Thy dowerless daughter,king,thrown to my chance,Is queen of us,of ours,and our fair France:
Not all the dukes of waterish Burgundy Can buy this unprized precious maid of me.
Bid them farewell,Cordelia,though unkind:
Thou losest here,a better where to find.KING LEAR Thou hast her,France:let her be thine;for we Have no such daughter,nor shall ever see That face of hers again.Therefore be gone Without our grace,our love,our benison.
Come,noble Burgundy.
Flourish.Exeunt all but KING OF FRANCE,GONERIL,REGAN,and CORDELIA KING OF FRANCE Bid farewell to your sisters.CORDELIA The jewels of our father,with wash'd eyes Cordelia leaves you:I know you what you are;And like a sister am most loath to call Your faults as they are named.Use well our father:
To your professed bosoms I commit him But yet,alas,stood I within his grace,I would prefer him to a better place.
So,farewell to you both.REGAN Prescribe not us our duties.GONERIL Let your study Be to content your lord,who hath received you At fortune's alms.You have obedience scanted,And well are worth the want that you have wanted.CORDELIA Time shall unfold what plaited cunning hides:
Who cover faults,at last shame them derides.
Well may you prosper!KING OF FRANCE Come,my fair Cordelia.
Exeunt KING OF FRANCE and CORDELIA GONERIL Sister,it is not a little I have to say of what most nearly appertains to us both.I think our father will hence to-night.REGAN That's most certain,and with you;next month with us.GONERIL You see how full of changes his age is;the observation we have made of it hath not been little:he always loved our sister most;and with what poor judgment he hath now cast her off appears too grossly.REGAN 'Tis the infirmity of his age:yet he hath ever but slenderly known himself.GONERIL The best and soundest of his time hath been but rash;then must we look to receive from his age,not alone the imperfections of long-engraffed condition,but therewithal the unruly waywardness that infirm and choleric years bring with them.REGAN Such unconstant starts are we like to have from him as this of Kent's banishment.GONERIL There is further compliment of leavetaking between France and him.Pray you,let's hit together:if our father carry authority with such dispositions as he bears,this last surrender of his will but offend us.REGAN We shall further think on't.GONERIL We must do something,and i'the heat.Exeunt
SCENE II.The Earl of Gloucester's castle
Enter EDMUND,with a letter EDMUND Thou,nature,art my goddess;to thy law My services are bound.Wherefore should IStand in the plague of custom,and permit The curiosity of nations to deprive me,For that I am some twelve or fourteen moon-shines Lag of a brother?Why bastard?wherefore base?
When my dimensions are as well compact,My mind as generous,and my shape as true,As honest madam's issue?Why brand they us With base?with baseness?bastardy?base,base?
Who,in the lusty stealth of nature,take More composition and fierce quality Than doth,within a dull,stale,tired bed,Go to the creating a whole tribe of fops,Got 'tween asleep and wake?Well,then,Legitimate Edgar,I must have your land:
Our father's love is to the bastard Edmund As to the legitimate:fine word,--legitimate!
Well,my legitimate,if this letter speed,And my invention thrive,Edmund the base Shall top the legitimate.I grow;I prosper:
Now,gods,stand up for bastards!
Enter GLOUCESTER GLOUCESTER Kent banish'd thus!and France in choler parted!
And the king gone to-night!subscribed his power!
Confined to exhibition!All this done Upon the gad!Edmund,how now!what news?EDMUND So please your lordship,none.
Putting up the letter GLOUCESTER Why so earnestly seek you to put up that letter?EDMUND I know no news,my lord.GLOUCESTER What paper were you reading?EDMUND Nothing,my lord.GLOUCESTER No?What needed,then,that terrible dispatch of it into your pocket?the quality of nothing hath not such need to hide itself.Let's see:come,if it be nothing,I shall not need spectacles.EDMUND I beseech you,sir,pardon me:it is a letter from my brother,that I have not all o'er-read;and for so much as I have perused,I find it not fit for your o'er-looking.GLOUCESTER Give me the letter,sir.EDMUND I shall offend,either to detain or give it.The contents,as in part I understand them,are to blame.GLOUCESTER Let's see,let's see.EDMUND I hope,for my brother's justification,he wrote this but as an essay or taste of my virtue.GLOUCESTER [Reads]'This policy and reverence of age makes the world bitter to the best of our times;keeps our fortunes from us till our oldness cannot relish them.I begin to find an idle and fond bondage in the oppression of aged tyranny;who sways,not as it hath power,but as it is suffered.Come to me,that of this I may speak more.If our father would sleep till I waked him,you should half his revenue for ever,and live the beloved of your brother,EDGAR.'
Hum--conspiracy!--'Sleep till I waked him,--you should enjoy half his revenue,'--My son Edgar!
Had he a hand to write this?a heart and brain to breed it in?--When came this to you?who brought it?EDMUND It was not brought me,my lord;there's the cunning of it;I found it thrown in at the casement of my closet.GLOUCESTER You know the character to be your brother's?EDMUND If the matter were good,my lord,I durst swear it were his;but,in respect of that,I would fain think it were not.GLOUCESTER It is his.EDMUND It is his hand,my lord;but I hope his heart is not in the contents.GLOUCESTER Hath he never heretofore sounded you in this business?EDMUND Never,my lord:but I have heard him oft maintain it to be fit,that,sons at perfect age,and fathers declining,the father should be as ward to the son,and the son manage his revenue.GLOUCESTER O villain,villain!His very opinion in the letter!Abhorred villain!Unnatural,detested,brutish villain!worse than brutish!Go,sirrah,seek him;I'll apprehend him:abominable villain!