King Lear Read online

  Oswald. Why then, I care not for thee.

  Kent. If I had thee in Lipsbury Pinfold,° I would make thee care for me.

  Oswald. Why dost thou use me thus? I know thee not. Kent. Fellow, I know thee.

  Oswald. What dost thou know me for?

  Kent. A knave, a rascal, an eater of broken meats;° a base, proud, shallow, beggarly, three-suited,° hundred-pound,° filthy worsted-stocking° knave; a lily-livered, action-taking,° whoreson, glass-gazing, ° superserviceable,° finical° rogue; one-trunk-inheriting° slave; one that wouldst be a bawd in way of good service,° and art nothing but the composition° of a knave, beggar, coward, pander, and the son and heir of a mongrel bitch; one whom I will beat into clamorous whining if thou deniest the least syllable of thy addition.°

  Oswald. Why, what a monstrous fellow art thou, thus to rail on one that is neither known of thee nor knows thee!

  Kent. What a brazen-faced varlet art thou to deny thou knowest me! Is it two days since I tripped up thy heels and beat thee before the King? [Drawing his sword] Draw, you rogue, for though it be night, yet the moon shines. I’ll make a sop o’ th’ moonshine° of you. You whoreson cullionly barbermonger,° draw!

  9 Lipsbury Pinfold a pound or pen in which strayed animals are enclosed (“Lipsbury” may denote a particular place, or may be slang for “between my teeth”)

  14 broken meats scraps of food

  15 three-suited (the wardrobe permitted to a servant or “knave”)

  16 hundred-pound (the extent of Oswald’s wealth, and thus a sneer at his aspiring to gentility)

  16 worsted-stocking (worn by servants)

  17 action-taking one who refuses a fight and goes to law instead

  17-18 glass-gazing conceited 18 superserviceable sycophantic, serving without principle.

  18 finical overfastidious

  18-19 one-trunk-inheriting possessing only a trunkful of goods

  19-20 bawd ... service pimp, to please his master

  20-21 composition compound

  24 addition titles

  33 sop o’ th’ moonshine i.e., Oswald will admit the moonlight, and so sop it up, through the open wounds Kent is preparing to give him

  34 cuillonly barbermonger base patron of hairdressers (effeminate man)

  Oswald. Away, I have nothing to do with thee.

  Kent. Draw, you rascal. You come with letters against the King, and take Vanity the puppet‘s° part against the royalty of her father. Draw, you rogue, or I’ll so carbonado° your shanks. Draw, you rascal. Come your ways!°

  Oswald. Help, ho! Murder! Help!

  Kent. Strike, you slave! Stand, rogue! Stand, you neat° slave! Strike! [Beating him]

  Oswald. Help, ho! Murder, murder! Enter Edmund, with his rapier drawn, Cornwall,

  Regan, Gloucester, Servants.

  Edmund. How now? What’s the matter? Part!

  Kent. With you,° goodman boy,° if you please! Come, I’ll flesh° ye, come on, young master.

  Gloucester. Weapons? Arms? What’s the matter here?

  Cornwall. Keep peace, upon your lives. He dies that strikes again. What is the matter?

  Regan. The messengers from our sister and the King.

  Cornwall. What is your difference?° Speak.

  Oswald. I am scarce in breath, my lord.

  Kent. No marvel, you have so bestirred° your valor. You cowardly rascal, nature disclaims in thee.° A tailor made thee.°

  Cornwall. Thou art a strange fellow. A tailor make a man?

  Kent. A tailor, sir. A stonecutter or a painter could37 Vanity the puppet’s Goneril, here identified with one of the personified characters in the morality plays, which were sometimes put on as puppet shows

  39 carbonado cut across, like a piece of meat before cooking

  40 Come your ways get along

  42 neat (1) foppish (2) unmixed, as in “neat

  wine“

  46 With you i.e., the quarrel is with you

  46 goodman boy young man (peasants are “goodmen”; “boy” is a term of contempt)

  47 flesh introduce to blood (term from hunting)

  52 difference quarrel

  54 bestirred exercised

  55 nature disclaims in thee nature renounces any part in you

  55-56 A tailor made thee (from the proverb “The tailor makes the man”)

  not have made him so ill, though they had been but two years o’ th’ trade.

  Cornwall. Speak yet, how grew your quarrel?

  Oswald. This ancient ruffian, sir, whose life I have spared at suit of° his gray beard—

  Kent. 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. Spare my gray beard, you wagtail! °

  Cornwall. Peace, sirrah! You beastly° knave, know you no reverence?

  Kent. Yes, sir, but anger hath a privilege.

  Cornwall. Why art thou angry?

