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! Strange! strange ! [Exit. 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 the stars: as if we were villains by necessity: fools, by heavenly compulsion; knaves, thieves, and treachers, by spherical predominance; drunkards, liars, and adulterers, by an enforced obedience of planetary influence; and all that we are evil in, by a divine thrusting on: An admirable evasion of man, to lay his ill disposition to the charge of a star! Edgar Enter EDGAR. and 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 this other day, what should follow these eclipses. Edg. Do you busy yourself with that? Edm. I promise you, the effects he writes of, succeed unhappily; as of unnaturalness between the child and the parent; death, dearth, dissolutions of ancient amities; divisions in state, menaces and maledictions against king and nobles; needless diffidences, banishment of friends, dissipation of cohorts', nuptial breaches, and I know not what. 8 Traitors. 9 These sounds are unnatural and offensive in musick. I For cohorts some editors read courts. Edg. How long have you been a sectary astronomical? Edm. Come, come; when saw you my father last? Edg. Why, the night gone by. Edg. Ay, two hours together, Edm. Parted you in good terms? Found you no displeasure in him, by word or countenance? Edg. None at all, Edm. Bethink yourself, wherein you may have offended him and at my entreaty, forbear his presence, till some little time hath qualified the heat of his displeasure; which at this instant so rageth in him, that with the mischief of your person it would scarcely allay. Edg. Some villain hath done me wrong. 2 Edm. That's my fear. I pray you, have a continent forbearance, till the speed of his rage goes slower; and, as I say, 1etire with me to my lodging, from whence I will fitly bring you to hear my lord speak: Pray you, go; there's my key:- - If f you stir abroad, go armed. Edg. Armed, brother? do Edm. Brother, I advise you to the best : go armed; I am no honest man, if there be any good meaning towards 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? [Exit EDGAR. A credulous father, and a brother noble, That he suspects none; on whose foolish honesty 2 Temperate. Let me, if not by birth, have lands by wit: 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: You shall do well; the fault of it I'll answer. Whose mind and mine, I know, in that are one, That still would manage those authorities, With checks, as flatteries, when they are seen abus'd. Remember what I have said. Stew. Very well, madam. Gon. And let his knights have colder looks among you; What grows so: of it, no matter ; advise your fellows I would breed from hence occasions, and I shall, That I may speak. — I'll write straight to my sister, - Prepare for dinner. [Exeunt. SCENE IV. A Hall in the same. Enter KENT, disguised. Kent. If but as well I other accents borrow, Kent, my likeness. Now, banish'd If thou canst serve where thou dost stand con (So demn'd, may it come!) thy master, whom thou lov'st, Shall find thee full of labours. Horns within. Enter LEAR, Knights, and Attendants. 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 3 Disorder, disguise. 4 Effaced. 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 as poor for a subject, as he is for a king, thou art poor enough. What would'st thou ? Kent. Service. Lear. Who would'st thou serve? Kent. You. 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, mara 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 singing; nor so old, to dote on her for any thing: 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 yet. - Dinner, ho, dinner! Where's my knave? fool? Go you, and call my fool hither: my Enter Steward. You, you, sirrah, where 's my daughter? [Exit. Lear. What says the fellow there? Call the clotpoll back. Where's my fool, ho? I think the world's asleep.-How now? where 's that mongrel? Knight. He says, my lord, your daughter is not well. |