This look of thine will hurl my soul from heaven, O cursed, cursed slave!-Whip me, ye devils, Lod. O thou Othello, that was once so good, Oth. Why, any thing: An honourable murtherer, if you will Cas. Dear general, I never gave you cause. Oth. I do believe it, and I ask your pardon. Will you, I pray, demand that demi-devil, Why he hath thus ensnar'd my soul and body? lago. Demand me nothing: What you know, you know: From this time forth I never will speak word. Torments will ope your lips. Cas. I found it in my chamber; And he himself confess'd, but even now, That there he dropp'd it, for a special purpose, Which wrought to his desire. Oth. O fool! fool! fool! Lod. You must forsake this room, and go with us; Oth. Soft you; a word or two, before you go. [Stabs himself. All that is spoke is marr'd. Oth. I kiss'd thee, ere I kill'd thee;-No way but this, O Spartan dog! [Dies. [pon; Killing myself to die upon a kiss. [Exeunt. daughters to Lear. Knights attending on the King, Officers, Messengers, Soldiers and Attendants. SCENE.-BRITAIN. dukes he values most; for qualities are so weigh'd, that curiosity in neither can make choice of either' Kent. Is not this your son, my lord? [moiety Glo. His breeding, sir, hath been at my charge: I have so often blush'd to acknowledge him, that now I am braz'd to 't. Kent. I cannot conceive you. Glo. Sir, this young fellow's mother could: whereupon she grew round-wombed; and had indeed, sir, Kent. I cannot wish the fault undone, the issue of it being so proper. a son for her cradle, ere she had a husband for her | My heart into my mouth; I love your majesty bed. Do you smell a fault? According to my bond; no more, nor less. Lear. How, how, Cordelia? mend your speech a Lest you may mar your fortunes. [little, Cor. Good my lord, You have begot me, bred me, lov'd me: I Return those duties back as are right fit, Obey you, love you, and most honour you. Why have my sisters husbands, if they say They love you, all? Haply, when I shall wed, That lord whose hand must take my plight shall carry Glo. But I have a son, sir, by order of law, some year elder than this, who yet is no dearer in my account: though this knave came somewhat saucily to the world before he was sent for, yet was his mother fair; there was good sport at his making, and the whoreson must be acknowledged.-Do you know this noble gentleman, Edmund? Edm. No, my lord. Glo. My lord of Kent: remember him hereafter as Half my love with him, half my care, and duty: my honourable friend. Edm. My services to your lordship. [Trumpets sound within. Enter Lear, Cornwall, Albany, Goneril, Regan, Cordelia, and Attendants. Lear. Attend the lords of France and Burgundy, Glo. I shall, my liege. [Exeunt Glo. and Edm. Great rivals in our youngest daughter's love, silent. With shadowy forests and with champains rich'd, Reg. I am made of that self metal as my sister, Which the most precious square of sense possesses; Cor. Lear. To thee, and thine, hereditary ever, Cor. Nothing. Lear. Nothing will come of nothing: speak again. Sure, I shall never marry like my sisters, Lear. But goes thy heart with this? Ay, my good lord. From whom we do exist, and cease to be; Lear. Peace, Kent! Good my liege, Come not between the dragon and his wrath: Revenue, execution of the rest, Kent. Let it fall rather, though the fork invade Think'st thou that duty shall have dread to speak, our 's bound, Kent. Kill thy physician, and thy fee bestow Lear. Hear me, recreant! Kent. Fare thee well, king: sith thus thou wilt ap- Freedom lives hence, and banishment is here.- Glo. Here's France and Burgundy, my noble lord. We first address toward you, who with this king Lear. Bur. I know no answer. Bur. I tell you all her wealth.-For you, great king, This is most strange! That monsters it, or your fore-vouch'd affection I yet beseech your majesty, That I am glad I have not, though not to have it Better thou Lear. France. Is it but this? a tardiness in nature, Bur. Lear. Nothing: I have sworn; I am firm. My love should kindle to inflam'd respect.- [we [Flourish. Exeunt Lear, Burgundy, Cornwall, Albany, Gloster, and Attendants. France. Bid farewell to your sisters. Cor. The jewels of our father, with wash'd eyes Your faults as they are nam'd. Love well our I would prefer him to a better place. Reg. Prescribe not us our duties. Let your study Be, to content your lord; who hath receiv'd you Who covers faults at last with shame derides. Come, my fair Cordelia. Reg. That 's most certain, and with you; next month with us. Gon. 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. Reg. 'T is the infirmity of his age: yet he hath ever but slenderly known himself. Gon. The best and soundest of his time hath been but rash: then must we look from his age to receive not alone the imperfections of long-engraffed condition, but, therewithal, the unruly waywardness that infirm and choleric years bring with them. Reg. Such unconstant starts are we like to have from him, as this of Kent's banishment. Gon. There is further compliment of leave-taking between France and him. Pray you, let us sit together: if our father carry authority with such dispositions as he bears, this last surrender of his will but offend us. Reg. We shall further think of it. Gon. We must do something, and i' the heat. [Exe, SCENE II.