King Lear by William Shakespeare: Act 1

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:02):
This is a LibriVox recording. All Libervox recordings are in
the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please
visit LibriVox dot org. The Tragedy of King Lear by
William Shakespeare recorded by LibriVox Volunteers to mark the four

(00:22):
hundredth anniversary of the first performance of the play, which
was on December twenty sixth, sixteen o six, Act one,
Scene one, A room of state in King Lear's palace,
Enter Kent, Gloucester and Edmund Kent.

Speaker 2 (00:45):
I thought the King had more affected the Duke of
Albany than Cornwall Gloucester.

Speaker 3 (00:52):
It did always seem so to us. But now in
the division of the kingdom it appears not which of
the dukes he values most, For equalities are so weighed
that curiosity in neither can make choice of either's moiety.

Speaker 2 (01:09):
Is not this your son, my lord?

Speaker 3 (01:12):
His breathing, Sir, hath been at my charge. I have
so often blushed to acknowledge him, that now I am
brazed to it.

Speaker 2 (01:22):
I cannot conceive.

Speaker 3 (01:24):
You, Sir, this young fellow's mother could. Whereupon she grew
round wound, and had, indeed, Sir a son for her cradle.
Ere she had a husband for her bed. Do you
smell a fault?

Speaker 2 (01:39):
I cannot wish the fault undone, the issue of it
being so proper.

Speaker 3 (01:45):
But I have, Sir, a son, by order of law,
some year elder than this, who yet is no dearer
in my account. Though this knave came something saucily into
the world before he was sent for, yet was his
mother fair? There was good sport at his making, and
the horse un must be acknowledged. Do you know this,

(02:07):
noble gentleman Edmund?

Speaker 4 (02:09):
No, my Lord, my Lord.

Speaker 3 (02:12):
Of Kent, remember him hereafter as my honorable friend.

Speaker 4 (02:18):
My services to your lordship.

Speaker 2 (02:21):
I must love you, ensue to know you better.

Speaker 4 (02:25):
Sir, I shall study deserving he.

Speaker 3 (02:28):
Hath been out nine years, and away he shall again.
The king is coming.

Speaker 1 (02:35):
Sound a senate ento, one bearing a coronet, and to
King Lear, Cornwall, Albany, Goneril, Reagan, Cordelia and attendants.

Speaker 5 (02:46):
Lear attend the lords of France and Burgundy, Gloucester.

Speaker 3 (02:51):
I shall, my Liege.

Speaker 1 (02:53):
Exeant Gloucester and Edmund.

Speaker 5 (02:56):
Meantime we shall express our darker purpose. Give me the
map there. Know that we have divided in three. Our
kingdom tis our fast intent to shake all cares and
business from our age, conferring them on younger strengths, while we, unburdened,
crawl toward death, Our son of Cornwall, and you are

(03:18):
no less loving son of Albany. We have this hour
a constant will to publish our daughter's several hours, that
future strife may be prevented. Now the princes France and Burgundy,
great rifles in our youngest daughter's love, long in our court,
have made their amorous sojourn, and here are to be answered.

(03:39):
Tell me, my daughters, since now we will divest us
both of rule, interest of territory, cares of state. Which
of you shall we say, doth love us most? That
we our largest bounty may extend when nature doth with
merit challenge goneril our eldest born, speak for.

Speaker 6 (04:01):
Sir, I love you more than words can wield, the
matter dearer than eyesight, space, and liberty beyond what can
be valued, rich or rare, no less than life with grace, health, beauty, honor,
as much as child heir loved or father found a
love that makes breath poor and speech unable beyond all

(04:21):
manner of so much I love.

Speaker 1 (04:23):
You, Cordelia.

Speaker 7 (04:26):
What shall Cordelia, speak love, and be silent.

Speaker 5 (04:31):
Of all these bounds. Even from this line to this,
with shadowy forests, and with champagnes riched with plenteous rivers
and wide skirted meads, we make thee lady to thine
in and alban is issue. Be this perpetual. What says
our second daughter, Ah, dearest Reagan wife to Cornwall, speak.

Speaker 8 (04:55):
Sir, I am made of the self same metal that
my sister is, and brise me at her worth in
my true art, I find she names me very deed
of love. Only she comes to short that I profess
myself an enemy to all other joys which the most
precious square sense possesses, and find I am alone felicited

(05:18):
in your dear Highness's love, then.

Speaker 7 (05:22):
Poor Cordelia, And yet not so, since I am sure
my love's more richer than my tongue.

Speaker 5 (05:31):
To thee and thine hereditary. Ever, remain this ample third
of our fair kingdom, no less in space, validity and
pleasure than that conferred on Goneril. Now our joy, although
the last not least to whose young love the vines
of France and milk of Burgundy strive to be interested.

