King Lear Page #6

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your valour.

You cowardly rascal, nature disclaims

in thee. A tailor made thee.

Thou art a strange fellow.

A tailor make a man?

A tailor, sir. A stone-cutter or painter

could not have made him so ill.

Speak yet. How grew your quarrel?

This ancient ruffian, sir, whose life

I have spared at suit of his grey beard...

Thou whoreson zed,

thou unnecessary letter!

My lord, if you will give me leave, I will

tread this unbolted villain into mortar,

and daub the wall of a jakes with him.

Peace, sirrah!

You beastly knave, know you no reverence?

A plague upon your epileptic visage!

Goose, if I had you upon Sarum plain,

I'd drive ye cackling home to Camelot.

- What? Art thou mad, old fellow?

- How fell you out? Say that.

No contrary holds more antipathy

than I and such a knave.

Why dost thou call him knave?

What is his fault?

His countenance likes me not.

No more perchance does mine,

or his, or hers.

Sir, 'tis my occupation to be plain.

I have seen better faces in my time

than stands on any shoulders that I see

before me at this instant.

This is some fellow,

who, having been praised for bluntness,

doth affect a saucy roughness.

He cannot flatter, he!

An honest mind

and plain, he must speak truth!

And they will take it so.

If not, he's plain.

Sir, under the allowance

of your great aspect,

whose influence, like the wreath of

radiant fire on flickering Phoebus' front...

What mean'st by this?

To go out of my dialect,

which you discommend so much.

- I know, sir, I am no flatterer.

- What was the offence you gave him?

I never gave him any.

It pleased the King his master very late

to strike at me upon his misconstruction,

whilst he, conjunct

and flattering his displeasure,

tripped me behind, got praises of the King

for him attempting who was self-subdued,

and in the fleshment of this dread

exploit, drew on me here again.

None of these rogues and cowards

but Ajax is their fool.

Fetch forth the stocks!

You stubborn ancient knave,

you reverend braggart.

- We'll teach you.

- Sir, I am too old to learn.

Call not your stocks for me. I serve the King.

Fetch forth the stocks! As I have life

and honour, there shall you sit till noon.

Till noon? Till night, my lord,

and all night too.

Why, madam, if I were your father's dog,

you should not use me so.

Sir, being his knave, I will.

This is a fellow of the self-same colour

our sister speaks of.

Come, bring away the stocks!

Let me beseech your grace not to do so.

His fault is much and the good King,

his master, will check him for't.

Your purposed low correction

is such as pilferings,

common trespasses are punished with.

- The King must take it ill.

- I'll answer that.

My sister may receive it much more worse,

to have her gentleman abused, assaulted,

for following her affairs.

Put in his legs.

Come, my lord, away.

I am sorry for thee, friend.

'Tis the Duke's pleasure,

whose disposition all the world well knows

will not be rubbed nor stopped.

I'll entreat for thee.

Pray, do not, sir.

I have watched and travelled hard.

Some time I shall sleep

out, the rest I'll whistle.

A good man's fortune may grow out at heels.

Give you good morrow!

The Duke's to blame in this.

'Twill be ill taken.

Approach, thou beacon to this under globe,

that by thy comfortable beams

I may peruse this letter.

'Tis from Cordelia,

who hath most fortunately been informed

of my obscured course

and "shall find time

from this enormous state,

"seeking to give losses their remedies."

All weary and o'erwatched,

take vantage, heavy eyes,

not to behold this shameful lodging.

Fortune, good night.

Smile once more.

Turn thy wheel.

I heard myself proclaimed,

and by the happy hollow of a tree

escaped the hunt.

No port is free,

no place that guard and most unusual

vigilance does not attend my taking.

Whiles I may 'scape,

I will preserve myself...

and am bethought

to take the basest, most poorest shape

that ever penury, in contempt of man,

brought near to beast.

My face I'll grime with filth.

Blanket my loins,

and elf all my hair in knots...

and with presented nakedness outface

the winds and persecutions of the sky.

The country gives me proof and precedent

of Bedlam beggars,

who, with roaring voices,

strike in their numbed

and mortified bare arms

pins, wooden pricks, nails,

and sprigs of rosemary.

And with this horrible object,

from low farms, poor pelting villages,

sheepcotes and mills,

sometime with lunatic bans

and sometime with prayers,

enforce their charity.

Poor Turlygod! Poor Tom!

That's something yet.

Edgar I nothing am!

'Tis strange that they

should so depart from home.

Hail to thee, noble master!

- Makest thou this shame thy pastime?

- No, my lord.

Ha ha! He wears cruel garters.

When a man is over-lusty at legs,

then he wears wooden nether-stocks.

What's he that hath so much thy place mistook

to set thee here?

It is both he and she,

your son and daughter.

- No.

- Yes.

- No, I say.

- I say, yea.

- No, no, they would not.

- Yes, they have.

- By Jupiter, I swear, no!

- By Juno, I swear, ay!

They durst not do't.

Could not, would not do't.

My lord, when at their home

I did commend your highness' letter to them,

ere I was risen came there a reeking post,

stewed in his haste, half breathless,

panting forth from Goneril,

his mistress, salutations.

Delivered letters,

which presently they read.

Gave me cold looks, straight took horse.

Commanded me to follow and attend

the leisure of their answer.

Meeting here the other messenger, whose

welcome I perceived had poisoned mine,

being the very fellow that of late

displayed so saucily against your highness,

having more man than wit about me, drew.

He raised the house with loud

and coward cries.

Your son and daughter found this trespass

worth the shame which here it suffers.

Winter's not gone yet

if the wild-geese fly that way.

O, how this mother swells up toward my heart!

Where is this daughter?

- With the Earl, sir, here within.

- Follow me not. You stay there.

Made you no more offence

but what you speak of?

None. How chance it the King

comes with so small a number?

And thou had been set i' the stocks for

that question, thou hadst well deserved it.

Why, fool?

All that follow their noses are led

by their eyes except blind men,

and there's not a nose amongst twenty

but can smell him that's stinking.

Deny to speak with me?

They are sick.

They are weary.

They have travelled all the night?

Fetch me a better answer.

My dear lord,

you know the fiery quality of the duke.

Vengeance, plague, death, confusion!

Fiery? What quality?

Why, Gloucester, Gloucester, I'd speak

with the Duke of Cornwall and his wife.

Well, my good lord, I have informed them so.

Informed them? Dost thou understand me, man?

- Ay, my good lord.

- The King would speak with Cornwall.

The dear father would with his daughter

speak... commands, tends service.

Are they informed of this?

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