-A Hall in the Earl of Gloster's Castle. Edm. Thou, nature, art my goddess; to thy law Enter Gloster. Glo. Kent banish'd thus! and France in choler And the king gone to-night! prescrib'd his power! Edm. I do not well know, my lord. If it shall please you to suspend your indignation against my brother, till you can derive from him better testimony of his intent, you should run a certain course; where, if you violently proceed against him, mistaking his purpose, it would make a great gap in your own honour, and shake in pieces the heart of his obedihath writ this to feel my affection to your honour, ence. I dare pawn down my life for him, that he and to no other pretence of danger. Glo. Think you so! Edm. If your honour judge it meet, I will place you where you shall hear us confer of this, and by an auricular assurance have your satisfaction; and that without any further delay than this very evening. Glo. He cannot be such a monster. Edm. Nor is not, sure. Glo. To his father, that so tenderly and entirely loves him.-Heaven and earth 1-Edmund, seek him out; wind me into him, I pray you; frame the business after your own wisdom: I would unstate myself, to be in a due resolution. Edm. I will seek him, sir, presently; convey the business as I shall find means, and acquaint you withal. Glo. These late eclipses in the sun and moon portend no good to us: Though the wisdom of nature can reason it thus and thus, yet nature finds itself scourged by the sequent effects: love cools, friendship falls off, brothers divide: in cities, mutinies; in countries, discord; in palaces, treason; and the [news? bond cracked 'twixt son and father. This villain of [Putting up the letter. mine comes under the prediction; there 's son up that against father: the king falls from bias of nature; [letter? there's father against child. We have seen the best of our time: Machinations, hollowness, treachery, and all ruinous disorders, follow us disquietly to our graves! Find out this villain, Edmund; it shall lose thee nothing; do it carefully:-And the noble and true-hearted Kent banished! his offence, honesty! -T is strange! [Exit. Glo. Why so earnestly seek you to put Glo. No? what needed then that terrible despatch 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. Edm. 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. Glo. Give me the letter, sir. Edm. I shall offend, either to detain or give it. The contents, as in part I understand them, are to blame. Glo. Let's see, let's see. Edm. This is the excellent foppery of the world! that, when we are sick in fortune, (often the surfeit of our own behaviour,) we make guilty of our disasters the sun, the moon, and stars: as if we were villains on necessity; fools by heavenly compulsion; knaves, thieves, and treachers, by spherical predominance; drunkards, liars, and adulterers, by an Edm. I hope, for my brother's justification, he enforced obedience of planetary influence; and all wrote this but as an essay or taste of my virtue. that we are evil in, by a divine thrusting on: An adGlo. [Reads.] This policy, and reverence of age, mirable evasion of whoremaster man, to lay his goatmakes the world bitter to the best of our times; ish disposition on the charge of a star! My father keeps our fortunes from us, till our oldness cannot compounded with my mother under the dragon's relish them. I begin to find an idle and fond bond-tail; and my nativity was under ursa major: so age in the oppression of aged tyranny; who sways, that it follows, I am rough and lecherous.-I should not as it hath power, but as it is suffered. Come to have been that I am, had the maidenliest star in the me, that of this I may speak more. If our father firmament twinkled on my bastardizing. would sleep till I waked him, you should enjoy half his revenue for ever, and live the beloved of your brother, Edgar.' My son Edgar! Had he a hand to write this? a heart and brain to breed it in? When came you to this? Who brought it? Edm. It was not brought me, my lord; there's the cunning of it: I found it thrown in at the casement of my closet. Glo. You know the character to be your brother's? Edm. 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. Glo. It is his. Edm. It is his hand, my lord; but I hope his heart is not in the contents. [business? Glo. Hath he never heretofore sounded you in this Edm. Never, my lord: But I have heard him oft maintain it to be fit, that, sons at perfect age, and fathers declined, the father should be as ward to the son, and the son manage his revenue. Glo. O villain, villain His very opinion in the letter-Abhorred villain! Unnatural, detested, brutish villain worse than brutish 1-Go, sirrah, seek him; I'll apprehend him:-Abominable villain -Where is he? Enter Edgar. Pat: he comes like the catastrophe of the old comedy: My cue is villainous melancholy, with a sigh like Tom o' Bedlam.