(05:52):
What can you say to draw a third more opulent
than your sister's.

Speaker 7 (05:57):
Speak nothing, my Lord, nothing, nothing.

Speaker 5 (06:02):
Nothing can come of nothing.

Speaker 7 (06:04):
Speak again, unhappy that I am, I cannot heave my
heart into my mouth. I love your majesty according to
my bond, no more, no less.

Speaker 5 (06:17):
How how Cordelia, mend your speech a little lest you
may mar your fortunes.

Speaker 7 (06:25):
Good, my Lord, you have begot me, bred me, loved me.
I return those duties back as a right fit. Obey you,
Love you, and most honor you. Why have my sister's
husbands if they say they love you all? Haply? When
I shall wed, that lord whose hand must take my plight,

(06:47):
shall carry half my love with him, half my care
and duty. Sure I shall never marry like my sisters
to love my father.

Speaker 5 (06:57):
All but goes thy heart with thee.

Speaker 7 (07:00):
Ay good, my Lord.

Speaker 5 (07:02):
So young and so untender, So young, my lord and true,
Let it be so thy truth, then be thy dow.
For by the sacred radiance of the Sun, the mysteries
of Eckert and the Knight, by all the operation of
the orbs, from whom we do exist and cease to
be here, I disclaim all my paternal care, probinquity and

(07:27):
property of blood, and as a stranger to my heart
and me hold thee form this for ever the barbarous Scythian,
or he that makes his generation messes to gorge his appetite,
shall to my bosom be as well neighbor, pitied and
relieved as thou my sometime daughter, good my leechh peace

(07:49):
kent come not between the dragon and his wrath. I
lov'd her most and thought to set my rest on
her kind nursery to Cordelia, hence and avoid my sight.
So be my grave my peace. As here I give
her father's heart from her call France, who stirs call Burgundy,

(08:09):
Cornwall and Albany. With my two daughter's dowers, digest this
third let pride, which she calls plainness, marry her. I
do invest you jointly in my power, pre eminence, and
all the large effects that troupe with Majesty ourself, by
monthly course, with reservation of an hundred knights by you

(08:30):
to be sustain'd, shall our abode make with you by
due turns only we still retain the name and all
the additions to a king. The sway revenue execution of
the rest beloved sons be yours, which to confirm this
coronet part betwixt.

Speaker 2 (08:48):
You, Royal Lear, whom I have ever honored as my king,
loved as my father, as my master, followed as my
great patron. Thought on in my prayers.

Speaker 5 (09:03):
The bow is bent and drawn, Make from the shaft let.

Speaker 2 (09:08):
It fall, rather though the fork conveyed the region of
my heart be kent on mannerly when Lear is mad?
What wouldst thou do, old man? Think'st thou that duty
shall have dread to speak when power to flattery bows

(09:31):
to plainness, honors bound, when majesty falls to folly, reverse
thy state, and in thy best consideration, check this hideous rashness.
Answer my life, my judgment, Thy youngest daughter does not
love the least. Nor are those empty hearted whose low

(09:55):
sound reverbs no hollowness.

Speaker 5 (09:58):
Kent on thy life.

Speaker 2 (10:00):
No more my life I never held but as a
pawn to wage against thine enemies, nor fear to lose it,
Thy safety.

Speaker 5 (10:10):
Being the motive out of my sight.

Speaker 2 (10:14):
See better, Lear, and let me still remain the true
blank of thine eye.

Speaker 5 (10:22):
Now by Apollo, Now.

Speaker 2 (10:24):
By Apollo, King, Thou sweart'st thy gods in vain.

Speaker 5 (10:29):
Oh vassal mescreant he makes to strike him.

Speaker 2 (10:33):
Dear sir, forbear, do kill thy physician and the fee
bestow upon the foul disease. Revoke thy gift. Or whilst
I can vent clamor from my throat, I'll tell THEE
thou dst evil.

Speaker 5 (10:51):
Hear me, recreant on thine allegiance. Hear me, since thou
hast sought to make us break our vow, which we
dost never yet, and with trained pride, to come between
our sentence and our power, which nor our nature nor
our place can bear. Our potency made good, take thy reward.
Five days do we allot THEE for provision to shield

(11:13):
THEE from diseases of the world, and on the sixth
to turn thy hated back upon our kingdom. If on
the tenth day following thy banished trunk be found in
our dominions, the moment is thy death away by Jupiter.
This shall not be revoked fare THEE.

Speaker 2 (11:31):
Well King sith, thus thou will appear. Freedom lives hence,
and banishment is here to Cordelia. The gods, to their
dear shlter, take THEE maid that justly thinkst and hast
most rightly.

