[BELL CLANGS URGENTLY]
- Kent. - My lord.
Come on.
I thought the king had more affected the Duke of Albany than Cornwall.
It did always seem so to us, but now in the division of the kingdom
it appears not which of the dukes he values most,
for qualities are so weighed
that curiosity in neither can make choice of either's moiety.
Is not this your son, my lord?
His breeding, sir, hath been at my charge.
I've so often blushed to acknowledge him that now I am brazed to it.
I cannot conceive you.
[CHUCKLES] Sir, this young fellow's mother could.
Though this knave came something saucily into the world,
there was good sport at his making and the whoreson must be acknowledged.
- Do you know this noble gentleman, Edmund? - No, my lord.
My Lord of Kent. Remember him hereafter as my honourable friend.
He has been out nine years and away he shall again.
[WHISPERING]
The king is coming.
Attend the Lords of France and Burgundy, Gloucester.
Ay, my good lord.
Meantime we shall express our darker purpose.
Give me the map there.
[CLEARS THROAT]
Know that we have divided in three our kingdom.
'Tis our fast intent to shake all cares and business from our age,
conferring them on younger strengths,
while we unburdened crawl toward death. [CHUCKLES]
Our son of Cornwall, and you, our no less loving son of Albany,
we have this hour a constant will to publish our daughters' several dowers,
that future strife may be prevented now.
The princes France and Burgundy, great rivals in our youngest daughter's love,
long in our court have made their amorous sojourn,
and here are to be answered.
Tell me, my daughters,
since now we will divest us both of rule, interest of territory, cares of state,
which of you shall we say doth love us most,
that we our largest bounty may extend where nature doth with merit challenge?
Goneril, our eldest born, speak first.
Sir…
I love you more than words can wield the matter.
Dearer than eyesight, space, and liberty,
beyond what can be valued, rich or rare,
no less than life, with grace, health, beauty, honour,
as much as child e'er loved, or father found,
a love that makes breath poor and speech unable.
Beyond all manner of so much I love you.
Of all these bounds,
even from this line to this, with shadowy forests and with champains riched,
with plenteous rivers and wide-skirted meads,
we make thee lady.
To thine and Albany's issue be this perpetual.
What says our second daughter, our dearest Regan, wife to Cornwall?
Speak.
Er… I am made of that self mettle as my sister, and prize me at her worth.
In my true heart, I find she names my very deed of love.
Only she comes too short:
that I profess myself an enemy to all other joys
which the most precious square of sense possesses,
and find I am alone felicitate in your dear highness' love.
And to thee and thine hereditary ever
remain this ample third of our fair kingdom,
no less in space, validity and pleasure than that conferred on Goneril.
Now our joy, although the last and least,
to whose young love the vines of France and milk of Burgundy
strive to be interessed. [CHUCKLES]
What can you say to draw a third more opulent than your sisters?
[SNIFFS] Speak.
Nothing, my lord.
- Nothing? [LAUGHS] - Nothing.
[LAUGHS]
Well, nothing will come of nothing. Speak again.
Unhappy that I am, I cannot heave my heart into my mouth.
I love your majesty according to my bond, no more nor less.
How now, Cordelia? Mend your speech a little, lest you may mar your fortunes.
Ay, my good lord, you have begot me, bred me, loved me.
I return those duties back as are right fit:
obey you, love you, and most honour you.
Why have my sisters husbands if they say they love you all?
Sure I shall never marry like my sisters to love my father all.
But goes thy heart with this?
[CORDELIA] Ay, my good lord.
[LAUGHS]
So young, and so untender?
So young, my lord, and true.
Let it be so. Thy truth then be thy dower.
Here I disclaim all my paternal care,
and as a stranger to my heart and me hold thee from this for ever.
- Good my liege… - Peace, Kent!
Come not between the dragon and his wrath.
I loved her most, and thought to set my rest on her kind nursery.
Hence, and avoid my sight!
Call France. Who stirs? Call Burgundy!
Ha, ha!
Cornwall and Albany, with my two daughters' dowers digest the third.
Let pride, which she calls plainness, marry her.
I do invest you jointly with my power, pre-eminence,
and all the large effects that troop with majesty.
Ourself by monthly course, with reservation of…
an hundred knights, by you to be sustained,
shall our abode make with you by due turn.
Only we still retain the name and all the addition to a king.
The sway, revenue, execution of the rest, beloved sons, be yours.
Royal Lear, whom I have ever honoured as my king,
as my great patron thought on in my prayers…
The bow is bent and drawn, make from the shaft.
Let it fall rather, though the fork invade the region of my heart.
Be Kent unmannerly when Lear is mad?
What wouldst thou do, old man?
Thinkest thou that duty shall have dread to speak when power to flattery bows?
Kent, on thy life, no more!
My life I never held but as a pawn to wage against thine enemies.
- Out of my sight! - Dear sir, forbear…
- See better, Lear! - Now, by Apollo…
Oh, now, by Apollo, king.
Thou swear'st thy gods in vain. I'll tell thee, thou dost evil.
Hear me, recreant.
On thine allegiance, hear me!
That thou hast sought to make us break our vows, which we durst never yet,
our potency made good, take thy reward.
Five days we do allot thee, for provision
to shield thee from diseases of the world,
and on the sixth to turn thy hated back upon our kingdom.
If, on the tenth day following,
thy banished trunk be found in our dominions, the moment is thy death.
Away, by Jupiter.
This shall not be revoked!
Here's France and Burgundy, my noble lord!
My noble lord.
My Lord of Burgundy,
we first address towards you, who with this king hath rivalled for our daughter.
What in the least will you require in present dower with her
or cease your quest of love?
Most royal majesty, I crave no more than hath your highness offered,
nor will you tender less.
Right noble Burgundy, when she was dear to us, we did hold her so.
But now her price is fallen.
Sir, there she stands. If aught within that little seeming substance,
or all of it, with our displeasure pieced,
and nothing more, may fitly like your grace,
she's there, and she is yours.
I know no answer.
Will you with those infirmities she owes, unfriended, new-adopted to our hate,
dowered with our curse and strangered with our oath,
- take her or leave her? - Pardon me, royal sir.
Election makes not up in such conditions.
Then leave her, sir, for by the power that made me I tell you all her wealth.
For you, great king,
I would not from your love make such a stray to match you where I hate.
I yet beseech your majesty that you make it known
it is no vicious blot, murder, or foulness,
no unchaste action or dishonoured step
that hath deprived me of your grace and favour.
Better thou hadst not been born…
than not to have pleased me better.
My Lord of Burgundy, what say you to the lady? Will you have her?
Give but that portion which yourself proposed,
and I will make Cordelia Duchess of Burgundy.
Nothing. I have sworn, I am firm.
I am sorry, then.
You have so… lost a father that you must lose a husband.
Peace be with Burgundy.
Since that respect and fortunes are his love, I shall not be his wife.
Fairest Cordelia,
thee and thy virtues here I seize upon.
Thou hast her, king.
Let her be thine,
for we have no such daughter, nor shall ever see that face of hers again.
Therefore be gone, without our grace, our love,
our benison.
Come!
Bid farewell to your sisters.
Love well our father.
Prescribe not us our duty.
Let your study be to content your lord, who hath received you at fortune's alms.
I think our father will hence tonight.
That's most certain, and with you. Next month with us.
You see how full of changes his age is. He always loved our sister most
and with what poor judgement he hath now cast her off appears too grossly.
'Tis the infirmity of his age, yet he hath ever but slenderly known himself.
The best and soundest of his time hath been but rash.
If our father carry authority with such disposition as this,
it will but offend us.
- We shall further think on it. - We must do something, and I' the heat.
