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Scene I, II.

That the duke of Cornwall was so slain?
Kent.

Kent.

Most certain, sir.
Gent. Who is conductor of his people?
As 'tis said,

The bastard son of Gloster.

Gent.

They say, Edgar,

His banished son, is with the earl of Kent

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3

SCENE 1.-The camp of the British forces,
near Dover. Enter, with drums and colours,
Edmund, Regan, Officers, Soldiers, and others.
Edm. Know of the duke, if his last purpose hold;
Or, whether since he is advis'd by aught
To change the course: He's full of alteration,
And self-reproving:-bring his constant pleasure.
[To an officer, who goes out.
Reg. Our sister's man is certainly miscarried.
Edm. 'Tis to be doubted, madam.
Now, sweet lord,
Reg.
You know the goodness I intend upon you:
Tell me, but truly,-but then speak the truth,
Do you not love my sister?

In honour'd love.

Edm.
Reg. But have you never found my brother's way
To the forefended place?
Edm.

That thought abuses you.
Reg. I am doubtful that you have been conjunct
And bosom'd with her, as far as we call hers.
Edm. No, by mine honour, madam.

Reg. never shall endure her: Dear my lord,
Be not familiar with her.

Edm.

Fear me not:

She, and the duke her husband,

Enter Albany, Goneril, and Soldiers.

Gon. I had rather lose the battle, than that sister Should loosen him and me.

[Aside.

Alb. Our very loving sister, well be met.-
Sir, this I hear,-The king is come to his daughter,
With others, whom the rigour of our state
Fore'd to cry out. Where I could not be honest,
I never yet was valiant: for this business,
It touches us as France invades our land,
Not bolds the king; with others, whom, I fear,
Most just and heavy causes make oppose."
Edm. Sir, you speak nobly.
Why is this reason'd?
Reg.
Gon. Combine together 'gainst the enemy:
For these domestic and particular broils

Are not to question here.

Alb.

Let us then determine

With the ancient of war on our proceedings.
Edm. I shall attend you presently at your tent.
Reg. Sister, you'll go with us?

Gon. No.

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Reg. 'Tis most convenient; pray you, go with us.
Gon. O, ho, I know the riddle! [Aside.] I will go.
As they are going out, enter Edgar, disguised.
Edg. If e'er your grace had speech with man
so poor,
Hear me one word.
Alb.

I'll overtake you.-Speak.
[Exeunt Edmund, Regan, Goneril, Officers,
Soldiers, and Attendants.

Edg. Before you fight the battle, ope this letter.
If you have victory, let the trumpet sound
For him that brought it: wretched though I seem,
I can produce a champion, that will prove
What is avouched there: If you miscarry,
Your business of the world hath so an end,
And machination ceases. Fortune love you!
Alb. Stay till I have read the letter.
I was forbid it.
Edg.
When time shall serve, let but the herald cry,
And I'll appear again.

[Exit.

Alb. Why, fare thee well; I will o'erlook thy paper.

Re-enter Edmund.

Edm. The enemy's in view, draw up your powers.
Here is the guess of their true strength and forces
By diligent discovery;-but your haste
Is now urg'd on you.

Alb.
We will greet the time." [Exit.
Edm. To both these sisters have I sworn my love;
Each jealous of the other, as the stung
Are of the adder. Which of them shall I take?
Both? one? or neither? Neither can be enjoy'd,
If both remain alive: To take the widow,
Exasperates, makes mad her sister Goneril;
And hardly shall I carry out my side, 10
Her husband being alive. Now then, we'll use
His countenance for the battle; which being done,
Let her, who would be rid of him, devise
His speedy taking off. As for the mercy.
Which he intends to Lear, and to Cordelia,—
The battle done, and they within our power,
Shall never see his pardon: for my state
Stands on me to defend, not to debate.
SCENE II-A field between the two camps.
Alarum within. Enter, with drums and colours,
Lear, Cordelia, and their forces; and exeunt.
Enter Edgar and Gloster.