Speaker 1 (11:52):
Said to Goneril and Reagan and.

Speaker 2 (11:57):
Your large speeches. May your dee approve that good effects
may spring from words of love. Thus kent O Princes
bid you all adieu. He'll shape his old course in
a country.

Speaker 1 (12:16):
New exit flourish, enter Gloucester with France and Burgundy and attendants.

Speaker 3 (12:25):
Here is France and Burgundy, My noble lord.

Speaker 5 (12:29):
My Lord of Burgundy, we first addressed towards you, who,
with this king hath rivaled for our daughter. What in
the least will you require in present dower with her?
Nor cease your quest of.

Speaker 9 (12:41):
Love, Most Royal Majesty, I crave no more than hath
your Highness offered, Nor will you tender less.

Speaker 5 (12:50):
Write Noble Burgundy. When she was dear to us, we
did hold her so, But now her price is fallen. Sir.
There she stands. If within that little seeming substance or
all of it, with our displeasure pierced, and nothing more
may fitly like your grace, she is there, and she

(13:10):
is yours.

Speaker 9 (13:12):
I know no answer.

Speaker 5 (13:14):
Will you with those infirmities she owes unfriended, new adopted
to our hate, dowed with our curse, and strangered with
our oath take her or leave her.

Speaker 9 (13:26):
Pardon me, royal sir, election makes not up on such conditions.

Speaker 5 (13:31):
Then leave her, sir, for by the power that made me,
I tell you all her wealth to France. For you,
great King, I would not, from your love make such
a stray to match you where I hate. Therefore beseech
you to avert your liking a more worthy away than
on a wretch whom nature is ashamed almost to acknowledge her.

Speaker 10 (13:52):
This is most strange 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 comit a thing so monstrous to dismantle
so many folds of favor. Sure her offense must be

(14:13):
of such a natural degree that monsters it, or your
frvouched affection falling into taint, which to believe over must
be of faith that reason without miracle should never plant
in me.

Speaker 7 (14:26):
Yet I 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 it before I speak,
that you make known it is no vicious blot, murder
of foulness, no unchaste, action or dishonored step that hath
deprived me of your grace and favor. But even for

(14:50):
want of that which I am richer a still soliciting
eye and such a tongue as I am glad, I
have not, though not to have it, have lost me
in your liking.

Speaker 5 (15:02):
Better thou hadst not been born, not to have pleased
me better?

Speaker 11 (15:07):
Is it?

Speaker 10 (15:07):
But this a tardiness in nature which often leaves the
history and spook that it intends to do. My Lord
of Burgundy, what say you to the lady? Love's not
love when it is mingled with regards that stands aloof
from the entire point? Will you have her? She is
herself a dowry royal king.

Speaker 9 (15:29):
Give but that portion which yourself proposed. And here I
take Cordelia by the hand, Duchess of Burgundy.

Speaker 5 (15:37):
Nothing I have sworn. I am firm to Cordelia.

Speaker 9 (15:42):
I am sorry. Then you have so lost a father
that you must lose a husband.

Speaker 7 (15:47):
Peace be with Burgundy, Since that respects of fortune are
his love, I shall not be his wife.

Speaker 10 (15:55):
Fai is Cordelia the tutmost rich, being poor, most choice, forsaken,
and most love despised? Thee and thy virtues. Here I
seize upon, be lawful. I take up what's cast away gods, Gods.

(16:16):
Its strange that from their coldest neglect my love should
kindle to inflamed respect. Thy dourless daughter, king thrown to
my chance is queen of us, of ours and our
fair France. Not all the dukes of Waterrish Burgundy can
buy this unprized pressures made of me. Bid them farewell, Cordelia,

(16:39):
do unkind thou losest heir a better where to find.

Speaker 5 (16:45):
Thou hast her France, Let her be thine, for we
have no such daughter, nor shall ever see the face
of hers again. Therefore be gone without our grace. I
love our Benison, Come noble.

Speaker 1 (16:58):
Burgundy, Flourish, excellent Lear Burgundy, Cornwall, Albany, Gloucester and attendants.

Speaker 10 (17:06):
Be farewell to your sisters.

Speaker 7 (17:09):
The jewels of our father. With washed eyes, Cordelia leaves you.
I know what you are, and, like a sister a
most loath to call your faults as they are named.
Love well our father to your professed bosoms. I commit him,
but yet alas stood I within his grace, I would

(17:31):
prefer him to a better place. So farewell to you.

Speaker 8 (17:35):
Both prescribe, not us, thou dodies.