Pray, let us hit together.
Thou, Nature, art my goddess.
To thy law my services are bound.
Why bastard?
Wherefore base, when my dimensions are as well compact,
my mind as generous and my shape as true as honest madam's issue?
Why brand they me with base?
With baseness? Bastardy?
Legitimate Edgar, I must have your land.
Well, my legiti-mate,
Edmund the base shall top the legitimate.
Excuse me.
Edmund, how now? What news?
I know no news, my lord.
- What paper were you reading? - Nothing, my lord.
No?
What needed then that terrible dispatch of it into your pocket?
The quality of nothing hath not such need to hide itself.
Let's see. Come, if it be nothing I shall not need spectacles.
[SIGHS]
I beseech you, sir, pardon me.
It is a letter from my brother that I have not all o'er-read,
and for so much as I have perused, I find it not fit for your o'erlooking.
Give me the letter, sir.
Hmm…
"If our father would sleep till I waked him,
you should enjoy half his revenue for ever
and live the beloved of your brother. Edgar."
"Sleep till I waked him… Enjoy half his revenue." My son Edgar?
- When came you to this? Who brought it? - I found it in my room.
You know the character to be your brother's?
If the matter were good, my lord, I durst swear it were his,
but in respect of that, I would fain think it were not.
- It is his. - It is his hand, my lord,
but I hope his heart is not in the contents.
Has he never before sounded you in this business?
Never, my lord, but I have heard him oft maintain it to be fit
that, sons at perfect age and fathers declined,
the father should be as ward to the son and the son manage his revenue.
O villain!
Villain. His very opinion in the letter.
- Go seek him. Where is he? - I do not well know, my lord.
These late eclipses of the sun and moon portend no good to us.
We have seen the best of our time.
Find out this villain, Edmund.
It shall lose thee nothing.
Do it carefully.
[SCOFFS]
This is the excellent foppery of the world,
that when we are sick in fortune, often the surfeits of our own behaviour,
we make guilty of our disasters the sun, the moon, and stars,
as if we were villains of necessity, fools by heavenly compulsion,
knaves, thieves and treasoners 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.
[CHUCKLES]
How now, brother Edmund?
[EDMUND] O these eclipses do portend these divisions.
What serious contemplation are you in?
I am thinking, brother, of a prediction I read this other day.
What should follow these eclipses.
Do you busy yourself with that?
I promise you, the effects he writes of succeed unhappily.
When saw you my father last?
Er… The night gone by.
Spake you with him?
Ay. Two hours together.
Found you no displeasure in him by word nor countenance?
None at all.
Bethink yourself wherein you may have offended him,
and at my entreaty forbear his presence
until 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.
- Some villain hath done me wrong. - No, that's my fear.
I pray you retire with me to my lodging,
from whence I will fitly bring you to hear my lord speak.
Pray ye, go.
There's my key. If you do stir abroad, go armed.
Armed? Brother…
Brother, I advise you to the best.
I have told you what I have seen and heard but faintly,
nothing like the image and horror of it.
- Pray you, away. - [GASPS]
A credulous father and a brother noble,
whose nature is so far from doing harms that he suspects none.
I grow, I prosper.
Now, gods, stand up for bastards.
- Shall I hear from you anon? - I do serve you in this business.
[DOOR CLOSES]
[HAIR CLIPPERS BUZZ]
Now, banished Kent,
if thou canst serve where thou dost stand condemned,
so may it come, thy master, whom thou lovest,
shall find thee full of labours.
[DOGS BARK]
[LEAR] Let me not stay a jot for dinner!
- How now, what art thou? - A man, sir.
Oh. What dost thou profess?
I do profess to be no less than I seem.
- Hm… What wouldst thou? - Service.
- Who wouldst thou serve? - You.
- Dost thou know me, fellow? - No, sir.
But you have that in your countenance
which I would fain call master.
What's that?
- Authority. - Ah.
Well, follow me. Thou shalt serve me.
If I like thee no worse after dinner, I will not part from thee yet.
- Dinner ho! - [MEN] Dinner ho!
[CHANTING] Dinner ho! Dinner ho!
Dinner ho! Dinner ho! Dinner ho! Dinner ho!
[CHANTING CONTINUES]
[CHANTING] Dinner ho! Dinner ho! Dinner ho! Dinner ho! Dinner ho!
[CHANTING CONTINUES]
[CHANTING] Dinner ho! Dinner ho!
Dinner ho! Dinner ho! Dinner ho! Dinner ho!
Dinner ho! Dinner!
Where's my knave, my fool? Eh?
Go you and call my fool hither.
Ah. You, sir, you.
You! Sirrah, where's my daughter?
So please you.
What says the fellow there? Call the clotpoll back.
Where's my fool? I think the world's asleep. Hm.
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. - [GLASS SMASHES]
His knights grow riotous and himself upbraids us on every trifle.
Say I am sick.
Put on what weary negligence you please.
If he distaste it, let him to my sister,
whose mind and mine I know in that are one, not to be overruled.
Well, madam.
- Where's that mongrel? - He says your daughter is not well.
Why came not the slave back when I called him?
Sir, he answered me in the roundest manner he would not.
- He would not? [CHUCKLES] - [MEN] Ooh…
Go and tell my daughter I would speak with her.
- Go you, call hither my fool. - Sir.
O, you sir, you, come you hither, sir.
Who am I, sir?
- My lady's father. - My lady's father?
My lord's knave, you whoreson dog, you slave, you cur.
I am none of these, my lord, I beseech your pardon.
- Bandy looks with me, rascal? - I'll not be struck, my lord.
Nor tripped neither, you base football player!
I thank thee, fellow. Thou servest me, and I'll love thee.
[CHEERING]
[KENT] Come, sir, arise, away. Up. I'll teach you differences.
Away, away.
[LAUGHS]
Let me hire him, too.
- Here's my coxcomb. - How now, my pretty knave?
- How dost thou? - Sirrah, you were best take my coxcomb.
- Why, Fool? - Why?
This fellow has banished two of his daughters
and did the third a blessing against his will.
If thou follow him, thou must needs wear my coxcomb.
How now, nuncle?
Would I had two coxcombs and two daughters.
Why, boy?
If I gave them all my living I'd keep my coxcombs myself.
There's mine. Beg another of thy daughters.
Dost thou call me fool, boy? Eh?
All thy other titles thou hast given away.
That thou wast born with.
This is not altogether fool, my lord.
[FOOL] ♪ Fools had ne'er ♪ ♪ less grace in a year ♪
♪ For wise men are grown foppish ♪
♪ And know not how their wits to wear ♪
♪ Their manners are so apish ♪
[LAUGHS]
When were you wont to be so full of songs, sirrah?
I have used it, nuncle, e'er since thou madest thy daughters thy mothers.
Sirrah, we'll have you whipped.
I marvel what kin thou and thy daughters are.
They'll have me whipped for speaking true,
thou'lt have me whipped for lying.
And sometimes I am whipped for holding my peace.
I had rather be any kind of thing than a fool.
- And yet I would not be thee, nuncle. - [SNORES]
Thou hast pared thy wit on both sides and left nothing in the middle.
Here comes one of the parings.
- [LEAR] Hm. - [MEN CHUCKLE]
How now, daughter? What makes that frontlet on?
Methinks you are too much of late I' the frown.
Not only, sir, this your all-licensed fool,
but other of your insolent retinue do hourly carp and quarrel,
breaking forth in rank and not-to-be-endured riots.
[MEN PROTEST]
Sir, I had thought by making this well known unto you
to have found a safe redress
but now grow fearful, by what yourself too late have spoke and done,
that you protect this course and put it on by your allowance.