[Exrt.

Edg. Here, father, take the shadow of this tree
For your good host; pray that the right may thrive.
If ever I return to you again,
I'll bring you comfort.
Glo.

Grace go with you, sir!
[Exit Edgar.

Alarums; afterwards a retreat. Re-enter Edgar.
Edg. Away, old man, give me thy hand, away;
King Lear hath lost, he and his daughter ta'en:
Give me thy hand, come on.

Glo. No further, sir; a man may rot even here.
Edg. What, in ill thoughts again? Men must
endure

Their going hence, even as their coming hither:
Ripeness is all:"1 Come on.
Glo.

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SCENE III.-The British camp near Dover.
Enter, in conquest, with drum and colours, Ed-
mund; Lear and Cordelia, as prisoners; Offi-
eers, Soldiers, &c.

Edm. Some officers take them away: good guard;
Until their greater pleasures first be known
That are to censure' them.

Cor.
We are not the first,
Who, with best meaning, have incurr'd the worst.
For thee, oppressed king, am I cast down;
Myself could else out-frown false fortune's frown.-
Shall we not see these daughters, and these sisters?
Lear. No, no, no, no! Come, let's away to
prison:

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Sir, by your patience,
I hold you but a subject of this war,
Not as a brother.

Reg.
That's as we list to grace him.
Methinks, our pleasure might have been demanded,
Ere you had spoke so far. He led our powers;
Bore the commission of my place and person;
The which immediacy may well stand up,
And call himself your brother.
Gon.

Not so hot:

We two alone will sing like birds i'the cage:
When thou dost ask me blessing, I'll kneel down,
And ask of thee forgiveness: So we'll live,
And pray, and sing, and tell old tales, and laugh
At gilded butterflies, and hear poor rogues
Talk of court news; and we'll talk with them too,-
Who loses, and who wins: who's in, who's out;-In his own grace he doth exalt himself
And take upon us the mystery of things,
More than in your advancement.
As if we were God's spies: And we'll wear out,
Reg.
In a wall'd prison, packs and sects of great ones,
That ebb and flow by the moon.
Edm.

Take them away.
Lear. Upon such sacrifices, my Cordelia,
The gods themselves throw incense. Have I caught||
thee?

He, that parts us, shall bring a brand from heaven,
And fire us hence, like foxes. Wipe thine eyes
The goujeers shall devour them, flesh and fell,3
Ere they shall make us weep: we'll see them starve
first.

Come.

[Exe. Lear and Cor. guarded.
Edm. Come hither, captain; hark.
Take thou this note; [Giving a paper.] go, follow
them to prison:

One step I have advanc'd thee; if thou dost
As this instructs thee, thou dost make thy way
To noble fortunes: Know thou this, that men
Are as the time is: to be tender-minded

Does not become a sword:-Thy great employment
Will not bear question; either say, thou'lt do't,
Or thrive by other means.
I'll do't, my lord.

Offi.

Edm. About it; and write happy, when thou hast

done.

Mark,-I say, instantly; and carry it so,
As I have set it down."

Ofi. I cannot draw a cart, nor eat dried oats;
If it be man's work, I will do it. [Exit Officer.

Flourish. Enter Albany, Goneril, Regan, Offi-
cers, and Altendants.

Alb. Sir, you have shown to-day your valiant
strain,

And fortune led you well: You have the captives
Who were the opposites of this day's strife:
We do require them of you; so to use them,
As we shall find their merits and our safety
May equally determine.

Edm.

Sir, I thought it fit
To send the old and miserable king
To some retention, and appointed guard;
Whose age has charms in it, whose title more,
To pluck the common bosom on his side,
And turn our impress'd lances in our eyes

(1) Pass judgment on them.

(2) The French disease.

(4) Admit of debate.

(3) Skin.

5) To be discoursed of in greater privacy.

