The Tragedy Of King Lear

1 music playing; Physician, Gentleman and others
2 attending.
3 Enter Cordelia and Kent.
4 CORDELIA.
5 O thou good Kent, how shall I live and work
6 To match thy goodness? My life will be too short,
7 And every measure fail me.
8 KENT.
9 To be acknowledg’d, madam, is o’erpaid.
10 All my reports go with the modest truth;
11 Nor more, nor clipp’d, but so.
12 CORDELIA.
13 Be better suited,
14 These weeds are memories of those worser hours:
15 I prithee put them off.
16 KENT.
17 Pardon, dear madam;
18 Yet to be known shortens my made intent.
19 My boon I make it that you know me not
20 Till time and I think meet.
21 CORDELIA.
22 Then be’t so, my good lord. [_To the Physician._] How does the King?
23 PHYSICIAN.
24 Madam, sleeps still.
25 CORDELIA.
26 O you kind gods,
27 Cure this great breach in his abused nature!
28 The untun’d and jarring senses, O, wind up
29 Of this child-changed father.
30 PHYSICIAN.
31 So please your majesty
32 That we may wake the King: he hath slept long.
33 CORDELIA.
34 Be govern’d by your knowledge, and proceed
35 I’ the sway of your own will. Is he array’d?
36 PHYSICIAN.
37 Ay, madam. In the heaviness of sleep
38 We put fresh garments on him.
39 Be by, good madam, when we do awake him;
40 I doubt not of his temperance.
41 CORDELIA.
42 Very well.
43 PHYSICIAN.
44 Please you draw near. Louder the music there!
45 CORDELIA.
46 O my dear father! Restoration hang
47 Thy medicine on my lips; and let this kiss
48 Repair those violent harms that my two sisters
49 Have in thy reverence made!
50 KENT.
51 Kind and dear princess!
52 CORDELIA.
53 Had you not been their father, these white flakes
54 Did challenge pity of them. Was this a face
55 To be oppos’d against the warring winds?
56 To stand against the deep dread-bolted thunder?
57 In the most terrible and nimble stroke
58 Of quick cross lightning? to watch, poor perdu!
59 With this thin helm? Mine enemy’s dog,
60 Though he had bit me, should have stood that night
61 Against my fire; and wast thou fain, poor father,
62 To hovel thee with swine and rogues forlorn
63 In short and musty straw? Alack, alack!
64 ’Tis wonder that thy life and wits at once
65 Had not concluded all. He wakes; speak to him.
66 PHYSICIAN.
67 Madam, do you; ’tis fittest.
68 CORDELIA.
69 How does my royal lord? How fares your majesty?
70 LEAR.
71 You do me wrong to take me out o’ the grave.
72 Thou art a soul in bliss; but I am bound
73 Upon a wheel of fire, that mine own tears
74 Do scald like molten lead.
75 CORDELIA.
76 Sir, do you know me?
77 LEAR.
78 You are a spirit, I know: when did you die?
79 CORDELIA.
80 Still, still, far wide!
81 PHYSICIAN.
82 He’s scarce awake: let him alone awhile.
83 LEAR.
84 Where have I been? Where am I? Fair daylight?
85 I am mightily abus’d. I should e’en die with pity,
86 To see another thus. I know not what to say.
87 I will not swear these are my hands: let’s see;
88 I feel this pin prick. Would I were assur’d
89 Of my condition!
90 CORDELIA.
91 O, look upon me, sir,
92 And hold your hands in benediction o’er me.
93 No, sir, you must not kneel.
94 LEAR.
95 Pray, do not mock me:
96 I am a very foolish fond old man,
97 Fourscore and upward, not an hour more nor less;
98 And to deal plainly,
99 I fear I am not in my perfect mind.
100 Methinks I should know you, and know this man;
101 Yet I am doubtful: for I am mainly ignorant
102 What place this is; and all the skill I have
103 Remembers not these garments; nor I know not
104 Where I did lodge last night. Do not laugh at me;
105 For, as I am a man, I think this lady
106 To be my child Cordelia.
107 CORDELIA.
108 And so I am. I am.
109 LEAR.
110 Be your tears wet? Yes, faith. I pray weep not:
111 If you have poison for me, I will drink it.
112 I know you do not love me; for your sisters
113 Have, as I do remember, done me wrong.
114 You have some cause, they have not.
115 CORDELIA.
116 No cause, no cause.
117 LEAR.
118 Am I in France?
119 KENT.
120 In your own kingdom, sir.
121 LEAR.
122 Do not abuse me.
123 PHYSICIAN.
124 Be comforted, good madam, the great rage,
125 You see, is kill’d in him: and yet it is danger
126 To make him even o’er the time he has lost.
127 Desire him to go in; trouble him no more
128 Till further settling.
129 CORDELIA.
130 Will’t please your highness walk?
131 LEAR.
132 You must bear with me:
133 Pray you now, forget and forgive: I am old and foolish.
134 [_Exeunt Lear, Cordelia, Physician and Attendants._]
135 GENTLEMAN.
136 Holds it true, sir, that the Duke of Cornwall was so slain?
137 KENT.
138 Most certain, sir.
139 GENTLEMAN.
140 Who is conductor of his people?
141 KENT.
142 As ’tis said, the bastard son of Gloucester.
143 GENTLEMAN.
144 They say Edgar, his banished son, is with the Earl of Kent
145 in Germany.
146 KENT.
147 Report is changeable. ’Tis time to look about; the powers of
148 the kingdom approach apace.
149 GENTLEMAN.
150 The arbitrement is like to be bloody.
151 Fare you well, sir.
152 [_Exit._]
153 KENT.
154 My point and period will be throughly wrought,
155 Or well or ill, as this day’s battle’s fought.
156 [_Exit._]