- Are you our daughter? Hm? - [MEN LAUGH]
I would you would make use of your good wisdom
whereof I know you are fraught
and put away these dispositions
which of late transport you from what you rightly are.
May not an ass know when the cart draws the horse?
[LAUGHTER]
Whoop, Jug, I love thee! [LAUGHS]
Does any here know me?
This is not Lear.
Does Lear walk thus? Speak thus?
Where are his eyes?
Either his notion weakens, or his discernings are lethargied.
Ha, waking?
'Tis not so.
Who is it that can tell me who I am?
Lear's shadow.
Your name, fair gentlewoman?
- [LAUGHTER] - Huh?
This admiration, sir, is much o'th'savour of other your new pranks.
I do beseech you to understand my purposes aright.
As you are old and reverend, should be wise.
Here do you keep a hundred knights and squires,
men so disordered, so debauched and bold
that this our court, infected with their manners, shows like a riotous inn.
[MAN BELCHES] Oh…
[LAUGHTER]
Be then desired by her that else will take the thing she begs
a little to disquantity your train.
Darkness and devils! Call my train together.
Degenerate bastard, I'll not trouble thee.
Yet have I left a daughter.
You strike my people and your rabble make servants of their betters.
Woe that too late repents!
O, you, sir, you, are you come?
Is it your will? Speak, sir. [LAUGHS]
- Pray, sir, be patient. - [LEAR] O most small fault,
how ugly didst thou in Cordelia show,
which, like an engine, wrenched my frame of nature from the fixed place,
drew from my heart all love,
and added to the gall.
O Lear, Lear, Lear! Beat at this gate that let thy folly in
and thy dear judgement out.
Go, go, my people!
My lord, I am guiltless as I am ignorant of what hath moved you.
It may be so, my lord.
Hear, Nature, hear, dear goddess, hear!
Suspend thy purpose if thou didst intend to make this creature fruitful.
Into her womb convey sterility!
Dry up in her the organs of increase,
and from her derogate body never spring a babe to honour her.
If she must teem, create her child of spleen,
that it may live and be a thwart disnatured torment to her.
Let it stamp wrinkles in her brow of youth,
that she may feel how sharper than a serpent's tooth it is
to have a thankless child.
[GASPS]
Away, away!
[MEN CHEER]
Now, gods that we adore, whereof comes this?
Never afflict yourself to know more of it,
but let his disposition
have that scope as dotage gives it.
O you, you, sirrah!
What, fifty of my followers at a clap, within a fortnight?
- What's the matter, sir? - I'll tell thee!
Life and death! I am ashamed that thou hast power to shake my manhood thus.
Blasts and fogs upon thee!
The untented woundings of a father's curse pierce every sense about thee!
Let it be so. Yet have I left a daughter… [LAUGHS]
…who, I am sure, is kind and comfortable.
[LAUGHS] When she shall hear this of thee,
with her nails she'll flay thy wolvish visage.
Thou shalt find that I'll resume the shape
which thou dost think I have cast off for ever.
Thou shalt, I warrant thee.
Away, away.
Do you mark that?
I cannot be so partial, Goneril, to the great love I bear you…
Pray you, content.
Oswald!
You, sir, more knave than fool, after your master!
Nuncle Lear, nuncle Lear, tarry.
- [LAUGHS] A hundred knights? - Take the fool with thee!
'Tis politic and safe to let him keep at point a hundred knights!
Yes, that on every dream, each buzz, each fancy, each complaint, dislike,
he may enguard his dotage with their powers and hold our lives in mercy.
Oswald, I say!
Well, you may fear too far.
Safer than trust too far.
I know his heart.
What he hath uttered I have writ my sister.
If she sustain him and his hundred knights
when I have showed th'unfitness…
Oswald, away to my sister. Inform her full of my particular fear,
and thereto add such reasons of your own as may compact it more.
Get you gone, and hasten your return.
[SIGHS]
[FOOL] If a man's brains were in's heels, were't not in danger of chilblains?
[LEAR] Ay, boy.
Then, I prithee, be merry.
Thy wit shall not go slipshod. Oy oy!
[CHUCKLES]
Thou canst tell why one's nose stands in the middle of one's face?
No.
Why, to keep one's eyes of either side's nose…
Ah…
…that what a man cannot smell out, he may spy into.
[LAUGHS] Oy oy!
I did her wrong.
Canst tell how an oyster makes his shell?
No.
Nor I neither.
But I can tell why a snail has a house.
- Why? - Why, to put's head in.
Not to give it away to his daughters and leave his horns without a case.
I will forget my nature.
I'm so kind a father.
The reason why the seven stars
are no more than seven is a pretty reason.
- Because they are not eight. - Yes, indeed.
Thou wouldst make a good fool.
Monster ingratitude.
If thou wert my fool, nuncle,
I'd have thee beaten for being old before thy time.
How's that?
Thou shouldst not have been old till thou hadst been wise.
O, let me not be mad.
Not mad, sweet heavens.
Keep me in temper.
I would not be mad.
- [MAN] Ready, my lord. - [SIGHS]
Come, boy.
[GROANS]
[SOFTLY] Brother, a word.
Ascend, brother, I say.
[FOOTSTEPS ECHOING]
O sir, fly this place.
Intelligence is given where you are hid.
The Duke of Cornwall's coming hither now, in haste and Regan with him.
- Have you nothing said upon his party? - I am sure of it…
- Sh… - Not a word.
[GLOUCESTER] Find out this villain. Go seek him.
I hear my father coming.
[EDMUND] Help! Help!
- Fly, brother! Fly! - [ALARM SOUNDS]
Help!
I've seen drunkards do more than this in sport.
[GRUNTS]
[EDMUND] Help!
Help!
[MAN] Take your positions!
- Where is the villain? - Here stood he in the dark,
mumbling of wicked charms, conjuring the moon to stand auspicious mistress.
- But where is he? - Look, sir, I bleed.
Where is the villain, Edmund?
Fled this way, sir, when by no means he could…
Pursue him! Ho! Go after!
"By no means" what?
Persuade me to the murder of your lordship.
Not in this land shall he remain uncaught, and found, dispatch.
It is the duke. All ports I'll bar, the duke must grant me that.
The villain shall not 'scape.
And of my land, loyal and natural boy,
I'll work the means to make thee capable.
[WHISPERS]
[REGAN] How dost, my lord?
O madam, my old heart is cracked, 'tis cracked.
What, did my father's godson seek your life?
O lady, lady, shame would have it hid.
Was he not companion with the riotous knights that tended upon my father?
- I know not, madam. 'Tis too bad, too bad. - Yes, madam, he was of that consort.
Oh, no marvel then though he were ill affected.
I have this present evening from my sister
been well informed of them and with such cautions
that if they come to sojourn at my house, I'll not be there.
Nor I, assure thee, Regan.
Edmund, I hear you have shown your father a child-like office.
It was my duty, sir.
He received this hurt you see, striving to apprehend him.
- Is he pursued? - Ay, my good lord.
If he be taken, he shall never more be feared of doing harm.
For you, Edmund,
natures of such deep trust we shall much need. You we first seize on.
I shall serve you, sir, truly, however else.
For him I thank your grace.
You know not why we came to visit you.
Thus out of season, threading dark-eyed night,
occasions, noble Gloucester, of some prize,
wherein we must have use of your advice.
- [DOGS BARK] - [MAN] They've got the scent!
Go on, find him!
[YELLS]
[MAN] Forwards! Keep moving forwards!
[DOGS BARK]
- [OSWALD] Art of this house, friend? - [KENT] Ay.
- [OSWALD] Where may we stop? - In the mire.
[OSWALD] I prithee, if thou lovest me, tell me.