In my rights,
By me invested, he compeers the best.
Gon. That were the most, if he should husband

you.

Reg. Jesters do oft prove prophets.
Gon.
Holloa, holloa!
That eye, that told you so, look'd but a-squint."
Reg. Lady, I am not well; else I should answer
From a full-flowing stomach.-General,
Take thou my soldiers, prisoners, patrimony;
Dispose of them, of me; the walls are thine:
Witness the world, that I create thee here
My lord and master.

Gon.
Mean you to enjoy him?
Alb. The let-alone lies not in your good will.
Edm. Nor in thine, lord.
Alb.

Half-blooded fellow, yes.
Reg. Let the drum strike, and prove my title
thine.
[To Edmund.
Alb. Stay yet; hear reason:-Edmund, I arrest
thee

On capital treason; and, in thy arrest,
This gilded serpent: [Pointing to Gon.]-For your
claim, fair sister,

I bar it in the interest of my wife;
'Tis she is sub-contracted to this lord,
And I, her husband, contradict your bans.
If you will marry, make your love to me,
My lady is bespoke.

Gon.

An interlude!

Alb. Thou art arm'd, Gloster:-Let the trumpet
sound:

If none appear to prove upon thy person,
Thy heinous, manifest, and many treasons,
There is my pledge; [Throwing down a glove.] I'll
prove it on thy heart,

Ere I taste bread, thou art in nothing less
Than I have here proclaim'd thee.
Reg.

Sick, O, sick!

Gon. If not, I'll ne'er trust poison. [Aside.
Edm. There's my exchange: [Throwing down
a glove,] what in the world he is

That names me traitor, villain-like he lies:
Call by thy trumpet: he that dares approach,
On him, on you (who not?) I will maintain
My truth and honour firmly.

(6) Authority to act on his own judgment.
(7) Alluding to the proverb: Love being jeal-
ous makes a good eye look a-squint.'

(8) The hindrance.

Alb. A herald, ho!
Edm.

A herald, ho, a herald !
Alb. Trust to thy single virtue;' for thy soldiers,
All levied in my name, have in my name
Took their discharge.
Reg.

Gon.

This is mere practice, Gloster:
By the law of arms, thou wast not bound to answer
An unknown opposite; thou art not vanquish'd,
But cozen'd and beguil❜d.
Alb.
Shut your mouth, dame,

This sickness grows upon me. Or with this paper shall I stop it:-Hold, sir :-
Thou worse than any name, read thine own evil :-
No tearing, lady; I perceive, you know it.

Enter a Herald.

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Edm. Sound.
Her. Again.
Her. Again.

[Gives the letter to Edmund. Gon. Say, if I do; the laws are mine, not

thine :

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And more, much more: the time will bring it out; 'Tis past, and so am I: But what art thou, [1 Trumpet. That hast this fortune on me? If thou art noble, [2 Trumpet. I do forgive thee.

[3 Trumpet. Edg.

Let's exchange charity.

[Trumpet answers within. I am no less in blood than thou art, Edmund;
If more, the more thou hast wrong'd me.
My name is Edgar, and thy father's son.
The gods are just, and of our pleasant vices
Make instruments to scourge us :

Enter Edgar, armed, preceded by a trumpet. Alb. Ask him his purposes, why he appears Upon this call o'the trumpet.

Her.

What are you?
Your name, your quality? and why you answer
This present summons?
Edg.

Know, my name is lost;
By treason's tooth bare-gnawn, and canker-bit :
Yet am I noble, as the adversary
I come to cope withal.

Alb.
Which is that adversary?
Edg. What's he, that speaks for Edmund earl of
Gloster?

