but you shall,) show her this ring;
And she will tell you who that fellow is
That yet you do not know. (thunder) Fie on this storm!
I will go seek the king.
(crosses to L.)
Gent.
Give me your hand: (shakes hands) Have you no more to say?
Kent.
Few words, but, to effect, more than all yet;
That, when we have found the king, in which your pain
That way; I'll this: he that first lights on him
Holloa the other.
(storm)
Exeunt Gentleman, R., Kent, L. Violent thunder,
stage dark; storm as violent as possible before change of scene.
Scene II.
—Another part of the Heath. Storm continues.
Enter Lear and Fool, L. 3 E.
Lear.
Blow, wind, and crack your cheeks! (wind) rage! (wind) blow! (rain)
You cataracts, and hurricanoes spout
Till you have drench'd our steeples,
(lightning)
You sulphurous and thought-executing fires,
Vaunt—couriers to oak-cleaving thunder-bolts,
Singe my white head! (thunder) And thou, all-shaking thunder,
Strike flat the thick rotundity o' the world!
Crack nature's moulds, all germins spill at once,
That make ingrateful man!
(storm)
Fool.
Good nuncle, in, and ask thy daughters' blessing;
here's a night pities neither wise men nor fools.
-- 46 --
Lear.
Rumble thy bellyfull! (lightning) Spit, fire! (rain) spout, rain!
Nor rain, wind, thunder, fire are my daughters:
I tax not you, you elements, with unkindness,
I never gave you kingdom, call'd you children,
You owe me no subscription; then, let fall
Your horrible pleasure; here I stand, your slave,
A poor, infirm, weak, and despis'd old man:—
(thunder)
But yet I call you servile ministers,
That will with two pernicious daughters join
Your high-engender'd battles, 'gainst a head
So old and white as this. O! O! 'tis foul!
(storm)
Fool.
He that has a house to put his head in, has a good
head-piece.
Enter Kent, R. U. E.
Lear.
No, I will be the pattern of all patience, I will
say nothing—nothing.
(kneels, C.)
(storm)
Kent.
Who's there?
Fool.
Marry, a wise man, and a fool.
Kent.
Alas, sir, are you here? things that love night,
Love not such nights as these; the wrathful skies
Gallow the very wanderers of the dark,
And make them keep their caves: (storm) Since I was man,
Such sheets of fire, such bursts of horrid thunder,
Such groans of roaring wind and rain, I never
Remember to have heard; man's nature cannot carry.
Th' affliction, nor the fear.
(violent thunder—then, only lightning)
Lear.
Let the great gods,
That keep this dreadful pother o'er our heads,
Find out their enemies now. Tremble, thou wretch,
That hast within thee undivulged crimes,
Unwhipp'd of justice. Hide thee, thou bloody hand;
Thou perjur'd and thou simuler of virtue
That art incestuous: caitiff, to pieces shake,
That under covert and convenient seeming
Hast practis'd on man's life: close pent-up guilts,
Rive your concealing continents, and cry
These dreadful summoners grace.—I am a man,
-- 47 --
More sinn'd against, than sinning.
(thunder, wind, and rain)
Kent. (R.)
Alack, bare-headed!
Gracious my lord, hard by here is a hovel;
Some friendship will it lend you 'gainst the tempest;
Repose you there: while I to this hard house
(More hard than is the stone whereof 'tis rais'd;
Which even but now, demanding after you,
Denied me to come in,) return and force
Their scanted courtesy.
(thunder and rain)
Lear. (C.)
My wits begin to turn.—
Come on, my boy; (to Fool) How dost, my boy? Art cold?
I am cold myself.—Where is this straw, my fellow?
The art of our necessities is strange,
That can make vile things precious. Come, your hovel,
Poor fool and knave, I have one part in my heart
That's sorry yet for thee.
(leaning his arms on their shoulders)
Fool. (L., sings)
He that has a little tiny wit,—
(shivering)
With heigh, ho, the wind and the rain.—
Must make content with his fortunes fit,
For the rain it raineth every day.
Lear.
True, my good boy. Come, bring us to this hovel.
Exeunt Lear, supported by Kent and Fool, R.