- [KENT] I love thee not. - Why, then I care not for thee.
If I had thee in a ring I'd make thee care for me.
Why dost thou use me thus? I know thee not.
- Fellow, I know thee. - What dost thou know me for?
A knave, a rascal,
a base, proud, shallow, beggarly,
three-suited, hundred-pound, filthy worsted-stocking knave.
Why, what a monstrous fellow art thou, thus to rail on one
that neither knows thee nor is known of thee.
What a brazen-faced varlet art thou to deny thou knowest me.
I tripped up thy heels and beat thee before the king.
I'll make a sop of the moonlight of you, you whoreson.
Away! I have nothing to do with thee.
[GROWLS] You rascal!
You take the puppet's part against the royalty of her father, you rogue.
- Help! Murder! Help! - [CAR HORN]
- [ALARM] - Stand, you rogue! Stand, you slave!
Help!
- Help! Help! - How now, what's the matter?
With you, goodman boy!
If you please come, I'll beat ye. Come on, young master!
- What's the matter here? - Peace, upon your lives!
He dies that strikes again!
- [ALARM STOPS] - What is the matter?
The messenger from our sister and the king.
[CORNWALL] What is your difference? Speak.
Sir, this ancient ruffian, whose life I have spared…
You whoreson zed, you unnecessary letter…
Peace, sirrah! Know you no reverence?
- Yes, sir, but anger hath a privilege. - [CORNWALL] Why art thou angry?
That such a slave as this should walk the world, who wears no honesty.
- [CORNWALL] What is his fault? - His countenance likes me not.
No more perchance does mine, nor his,
nor hers.
I have seen better faces in my time
than stands on any shoulder that I see before me at this instant.
You stubborn, ancient knave.
We'll teach you.
I serve the king!
As I have life and honour, here shall he stay until… noon?
Till noon?
Till tomorrow night, my lord.
Why, madam, if I was your father's dog, you should not use me so.
Sir, being his knave, I will.
This is a fellow of the selfsame colour our sister speaks of.
The king his master needs must take it ill
that he, so slightly valued in his messenger,
- should have him thus restrained. - [KENT WHIMPERS]
I'll answer that.
My sister may receive it much more worse to have her gentleman abused, assaulted.
- [CORNWALL] Come, away. - [OFFICER] Dismissed!
I'm sorry for thee, friend. I'll entreat for thee.
[KENT] Pray do not, sir.
The duke's to blame in this. 'Twill be ill taken.
[GRUNTS]
[PANTS]
[GASPS] I heard myself proclaimed.
[YELLS] Edgar!
[OWL SCREECHES]
Edgar…
I… nothing…
am.
[LAUGHS]
He wears cruel garters.
[GASPS]
Hail to thee, noble master.
What's he that hath so much thy place mistook to set thee here?
It is both he and she, your son and daughter.
- No. - Yes.
- No, I say. - I say, yea.
- By Jupiter, I swear no. - By Juno, I swear ay.
[LEAR] Where is this daughter? Give me my servant forth!
Deny to speak with me?
They are sick? They are weary? They have travelled all the night?
Ha! Mere fetches.
The images of revolt and flying off.
Fetch me a better answer.
Go tell the duke and his wife I'd speak with them, now, presently.
Bid them come forth and hear me,
or at their chamber door I'll beat the drum till it cry sleep to death.
I would have all well betwixt you.
[LEAR] O me, my heart, my rising heart… But down…
Cry to it, nuncle,
as the cockney did to the eels when she put 'em in the paste alive.
She knapped 'em on their coxcombs with a stick and cried,
"Down, wantons, down!"
[LEAR CHUCKLES]
Oh, good morrow to you both.
Hail to your grace.
- I am glad to see your highness. - Regan. I think you are.
I have good reason to think so.
[KENT GROANS]
Oh, are you free?
[CHUCKLES]
Thy sister's naught.
O Regan, she hath tied sharp-toothed unkindness like a vulture here.
I can scarce speak to thee.
Thou'lt not believe with how depraved a quality…
- O Regan! - I pray you, sir, take patience.
I have hope you less know how to value her desert
than she to scant her duty.
Say, how is that?
I cannot think my sister in the least should fail her obligation.
If, sir, perchance she hath restrained the riots of your followers,
'tis on such ground and to such wholesome end as clears her from all blame.
My curses on her.
O sir, you are old.
Nature in you stands on the very verge of her confine.
You should be ruled and led
by some discretion that discerns your state better than you yourself.
Therefore I pray you that to our sister you do make return.
Say you have wronged her.
Ask her forgiveness?
[LAUGHS]
Do you but mark how this becomes the house?
"Dear daughter, I confess that I am old. Age is unnecessary."
"On my knees I beg that you'll vouchsafe me raiment, bed, and food."
Sir, these are unsightly tricks.
Return you to my sister.
Never, Regan!
She hath abated me of half my train, looked black upon me,
struck me with her tongue most serpent-like upon the very heart.
All the stored vengeances of heaven
- fall on her ingrateful top! - Fie, sir, fie.
Strike her young bones, you taking airs, with lameness!
Ah…
You nimble lightnings, dart your blinding flames into her scornful eyes!
Infect her beauty, you fen-sucked fogs drawn by the powerful sun,
to fall and blister!
O the blest gods, so will you wish on me when the rash mood is on.
No, Regan, thou shalt never have my curse.
[CHUCKLES]
Thy tender-hefted nature shall not give thee o'er to harshness.
Her eyes are fierce, but thine do comfort and not burn.
Thou better knowest the offices of nature,
bond of childhood, effects of courtesy, dues of gratitude.
Thy half of the kingdom hast thou not forgot, wherein I thee endowed.
Good sir, to the purpose.
Who put my man I' the stocks?
[CAR HORN]
[KENT CLEARS THROAT]
- Is your lady come? - I…
This is the slave whose easy, borrowed pride
dwells in the fickle grace of her he follows.
- Out, varlet, from my sight! - What means your grace?
Who stocked my servant?
Regan, I have good hope thou didst not know on it.
Who comes here?
[LAUGHS] O heavens!
If you do love old men, if your sweet sway allow obedience,
if you yourselves are old, make it your cause.
Send down and take my part.
Art not ashamed to look upon this beard?
O Regan, will you take her by the hand?
Why not by the hand, sir? How have I offended?
All's not offence that indiscretion finds and dotage terms so.
O sides, you are too tough. Will you yet hold?
How came my man I' the stocks?
[CORNWALL] I set him there, sir!
[LEAR] You? Did you?
I pray you, Father, being weak, seem so.
If till the expiration of your month
you will return and sojourn with my sister, dismissing half your train,
come then to me.
I am now from home
and out of that provision which shall be needful for your entertainment.
Return to her and fifty men dismissed? No!
Persuade me rather to be slave and sumpter to that detested groom.
At your choice, sir.
I prithee, daughter, do not make me mad.
I will not trouble thee, my child. Farewell.
We'll no more meet, no more see one another.
Oh!
[HEAVY RAIN FALLING]
But yet thou art my flesh, my blood, my daughter.
Or rather a disease that's in my flesh, which I must needs call mine.
Thou art a boil, a plague sore,
an embossed carbuncle in my corrupted blood.
But I'll not chide thee.
Let shame come when it will, I do not call it.
I do not bid the thunder-bearer shoot, nor tell tales of thee to high-judging Jove.
Mend when thou canst.
Be better at thy leisure.
I can be patient.
I can stay with Regan, I and my hundred knights.
[THUNDER]
Not altogether so.
I looked not for you yet, nor am provided for your fit welcome.
Give ear, sir, to my sister.
For those that mingle reason with your passion
must be content to think you old and so…
But she knows what she does.