Edm. Himself;-What say'st thou to him?
Edg.
Draw thy sword;
That, if my speech offend a noble heart,
Thy arm may do thee justice: here is mine.
Behold, it is the privilege of mine honours,
My oath and my profession: I protest,—
Maugre thy strength, youth, place, and eminence,
Despite thy victor sword, and fire-new fortune,
Thy valour, and thy heart,-Thou art a traitor :
False to thy gods, thy brother, and thy father;
Conspirant 'gainst this high illustrious prince;
And, from the extremest upward of thy head,
To the descent and dust beneath thy feet,
A most toad-spotted traitor. Say thou, No,

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Alb.

Worthy prince,

Where have you hid yourself?
How have you known the miseries of your father?
Edg. By nursing them, my lord.-List" a brief
tale ;-
And, when 'tis told, O, that my heart would burst!-
The bloody proclamation to escape,
That follow'd me so near, (O our lives' sweetness:
That with the pain of death we'd hourly die,
Rather than die at once!) taught me to shifts
Into a madman's rags; to assume a semblance
That very dogs disdain'd: and in this habit
Met I my father with his bleeding rings,
Their precious stones new lost; became his guide,
Led him, begg'd for him, sav'd him from despair;

This sword, this arm, and my best spirits, are Never (Ó fault!) reveal'd myself unto him,

bent

To prove upon thy heart, whereto I speak,
Thou liest.

Edm. In wisdom, I should ask thy name;"
But, since thy outside looks so fair and warlike,
And that thy tongue some 'say of breeding breathes,
What safe and nicely I might well delay
By rule of knighthood, I disdain and spurn:
Back do I toss these treasons to thy head;
With the hell-hated lie o'erwhelm thy heart;
Which (for they yet glance by, and scarcely bruise,)
This sword of mine shall give them instant way,
Where they shall rest for ever.-Trumpets, speak.
[Alarums. They fight. Edmund falls.

Alb. O save him, save him!

(1) i. e. Valour. (2) Notwithstanding. (3) Because if his adversary was not of equal rank, Edmund might have declined the combat.

Until some half-hour past, when I was arm'd,
Not sure, though hoping, of this good success,
I ask'd his blessing, and from first to last
Told him my pilgrimage: But his flaw'd heart,
(Alack, too weak the conflict to support!)
Twixt two extremes of passion, joy and grief,
Burst smilingly.
Edm. This speech of yours hath mov'd me,
And shall, perchance, do good: but speak you on:
You look as you had something more to say..
Alb. If there be more, more woful, hold it in;
For I am almost ready to dissolve,
Hearing of this.
Edg.
This would have seem'd a period
To such as love not sorrow; but another,
To amplify too much, would make much more,
And top extremity.

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Whilst I was big in clamour, came there a man,
Who having seen me in my worst estate,
Shunn'd my abhorr'd society; but then, finding
Who 'twas that so endur'd, with his strong arms
He fasten'd on my neck, and bellow'd out
As he'd burst heaven; threw him on my father;
Told the most piteous tale of Lear and him,
That ever ear receiv'd: which in recounting
His grief grew puissant, and the strings of life
Began to crack: Twice then the trumpet sounded,

And there I left him tranc'd.

Alb.

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But who was this?

To lay the blame upon her own despair,
That she forbid2 herself.

Alb. The gods defend her! Bear him hence a while. [Edinund is borne off. Enter Lear, with Cordelia dead in his arms; Edgar, Officer, and others.

Lear. Howl, howl, howl, howl!-0, you are
men of stones;

Had I your tongues and eyes, I'd use them so
That heaven's vault should crack:-0, she is gone
for ever!-

Edg. Kent, sir, the banish'd Kent; who in dis-I know when one is dead, and when one lives;
guise
She's dead as earth :-Lend me a looking-glass;
If that her breath will mist or stain the stone,
Why, then she lives.

Follow'd his enemy king, and did him service
Improper for a slave.

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Kent.

Is this the promis'd end?'
Edg. Or image of that horror?
Alb.
Fall, and cease !^
Lear. This feather stirs; she lives! if it be so,
It is a chance that does redeem all sorrows
That ever I have felt.