Scene III.
—A Room in Gloster's Castle.
Enter Gloster and Edmund, R.
Gloster.
Alack, alack, Edmund, I like not this unnatural
dealing. When I desired their leave that I might
pity him, they took from me the use of mine own house;
charged me, on pain of their perpetual displeasure, neither
to speak of him, entreat for him, nor any way sustain him.
Edmund.
Most savage, and unnatural!
Gloster.
Go to; say you nothing. There is division
between the dukes; and a worse matter than that. I have
received a letter this night;—'tis dangerous to be spoken;
—I have locked the letter in my closet. These injuries the
king now bears will be revenged home; there is part of a
-- 48 --
power already footed: we must incline to the king. I will
seek him, and privily relieve him, go you and maintain
talk with the duke, that my charity be not of him
perceived. If he ask for me, I am ill, and gone to
bed. If I die for it, as no less is threatened me, the king
my old master must be relieved. Edmund; pray you, be
careful.
(Exit, L.—thunder)
Edmund.
This courtesy, forbid thee, shall the duke
Instantly know; and of that letter too:—
This seems a fair deserving, and must draw me
That which my father loses; no less than all:
The younger rises, when the old doth fall.
Exit, R.
Scene IV.
—A part of the Heath, with a Hovel, R. U. E.—The storm continues.
Enter Lear, supported by Kent and Fool, L. U. E.
Kent.
Here is the place, my lord; good my lord, enter:
The tyranny of the open night's too rough
For nature to endure.
Lear.
Let me alone.
Kent.
Good my lord, enter here.
Lear.
Wilt break my heart?
Kent.
I'd rather break mine own: Good my lord, enter.
(wind and rain)
Lear.
Thou think'st 'tis much, that this contentious storm
Invades us to the skin: so 'tis to thee;
But where the greater malady is fix'd,
The lesser is scarce felt. When the mind's free,
The body's delicate: the tempest in my mind
Doth from my senses take all feeling else,
(storm)
Save what beats there. (striking his forehead) Filial ingratitude!
Is it not, as this mouth should tear this hand,
For lifting food to 't?—But I will punish home:—
No, I will weep no more. (rain) In such a night
To shut me out. (rain) Pour on; I will endure:—
In such a night as this! O Regan, Goneril!—
Your old kind father, whose frank heart gave all.—
O, that way madness lies; let me shun that;
No more of that,—
-- 49 --
Kent.
Good my lord, enter here.
Lear.
Pr'ythee, go in thyself; seek thine own ease;
This tempest will not give me leave to ponder
On things would hurt me more.—
But I'll go in:
In, boy; go first. (to Fool) You houseless poverty,—
Nay, get thee in. I'll pray, and then I'll sleep.—
Fool goes in R. U. E. Thunder, lightning, and rain—then a pause.
Poor naked wretches, whosoe'er you are,
That bide the pelting of this pitiless storm,
How shall your houseless heads, and unfed sides,
Your loop'd and window'd raggedness, defend you
From seasons such as these? O, I have ta'en
Too little care of this! Take physic, pomp;
Expose thyself to feel what wretches feel;
That thou may'st shake the superflux to them,
And show the heavens more just.
(crosses, L.—storm)
Edgar. (within)
Fathom and half, fathom and half! Poor Tom!
(the Fool runs out from the hovel)
Fool.
Come not in here, nuncle, here's a spirit. Help me, help me!
(crouching behind Kent)
Kent.
Give me thy hand.—Who's there?
(calls to hovel)
Fool.
A spirit, a spirit; he says his name's Poor Tom.
Kent.
What art thou that dost grumble there i' the straw?
(storm)
Come forth.
Enter Edgar, disguised as a madman, R. U. E. from hovel.
Edgar. (R.)
Away! the foul fiend follows me!
Through the sharp hawthorn blows the cold wind.—
Humph! go to thy cold bed, and warm thee.
Lear.
Hast thou given all to thy two daughters?
And art thou come to this?
Edgar.
Who gives anything to poor Tom? whom the
foul fiend hath led through fire and through flame, through
ford and whirlpool, over bog and quagmire; that hath
laid knives under his pillow, and halters in his pew; set
ratsbane by his porridge; made him proud of heart, to
ride on a bay trotting-horse over four-inched bridges, to
course his own shadow for a traitor:—Bless thy five wits!
