The Tragedy Of King Lear

1 KENT.
2 Here is the place, my lord; good my lord, enter:
3 The tyranny of the open night’s too rough
4 For nature to endure.
5 LEAR.
6 Let me alone.
7 KENT.
8 Good my lord, enter here.
9 LEAR.
10 Wilt break my heart?
11 KENT.
12 I had rather break mine own. Good my lord, enter.
13 LEAR.
14 Thou think’st ’tis much that this contentious storm
15 Invades us to the skin: so ’tis to thee,
16 But where the greater malady is fix’d,
17 The lesser is scarce felt. Thou’dst shun a bear;
18 But if thy flight lay toward the raging sea,
19 Thou’dst meet the bear i’ the mouth. When the mind’s
20 free,
21 The body’s delicate: the tempest in my mind
22 Doth from my senses take all feeling else
23 Save what beats there. Filial ingratitude!
24 Is it not as this mouth should tear this hand
25 For lifting food to’t? But I will punish home;
26 No, I will weep no more. In such a night
27 To shut me out! Pour on; I will endure:
28 In such a night as this! O Regan, Goneril!
29 Your old kind father, whose frank heart gave all,
30 O, that way madness lies; let me shun that;
31 No more of that.
32 KENT.
33 Good my lord, enter here.
34 LEAR.
35 Prithee go in thyself; seek thine own ease:
36 This tempest will not give me leave to ponder
37 On things would hurt me more. But I’ll go in.
38 [_To the Fool._] In, boy; go first. You houseless poverty,
39 Nay, get thee in. I’ll pray, and then I’ll sleep.
40 [_Fool goes in._]
41 Poor naked wretches, wheresoe’er you are,
42 That bide the pelting of this pitiless storm,
43 How shall your houseless heads and unfed sides,
44 Your loop’d and window’d raggedness, defend you
45 From seasons such as these? O, I have ta’en
46 Too little care of this! Take physic, pomp;
47 Expose thyself to feel what wretches feel,
48 That thou mayst shake the superflux to them
49 And show the heavens more just.
50 EDGAR.
51 [_Within._] Fathom and half, fathom and half! Poor Tom!
52 [_The Fool runs out from the hovel._]
53 FOOL.
54 Come not in here, nuncle, here’s a spirit.
55 Help me, help me!
56 KENT.
57 Give me thy hand. Who’s there?
58 FOOL.
59 A spirit, a spirit: he says his name’s poor Tom.
60 KENT.
61 What art thou that dost grumble there i’ the straw?
62 Come forth.
63 Enter Edgar, disguised as a
64 madman.
65 EDGAR.
66 Away! the foul fiend follows me! Through the sharp hawthorn blows the
67 cold wind. Humh! go to thy cold bed, and warm thee.
68 LEAR.
69 Didst thou give all to thy two daughters?
70 And art thou come to this?
71 EDGAR.
72 Who gives anything to poor Tom? Whom the foul fiend hath led
73 through fire and through flame, through ford and whirlpool, o’er
74 bog and quagmire; that hath laid knives under his pillow and
75 halters in his pew, set ratsbane by his porridge; made him proud
76 of heart, to ride on a bay trotting horse over four-inched
77 bridges, to course his own shadow for a traitor. Bless thy five
78 wits! Tom’s a-cold. O, do, de, do, de, do, de. Bless thee from
79 whirlwinds, star-blasting, and taking! Do poor Tom some charity,
80 whom the foul fiend vexes. There could I have him now, and
81 there,—and there again, and there.
82 [_Storm continues._]
83 LEAR.
84 What, have his daughters brought him to this pass?
85 Couldst thou save nothing? Didst thou give ’em all?
86 FOOL.
87 Nay, he reserv’d a blanket, else we had been all shamed.
88 LEAR.
89 Now all the plagues that in the pendulous air
90 Hang fated o’er men’s faults light on thy daughters!
91 KENT.
92 He hath no daughters, sir.
93 LEAR.
94 Death, traitor! nothing could have subdu’d nature
95 To such a lowness but his unkind daughters.
96 Is it the fashion that discarded fathers
97 Should have thus little mercy on their flesh?
98 Judicious punishment! ’twas this flesh begot
99 Those pelican daughters.
100 EDGAR.
101 Pillicock sat on Pillicock hill,
102 Alow, alow, loo loo!
103 FOOL.
104 This cold night will turn us all to fools and madmen.
105 EDGAR.
106 Take heed o’ th’ foul fiend: obey thy parents; keep thy word
107 justly; swear not; commit not with man’s sworn spouse; set not
108 thy sweet-heart on proud array. Tom’s a-cold.
109 LEAR.
110 What hast thou been?
111 EDGAR.
112 A serving-man, proud in heart and mind; that curled my hair;
113 wore gloves in my cap; served the lust of my mistress’ heart, and
114 did the act of darkness with her; swore as many oaths as I spake
115 words, and broke them in the sweet face of heaven. One that
116 slept in the contriving of lust, and waked to do it. Wine loved
117 I deeply, dice dearly; and in woman out-paramour’d the Turk.
118 False of heart, light of ear, bloody of hand; hog in sloth, fox
119 in stealth, wolf in greediness, dog in madness, lion in prey.