What kind of help?

Speak, man.

Kent.

O my good master!

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{Kneeling.

Lear. Pr'ythee, away.

Edg. What means that bloody knife?
Gent.

It came even from the heart of

Alb.
Who, man? speak.
Gent. Your lady, sir, your lady: and her sister
By her is poison'd; she confesses it.

Edm. I was contracted to them both; all three
Now marry in an instant.

Alb. Produce their bodies, be they alive or dead! This judgment of the heavens, that makes us tremble,

Touches us not with pity.

Enter Kent.

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[Exit Gentleman.

I

Edg.

'Tis noble Kent, your friend.

Lear. A plague upon you, murderers, traitors

all!

might have sav'd her; now she's gone for ever!—
Cordelia, Cordelia, stay a little. Ha!
What is't thou say'st -Her voice was ever soft,
Gentle, and low; an excellent thing in woman:-
I kill'd the slave that was a hanging thee.
Offi. 'Tis true, my lords, he did."
Lear.

Did I not, fellow?
I have seen the day, with my good biting faulchion
I would have made them skip: I am old now,

Here comes Kent, sir. And these same crosses spoil me.-Who are you?
Mine eyes are none o'the best :-I'll tell you straight.
Kent. If fortune brag of two she lov'd and hated,
One of them we behold.

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Speak, Edmund, where's the king? and where's He'll strike, and quickly too:-He's dead and

Great thing of us forgot!

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Kent. No, my good lord; I am the very man ;-
Lear. I'll see that straight.

Kent. That, from your first of difference and
decay,

Yet Edmund was belov'd; Have follow'd your sad steps.
The one the other poison'd for my sake,
And after slew herself.

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Lear.
You are welcome hither.
Kent. Nor no man else; all's cheerless, dark,
and deadly.-

Your eldest daughters have fore-doom'd themselves,
And desperately are dead.

Lear.

Ay, so I think.

Alb. He knows not what he says; and vain it is That we present us to him.

Edg.

Very bootless.*

Enter an Officer.

Offi. Edmund is dead, my lord.
Alb.
That's but a trifle here.-
You lords, and noble friends, know our intent.
What comfort to this great decay may come,
Shall be applied: For us, we will resign,
During the life of this old majesty,
To him our absolute power:-You, to your rights;
[To Edgar and Kent

(4) i. e. Die; Albany speaks to Lear.
(5) Useless. (6) i. e. Lear.

With boot,' and such addition as your honours
Have more than merited.-All friends shall taste
The wages of their virtue, and all foes
The cup of their deservings.-O, see, see!

Lear. And my poor fool' is hang'd! No, no, no
life:

Why should a dog, a horse, a rat, have life,

nicely discriminates, and so minutely describes the characters of men, he commonly neglects and confounds the characters of ages, by mingling customs ancient and modern, English and foreign.

My learned friend Mr. Warton, who has in The Adventurer very minutely criticised this play, remarks, that the instances of cruelty are too savage

And thou no breath at all? O, thou wilt come no and shocking, and that the intervention of Edmund

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destroys the simplicity of the story. These objections may, I think, be answered by repeating, that the cruelty of the daughters is an historical fact, to

But I am

Pray you, undo this button: Thank you, sir.Do you see this? Look on her,-look,-her lips,-which the poet has added little, having only drawn Look there, look there![He dies. it into a series by dialogue and action. Edg. He faints!-My lord, my lord,- not able to apologize with equal plausibility for the Kent. Break, heart; I pr'ythee, break! extrusion of Gloster's eyes, which seems an act too Edg. Look up, my lord. horrid to be endured in dramatic exhibition, and Kent. Vex not his ghost:-0, let him pass! he such as must always compel the mind to relieve its hates him, distress by incredulity. Yet let it be remembered that our author well knew what would please the audience for which he wrote.

That would upon the rack of this tough world
Stretch him out longer.

