King Lear
Act 5, Scene 3
The British camp near Dover.
- Enter in conquest, with Drum and Colors, Edmund, Lear and
- Cordelia as prisoners, Soldiers, Captain.
Edmund
3 - 5- Some officers take them away. Good guard,
- Until their greater pleasures first be known
- That are to censure them.
Cordelia
6 - 10- We are not the first
- Who with best meaning have incurr’d the worst.
- For thee, oppressed king, I am cast down,
- Myself could else out-frown false Fortune’s frown.
- Shall we not see these daughters and these sisters?
Lear
11 - 22- No, no, no, no! Come let’s away to prison:
- We two alone will sing like birds i’ th’ cage;
- When thou dost ask me blessing, I’ll kneel down
- And ask of thee forgiveness. 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 ’s the mystery of things
- As if we were God’s spies; and we’ll wear out,
- In a wall’d prison, packs and sects of great ones,
- That ebb and flow by th’ moon.
Edmund
23- Take them away.
Lear
24 - 30- Upon such sacrifices, my Cordelia,
- The gods themselves throw incense. Have I caught thee?
- He that parts us shall bring a brand from heaven,
- And fire us hence like foxes. Wipe thine eyes;
- The good-years shall devour them, flesh and fell,
- Ere they shall make us weep! We’ll see ’em starv’d first.
- Come.
- Exit with Cordelia, guarded.
Edmund
32 - 42- Come hither, captain; hark.
- Take thou this note
- Giving a paper.
- go follow them to prison.
- One step I have advanc’d thee; if thou dost
- As this instructs thee, thou dost make thy way
- To noble fortunes. Know thou this, that men
- Are as the time is: to be tender-minded
- Does not become a sword. Thy great employment
- Will not bear question; either say thou’lt do’t,
- Or thrive by other means.
First Captain
43- I’ll do’t, my lord.
Edmund
44 - 46- About it, and write happy when th’ hast done.
- Mark, I say instantly, and carry it so
- As I have set it down.
First Captain
47 - 48- I cannot draw a cart, nor eat dried oats,
- If it be man’s work, I’ll do’t.
- Exit First Captain.
- Flourish. Enter Albany, Goneril, Regan, another Captain,
- Soldiers.
Albany
52 - 57- Sir, you have show’d 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 to use them
- As we shall find their merits and our safety
- May equally determine.
Edmund
58 - 72- Sir, I thought it fit
- To send the old and miserable King
- To some retention and appointed guard,
- Whose age had charms in it, whose title more,
- To pluck the common bosom on his side,
- And turn our impress’d lances in our eyes
- Which do command them. With him I sent the Queen,
- My reason all the same, and they are ready
- Tomorrow, or at further space, t’ appear
- Where you shall hold your session. At this time
- We sweat and bleed: the friend hath lost his friend,
- And the best quarrels, in the heat, are curs’d
- By those that feel their sharpness.
- The question of Cordelia and her father
- Requires a fitter place.
Albany
73 - 75- Sir, by your patience,
- I hold you but a subject of this war,
- Not as a brother.
Regan
76 - 81- That’s as we list to grace him.
- Methinks our pleasure might have been demanded
- Ere you had spoke so far. He led our powers,
- Bore the commission of my place and person,
- The which immediacy may well stand up,
- And call itself your brother.
Goneril
82 - 84- Not so hot.
- In his own grace he doth exalt himself,
- More than in your addition.
Regan
85 - 86- In my rights,
- By me invested, he compeers the best.
Goneril
87- That were the most, if he should husband you.
Regan
88- Jesters do oft prove prophets.
Goneril
89 - 90- Holla, holla!
- That eye that told you so look’d but a-squint.
Regan
91 - 96- 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; the walls is thine.
- Witness the world, that I create thee here
- My lord and master.
Goneril
97- Mean you to enjoy him?
Albany
98- The let-alone lies not in your good will.
Edmund
99- Nor in thine, lord.
Albany
100- Half-blooded fellow, yes.
Regan
101 - 102- To Edmund.
- Let the drum strike, and prove my title thine.
Albany
103 - 112- Stay yet, hear reason. Edmund, I arrest thee
- On capital treason, and in thy attaint,
- This gilded serpent
- Pointing to Goneril.
- For your claim, fair sister,
- I bar it in the interest of my wife;
- ’Tis she is sub-contracted to this lord,
- And I, her husband, contradict your banes.