-O, these eclipses do portend these divisions! fa, sol, la, mi. Edg. How now, brother Edmund? What serious contemplation are you in? Edm. I am thinking, brother, of a prediction I read Edm. Come, come; when saw you my father last! Edm. Bethink yourself wherein you may have offended him: and at my entreaty forbear his presence, till some little time hath qualified the for a king, thou art poor enough. What would'st heat of his displeasure; which at this instant so thou? Kent. Service. rageth in him, that with the mischief of your person it would scarcely allay. Edg. Some villain hath done me wrong. Edm. That 's my fear. I pray you have a continent forbearance, till the speed of his rage goes slower; and, as I say, retire with me to my Fodging, from whence I will fitly bring you to hear my lord speak: Pray you, go; there's my key:-If you do stir abroad go armed. Edg. Armed, brother? Edm. Brother, I advise you to the best. I am no honest man if there be any good meaning toward you: I have told you what I have seen and heard, but faintly; nothing like the image and horror of it: Pray you, away. Edg. Shall I hear from you anon? Kent. You. Lear. Who would'st thou serve? Lear. Dost thou know me, fellow? Kent. No, sir; but you have that in your countenance which I would fain call master. Lear. What 's that? Kent. Authority. Lear. What services canst thou do? Kent. I can keep honest counsel, ride, run, mar a curious tale in telling it, and deliver a plain message bluntly; that which ordinary men are fit for I am qualified in: and the best of me is diligence. Lear. How old art thou? Kent. Not so young, sir, to love a woman for sing. ing, nor so old to dote on her for anything: I have years on my back forty-eight. Lear. Follow me; thou shalt serve me; if I like thee no worse after dinner, I will not part from thee Edm. I do serve you in this business.- [Ex. Edg. yet.-Dinner, hoa, dinner.- Where's my knave! That he suspects none; on whose foolish honesty [Exit. SCENE III.-A Room in the Duke of Albany's Palace. Enter Goneril and Steward. Gon. Did my father strike my gentleman for chiding of his fool? Stew. Ay, madam. Gon. By day and night he wrongs me; every hour He flashes into one gross crime or other, That sets us all at odds: I'll not endure it: His knights grow riotous, and himself upbraids us On every triffe:-When he returns from hunting I will not speak with him; say, I am sick :If you come slack of former services You shall do well; the fault of it I'll answer. Stew. He's coming, madam; I hear him. Horns within. Gon. Put on what weary negligence you please, You and your fellows; I'd have it come to question: If he distaste it, let him to my sister, Whose mind and mine, I know, in that are one, Not to be over-rul'd. Idle old man, That still would manage those authorities That he hath given away!-Now, by my life, Old fools are babes again; and must be us'd With checks, as flatteries,-when they are seen Remember what I have said. [abus'd. Well, madam. Gon. And let his knights have colder looks among you; what grows of it no matter; advise your fellows so: I would breed from hence occasions, and I shall, that I may speak :-I'll write straight to my sister, to hold my course:- Prepare for dinner. [Exeunt. Stew. SCENE IV.-A Hall in the same. Kent. If but as well I other accents borrow, So may it come thy master, whom thou lov'st, Horns within. Enter Lear, Knights, and Lear. Let me not stay a jot for dinner; go, get it ready. [Exit an Attendant.] How now, what art thou? Kent. A man, sir. Lear. What dost thou profess? What would'st thou with us? Kent. I do profess to be no less than I seem; to serve him truly that will put me in trust; to love him that is honest; to converse with him that is wise and says little; to fear judgment; to fight when I cannot choose; and to eat no fish. Lear. What art thou? Kent. A very honest-hearted fellow, and as poor as the king. Lear. If thou be'st as poor for a subject as he's my fool? Go you, and call my fool hither. You, you, sirrah, where 's my daughter! [Exit. Lear. What says the fellow there! Call the clotpoll back. Where 's my fool, hoa?-I think the world's asleep.-How now? where 's that mongrel! Knight. He says, my lord, your daughter is not well. Lear. Why came not the slave back to me when I called him? Knight. Sir, he answered me in the roundest manLear. He would not! [ner, he would not. Knight. My lord, I know not what the matter is; but, to my judgment, your highness is not entertained with that ceremonious affection as you were wont; there's a great abatement of kindness appears, as well in the general dependants, as in the duke himself also, and your daughter. Lear. Ha! say'st thou so? Knight. I beseech you, pardon me, my lord, if 1 be mistaken for my duty cannot be silent when I Lear. Thou but remember'st me of mine own conthink your highness wronged. ception: I have perceived a most faint neglect of late; which I have rather blamed as mine own jealous curiosity, than as a very pretence and purpose of unkindness: I will look further into 't.-But where my fool? I have not seen him this two days. Knight. Since my young lady's going into France, sir, the fool hath much pined away. Lear. No more of that; I have noted it well.-Go you, and tell my daughter I would speak with her. -Go you, call hither my fool. Re-enter Steward. O, you sir, you, come you hither, sir: Who am I, Stew. I'll not be strucken, my lord. Kent. Come, sir, arise, away; I'll teach you dif- Enter Fool. Fool. Why? For taking one's part that 's out of favour: Nay, an thou canst not smile as the wind sits, thou 'lt catch cold shortly: There, take my coxcomb: Why, this fellow has banish'd two of his daughters, and did the third a blessing against his will; if thou follow him, thou must needs wear my |