A tent in the French camp. LEAR on a
bed asleep, soft music playing;
Gentleman, and others attending.[Enter CORDELIA, KENT, and Doctor]
CORDELIA
O thou good Kent, how shall I live and work,
To match thy goodness? My life will be too short,
And every measure fail me.
KENT To be acknowledged, madam, is o’erpaid.
All my reports go with the modest truth;
Nor more nor clipp’d, but so.
CORDELIA Be better suited:
These weeds are memories of those worser hours:
I prithee, put them off.
KENT Pardon me, dear madam;
Yet to be known shortens my made intent:
My boon I make it, that you know me not
Till time and I think meet.
CORDELIA Then be’t so, my good lord.
[To the Doctor]
How does the king?
Doctor Madam, sleeps still.
CORDELIA O you kind gods,
Cure this great breach in his abused nature!
The untuned and jarring senses, O, wind up
Of this child-changed father!
Doctor So please your majesty
That we may wake the king: he hath slept long.
CORDELIA Be govern’d by your knowledge, and proceed
I’ the sway of your own will. Is he array’d?
Gentleman Ay, madam; in the heaviness of his sleep
We put fresh garments on him.
Doctor Be by, good madam, when we do awake him;
I doubt not of his temperance.
CORDELIA Very well.
Doctor Please you, draw near. Louder the music there!
CORDELIA O my dear father! Restoration hang
Thy medicine on my lips; and let this kiss
Repair those violent harms that my two sisters
Have in thy reverence made!
KENT Kind and dear princess!
CORDELIA Had you not been their father, these white flakes
Had challenged pity of them. Was this a face
To be opposed against the warring winds?
To stand against the deep dread-bolted thunder?
In the most terrible and nimble stroke
Of quick, cross lightning? to watch–poor perdu!–
With this thin helm? Mine enemy’s dog,
Though he had bit me, should have stood that night
Against my fire; and wast thou fain, poor father,
To hovel thee with swine, and rogues forlorn,
In short and musty straw? Alack, alack!
‘Tis wonder that thy life and wits at once
Had not concluded all. He wakes; speak to him.
Doctor Madam, do you; ’tis fittest.
CORDELIA How does my royal lord?
How fares your majesty?
KING LEAR You do me wrong to take me out o’ the grave:
Thou art a soul in bliss; but I am bound
Upon a wheel of fire, that mine own tears
Do scald like moulten lead.
CORDELIA Sir, do you know me?
KING LEAR You are a spirit, I know: when did you die?
CORDELIA Still, still, far wide!
Doctor He’s scarce awake: let him alone awhile.
KING LEAR Where have I been? Where am I? Fair daylight?
I am mightily abused. I should e’en die with pity,
To see another thus. I know not what to say.
I will not swear these are my hands: let’s see;
I feel this pin prick. Would I were assured
Of my condition!
CORDELIA O, look upon me, sir,
And hold your hands in benediction o’er me:
No, sir, you must not kneel.
KING LEAR Pray, do not mock me:
I am a very foolish fond old man,
Fourscore and upward, not an hour more nor less;
And, to deal plainly,
I fear I am not in my perfect mind.
Methinks I should know you, and know this man;
Yet I am doubtful for I am mainly ignorant
What place this is; and all the skill I have
Remembers not these garments; nor I know not
Where I did lodge last night. Do not laugh at me;
For, as I am a man, I think this lady
To be my child Cordelia.
CORDELIA And so I am, I am.
KING LEAR Be your tears wet? yes, ‘faith. I pray, weep not:
If you have poison for me, I will drink it.
I know you do not love me; for your sisters
Have, as I do remember, done me wrong:
You have some cause, they have not.
CORDELIA No cause, no cause.
KING LEAR Am I in France?
KENT In your own kingdom, sir.
KING LEAR Do not abuse me.
Doctor Be comforted, good madam: the great rage,
You see, is kill’d in him: and yet it is danger
To make him even o’er the time he has lost.
Desire him to go in; trouble him no more
Till further settling.
CORDELIA Will’t please your highness walk?
KING LEAR You must bear with me:
Pray you now, forget and forgive: I am old and foolish.
[Exeunt all but KENT and Gentleman]
Gentleman Holds it true, sir,
that the Duke of Cornwall was so slain?
KENT Most certain, sir.
Gentleman Who is conductor of his people?
KENT As ’tis said, the bastard son of Gloucester.
Gentleman They say Edgar, his banished son,
is with the Earl of Kent in Germany.
KENT Report is changeable. ‘Tis time to look about;
the powers of the kingdom approach apace.
Gentleman The arbitrement is like to be bloody.
Fare you well, sir.
[Exit]
KENT My point and period will be throughly wrought,
Or well or ill, as this day’s battle’s fought.
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