- If you will marry, make your loves to me,
- My lady is bespoke.
Goneril
113- An enterlude!
Albany
114 - 121- Thou art armed, Gloucester, let the trumpet sound.
- If none appear to prove upon thy person
- Thy heinous, manifest, and many treasons,
- There is my pledge
- Throwing down a glove.
- I’ll make it on thy heart,
- Ere I taste bread, thou art in nothing less
- Than I have here proclaim’d thee.
Regan
122- Sick, O, sick!
Goneril
123 - 124- Aside.
- If not, I’ll ne’er trust medicine.
Edmund
125 - 131- There’s my exchange.
- Throwing down a glove.
- What in the world he is
- That names me traitor, villain-like he lies.
- Call by the trumpet; he that dares approach:
- On him, on you—who not?—I will maintain
- My truth and honor firmly.
Albany
132- A herald, ho!
Edmund
133- A herald, ho, a herald!
Albany
134 - 136- Trust to thy single virtue, for thy soldiers,
- All levied in my name, have in my name
- Took their discharge.
Regan
137- My sickness grows upon me.
Albany
138 - 142- She is not well, convey her to my tent.
- Exit Regan, led.
- Enter a Herald.
- Come hither, herald. Let the trumpet sound,
- And read out this.
Second Captain
143- Sound, trumpet!
- A trumpet sounds.
Herald
145 - 149- Reads.
- “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 by the third
- sound of the trumpet. He is bold in his defense.”
Edmund
150- Sound!
- First trumpet.
Herald
152- Again!
- Second trumpet.
Herald
154- Again!
- Third trumpet.
- Trumpet answers within.
- Enter Edgar at the third sound, armed, a Trumpet before him.
Albany
158 - 159- Ask him his purposes, why he appears
- Upon this call o’ th’ trumpet.
Herald
160 - 162- What are you?
- Your name, your quality? And why you answer
- This present summons?
Edgar
163 - 166- Know, my name is lost,
- By treason’s tooth bare-gnawn and canker-bit,
- Yet am I noble as the adversary
- I come to cope.
Albany
167- Which is that adversary?
Edgar
168- What’s he that speaks for Edmund Earl of Gloucester?
Edmund
169- Himself; what say’st thou to him?
Edgar
170 - 186- Draw thy sword,
- That if my speech offend a noble heart,
- Thy arm may do thee justice; here is mine:
- Behold, it is my privilege,
- The privilege of mine honors,
- My oath, and my profession. I protest,
- Maugre thy strength, place, youth, and eminence,
- Despite thy victor-sword and fire-new fortune,
- Thy valor, and thy heart, thou art a traitor;
- False to thy gods, thy brother, and thy father,
- Conspirant ’gainst this high illustrious prince,
- And from th’ extremest upward of thy head
- To the descent and dust below thy foot,
- A most toad-spotted traitor. Say thou “No,”
- This sword, this arm, and my best spirits are bent
- To prove upon thy heart, whereto I speak,
- Thou liest.
Edmund
187 - 196- In wisdom I should ask thy name,
- But since thy outside looks so fair and warlike,
- And that thy tongue some say of breeding breathes,
- What safe and nicely I might well delay
- By rule of knighthood, I disdain and spurn.
- Back do I toss these treasons to thy head,
- With the hell-hated lie o’erwhelm thy heart,
- Which for they yet glance by, and scarcely bruise,
- This sword of mine shall give them instant way
- Where they shall rest forever. Trumpets, speak!
- Alarums. They fight. Edmund falls.
Albany
198- Save him, save him!
Goneril
199 - 202- This is practice, Gloucester.
- By th’ law of war thou wast not bound to answer
- An unknown opposite. Thou art not vanquish’d,
- But cozen’d and beguil’d.
Albany
203 - 206- Shut your mouth, dame,
- Or with this paper shall I stopple it. Hold, sir.—
- Thou worse than any name, read thine own evil.
- No tearing, lady, I perceive you know it.
Goneril
207 - 208- Say if I do, the laws are mine, not thine;
- Who can arraign me for’t?
Albany
209 - 210- Most monstrous! O!
- Know’st thou this paper?
Goneril
211- Ask me not what I know.
- Exit.
Albany
213- Go after her; she’s desperate, govern her.
Edmund
214 - 218- What you have charg’d me with, that have I done,
- And more, much more, the time will bring it out.
- ’Tis past, and so am I. But what art thou
- That hast this fortune on me? If thou’rt noble,
- I do forgive thee.