  Kent. That such a slave as this should wear a sword,Who wears no honesty. Such smiling rogues as

  these,

  Like rats, oft bite the holy cords° atwain

  Which are too intrince° t’ unloose; smooth°

  every passion

  That in the natures of their lords rebel,

  Being oil to fire, snow to the colder moods;

  Renege,° affirm, and turn their halcyon beaks°

  With every gale and vary° of their masters,

  Knowing naught, like dogs, but following.

  A plague upon your epileptic° visage!

  Smile you° my speeches, as I were a fool?64 at suit of out of pity for

  65 zed the letter Z, generally omitted in contemporary dictionaries

  67 unbolted unsifted, i.e., altogether a villain 68 jakes privy

  68-69 wagtail a bird that bobs its tail up and down, and thus suggests obsequiousness

  71 beastly irrational

  76 holy cords sacred bonds of affection (as between husbands and wives, parents and children)

  77 intrince entangled, intricate

  77 smooth appease

  80 Renege deny

  80 halcyon beaks (the halcyon or kingfisher serves here as a type of the opportunist because, when hung up by the tail or neck, it was supposed to turn with the wind, like a weathervane)

  81 gale and vary varying gale (hendiadys)

  83 epileptic distorted by grinning

  84 Smile you do you smile at

  Goose, if I had you upon Sarum Plain,°

  I’d drive ye cackling home to Camelot.°

  Cornwall. What, art thou mad, old fellow?

  Gloucester. How fell you out? Say that.

  Kent. No contraries° hold more antipathy Than I and such a knave.

  Cornwall. Why dost thou call him knave? What is his fault?

  Kent. His countenance likes° me not.

  Cornwall. No more perchance does mine, nor his, nor hers.

  Kent. Sir, ‘tis my occupation to be plain:I have seen better faces in my time

  Than stands on any shoulder that I see

  Before me at this instant.

  Cornwall. This is some fellowWho, having been praised for bluntness, doth

  affect

  A saucy roughness, and constrains the garb

  Quite from his nature.° He cannot flatter, he;

  An honest mind and plain, he must speak truth.

  And° they will take it, so; if not, he’s plain.

  These kind of knaves I know, which in this

  plainness

  Harbor more craft and more corrupter ends

  Than twenty silly-ducking observants°

  That stretch their duties nicely.°

  Kent. Sir, in good faith, in sincere verity,Under th’ allowance° of your great aspect,°

  Whose influence,° like the wreath of radiant fire85 Sarum Plain Salisbury Plain

  86 Camelot the residence of King Arthur (presumably a particular point, now lost, is intended here)
/>
  89 contraries opposites

  92 likes pleases

  99-100 constrains ... nature forces the manner of candid speech to be a cloak, not for candor but for craft

  102 And if

  105 silly-ducking obesrvants ridiculously obsequious attendants

  106 nicely punctiliously

  08 allowance approval 108 aspect (1) appearance (2) position of the heavenly bodies

  109 influence astrological power

  On flick‘ring Phoebus’ front°—

  Cornwall. What mean‘st by this?

  Kent. To go out of my dialect,° which you discommend so much. I know, sir, I am no flatterer. He° that beguiled you in a plain accent was a plain knave, which, for my part, I will not be, though I should win your displeasure to entreat me to’t.°

  Cornwall. What was th’ offense you gave him?

  Oswald. I never gave him any.It pleased the King his master very late°

  To strike at me, upon his misconstruction;°

  When he, compact,° and flattering his displeasure,

  Tripped me behind; being down, insulted, railed,

  And put upon him such a deal of man°

  That worthied him,° 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.

  Kent. None of these rogues and cowards But Ajax is their fool.°

  Cornwall. Fetch forth the stocks!You stubborn° ancient knave, you reverent°

  braggart,

  We’ll teach you.

  Kent. Sir, I am too old to learn.110 Phoebus’ front forehead of the sun

  111 dialect customary manner of speaking

  112 He i.e., the sort of candid-crafty man Cornwall has been describing

  114-15 though ... to’t even if I were to succeed in bringing your graceless person (“displeasure” personified, and in lieu of the expected form, “your grace”) to beg me to be a plain knave

  118 very late recently

  119 misconstruction misunderstanding

  120 compact in league with the king

  122 put ... man pretended such manly behavior

  123 worthied him made him seem heroic

  124 For ... self-subdued for attacking a man (Oswald) who offered no resistance

  125 fleshment the bloodthirstiness excited by his first success or “fleshing”

  126-27 None ... fool i.e., cowardly rogues like Oswald always impose on fools like Cornwall (who is likened to Ajax: [1] the braggart Greek warrior [2] a jakes or privy)

  128 stubborn rude

  128 reverent old

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

  On whose employment I was sent to you.

  You shall do small respect, show too bold malice

  Against the grace and person° of my master,

  Stocking his messenger.