120 Let not the creaking of shoes nor the rustling of silks betray
121 thy poor heart to woman. Keep thy foot out of brothels, thy hand
122 out of plackets, thy pen from lender’s book, and defy the foul
123 fiend. Still through the hawthorn blows the cold wind: says
124 suum, mun, nonny. Dolphin my boy, boy, sessa! let him trot by.
125 [_Storm still continues._]
126 LEAR.
127 Why, thou wert better in thy grave than to answer with thy uncovered
128 body this extremity of the skies. Is man no more than this? Consider
129 him well. Thou owest the worm no silk, the beast no hide, the sheep no
130 wool, the cat no perfume. Ha! here’s three on’s are
131 sophisticated! Thou art the thing itself: unaccommodated man is no more
132 but such a poor, bare, forked animal as thou art. Off, off, you
133 lendings! Come, unbutton here.
134 [_Tears off his clothes._]
135 FOOL.
136 Prithee, nuncle, be contented; ’tis a naughty night to swim
137 in. Now a little fire in a wild field were like an old lecher’s
138 heart, a small spark, all the rest on’s body cold. Look, here
139 comes a walking fire.
140 EDGAR.
141 This is the foul fiend Flibbertigibbet: he begins at curfew, and walks
142 till the first cock; he gives the web and the pin, squints the eye, and
143 makes the harelip; mildews the white wheat, and hurts the poor creature
144 of earth.
145 Swithold footed thrice the old;
146 He met the nightmare, and her nine-fold;
147 Bid her alight and her troth plight,
148 And aroint thee, witch, aroint thee!
149 KENT.
150 How fares your grace?
151 Enter Gloucester with a
152 torch.
153 LEAR.
154 What’s he?
155 KENT.
156 Who’s there? What is’t you seek?
157 GLOUCESTER.
158 What are you there? Your names?
159 EDGAR.
160 Poor Tom; that eats the swimming frog, the toad, the todpole, the
161 wall-newt and the water; that in the fury of his heart, when the
162 foul fiend rages, eats cow-dung for sallets; swallows the old rat
163 and the ditch-dog; drinks the green mantle of the standing pool;
164 who is whipped from tithing to tithing, and stocked, punished,
165 and imprisoned; who hath had three suits to his back, six shirts
166 to his body,
167 Horse to ride, and weapon to wear.
168 But mice and rats and such small deer,
169 Have been Tom’s food for seven long year.
170 Beware my follower. Peace, Smulkin; peace, thou fiend!
171 GLOUCESTER.
172 What, hath your grace no better company?
173 EDGAR.
174 The prince of darkness is a gentleman:
175 Modo he’s call’d, and Mahu.
176 GLOUCESTER.
177 Our flesh and blood, my lord, is grown so vile
178 That it doth hate what gets it.
179 EDGAR.
180 Poor Tom’s a-cold.
181 GLOUCESTER.
182 Go in with me: my duty cannot suffer
183 T’obey in all your daughters’ hard commands;
184 Though their injunction be to bar my doors,
185 And let this tyrannous night take hold upon you,
186 Yet have I ventur’d to come seek you out,
187 And bring you where both fire and food is ready.
188 LEAR.
189 First let me talk with this philosopher.
190 What is the cause of thunder?
191 KENT.
192 Good my lord, take his offer; go into the house.
193 LEAR.
194 I’ll talk a word with this same learned Theban.
195 What is your study?
196 EDGAR.
197 How to prevent the fiend and to kill vermin.
198 LEAR.
199 Let me ask you one word in private.
200 KENT.
201 Importune him once more to go, my lord;
202 His wits begin t’unsettle.
203 GLOUCESTER.
204 Canst thou blame him?
205 His daughters seek his death. Ah, that good Kent!
206 He said it would be thus, poor banish’d man!
207 Thou sayest the King grows mad; I’ll tell thee, friend,
208 I am almost mad myself. I had a son,
209 Now outlaw’d from my blood; he sought my life
210 But lately, very late: I lov’d him, friend,
211 No father his son dearer: true to tell thee,
212 [_Storm continues._]
213 The grief hath craz’d my wits. What a night’s this!
214 I do beseech your grace.
215 LEAR.
216 O, cry you mercy, sir.
217 Noble philosopher, your company.
218 EDGAR.
219 Tom’s a-cold.
220 GLOUCESTER.
221 In, fellow, there, into the hovel; keep thee warm.
222 LEAR.
223 Come, let’s in all.
224 KENT.
225 This way, my lord.
226 LEAR.
227 With him;
228 I will keep still with my philosopher.
229 KENT.
230 Good my lord, soothe him; let him take the fellow.
231 GLOUCESTER.
232 Take him you on.
233 KENT.
234 Sirrah, come on; go along with us.
235 LEAR.
236 Come, good Athenian.
237 GLOUCESTER.
238 No words, no words, hush.
239 EDGAR.
240 Child Rowland to the dark tower came,
241 His word was still—Fie, foh, and fum,
242 I smell the blood of a British man.
243 [_Exeunt._]