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King Lear: Act IV, Scene 7

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King Lear
Act IV, Scene 7

The French camp near Dover. A tent.

Ellen Terry as Cordelia

Ellen Terry as Cordelia

Window & Grove, circa 1892

  1. Enter Cordelia, Kent still dressed as Caius, and Doctor.

Cordelia

1 - 3
  1. O thou good Kent, how shall I live and work
  2. To match thy goodness? My life will be too short,
  3. And every measure fail me.

Kent

4 - 6
  1. To be acknowledg’d, madam, is o’erpaid.
  2. All my reports go with the modest truth,
  3. Nor more nor clipt, but so.

Cordelia

7 - 9
  1.                             Be better suited,
  2. These weeds are memories of those worser hours;
  3. I prithee put them off.

Kent

10 - 13
  1.                         Pardon, dear madam,
  2. Yet to be known shortens my made intent.
  3. My boon I make it, that you know me not
  4. Till time and I think meet.

Cordelia

14 - 15
  1. Then be’t so, my good lord.
  2. To the Doctor.
  3. How does the King?

Doctor

16
  1.                    Madam, sleeps still.

Cordelia

17 - 20
  1.                      O you kind gods!
  2. Cure this great breach in his abused nature,
  3. Th’ untun’d and jarring senses, O, wind up
  4. Of this child-changed father!

Doctor

21 - 22
  1.                               So please your Majesty
  2. That we may wake the King? He hath slept long.

Cordelia

23 - 24
  1. Be govern’d by your knowledge, and proceed
  2. I’ th’ sway of your own will. Is he array’d?

First Gentleman

25 - 26
  1. Ay, madam; in the heaviness of sleep
  2. We put fresh garments on him.

Doctor

27 - 28
  1. Be by, good madam, when we do awake him,
  2. I doubt not of his temperance.

Cordelia

29
  1.                                Very well.
  1. Enter Lear in a chair carried by Servants. First Gentleman
  2. in attendance. Soft music.

Doctor

30
  1. Please you draw near.—Louder the music there!

Cordelia

31 - 34
  1. O my dear father, restoration hang
  2. Thy medicine on my lips, and let this kiss
  3. Repair those violent harms that my two sisters
  4. Have in thy reverence made.

Kent

35
  1. Kind and dear princess!

Cordelia

36 - 48
  1. Had you not been their father, these white flakes
  2. Did challenge pity of them. Was this a face
  3. To be oppos’d against the warring winds?
  4. To stand against the deep dread-bolted thunder?
  5. In the most terrible and nimble stroke
  6. Of quick cross lightning? To watch—poor perdu!—
  7. With this thin helm? Mine enemy’s dog,
  8. Though he had bit me, should have stood that night
  9. Against my fire, and wast thou fain, poor father,
  10. To hovel thee with swine and rogues forlorn
  11. In short and musty straw? Alack, alack,
  12. ’Tis wonder that thy life and wits at once
  13. Had not concluded all. He wakes, speak to him.

You are a spirit, I know; when did you die?

John Rogers, 1885

Doctor

49
  1. Madam, do you, ’tis fittest.

Cordelia

50
  1. How does my royal lord? How fares your Majesty?

Lear

51 - 54
  1. You do me wrong to take me out o’ th’ grave:
  2. Thou art a soul in bliss, but I am bound
  3. Upon a wheel of fire, that mine own tears
  4. Do scald like molten lead.

Cordelia

55
  1.                            Sir, do you know me?

Lear

56
  1. You are a spirit, I know; when did you die?

Cordelia

57
  1. Still, still, far wide!

Doctor

58
  1. He’s scarce awake, let him alone a while.

Lear

59 - 64
  1. Where have I been? Where am I? Fair daylight?
  2. I am mightily abus’d; I should ev’n die with pity
  3. To see another thus. I know not what to say.
  4. I will not swear these are my hands. Let’s see,
  5. I feel this pin prick. Would I were assur’d
  6. Of my condition!

Cordelia

65 - 67
  1.                  O, look upon me, sir,
  2. And hold your hand in benediction o’er me.
  3. No, sir, you must not kneel.

Lear

68 - 79
  1.                              Pray do not mock me.
  2. I am a very foolish fond old man,
  3. Fourscore and upward, not an hour more nor less;
  4. And to deal plainly,
  5. I fear I am not in my perfect mind.
  6. Methinks I should know you, and know this man,
  7. Yet I am doubtful: for I am mainly ignorant
  8. What place this is, and all the skill I have
  9. Remembers not these garments; nor I know not
  10. Where I did lodge last night. Do not laugh at me,
  11. For (as I am a man) I think this lady
  12. To be my child Cordelia.

Byam Shaw, 1901

Cordelia

80
  1.                          And so I am; I am.

Lear

81 - 85
  1. Be your tears wet? Yes, faith. I pray weep not.
  2. If you have poison for me, I will drink it.
  3. I know you do not love me, for your sisters
  4. Have (as I do remember) done me wrong:
  5. You have some cause, they have not.

Cordelia

86
  1.                                     No cause, no cause.

Lear

87
  1. Am I in France?

Kent

88
  1.                 In your own kingdom, sir.

Lear

89
  1. Do not abuse me.

Doctor

90 - 94
  1. Be comforted, good madam, the great rage,
  2. You see, is kill’d in him, and yet it is danger
  3. To make him even o’er the time he has lost.
  4. Desire him to go in, trouble him no more
  5. Till further settling.

Cordelia

95
  1. Will’t please your Highness walk?

Lear

96 - 97
  1.                                   You must bear with me.
  2. Pray you now forget, and forgive; I am old and foolish.
  1. Exeunt. Manent Kent and First Gentleman.

First Gentleman

98
  1. Holds it true, sir, that the Duke of Cornwall was so slain?

Kent

99
  1. Most certain, sir.

First Gentleman

100
  1. Who is conductor of his people?

Kent

101
  1. As ’tis said, the bastard son of Gloucester.

First Gentleman

102 - 103
  1. They say Edgar, his banish’d son, is with the Earl of Kent
  2. in Germany.

Kent

104 - 105
  1. Report is changeable. ’Tis time to look about, the powers of
  2. the kingdom approach apace.

First Gentleman

106
  1. The arbiterment is like to be bloody. Fare you well, sir.
  1. Exit.

Kent

107 - 108
  1. My point and period will be throughly wrought,
  2. Or well or ill, as this day’s battle’s fought.
  1. Exit.

So please your Majesty that we may wake the King? He hath slept long.

Johann Heinrich Ramberg, 1829

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