- Is this well spoken? - I dare avouch it, sir.
What, fifty followers? Is it not well?
What should you need of more, yea, or so many,
sith that both charge and danger speak 'gainst so great a number?
How in one house may many people under two commands hold amity?
'Tis hard, almost impossible.
Why might not you, my lord,
receive attendance from those that she calls servants or from mine?
Why not, my lord? I do entreat you to bring but five-and-twenty.
To no more will I give place or notice.
I gave you all…
[REGAN] And in good time you gave it.
Made you my guardians, my depositories.
What? Must I come to you with five-and-twenty? Regan, said you so?
And speak it again, my lord. No more with me.
Ah…
Ha!
I'll go with thee.
Thy fifty yet doth double five-and-twenty,
and thou art twice her love.
Hear me, my lord.
What need you five-and-twenty, ten, or five to follow
in a house where twice so many have a command to tend you?
- What need one? - Reason not the need.
[LAUGHS]
Our basest beggars are in the poorest thing superfluous.
Allow not nature more than nature needs, man's life is cheap as beast's.
Thou art a lady.
If only to go warm were gorgeous,
why, nature needs not what thou gorgeous wear'st,
which scarcely keeps thee warm.
[LAUGHS]
- But for true need… - [THUNDER]
You heavens, give me that patience,
patience I need!
You see me here, you gods, a poor old man, as full of grief as age,
wretched in both.
If it could be you that stir these daughters' hearts against their father,
fool me not so much to bear it tamely.
Touch me with noble anger
and let not women's weapons, water- drops,
stain my man's cheeks.
No, you unnatural hags!
I will have such revenges on you both that all the world shall…
I will do such things.
What they are yet I know not, but they shall be…
the terrors of the earth!
You think I'll weep.
No… I'll not weep!
I have full cause of weeping
but this heart shall break into a hundred thousand flaws
or ere I'll weep.
[LAUGHS]
O Fool…
[GASPS]
I shall go mad.
[THUNDER]
'Twill be a storm.
The old man and his people cannot be well bestowed here.
'Tis his own blame hath put himself from rest,
and must needs taste his folly.
For his particular I'll receive him gladly, but not one follower.
So am I purposed. Where is my Lord of Gloucester?
Followed the old man forth.
The king is in high rage.
- Whither is he going? - I know not.
'Tis best to give him way. He leads himself.
My lord, entreat him by no means to stay.
Alack, the high winds do sorely ruffle.
For many miles about there's scarce a bush.
O sir, to wilful men the injuries that they themselves procure
must be their schoolmasters. Shut up your doors.
Shut up your doors, my lord.
Blow, winds, and crack your cheeks!
Rage, blow, you cataracts and hurricanoes,
spout till you have drenched our steeples, drown'd the cocks!
You sulphurous and thought-executing fires,
vaunt-couriers of oak-cleaving thunderbolts, singe my white head!
And thou, all-shaking thunder,
strike flat the thick rotundity o'th'world,
crack nature's moulds,
all germens spill at once that make ingrateful man.
Good nuncle, in!
Ask thy daughters' blessing.
Rumble thy bellyful! Spit, fire! Spout, rain!
I tax not you, you elements, with unkindness.
Then let fall your horrible pleasure.
Here I stand, your slave,
a poor, infirm, weak and despised old man.
- [LAUGHS] - He that has a house to put his head in
has a good headpiece.
- Alas, sir, are you here? - [LAUGHS]
Let the great gods that keep this dreadful pudder o'er our heads
find out their enemies now.
I am a man more sinned against than sinning.
Gracious my lord, hard by here is a hovel.
Some friendship will it lend you 'gainst the tempest.
[LAUGHS]
My wits begin to turn.
[LEAR] Come on, my boy. How dost, my boy?
Art cold? I am cold myself.
Come, your hovel. Poor fool and knave,
I have one part in my heart that's sorry yet for thee. [LAUGHS]
[FOOL] ♪ He that has ♪ ♪ and a little tiny wit ♪
♪ With a hey ho, the wind and the rain ♪
♪ Must make content with his fortunes fit ♪
♪ Though the rain it raineth every day ♪
[LEAR AND FOOL LAUGH]
[GLOUCESTER] I like not this unnatural dealing.
They have taken from me the use of mine own house,
charged me on pain of perpetual displeasure
neither to speak of him, entreat for him or any way sustain him.
Most savage and unnatural!
Go to.
[WHISPERS] Say you nothing.
I have received a letter this night. 'Tis dangerous to be spoken.
These injuries the king now bears will be revenged.
There is part of a power from France already footed.
We must incline to the king. I will look for him.
Go you and maintain talk with the duke, that my charity be not of him perceived.
If he ask for me, I'm ill and gone to bed.
If I die for it, as no less is threatened me,
the king, my old master, must be relieved.
Pray you, be careful.
[KENT] Here is the place, my lord.
Good my lord, enter.
The tyranny of the open night's too rough for nature to endure.
- [LEAR] Let me alone. - Good my lord, enter here.
Prithee, go in thyself, seek thine own ease.
This tempest will not give me leave to ponder on things would hurt me more.
But I'll go in. In, boy, go first.
I'll pray. Then I'll sleep.
Poor naked wretches, wheresoe'er you are,
that bide the pelting of this pitiless storm,
how shall your houseless heads, your unfed sides,
your looped and windowed raggedness defend you from seasons such as these?
O, I have ta'en too little care of this.
Take physic, pomp!
Expose thyself to feel what wretches feel.
- [SNARLING] - [FOOL YELLS]
Help, help, help me!
A spirit! A spirit!
What?
- What art thou that dost grumble there? - Oh…
- Come forth! - [YELLING]
Away!
The foul fiend follows me!
Go to thy bed and warm thee.
Didst thou give all to thy daughters and art thou come to this?
- He hath no daughters, sir. - Poor Tom!
Death, traitor!
Nothing could have subdued nature to such a lowness but his unkind daughters.
Bless thy five wits!
Tom's… a-cold.
[LEAR] What hast thou been?
A servingman, proud in heart and mind,
who curled my hair, wore gloves in my cap,
served the lust of my mistress's heart
- and did the act of darkness with her… - [LEAR LAUGHS]
…in the sweet face of heaven.
Dolphin, my boy, boy, sessa!
Is man no more than this? [LAUGHS]
Here's three on's are sophisticated.
Thou art the thing itself.
Unaccommodated man is no more but such a poor, bare, forked animal
as thou art. Ha!
Off, off, you lendings. Come, unbutton here.
Prithee, nuncle, be contented.
'Tis a naughty night to swim in.
Look, here comes a walking fire!
How fares your grace?
Poor Tom, that eats the swimming frog…
Hath your grace no better company?
The Prince of Darkness is a gentleman! Tom's a-cold…
Come with me.
I have ventured to come seek you out
and bring you where both fire and food is ready.
First let me talk a word with this philosopher.
[KENT] Good my lord…
What is the cause of thunder?
Good my lord, take his offer, go to the house!
- [GLOUCESTER] I do beseech your grace… - [LEAR] Cry you mercy, sir.
- Come, noble philosopher, your company. - Tom's a-cold.
[GLOUCESTER] In, fellow, there. Keep thee warm.
No, no, no. This way, my lord.
With him. I will keep company with my philosopher. Come, good Athenian.
O, soothe him, good my lord. Let him take the fellow on.
Take him you on.
Come, good sir, good Athenian.
Fee, fie, fo and fum, I smell the blood of a British man.
No words, no words, hush!
This is the letter which he spoke of,
which approves him an intelligent party to the advantages of France.
Come with me to my wife.
If the matter of this paper be certain, you have mighty business at hand.