  Cornwall. Fetch forth the stocks. As I have life and honor,There shall he sit till noon.

  Regan. Till noon? Till night, my lord, and all night too.

  Kent. Why, madam, if I were your father’s dog, You should not use me so.

  Regan. Sir, being his knave, I will.

  Cornwall. This is a fellow of the selfsame color° Our sister speaks of. Come, bring away° the stocks. Stocks brought out.

  Gloucester. 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 basest and contemnèd‘st° wretches

  For pilf’rings and most common trespasses

  Are punished with.

  The King his master needs must take it ill

  That he, so slightly valued in° his messenger,

  Should have him thus restrained.

  Cornwall. I’ll answer° that.

  Regan. My sister may receive it much more worse,To have her gentleman abused, assaulted,

  For following her affairs. Put in his legs.

  [Kent is put in the stocks.]

  Come, my good lord, away!

  [Exeunt all but Gloucester and Kent.]

  133 grace and person i.e., Lear as sovereign and in his personal character

  140 color kind

  141 away out

  144 check correct

  144 purposed intended

  145 contemnèd‘st most despised

  149 slightly valued in little honored in the person of

  150 answer answer for

  Gloucester. 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.

  Kent. Pray do not, sir. I have watched° and traveled 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.

  Gloucester. The Duke’s to blame in this. ‘Twill be ill taken.° Exit.

  Kent. Good King, that must approve° the common saw,°Thou out of Heaven’s benediction com‘st

  To the warm sun.°

  Approach, thou beacon to this under globe,°

  That by thy comfortable° beams I may

  Peruse this letter. Nothing almost sees miracles

  But misery.° I know ’tis from Cordelia,

  Who hath most fortunately been informed

  Of my obscurèd° 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.°

  Sleeps.

  156 disposition inclination

  157 rubbed diverted (metaphor from the game of bowls)

  158 watched gone without sleep

  160 A ... heels even a good man may have bad fortune

  161 Give God give

  162 taken received 163 approve confirm

  163 saw proverb

  164-65 Thou ... sun i.e., Lear goes from better to worse, from Heaven’s blessing or shelter to lack of shelter

  166 beacon ... globe i.e., the sun, whose rising Kent anticipates

  167 comfortable comforting

  168-69 Nothing ... misery i.e., true perception belongs only to the wretched

  171 obscurèd disguised

  171-73 shall ... remedies (a possible reading: Cordelia, away from this monstrous state of things, will find occasion to right the wrongs we suffer)

  174 vantage advantage (of sleep)

  176 turn thy wheel i.e., so that Kent, who is at the bottom, may climb upward

  [Scene 3. A wood.]

  Enter Edgar.

  Edgar. 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 and most poorest shape

  That ever penury, in contempt of man,

  Brought near to beast;° my face I’ll grime with filth,

  Blanket° my loins, elf° all my hairs 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, sprigs of rosemary;

  And with this horrible object,° from low° farms,

  Poor pelting° villages, sheepcotes, and mills,

  Sometimes with lunatic bans,° sometime with

  prayers,

  Enforce their charity. Poor Turlygod, Poor Tom,°
<
br />   That’s something yet: Edgar I nothing am.° Exit.

  2.3.2 happy lucky

  5 attend my taking watch to capture me

  6 am bethought have decided

  8-9 penury ... beast poverty, to show how contemptible man is, reduced to the level of a beast

  10 Blanket cover only with a blanket

  10 elf tangle (into, “elflocks,” supposed to be caused by elves)

  11 presented the show of

  11 outface brave

  13 proof example

  14 Bedlam (see 1.2.r. 146-47)

  15 strike stick

  15 mortified not alive to pain

  16 pricks skewers

  17 object spectacle

  17 low humble

  18 pelting paltry

  19 bans curses

  20 Poor ... Tom (Edgar recites the names a Bedlam beggar gives himself)

  21 That’s ... am there’s a chance for me in that I am no longer known for myself

  [Scene 4. Before Gloucester’s castle. Kent in the stocks.]

  Enter Lear, Fool, and Gentleman.

  Lear. ‘Tis strange that they should so depart from home,And not send back my messenger.

  Gentleman. As I learned,The night before there was no purpose° in them Of this remove.°

  Kent. Hail to thee, noble master.

  Lear. Ha!Mak‘st thou this shame thy pastime?°

  Kent. No, my lord.

  Fool. Ha, ha, he wears cruel° garters. Horses are tied by the heads, dogs and bears by th’ neck, monkeys by th’ loins, and men by th’ legs. When a man’s overlusty at legs,° then he wears wooden netherstocks.°

  Lear. What’s he that hath so much thy place mistook To set thee here?

  Kent. It is both he and she,Your son and daughter.