Edg.

O, he is gone, indeed. Kent. The wonder is, he hath endur'd so long: He but usurp'd his life.

Alb. Bear them from hence.-Our present busi

ness

Is general wo. Friends of my soul, you twain

[To Kent and Edgar.
Rule in this realm, and the gor'd state sustain.
Kent. I have a journey, sir, shortly to go;
My master calls, and I must not say, no.
Alb. The weight of this sad time we must
obey ;

Speak what we feel, not what we ought to say.
The oldest hath borne most: we, that are young,
Shall never see so much, nor live so long.
[Exeunt, with a dead march.

The injury done by Edmund to the simplicity of the action is abundantly recompensed by the addition of variety, by the art with which he is made to co-operate with the chief design, and the opportunity which he gives the poet of combining perfidy with perfidy, and connecting the wicked son with the wicked daughters, to impress this important moral, that villany is never at a stop, that crimes lead to crimes, and at last terminate in ruin.

vation of justice makes a play worse; or that, if other excellencies are equal, the audience will not always rise better pleased from the final triumph of persecuted virtue.

But though this moral be incidentally enforced, Shakspeare has suffered the virtue of Cordelia to perish in a just cause, contrary to the natural ideas of justice, to the hope of the reader, and what is yet more strange, to the faith of chronicles. Yet this conduct is justified by The Spectator, who blames Tate for giving Cordelia success and happiness in his alteration, and declares, that in his opinion, the tragedy has lost half its beauty. Dennis has remarked, whether justly or not, that, to secure the favourable reception of Cato, the town was poisoned with much false and abominable The tragedy of Lear is deservedly celebrated criticism, and that endeavours had been used to among the dramas of Shakspeare. There is perhaps discredit and decry poetical justice. A play in no play which keeps the attention so strongly fixed; which the wicked prosper, and the virtuous miswhich so much agitates our passions, and interests carry, may doubtless be good, because it is a just our curiosity. The artful involutions of distinct in- representation of the common events of human life: terests, the striking oppositions of contrary charac- but since all reasonable beings naturally love justers, the sudden changes of fortune, and the quick tice, I cannot easily be persuaded, that the obsersuccession of events, fill the mind with a perpetual tumult of indignation, pity, and hope. There is no scene which does not contribute to the aggravation of the distress or conduct to the action, and scarce a line which does not conduce to the progress of the In the present case the public has decided. Corscene. So powerful is the current of the poet's delia, from the time of Tate, has always retired imagination, that the mind, which once ventures with victory and felicity. And, if my sensations within it, is hurried irresistibly along. could add any thing to the general suffrage, I might On the seeming improbability of Lear's conduct, relate, I was many years ago so shocked by Corit may be observed, that he is represented accord-delia's death, that I know not whether I ever ening to histories at that time vulgarly received as dured to read again the last scenes of the play, till true. And, perhaps, if we turn our thoughts upon I undertook to revise them as an editor. the barbarity and ignorance of the age to which There is another controversy among the critics this story is referred, it will appear not so unlikely concerning this play. It is disputed whether the as while we estimate Lear's manners by our own. prominent image in Lear's disordered mind be the Such preference of one daughter to another, or re- loss of his kingdom or the cruelty of his daughters. signation of dominion on such conditions, would Mr. Murphy, a very judicious critic, has evinced be yet credible, if told of a petty prince of Guinea by induction of particular passages, that the cruelor Madagascar. Shakspeare, indeed, by the men- ty of his daughters is the primary source of his distion of his earls and dukes, has given us the idea tress, and that the loss of rovalty affects him only of times more civilized, and of life regulated by as a secondary and subordinate evil. He observes, softer manners; and the truth is, that though he so with great justness, that Lear would move our compassion but little, did we not rather consider the (2) Titles. injured father than the degraded king.

(1) Benefit.

(3) Poor fool in the time of Shakspeare, was an expression of endearment.

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