King Lear
Act 4, Scene 7
The French camp near Dover. A tent.
- Enter Cordelia, Kent still dressed as Caius, and Doctor.
Cordelia
2 - 4- 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
5 - 7- To be acknowledg’d, madam, is o’erpaid.
- All my reports go with the modest truth,
- Nor more nor clipt, but so.
Cordelia
8 - 10- Be better suited,
- These weeds are memories of those worser hours;
- I prithee put them off.
Kent
11 - 14- Pardon, 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
15 - 17- Then be’t so, my good lord.
- To the Doctor.
- How does the King?
Doctor
18- Madam, sleeps still.
Cordelia
19 - 22- O you kind gods!
- Cure this great breach in his abused nature,
- Th’ untun’d and jarring senses, O, wind up
- Of this child-changed father!
Doctor
23 - 24- So please your Majesty
- That we may wake the King? He hath slept long.
Cordelia
25 - 26- Be govern’d by your knowledge, and proceed
- I’ th’ sway of your own will. Is he array’d?
First Gentleman
27 - 28- Ay, madam; in the heaviness of sleep
- We put fresh garments on him.
Doctor
29 - 30- Be by, good madam, when we do awake him,
- I doubt not of his temperance.
Cordelia
31- Very well.
- Enter Lear in a chair carried by Servants. First Gentleman
- in attendance. Soft music.
Doctor
34- Please you draw near.—Louder the music there!
Cordelia
35 - 38- 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
39- Kind and dear princess!
Cordelia
40 - 52- Had you not been their father, these white flakes
- Did challenge pity of them. Was this a face
- To be oppos’d 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
53- Madam, do you, ’tis fittest.
Cordelia
54- How does my royal lord? How fares your Majesty?
Lear
55 - 58- You do me wrong to take me out o’ th’ 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.
Cordelia
59- Sir, do you know me?
Lear
60- You are a spirit, I know; when did you die?
Cordelia
61- Still, still, far wide!
Doctor
62- He’s scarce awake, let him alone a while.
Lear
63 - 68- Where have I been? Where am I? Fair daylight?
- I am mightily abus’d; I should ev’n 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 assur’d
- Of my condition!
Cordelia
69 - 71- O, look upon me, sir,
- And hold your hand in benediction o’er me.
- No, sir, you must not kneel.
Lear
72 - 83- 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
84- And so I am; I am.
Lear
85 - 89- 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
90- No cause, no cause.
Lear
91- Am I in France?
Kent
92- In your own kingdom, sir.
Lear
93- Do not abuse me.
Doctor
94 - 98- 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
99- Will’t please your Highness walk?
Lear
100 - 101- You must bear with me.
- Pray you now forget, and forgive; I am old and foolish.
- Exeunt. Manent Kent and First Gentleman.
First Gentleman
103- Holds it true, sir, that the Duke of Cornwall was so slain?
Kent
104- Most certain, sir.
First Gentleman
105- Who is conductor of his people?
Kent
106- As ’tis said, the bastard son of Gloucester.
First Gentleman
107 - 108- They say Edgar, his banish’d son, is with the Earl of Kent
- in Germany.
Kent
109 - 110- Report is changeable. ’Tis time to look about, the powers of
- the kingdom approach apace.
First Gentleman
111- The arbiterment is like to be bloody. Fare you well, sir.
- Exit.
Kent
113 - 114- My point and period will be throughly wrought,
- Or well or ill, as this day’s battle’s fought.
- Exit.