(wind) Tom's a-cold. (wind) O, do de, do de, do de.—
-- 50 --
Bless thee from whirlwinds, star-blasting, and taking!
Do poor Tom some charity, whom the foul fiend vexes:
There could I have him now,—and there,—and there,—
and there again, and there.
(striking with his staff)
(storm continues)
Lear.
What! have his daughters brought him to this pass!
Could'st thou save nothing? Did'st thou give them all?
Fool.
Nay, he reserved a blanket, else he had had nought.
Lear.
Now, all the plagues that in the pendulous air
Hang fated o'er men's vaults, light on thy daughters.
Kent. (L. C.)
He hath no daughters, sir.
Lear. (C.)
Death, traitor! nothing could have subdued nature
To such a lowness, but his unkind daughters.—
Is it the fashion, that discarded fathers
Should have thus little mercy on their flesh?
Judicious punishment! 'twas this flesh begot
Those pelican daughters.
Edgar. (R.)
Pillicock sat on pillicock's-hill;—
Halloo, halloo, loo, loo!
Fool. (L.)
This cold night will turn us all to fools and
madmen.
Edgar.
Take heed o' the foul fiend. Obey thy parents,
keep thy word justly; swear not; commit not with man's
sworn spouse: set not thy sweet heart on proud array.
(wind) Tom's a-cold.
Lear.
What hast thou been?
Edgar.
A serving-man, proud in heart and mind; that
curled my hair: wore gloves in my cap: swore as many
oaths as I spake words, and broke them in the sweet face
of heaven. Wine loved I deeply; dice dearly; and
out-paramoured the Turk: false of heart, light of ear,
bloody of hand; hog in sloth, fox in stealth, wolf in
greediness, dog in madness, lion in prey. Let not the
creaking of shoes, nor the rustling of silks, betray thy
poor heart to woman: keep thy foot out of brothels, thy
hand out of plackets, thy pen from lenders' books, and
defy the foul fiend. (wind) Still through the hawthorn blows
the cold wind: says suum, mun, ha no nonney, Dolphin
my boy, my boy, sessa; let him trot by.
(storm continues)
Lear.
Why, thou were better in thy grave, than to
answer with thy uncovered body this extremity of the
-- 51 --
skies.—Is man no more than this? Consider him well.
Thou owest the worm no silk, the beast no hide, the sheep
no wool, the cat no perfume: ha! here's three on's are
sophisticated!—Thou art the thing itself: unaccommodated
man is no more but such a poor, bare, forked animal as
thou art.—Off, off, you lendings:—come; unbutton here.
(crosses, R.—tearing off his clothes—wind and rain)
Fool.
Pr'ythee, nuncle, be contented; 'tis a naughty
night to swim in.
Kent.
Defend his wits—good heaven!
Lear.
What's your name?
Edgar.
Poor Tom; that eats the swimming frog, the
toad, the tadpole, the wall-newt, and the water; that
in the fury of his heart, when the foul fiend rages,
swallows the old rat, and the ditch-dog; drinks the
green mantle of the standing pool; who is whipped
from tything to tything, and stocked, punished, and
imprisoned; who hath had three suits to his back, six
shirts to his body, horse to ride, and weapon to wear.
But mice, and rats, and such small deer,
Have been Tom's food for seven long year.
(Lear crosses to L., examining some straw which he takes from Edgar)
Beware, my follower:—peace, Smulkin: peace, thou fiend!
Lear.
One word more, but be sure keep true counsel
—tell me, is a madman a gentleman, a yeoman, or a king?
Edgar.
Frateretto calls me, (placing his ear to the
ground) and tells me, Nero is an angler in the lake of
darkness. Pray, innocent, and beware the foul fiend!
Lear.
To have a thousand with red burning spits
Come whizzing in upon them.
Kent.
I feared 'twould come to this.
Lear.