True or false, it hath made thee Earl of Gloucester.
Seek out where thy father is,
that he may be ready for our apprehension.
Here is better than the open air, take it thankfully.
I will piece out the comfort with what addition I can.
I will not be long from you.
The gods reward you for your kindness.
[FOOL SIGHS]
Prithee, nuncle, tell me whether a madman
be a gentleman or a yeoman.
A king, a king!
He's mad that trusts in the tameness of a wolf, a horse's health,
a boy's love, or a whore's oath.
[GIGGLES]
It shall be done. I will arraign them straight!
Come, sit thou here, most learned justicer.
Sit thou there, sapient sir. Sit!
And now, you she foxes…
[GROWLS]
- [CHUCKLES] - [GROWLING]
How do you, sir?
Stand you not so amazed.
Will you lie down and rest upon the cushions?
I'll see their trial first.
Bring their evidence.
Thou robed man of justice, take thy place.
And thou, his yoke-fellow of equity, bench by his side.
You are of the commission, sit you, too.
Let us deal justly.
Mm.
Arraign her first.
'Tis Goneril.
I here take my oath before this honourable assembly
she kicked the poor king, her father.
Come hither, mistress. Is your name Goneril?
She cannot deny it.
Cry you mercy, I took you for a joint stool.
And here's another, whose warped looks proclaim what store her heart is made on.
Stop her there.
Arms, arms, sword, fire, corruption in the place!
False justicer, why hast thou let her 'scape?
O pity! Sir, whoa…
Where…
Where's the patience now that you so oft have boasted to retain?
[SOBS]
The little dogs and all…
Tray, Blanch, and Sweetheart, they bark at me. [SOBS]
Tom will throw his head at them.
Avaunt, you curs!
Then let them anatomise Regan,
see what breeds about her heart.
Is there any cause in nature that makes these hard hearts?
You, sir, I entertain for one of my hundred,
only I do not like your garments.
You will say they are Persian, but let them be changed.
Now…
Good my lord…
- Lie here and rest awhile. - [LAUGHS]
Make no noise, make no noise.
Draw the curtains.
So, so…
We'll go to supper in the morning.
And I'll go to bed at noon.
[BANGING ON DOOR]
Come hither, friend. Where is the king, my master?
Here, sir, but trouble him not. His wits are gone.
Good friend, I prithee take him in thy arms. There is a litter ready.
Lay him in it and drive toward Dover, friend,
where thou wilt meet welcome and protection.
Take up! Take up thy master.
If thou shouldst dally half an hour,
his life, with thine and all who offer to defend him, stand in assured loss.
Take up, take up, and follow me.
[BREATHES DEEPLY]
[GASPS FOR BREATH]
Who alone suffers suffers most in the mind,
leaving free thoughts and happy shows behind.
How light and portable my pain seems now,
when that which made me bend made the king bow.
He childed… as I fathered.
Tom…
[SPLASHES WATER]
Away.
[INDISTINCT CHATTER]
[CLEARS THROAT]
The army of France is landed. Seek out the traitor Gloucester.
Go seek the traitor Gloucester!
Pinion him like a thief.
Bring him before us.
Hang him instantly.
Pluck out his eyes.
Leave him to my displeasure.
Edmund…
Keep you our sister company.
The revenges we are bound to take upon your traitorous father
are not fit for your beholding.
- Farewell, dear sister. - Farewell, sweet lord…
and sister.
Edmund, farewell.
[KNOCKS ON DOOR]
Who's there?
- The traitor? - Ingrateful fox, 'tis he.
[CORNWALL] Bind fast his corky arms.
What means your graces?
Good my friends, consider. You are my guests.
Do me no foul play, friends.
Bind him, I say.
Hard. Hard!
- O filthy traitor. - Unmerciful lady as you are, I'm none!
[CORNWALL] To the chair bind him. Villain, thou shalt find…
[YELLS]
Ye kind gods! 'Tis most ignobly done to pluck me by the beard.
So white and such a traitor.
These hairs which thou dost ravish
from my chin will quicken and accuse thee.
I'm your host!
With robbers' hands my hospitable favours you should not ruffle thus.
- What will you do? - Come, sir.
What letters had you late from France?
Be simple-answered for we know the truth.
What confederacy with traitors…
To whose hands you have sent the lunatic king. Speak.
I have a letter guessingly set down,
which comes from one that's of a neutral heart,
and not from one opposed.
- Oh, cunning. - And false.
[CORNWALL] Where hast thou sent the king?
To Dover.
Wherefore to Dover? Wast thou not charged at peril…
Wherefore to Dover? Let him answer that.
I am tied to the stake and must stand the course.
Wherefore to Dover?
Because I would not see thy cruel nails pluck out his poor old eyes,
nor thy fierce sister in his anointed flesh stick boarish fangs!
But I shall see the winged vengeance overtake such children.
See't shalt thou never.
Fellows, hold the chair.
[GLOUCESTER] Oh!
Oh!
He who will think to live till he be old give me some help!
O cruel!
O you gods!
[SCREAMS]
[SCREAMING CONTINUES]
One side will mock another.
The other too.
If you see vengeance…
[SCREAMS]
Hold your hand, my lord. I have served you ever since I was a child,
but better service have I never done you than now to bid you hold.
How now, you dog!
If you did wear a beard upon your chin I'll shake it on this quarrel.
What do you mean?
Nay then…
[GROANS]
[REGAN] A peasant stand up thus!
[GUNSHOT]
My lord…
You have one eye left to see some mischief on him. [GASPS]
Lest it see more, prevent it.
[GLOUCESTER SCREAMS]
Out, vile jelly…
[GROANS] Where's my son Edmund?
[REGAN] Thou callest on him that hates thee.
It was he who made the overture of thy treasons to us,
who is too good to pity thee.
O my follies!
Then Edgar was abused.
Kind gods, forgive me that
and prosper him.
Go thrust him out at gates and let him smell his way to Dover.
How dost, my lord? How look you?
I have received a hurt.
Ah, Regan…
I bleed apace.
Untimely comes this hurt.
Give me your arm.
[GROANS]
[MOANS]
[EDGAR] To be worst, the lowest and most dejected thing of fortune
stands still in hope, lives not in fear.
Who is it can say, "I am at the worst"?
I am worse than ever I was. And worse I may be yet.
The worst is not so long as we can say, "This is the worst."
[GLOUCESTER] Away, get thee away, good friend, begone.
Thy comforts can do me no good at all, thee they may hurt.
[SERVANT] How now?
Who's there?
It is…
It is a poor madman.
Fellow, where goest?
- [GLOUCESTER] Is it a beggar-man? - [SERVANT] Madman, and beggar too.
[GLOUCESTER] In the last night's storm I such a fellow saw.
Made me think a man a worm.
My son came then into my mind and yet my mind was then scarce friends with him.
I have heard more since.
As flies to wanton boys are we to the gods.
They kill us for their sport.
Bless thee, master.
[GLOUCESTER] Is that the naked fellow?
Ay, my lord.
Get thee away. Bring some covering for this naked soul…
which I'll entreat to lead me.
Alack, sir. He is mad.
'Tis the times' plague when madmen lead the blind.
Do as I bid thee, or rather do thy pleasure.
Above the rest, begone.
I'll bring the best apparel that I have, come of it what will.
Come hither, fellow.
Dost thou know Dover?
Ay, master.
There is a cliff whose high
and bending head looks fearfully in the confined deep.
Bring me but to the very brim of it.
From that place I shall no leading need.
Stand still!
How fearful and dizzy 'tis to cast one's eyes so low!
[LAUGHS] I'll look no more,
lest my brain turn and the deficient sight topple down headlong.
Set me where you stand.