Edgar
219 - 226- Let’s exchange charity.
- I am no less in blood than thou art, Edmund;
- If more, the more th’ hast wrong’d me.
- My name is Edgar, and thy father’s son.
- The gods are just, and of our pleasant vices
- Make instruments to plague us:
- The dark and vicious place where thee he got
- Cost him his eyes.
Edmund
227 - 228- th’ hast spoken right, ’tis true.
- The wheel is come full circle, I am here.
Albany
229 - 232- Methought thy very gait did prophesy
- A royal nobleness. I must embrace thee.
- Let sorrow split my heart, if ever I
- Did hate thee or thy father.
Edgar
233- Worthy prince, I know’t.
Albany
234 - 235- Where have you hid yourself?
- How have you known the miseries of your father?
Edgar
236 - 254- By nursing them, my lord. List a brief tale,
- And when ’tis told, O that my heart would burst!
- The bloody proclamation to escape,
- That follow’d me so near (O, our lives’ sweetness!
- That we the pain of death would hourly die
- Rather than die at once!), taught me to shift
- Into a madman’s rags, t’ assume a semblance
- That very dogs disdain’d; and in this habit
- Met I my father with his bleeding rings,
- Their precious stones new lost; became his guide,
- Led him, begg’d for him, sav’d him from despair;
- Never (O fault!) reveal’d myself unto him,
- Until some half hour past, when I was arm’d.
- Not sure, though hoping, of this good success,
- I ask’d his blessing, and from first to last
- Told him our pilgrimage. But his flaw’d heart
- (Alack, too weak the conflict to support!)
- ’Twixt two extremes of passion, joy and grief,
- Burst smilingly.
Edmund
255 - 257- This speech of yours hath mov’d me,
- And shall perchance do good: but speak you on,
- You look as you had something more to say.
Albany
258 - 260- If there be more, more woeful, hold it in,
- For I am almost ready to dissolve,
- Hearing of this.
Edgar
261 - 275- This would have seem’d a period
- To such as love not sorrow, but another,
- To amplify too much, would make much more,
- And top extremity. Whilst I
- Was big in clamor, came there in a man,
- Who, having seen me in my worst estate,
- Shunn’d my abhorr’d society, but then finding
- Who ’twas that so endur’d, with his strong arms
- He fastened on my neck and bellowed out
- As he’d burst heaven, threw him on my father,
- Told the most piteous tale of Lear and him
- That ever ear received, which in recounting,
- His grief grew puissant and the strings of life
- Began to crack. Twice then the trumpets sounded,
- And there I left him tranc’d.
Albany
276- But who was this?
Edgar
277 - 279- Kent, sir, the banish’d Kent, who in disguise
- Followed his enemy king, and did him service
- Improper for a slave.
- Enter Second Gentleman with a bloody knife.
Second Gentleman
281- Help, help! O, help!
Edgar
282- What kind of help?
Albany
283- Speak, man.
Edgar
284- What means this bloody knife?
Second Gentleman
285 - 286- ’Tis hot, it smokes,
- It came even from the heart of—O, she’s dead!
Albany
287- Who dead? Speak, man.
Second Gentleman
288 - 289- Your lady, sir, your lady; and her sister
- By her is poison’d; she confesses it.
Edmund
290 - 291- I was contracted to them both; all three
- Now marry in an instant.
Edgar
292- Here comes Kent.
- Enter Kent.
Albany
294 - 299- Produce the bodies, be they alive or dead.
- Exit Second Gentleman.
- This judgment of the heavens, that makes us tremble,
- Touches us not with pity.—O, is this he?
- The time will not allow the compliment
- Which very manners urges.
Kent
300 - 302- I am come
- To bid my king and master aye good night.
- Is he not here?
Albany
303 - 306- Great thing of us forgot!
- Speak, Edmund, where’s the King? And where’s Cordelia?
- Goneril and Regan’s bodies brought out.
- Seest thou this object, Kent?
Kent
307- Alack, why thus?
Edmund
308 - 310- Yet Edmund was belov’d!
- The one the other poison’d for my sake,
- And after slew herself.
Albany
311- Even so. Cover their faces.
Edmund
312 - 316- I pant for life. Some good I mean to do,
- Despite of mine own nature. Quickly send
- (Be brief in it) to th’ castle, for my writ
- Is on the life of Lear and on Cordelia.
- Nay, send in time.
