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That good effects may spring from words of love.
Thus Kent, O princes! bids you all adieu;
He'll shape his old course in a country new.

[Exit.

Flourish. Re-enter GLOSTER; with FRANCE, BURGUNDY, and

Attendants.

Gloster. Here's France and Burgundy, my noble lord.
Lear. My lord of Burgundy,

We first address toward you, who with this king
Hath rivall'd for our daughter: what, in the least,
Will you require in present dower with her,
Or cease your quest of love? 2

Burgundy.

Most royal majesty, I crave no more than hath your highness offer'd, Nor will you tender less.

Lear.

Right noble Burgundy,
When she was dear to us, we did hold her so;
But now her price is fall'n. Sir, there she stands:
If aught within that little seeming 3 substance,
Or, all of it, with our displeasure piec'd,
And nothing more, may fitly like your grace,
She's there, and she is yours.

Burgundy.

4

I know no answer.

Lear. Will you, with those infirmities she owes,5
Unfriended, new-adopted to our hate,

Dower'd with our curse, and stranger'd with our oath,
Take her, or leave her?

Burgundy.

Election makes not up
Lear. Then leave

Pardon me, royal Sir;
on such conditions.

her, Sir; for, by the power that
made me,

I tell you all her wealth.

For you, great king,

[TO FRANCE.

I would not from your love make such a stray,
To match you where I hate: therefore, beseech you
T'avert your liking a more worthier way,

1. i. e. He will follow his old maxims; he will continue to act upon the same drinciples.

2. Quest of love, amorous expedition. The term originated from Romance: a quest was the expedition in which a knight was engaged.

3. Seeming, specious, beautiful. 4. Fitly like, reasonably please. 5. Owes, owns, is possessed of.

6. Makes not up, comes' not to a decision: as we say, to make up one's mind.

Than on a wretch whom nature is asham'd
Almost t' acknowledge hers.

This is most strange,

France.
That she, who even but now was your best object,
The argument of your praise, balm of your age,
Most best, most dearest, should in this trice of time
Commit a thing so monstrous, to dismantle
So many folds of favour. Sure, her offence
Must be of such unnatural degree,

That monsters it, or your fore-vouch'd affection
Fall into taint: 1 which to believe of her,
Must be a faith that reason, without miracle,
Could never plant in me.

Cordelia.

I yet beseech your majesty,

(If for I want that glib and oily art,2

To speak and purpose not, since what I well intend.
I'll do 't before I speak) that you make known
It is no vicious blot, murder, or foulness,

No unchaste action, or dishonour'd step,

That hath depriv'd me of your grace and favour;
But even for want of that for which I am richer,
A still-soliciting eye, and such a tongue

That I am glad I have not, though not to have it,
Hath lost me in your liking.

Lear.

Better thou

Hadst not been born, than not to have pleas'd me better. France. Is it but this? a tardiness in nature,

Which often leaves the history unspoke,

-

That it intends to do? My lord of Burgundy,
What say you to the lady? Love is not love,
When it is mingled with respects, that stand

1. Either her offence must be monstrous, or, if she has not committed any such offence, the affection which you always professed to have for her must be tainted and decayed, and is now without reason alienated from her.

2. i. e. If this be my offence, that I am wanting in the glib and oily art.

3. For murder is frequently read nor other, a very plausible correction, the old orthography being murther; but the original reading has been defended on the ground of the two preceding

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Aloof from the entire point. Will you have her?
She is herself a dowry.

Burgundy.

Royal king,

Give but that portion which yourself propos'd,
And here I take Cordelia by the hand,
Duchess of Burgundy.

Lear. Nothing: I have sworn; I am firm.

Bur. I am sorry, then, you have so lost a father, That you must lose a husband.

Cordelia.

Peace be with Burgundy:

Since that respects of fortune are his love,

I shall not be his wife.

France. Fairest Cordelia, that art most rich, being poor,

Most choice, forsaken, and most lov'd, despis'd,

Thee and thy virtues here I seize upon:

Be it lawful, I take up what 's cast away.

Gods, gods! 't is strange, that from their cold'st neglect
My love should kindle to inflam'd respect.

Thy dowerless daughter, king, thrown to my chance,
Is queen of us, of ours, and our fair France:
Not all the dukes of waterish Burgundy
Shall buy this unpriz'd precious maid of me.
Bid them farewell, Cordelia, though unkind:1
Thou losest here, a better where to find.2

Lear. Thou hast her, France; 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, noble Burgundy.