Give me your hand.
Whoa!
[LAUGHS]
You are now within a foot of the extreme verge.
For all beneath the moon, would I not look upright.
Let go my hand.
Go thou farther off.
Bid me farewell and let me hear thee going.
Now fare ye well, good sir.
With all my heart.
O you mighty gods!
This world I do renounce.
If Edgar live…
O bless him!
Now, fellow…
Fare thee well.
Gone, sir. Farewell!
[SCREAMS]
[CHANGES VOICE] Ho you, sir? Friend?
Hear you, sir? Speak.
What are you, sir?
[GLOUCESTER] Away and let me die.
But thou dost breathe. Thy life's a miracle.
Speak yet again.
But have I fallen or no?
From the dread summit of this chalky bourn. Look up a height.
- Do but look up. - Alack, I have no eyes.
Is wretchedness deprived that benefit to end itself by death?
Give me your arm.
Up.
[LAUGHS]
So, how is it? Feel you your legs?
[LAUGHS] You stand.
Too well… Too well.
Bear free and patient thoughts.
[CORDELIA] It is he.
He was met even now as mad as the vex'd sea.
A century send forth, search every acre in the high-grown field
and bring my father to our eye.
What can man's wisdom in the restoring his bereaved sense?
There is means.
Our foster-nurse of nature is repose.
Seek, seek for him,
lest his ungoverned rage dissolve the life that wants the means to lead it.
[LEAR] That fellow handles his bow like a crow-keeper.
Draw me a clothier's yard.
Ha! Look, look, a mouse! [MAKES KISSING SOUNDS]
Peace, peace. This piece of toasted cheese will do't.
I know that voice.
O, well flown, bird. I'th'clout, I'th'clout. Hewgh!
Ah.
Shoo. Give the word.
- Sweet marjoram. - Pass.
Goneril with a white beard? [LAUGHS]
They flattered me like a dog
and told me I had the white hairs in my beard ere the black ones were there.
To say "ay" and "no" to every thing I said!
"Ay" and "no" too was no good divinity.
The trick of that voice I do well remember. Is't not the king?
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…
Let copulation thrive,
for Gloucester's bastard son was kinder to his father
than my daughters got 'tween the lawful sheets.
To it, luxury, pell-mell, for I lack soldiers.
Down from the waist they are centaurs, though women all above.
But to the girdle do the gods inherit, beneath is all the fiends'.
There's hell, there's darkness, there's the sulphurous pit,
burning, scalding, stench, consumption. Fie, fie! Pah! Pah!
Give me an ounce of civet, good apothecary,
to sweeten my imagination.
There's money for thee.
Let me kiss that hand.
Now, let me wipe it first, it smells of mortality. [SNIFFS]
Dost thou know me?
I remember thine eyes well enough.
[GROANS]
Read thou this challenge. Mark but the penning of it.
Were all thy letters suns, I could not see.
- Read. - What…
With the case of eyes?
O ho, are you there with me?
No eyes in your head, nor no money in your purse?
Your eyes are in a heavy case,
yet you may see how this world goes.
I see it feelingly.
What, art mad?
A man may see how this world goes with no eyes.
Get thee glass eyes
and like a scurvy politician seem to see the things
- thou dost not. - [SOBS]
Now, now, now…
If thou wilt weep my cause,
take my eyes.
I know thee well enough. Thy name is Gloucester.
[LAUGHS]
Thou must be patient.
We came crying hither.
Thou knowest the first time that we smell the air…
we wail and cry.
I will preach to thee, mark.
When we are born, we cry
that we are come to this great stage of fools.
Hey! This is a good block.
Oy, oy…
It were a delicate stratagem to shoe a troop of horse with felt. Sh!
I'll put it in proof, and when I have stolen upon these son-in-laws,
then kill, kill, kill,
- kill, kill, kill… - Hey! There he is. Lay hand upon him!
[LEAR] Kill, kill, kill!
Come, come…
C'est bon. Doucement.
I'm a king, masters, know you that?
- You are a royal one and we obey you. - [CHUCKLES] Then there's life in it.
Come, and you get it, you shall get it by running.
[LAUGHS]
Where's your master?
Madam, aloft, but never man so changed.
I told him the French were landed. He laughed at it.
And of Gloucester's treachery when I informed him he called me sot,
and told me I'd turned the wrong way out.
[BOTH LAUGH]
Back, Edmund, to the troops.
Hasten your musters and conduct your powers.
This trusty servant shall pass between us.
Ere long you are like to hear a mistress's command.
Wear this.
Spare speech.
Decline your head.
This kiss, if it durst speak,
would stretch thy spirits up into the air.
Conceive…
and fare thee well.
Yours… in the ranks of death.
My most dear Gloucester.
Oh…
The difference… of man and man.
To thee a woman's services are due.
A fool usurps my bed.
[OSWALD WHISPERS] Madam, here comes my lord.
I have been worth the whistle.
O Goneril…
You are not worth the dust which the rude wind blows in your face.
[LAUGHS] No more. The text is foolish.
Wisdom and goodness to the vile seem vile, filths savour but themselves.
Milk-livered man, where's thy drum?
France spreads his banners in our noiseless land,
whilst thou, a moral fool, sits still and cries, "Alack, why does he so?"
See thyself, devil!
Proper deformity shows not in the fiend so horrid as in woman.
O…
Vain… fool.
[EDMUND] 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 enjoyed if both remain alive.
Tell me but truly,
but then speak the truth.
Do you not love my sister?
In honoured love.
But have you never found my brother's way to the forfended place?
That thought abuses you.
No, by mine honour, madam.
I never shall endure her.
Dear my lord…
Be not familiar with her.
Fear me not.
She and the duke, her husband.
Our very loving sister, well be-met.
Sir, this I heard. The king is come to his daughter,
with others whom the rigour of our state forced to cry out.
It touches us, as France invades our land.
Sir, you speak nobly.
- Why is this reasoned? - Combine together 'gainst the enemy,
for these domestic and particular broils are not the question here.
Let's then determine on our proceeding.
- Sister, you'll go with us? - No.
'Tis most convenient. Pray, go with us.
[CHUCKLES]
Oh, I know the riddle.
I will go.
O thou good Kent.
How can I live and work to match thy goodness?
My life will be too short and every measure fail me.
To be acknowledged, madam, is o'erpaid.
All my reports go with the modest truth, nor more, nor clipped, but so.
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.
He wakes.
Speak to him.
Madam, do you. 'Tis fittest.
How does my royal lord?
How fares your majesty?
You do me wrong…
to take me out of the grave.
Thou art a soul in bliss, but I am bound upon a wheel of fire
that mine own tears do scald like molten lead.
Sir, do you know me?
You are a spirit, I know.
Where did you die?
Still far, far wide.
He's scarce awake.
Let him alone awhile.
Where have I been? Where am I?
Fair daylight?
I am mightily abused.
I should even 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.
O look upon me, sir,
and hold your hand in benediction o'er me.
Ah…
You must not kneel.
Pray do not mock me.
[GASPS]
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.
[CHUCKLES]
Do not laugh at me,
for, as I am a man,
I think this lady to be my child…
[SOBS] Cordelia.
And so I am…
I am.
Be your tears wet?
I pray thee… 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.
No cause, no cause.
[CHUCKLES]
Am I in France?
- In your own kingdom, sir. - Do not abuse me.
Be comforted, good madam.
The great rage, you see, is killed in him.
Desire him to go in.
Will it please your highness walk?
Ah… You must bear with me.
Pray you now, forget and forgive.
[CHUCKLES] I am old…
and foolish.
[HELICOPTER ROTORS WHIR]
[INDISTINCT CHATTER]
[SOLDIER] Fire!
