ACT 1
Scene 1
...King is coming.
Enter King Lear, Cornwall, Albany, Goneril, Regan, Cordelia, and Attendants.
...I love you.
aside
What shall Cordelia speak? Love, and be silent.
...dear Highness’ love.
aside
Then poor Cordelia!
And yet not so, since I am sure my love’s
More ponderous than my tongue.
...your sisters’? Speak.
Nothing, my lord.
... Nothing?
Nothing.
...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.
...mar your fortunes.
Good my lord,
You have begot me, bred me, loved me.
I return those duties back as are right fit:
Obey you, love you, and most honor you.
Why have my sisters husbands if they say
They love you all? Haply, when I shall wed,
That lord whose hand must take my plight shall carry
Half my love with him, half my care and duty.
Sure I shall never marry like my sisters,
To love my father all.
...heart with this?
Ay, my good lord.
...and so untender?
So young, my lord, and true.
...plant in me.
to Lear
I yet beseech your Majesty—
If for I want that glib and oily art
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 dishonored step
That hath deprived me of your grace and favor,
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.
...lose a husband.
Peace be with Burgundy.
Since that respect and fortunes are his love,
I shall not be his wife.
...to your sisters.
The jewels of our father, with washed eyes
Cordelia leaves you. I know you what you are,
And like a sister am most loath to call
Your faults as they are named. Love well our father.
To your professèd bosoms I commit him;
But yet, alas, stood I within his grace,
I would prefer him to a better place.
So farewell to you both.
...you have wanted.
Time shall unfold what plighted cunning hides,
Who covers faults at last with shame derides.
Well may you prosper.
...my fair Cordelia.
France and Cordelia exit.
ACT 4
Scene 4
...Along with me.
Enter with Drum and Colors, Cordelia, Doctor, Gentlemen, and Soldiers.
Alack, ’tis he! Why, he was met even now
As mad as the vexed sea, singing aloud,
Crowned with rank fumiter and furrow-weeds,
With hardocks, hemlock, nettles, cuckooflowers,
Darnel, and all the idle weeds that grow
In our sustaining corn. A century send forth.
Search every acre in the high-grown field
And bring him to our eye. What can man’s wisdom
In the restoring his bereavèd sense?
He that helps him take all my outward worth.
...eye of anguish.
All blest secrets,
All you unpublished virtues of the earth,
Spring with my tears. Be aidant and remediate
In the good man’s distress. Seek, seek for him,
Lest his ungoverned rage dissolve the life
That wants the means to lead it.
...are marching hitherward.
’Tis known before. Our preparation stands
In expectation of them.—O dear father,
It is thy business that I go about.
Therefore great France
My mourning and importuned tears hath pitied.
No blown ambition doth our arms incite,
But love, dear love, and our aged father’s right.
Soon may I hear and see him.
They exit.
Scene 7
...with a friend.
Enter Cordelia, Kent in disguise, Doctor, and Gentleman.
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.
...clipped, but so.
Be better suited.
These weeds are memories of those worser hours.
I prithee put them off.
...I think meet.
Then be ’t so, my good lord.—How does the King?
...Madam, sleeps still.
O, you kind gods,
Cure this great breach in his abusèd nature!
Th’ untuned and jarring senses, O, wind up,
Of this child-changèd father!
...slept long.
Be governed by your knowledge, and proceed
I’ th’ sway of your own will. Is he arrayed?
...of his temperance.
Very well.
...the music there.
kissing Lear
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.
...and dear princess.
Had you not been their father, these white flakes
Did challenge pity of them. Was this a face
To be opposed against the jarring 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.
...you; ’tis fittest.
How does my royal lord? How fares your Majesty?
...like molten lead.
Sir, do you know me?
...did you die?
Still, still, far wide.
...Of my condition!
O, look upon me, sir,
And hold your hand in benediction o’er me.
No, sir, you must not kneel.
...my child Cordelia.
weeping
And so I am; I am.
...they have not.
No cause, no cause.
...Till further settling.
Will ’t please your Highness walk?
...and foolish.
They exit. Kent and Gentleman remain.
ACT 5
Scene 2
...not to debate.
Alarum within. Enter, with Drum and Colors, Lear, Cordelia, and Soldiers, over the stage, and exit. Enter Edgar and Gloucester.
Scene 3
...that’s true too.
Enter in conquest, with Drum and Colors, Edmund; Lear and Cordelia as prisoners; Soldiers, Captain.
...to censure them.
to Lear
We are not the first
Who with best meaning have incurred the worst.
For thee, oppressèd king, I am cast down.
Myself could else outfrown false Fortune’s frown.
Shall we not see these daughters and these sisters?
... first. Come.
Lear and Cordelia exit, with Soldiers.
...him hence awhile.
Enter Lear with Cordelia in his arms, followed by a Gentleman.
...live so long.
They exit with a dead march.