It shall be done; I will arraign them straight.—
Now you she foxes!—Bring in the evidence.—
Thou robed man of justice, take thy place;—
(to Edgar)
And thou, his yoke-fellow of equity,
(to the Fool)
Bench by his side.—You are o' the commission,
Sit you too. (to Kent—making them sit, L.) Arraign her first; 'tis Goneril.
And here's another, whose warp'd looks proclaim
What store her heart is made on.—Stop her there!
-- 52 --
Arms, arms, sword, fire!—Corruption in the place!
False justicer, why hast thou let her 'scape?
Edgar. (aside)
My tears begin to take his part so much,
They'll mar my counterfeiting.
Lear.
The little dogs and all,
Tray, Blanch, and Sweet-heart, see, they bark at me.
Edgar.
Tom will throw his head at them.—Avaunt,
you curs!
Be thy mouth or black or white,
Tooth that poisous if it bite;
Mastiff, greyhound, mongrel grim,
Hound or spaniel, brach or lym,
Or bobtail tyke, or trundle tail,
Tom will make them weep and wail;
For with throwing thus my head,
Dogs leap the hatch, and all are fled.
(throws his straw head dress and crosses, L.)
Do, de, de, de! sese! come march to wakes, and fairs,
and country towns. Poor Tom, thy horn is dry.
Kent.
How do you, sir? Stand you not so amaz'd—
Will go in?
Lear.
You sir; I entertain you for one of my hundred,
only I do not like the fashion of your garments—you will
say, they are Persian attire, but let them be changed.
(crosses, L.)
Fool. (pointing, R.)
Look, here comes a walking fire
Edgar. (looking, R.)
This is the foul fiend Flibbertigibbet:
he begins at curfew, and walks till the first cock; he gives
the web and the pin, squints the eye, and makes the harelip;
mildews the white wheat, and hurts the poor creatures
of the earth.
Saint Withold footed thrice the wold;
He met the night-mare, and her nine-fold;
Bid her alight,
And her troth plight,
And, aroint thee, witch, aroint thee.
Enter Gloster and two Servants, R., with torches.
Gloster.
What has your grace no better company?
Edgar.
The prince of darkness is a gentleman;
Modo he's call'd, and Mahu. Poor Tom's a-cold.
-- 53 --
Gloster.
Go in with me; my duty cannot suffer
To obey in all your daughters' hard commands:
Though their injunction be to bar my doors,
And let this tyrannous night take hold upon you;
Yet have I ventur'd to come seek you out,
And bring you where both fire and food is ready.
Lear.
First let me talk with this philosopher;
(Lear and Edgar sit down, L. C.)
What is the cause of thunder?
Kent.
Good my lord, take his offer: go into the house.
Lear.
I'll talk a word with this same learned Theban:—
What is your study?
Edgar.
How to prevent the fiend, and to kill vermin.
Lear.
Let me ask you one word in private.
(whispers in Edgar's ear)
Kent.
Impórtune him once more to go, my lord,
His wits begin to unsettle.
Gloster.
Canst thou blame him?
His daughters seek his death:—
Thou say'st, the king grows mad; I'll tell thee, friend,
I am almost mad myself:
This bedlam, but disturbs him. Fellow, begone!
Edgar.
Child Rowland to the dark tower came,—
His word was still,—Fie, foh, and fum,
I smell the blood of a British man.
Retires, and Exit, R. U. E.—Lear clings to his
blanket and is dragged to C. there losing his hold.
Kent. (L. of Lear)
Now, good my lord—
Lear.
Aye, let them anatomise Regan,—see what breeds about her heart:
Is there any cause in nature for these hard hearts?
Gloster.
Good friend, I pr'ythee take him in thy arms;
I have o'erheard a plot of death upon him.
There is a litter ready, lay him in't,
And drive toward Dover, friend, where thou shalt meet
Both welcome and protection. Good sir, along with us.
Lear.
Hush, make no noise, make no noise: draw the
curtains closer, closer, so, so, so; we'll go to supper i'the
morning—so, so.
(falls asleep and is carried off by Kent, Gloster, and Servants, R.)
-- 54 --
William Macready [1857], King Lear. A Tragedy, in five acts, by William Shakespeare (Thomas Hailes Lacy [etc.], London) [word count] [S41000].