[Flourish. Exeunt LEAR, BURGUNDY, CORNWALL, ALBANY, GLOSTER, and Attendants.

France. Bid farewell to your sisters.

Cor. The jewels of our father, with wash'd eyes

Cordelia leaves you: I know you what you are;

And, like a sister, am most loath to call

Your faults as they are nam'd. Love well our father:
To your professed bosoms I commit him;
But yet, alas! stood I within his grace,

1. Unkind, unnatural.

2. Here and where have the power of nouns. Thou losest this residence to find a better residence in another place.

3. Some editors read, Ye jewels, which may probably be right, it often being impossible, in old manuscripts, to distinguish this word from the abbreviation of the: Ye.

I would prefer1 him to a better place.
So, farewell to you both.

Goneril. Prescribe not us our duty.
Regan.

Let your study

Be to content your lord, who hath receiv'd you
At fortune's alms: you have obedience scanted,

And well are worth the want that you have wanted.2
Cordelia. Time shall unfold what plighted cunning3 hides;
Who cover faults, at last shame them derides,

Well may you prosper!

France.

Come, my fair Cordelia.

[Exeunt FRANCE and CORDELIA,

Gon. Sister, it is not little I have to say of what most nearly appertains to us both. I think, our father will hence to-night.

Reg. That 's most certain, and with you; next month with us.

Gon. You see how full of changes his age is; the observation we have made of it hath not been little: he always loved our sister most, and with what poor judgment he hath now cast her off, appears too grossly.

Reg. T is the infirmity of his age; yet he hath ever but slenderly known himself.

4

Gon. The best and soundest of his time hath been but rash; then, must we look to receive from his age, not alone the imperfections of long-engrafted condition, but, therewithal, the unruly waywardness that infirm and choleric years bring with them."

Reg. Such unconstant starts are we like to have from him, as this of Kent's banishment.

Gon. There is farther compliment of leave-taking between France and him. Pray you, let us hit 5 together: if our father carry authority with such dispositions as he bears, this last surrender of his will but offend us.

Reg. We shall farther think of it.

6

Gon. We must do something, and i' the heat. [Exeunt.

1. To prefer, to advance, to exalt.

2. You have been failing in obedience, and well deserve to feel the want of that] love in which you have been wanting.

3. Plighted cunning, complicated, involved cunning.

4. i. e. of qualities of mind confirmed by long habit.

5. i. e. let us agree.

6. i. e. while it is yet warm. We must strike while the iron's hot.

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Edmund. Thou, nature, art my goddess; to thy law My services are bound. Wherefore should I Stand in the plague of custom, 2 and permit The curiosity of nations to deprive me,1

For that 5 I am some twelve or fourteen moon-shines

Lag of a brother? 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 us
With base? with baseness? bastardy? base, base?
Who in the lusty stealth of nature take
More composition and fierce quality,
Than doth within a dull, stale, tired bed,
Go to the creating a whole tribe of fops,
Got 'tween asleep and wake? Well then,

Legitimate Edgar, I must have your land:
Our father's love is to the bastard Edmund,
As to the legitimate. Fine word, - legitimate!
Well, my legitimate, if this letter speed,
And my invention thrive, Edmund the base
Shall tops the legitimate. I grow; I prosper:
Now, gods, stand up for bastards!

Enter GLOSTER.

Gloster. Kent banish'd thus! And France in choler parted And the king gone to-night! subscrib'd his power!9 Confin'd to exhibition !10 All this done

Upon the gad!11 Edmund, How now! what news?

1. Edmund calls nature his goddess for the same reason that we call a bastard a natural son.

2. Why should I submit to the vexatious laws laid down by custom.

3. i. e. the idle, nice distinctions of the world.

4. To deprive was, in our author's time, synonimous to disinherit.

5. For that, because.

7. Lag, falling short. The verb only is now in use: to lag, to loiter. 8. To top, to rise above. 9. To subscribe, in Shakspeare, is to yield, or surrender.

10. Exhibition, allowance. The word, in this sense, is still employed in our universities.

11. Upon the gad, suddenly, at the instant; or, while the iron is hot a

6. Moonshine, a burlesque expression gad is an iron bar. for month.

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