KING LEAR. William Shakespeare
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patiently my great affliction off:
If I could bear it longer, and not fall
To quarrel with your great opposeless wills,
My snuff and loathed part of nature should
Burn itself out. If Edgar live, O, bless him!—
Now, fellow, fare thee well.
Edg.
Gone, sir:—farewell.—
[Gloster leaps, and falls along.]
And yet I know not how conceit may rob
The treasury of life when life itself
Yields to the theft: had he been where he thought,
By this had thought been past.—Alive or dead?
Ho you, sir! friend! Hear you, sir?—speak!—
Thus might he pass indeed:—yet he revives.—
What are you, sir?
Glou.
Away, and let me die.
Edg.
Hadst thou been aught but gossamer, feathers, air,
So many fathom down precipitating,
Thou’dst shiver’d like an egg: but thou dost breathe;
Hast heavy substance; bleed’st not; speak’st; art sound.
Ten masts at each make not the altitude
Which thou hast perpendicularly fell:
Thy life is a miracle.—Speak yet again.
Glou.
But have I fall’n, or no?
Edg.
From the dread summit of this chalky bourn.
Look up a-height;—the shrill-gorg’d lark so far
Cannot be seen or heard: do but look up.
Glou.
Alack, I have no eyes.—
Is wretchedness depriv’d that benefit
To end itself by death? ‘Twas yet some comfort
When misery could beguile the tyrant’s rage
And frustrate his proud will.
Edg.
Give me your arm:
Up:—so.—How is’t? Feel you your legs? You stand.
Glou.
Too well, too well.
Edg.
This is above all strangeness.
Upon the crown o’ the cliff what thing was that
Which parted from you?
Glou.
A poor unfortunate beggar.
Edg.
As I stood here below, methought his eyes
Were two full moons; he had a thousand noses,
Horns whelk’d and wav’d like the enridged sea:
It was some fiend; therefore, thou happy father,
Think that the clearest gods, who make them honours
Of men’s impossibility, have preserv’d thee.
Glou.
I do remember now: henceforth I’ll bear
Affliction till it do cry out itself,
‘Enough, enough,’ and die. That thing you speak of,
I took it for a man; often ‘twould say,
‘The fiend, the fiend’:—he led me to that place.
Edg.
Bear free and patient thoughts.—But who comes here?
[Enter Lear, fantastically dressed up with flowers.]
The safer sense will ne’er accommodate
His master thus.
Lear.
No, they cannot touch me for coining;
I am the king himself.
Edg.
O thou side-piercing sight!
Lear. Nature ‘s above art in that respect.—There’s your press money. That fellow handles his bow like a crow-keeper: draw me a clothier’s yard.—Look, look, a mouse! Peace, peace;—this piece of toasted cheese will do’t. There’s my gauntlet; I’ll prove it on a giant.—Bring up the brown bills. O, well flown, bird!—i’ the clout, i’ the clout: hewgh!—Give the word.
Edg.
Sweet marjoram.
Lear.
Pass.
Glou.
I know that voice.
Lear. Ha! Goneril with a white beard!—They flattered me like a dog; and told me I had white hairs in my beard ere the black ones were there. To say ‘ay’ and ‘no’ to everything I said!—‘Ay’ and ‘no’, too, was no good divinity. When the rain came to wet me once, and the wind to make me chatter; when the thunder would not peace at my bidding; there I found ‘em, there I smelt ‘em out. Go to, they are not men o’ their words: they told me I was everything; ‘tis a lie—I am not ague-proof.
Glou.
The trick of that voice I do well remember:
Is’t not the king?
Lear.
Ay, every inch a king:
When I do stare, see how the subject quakes.
I pardon that man’s life.—What was thy cause?—
Adultery?—
Thou shalt not die: die for adultery! No:
The wren goes to’t, and the small gilded fly
Does lecher in my sight.
Let copulation thrive; for Gloster’s bastard son
Was kinder to his father than my daughters
Got ‘tween the lawful sheets.
To’t, luxury, pellmell! for I lack soldiers.—
Behold yond simpering dame,
Whose face between her forks presages snow;
That minces virtue, and does shake the head
To hear of pleasure’s name;—
The fitchew nor the soiled horse goes to’t
With a more riotous appetite.
Down from the waist they are centaurs,
Though women all above:
But to the girdle do the gods inherit,
Beneath is all the fiend’s; there’s hell, there’s darkness,
There is the sulphurous pit; burning, scalding, stench,
consumption; fie, fie, fie! pah, pah!
Give me an ounce of civet, good apothecary, to sweeten my
imagination: there’s money for thee.
Glou.
O, let me kiss that hand!
Lear.
Let me wipe it first; it smells of mortality.
Glou.
O ruin’d piece of nature! This great world
Shall so wear out to naught.—Dost thou know me?
Lear.
I remember thine eyes well enough. Dost thou squiny at me?
No, do thy worst, blind Cupid; I’ll not love.—Read