Fire!
[MAN] Take cover!
[GLOUCESTER MOANS]
If ever I return to you again, I'll bring you comfort.
Grace go with you, sir.
[EXPLOSION]
[DISTANT SCREAMING]
On le recherche sur toute cette zone.
Après nous pourrons déployer si vous voulez
une autre troupe du côté du château…
[AIRCRAFT OVERHEAD]
[INDISTINCT SHOUTING]
[GUNFIRE]
Away!
Old man!
Give me thy hand, away!
King Lear hath lost, he and his daughter taken.
Give me thy hand. Come on!
No further, sir.
A man may rot even here.
[IN HIS OWN VOICE] Men must endure their going hence even as their coming hither.
Ripeness is all.
- Oh… Oh… - [EDGAR SOBS]
Oh…
[HELICOPTER ROTORS WHIR]
[SOLDIERS MARCH]
[SOLDIER] Right, left.
[SOLDIER SHOUTS MARCHING ORDERS]
We are not the first who with best meaning have incurred the worst!
Shall we not see these daughters and these sisters?
No, no, no, no.
- Come, let's away to prison. - [CORDELIA CRIES]
Ha…
We two alone will sing like birds in the cage.
When thou dost ask me blessing,
I'll kneel down and ask of thee forgiveness.
And 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…
and take upon us the mystery of things
as if we were God's spies.
And we'll wear out in a walled prison packs and sects of great ones
that ebb and flow by the moon.
Upon such sacrifices, my Cordelia,
the gods themselves throw incense.
Hm! Have I caught thee?
He that parts us shall bring a brand from heaven,
and fire us hence like foxes.
[SNIFFS]
Wipe thine eyes.
The good years shall devour them, flesh and fell
ere they shall make us weep.
We'll see 'em starved first.
Come.
[EDMUND] One step I have advanced thee.
If thou dost as this instructs thee, thou dost make thy way to noble fortunes.
Either say thou'lt do it or thrive by other means.
I cannot draw a cart nor eat dried oats.
If it be man's work, I'll do it.
Sir, you have showed today your valiant strain, and fortune led you well.
You have the captives who were the opposites of this day's strife.
I do require them of you
so that we shall find their merits and our safety may equally determine.
Sir, I thought it fit to send the old and miserable king to some retention.
At this time we sweat and bleed.
The friend hath lost his friend,
and the best quarrels in the heat
are cursed by those that feel their sharpness.
The question of Cordelia and her father requires a fitter place.
Sir, by your patience, I hold you but a subject of this war, not as a brother.
He led our powers, bore the commission of my place and person,
the which immediacy may well stand up and call itself your brother.
Not so hot.
In his own grace he doth exalt himself more than in your addition.
In my rights by me invested, he compeers the best.
[ALBANY] That were the most if he should husband you.
Jesters do oft prove prophets.
Uh-uh. That eye that told you so looked but asquint.
[REGAN] 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. These walls are thine.
Witness the world that I create thee here my lord and master.
The let-alone lies not in your good will.
Nor in thine, lord.
Half-blooded fellow, yes.
[REGAN] Prove my title thine.
Edmund, I arrest thee on capital treason, and in thy attaint this gilded serpent.
An interlude.
Let the challenge sound.
If none appear to prove upon thy person thy heinous, manifest and many treasons,
here is my pledge. I'll make it on my heart.
There's my exchange.
What in the world he is that names me traitor,
villain-like he lies.
He that dares approach, on him, on you, who not?
I will maintain my truth and honour firmly.
- Let the challenge sound. - [REGAN GROANS]
[GROANS] My sickness grows upon me.
She is not well, convey her to my room.
If any man of quality or degree within the lists of the army
will maintain upon Edmund, supposed Earl of Gloucester,
that he is a manifold traitor,
let him appear!
[MURMURING]
What sayest thou?
Thou art a traitor,
false to thy gods, thy brother, and thy father.
Back do I toss these treasons to thy head.
[MEN SHOUT] Yeah! Come on!
- Fight! - [CHEERING]
- [MAN 1] Get up! - [MAN 2] Get up.
[CONTINUES PUNCHING]
[SCREAMS]
[YELLS]
[EDGAR SCREAMS]
[CROWD SHOUTING OVER DIALOGUE]
[CHEERING]
[CROWD CHANTS]
[BONES SNAP]
[CROWD FALLS SILENT]
[GASPS]
Thou art not vanquished but cozened and beguiled!
Shut your mouth, dame!
[SOBS]
No!
[ALBANY] Go with her. She's desperate.
[MUTTERS]
What you have charged me with, that have I done.
And more, much more.
But what art thou?
I am no less in blood than thou art, Edmund.
My name is Edgar…
and thy father's son.
The wheel is come full circle.
I am here.
O that my heart would burst…
[MAN] Help! Help!
Well, speak, man.
This knife…
This knife came even from the heart of…
Well, who, man? Speak!
Your lady, sir.
Your lady. And her sister by her is poisoned.
She confesses it.
Produce the bodies.
Be they alive or dead.
Go on.
[GASPS] I was contracted to them both.
All three now marry in an instant.
I am come to bid my king and master aye good night.
Is he not here?
Seest thou this object, Kent?
[EDMUND GASPS]
I pant for life.
Quickly send…
for my writ is on the life of Lear and on Cordelia.
Send in time!
- Haste thee for thy life! - Bear him hence!
[LEAR] Howl!
Howl!
O you are men of stones.
Had I your tongues and eyes, I'd use them so that heaven's vault should crack.
She's gone… for ever.
I know when one is dead and when one lives.
She's dead as earth.
This feather stirs.
She lives.
If it be so, it is a chance
which does redeem all sorrows that ever I have felt.
O my good master…
Prithee, away.
'Tis noble Kent, your friend.
A plague upon us, murderers, traitors all!
I might have saved her.
Now she's gone…
for ever.
Cordelia…
Cordelia, stay a little. Ha?
What is't thou sayest?
Her voice was ever soft, gentle and low.
An excellent thing in woman.
I killed the slave that was a-hanging thee.
Did I not, fellow?
'Tis true, my lords, he did.
I have seen the day, with my good biting falchion I'd have made 'em skip!
[SOLDIERS CHEER]
I'm old now,
and these same crosses spoil me.
This is a dull sight.
Who are you?
Mine eyes are not of the best, I'll tell you straight.
Are you not Kent?
The same, your servant Kent.
Where is your servant, Caius?
He's a good man, I'll tell you that.
He'll strike, and quickly too. He's dead and rotten.
No, my good lord!
- I am the very man… - I'll see that straight.
…that from your first of difference and decay have followed your sad steps.
You are welcome hither.
He knows not what he says and vain is it that we present us to him.
My 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.
O see, see!
[SOBS] And… and my poor fool… is hanged.
No… No…
No life. [SOBS]
Why should a dog, a horse, a rat have life…
and thou no breath at all?
[SOBS] Thou'lt come no more.
Never…
Never, never, never…
[GASPS FOR BREATH]
Pray you, undo this button.
Thank you, sir.
See this?
Look…
On her, her lips.
Look there, look there.
- [GASPS] - He faints.
My lord…
My lord?
[KENT] Oh. Break, heart, I prithee break.
[EDGAR] Look up, my lord.
[KENT] O, vex not his ghost. O, let him pass.
He hates him that would upon the rack of this tough world stretch him out longer.
He is gone indeed.
The wonder is he hath endured so long.
He but usurped his life.
Friends of my soul,
you twain rule in this realm and the gor'd state sustain.
I have a journey, sir, shortly to go.
My master calls me. I must not say no.
[GRUNTS]
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.
[BELL TOLLS]