Albany
317- Run, run, O, run!
Edgar
318 - 319- To who, my lord? Who has the office? Send
- Thy token of reprieve.
Edmund
320 - 321- Well thought on. Take my sword. The captain—
- Give it the captain.
Albany
322- Haste thee, for thy life.
- Exit Edgar.
Edmund
324 - 327- He hath commission from thy wife and me
- To hang Cordelia in the prison, and
- To lay the blame upon her own despair,
- That she fordid herself.
Albany
328- The gods defend her! Bear him hence awhile.
- Edmund is borne off.
- Enter Lear with Cordelia in his arms, Edgar and Second
- Gentleman following.
Lear
332 - 338- Howl, howl, howl! O, you are men of stones!
- Had I your tongues and eyes, I’ld use them so
- That heaven’s vault should crack. She’s gone forever!
- I know when one is dead, and when one lives;
- She’s dead as earth. Lend me a looking-glass,
- If that her breath will mist or stain the stone,
- Why then she lives.
Kent
339- Is this the promis’d end?
Edgar
340- Or image of that horror?
Albany
341- Fall, and cease!
Lear
342 - 344- This feather stirs, she lives! If it be so,
- It is a chance which does redeem all sorrows
- That ever I have felt.
Kent
345 - 346- Kneeling.
- O my good master!
Lear
347- Prithee away.
Edgar
348- ’Tis noble Kent, your friend.
Lear
349 - 354- A plague upon you, murderers, traitors all!
- I might have sav’d her, now she’s gone forever!
- Cordelia, Cordelia, stay a little. Ha!
- What is’t thou say’st? Her voice was ever soft,
- Gentle, and low, an excellent thing in woman.
- I kill’d the slave that was a-hanging thee.
Second Gentleman
355- ’Tis true, my lords, he did.
Lear
356 - 360- Did I not, fellow?
- I have seen the day, with my good biting falchion
- I would have made them skip. I am old now,
- And these same crosses spoil me. Who are you?
- Mine eyes are not o’ th’ best; I’ll tell you straight.
Kent
361 - 362- If Fortune brag of two she lov’d and hated,
- One of them we behold.
Lear
363- This is a dull sight. Are you not Kent?
Kent
364 - 365- The same:
- Your servant Kent. Where is your servant Caius?
Lear
366 - 367- He’s a good fellow, I can tell you that;
- He’ll strike, and quickly too. He’s dead and rotten.
Kent
368- No, my good lord, I am the very man—
Lear
369- I’ll see that straight.
Kent
370 - 371- That from your first of difference and decay,
- Have follow’d your sad steps—
Lear
372- You are welcome hither.
Kent
373 - 375- Nor no man else. All’s cheerless, dark, and deadly.
- Your eldest daughters have foredone themselves,
- And desperately are dead.
Lear
376- Ay, so I think.
Albany
377 - 378- He knows not what he says, and vain is it
- That we present us to him.
Edgar
379- Very bootless.
- Enter Second Messenger.
Second Messenger
381- Edmund is dead, my lord.
Albany
382 - 393- That’s but a trifle here.
- You 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.
- To Edgar and Kent.
- You, to your rights,
- With boot, and such addition as your honors
- Have more than merited. All friends shall taste
- The wages of their virtue, and all foes
- The cup of their deservings. O, see, see!
Lear
394 - 400- And my poor fool is hang’d! No, no, no life!
- Why should a dog, a horse, a rat, have life,
- And thou no breath at all? Thou’lt come no more,
- Never, never, never, never, never.
- Pray you undo this button. Thank you, sir.
- Do you see this? Look on her! Look her lips,
- Look there, look there!
- He dies.
Edgar
402- He faints. My lord, my lord!
Kent
403- Break, heart, I prithee break!
Edgar
404- Look up, my lord.
Kent
405 - 407- Vex not his ghost. O, let him pass, he hates him
- That would upon the rack of this tough world
- Stretch him out longer.
Edgar
408- He is gone indeed.
Kent
409 - 410- The wonder is he hath endur’d so long,
- He but usurp’d his life.
Albany
411 - 415- Bear them from hence. Our present business
- Is general woe.
- To Kent and Edgar.
- Friends of my soul, you twain
- Rule in this realm, and the gor’d state sustain.
Kent
416 - 417- I have a journey, sir, shortly to go:
- My master calls me, I must not say no.
Edgar
418 - 421- 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.
- Exeunt with a dead march.