Speaker 6 (17:39):
Let your study be to content your Lord, who hath
received you at fortune's alms. You have obedient, scanted, and
well are worth the want that you have wanted.

Speaker 7 (17:50):
Time shall unfold what plighted cunning hides, Who covers faults
at last shame them derides. Well, May you prosper, Come, my.

Speaker 1 (18:00):
Fair Cordelia, excellent Franz and Cordelia, sister.

Speaker 6 (18:05):
It is not little I have to say of what
most nearly appertains to us both. I think our father
will hence to night.

Speaker 8 (18:13):
That's most certain, and with you next month, with us.

Speaker 6 (18:19):
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.

Speaker 8 (18:32):
Tis the infirmity of his age. Yet he hath, ever
but slenderly, known himself.

Speaker 6 (18:38):
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 longing graft condition, but there withal
the unruly waywardness that infirm and choleric years bring with them.

Speaker 8 (18:53):
Set unconstant starts are we like to have from him?
As this of Kent's banishment, there.

Speaker 6 (19:00):
Is further compliment of leave taking between France and him.
Pray you let us hit together. If our father carry
authority with such dispositions as he bears this last surrender
of his will, but offend.

Speaker 8 (19:12):
Us, we shall further think of it.

Speaker 6 (19:15):
We must do something. And in the heat.

Speaker 1 (19:19):
Exillant scene too a hall in the earl of Gloucester's castle,
enter Edmond with a.

Speaker 4 (19:28):
Letter, Thou Nature art, my goddess, to thy law, my
services are bound. Wherefore should I stand in the plague
of custom and permit the curiosity of nations to deprive me?
For that I am some twelve or fourteen Moonshine's lag

(19:52):
of a brother? Why bastard, wherefore Base, when my dimensions
are as well compact, to my mind as generous, and
my shape as true as honest madam's issue, Why brand
the us with base with baseness, bastardly base, Base, who,

(20:13):
in the lusty stealth of nature, take more composition and
fierce quality than doth with a dull, stale, tir red
bed go to the creating of a whole tribe of
fops between asleep and wake. Well, then, legitimate, Edgar, I

(20:34):
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

(20:57):
base shall top the legitimate. I grow, I prosper. Now
God's stand up for bastards.

Speaker 1 (21:13):
Enter Gloucester.

Speaker 3 (21:15):
Kent banished, thus and France in collar parted, and the
king gone to night subscribed, his power confined to exhibition.
All this done upon the gad Edmund. How now, what
news so.

Speaker 4 (21:33):
Please your lordship? None?

Speaker 3 (21:36):
Why so earnestly seek you to put up that letter?

Speaker 4 (21:40):
I know no news, my lord?

Speaker 3 (21:42):
What paper? Were you reading?

Speaker 4 (21:44):
Nothing? My lord?

Speaker 11 (21:46):
No?

Speaker 3 (21:47):
What needed then that terrible dispatch of it into your pocket?
The quality of nothing hath not such need to hide itself.
Let's see. Come. If it be nothing, I shall not needspecks.

Speaker 4 (22:01):
I beseech you, sir, pardon me. It is a letter
from my brother that I have not all o'er read,
And for so much as I have perused, I find
it not fit for your o looking.

Speaker 3 (22:13):
Give me the letter, sir.

Speaker 4 (22:15):
I shall offend either to detain or give it. The contents,
as in part I understand them, are to blame.

Speaker 3 (22:23):
Let's see. Let's see.

Speaker 4 (22:25):
I hope for my brother's justification. He wrote this, but
as an essay or taste of my virtue.

Speaker 3 (22:35):
This policy and reverence of age makes the world bitter
to the best of our times, keeps our fortunes from
us till our oldness cannot relish them. I begin to
find an idle and fond bondage in the oppression of
aged tyranny, who sways not as it hath power, but

(22:58):
as it is suffered. Come to me that of this
I may speak more. If our father would sleep till
I waked him, you should enjoy half his revenue forever
and live the beloved of your brother, Edgar hum conspiracy,
sleep till I waked him. You should enjoy half his revenue.

(23:23):
My son, Edgar, had he a hand to write this,
a heart and brain to breed it in. When came
this to you? Who brought it?

Speaker 4 (23:35):
It was not brought me, my lord. There's the cunning
of it. I found it thrown in at the casement
of my closet.

Speaker 3 (23:43):
You know the character to be your brother's.

Speaker 4 (23:46):
If the matter were good, my Lord. I durst swear
it were his, but in respect of that, I would
fain think it were not. It is his, It is
his hand, my lord, But I hope his son heart
is not in the contents.

Speaker 3 (24:05):
Hath he never before sounded you in this business?

Speaker 4 (24:09):
Never, my lord, but I have heard him oft. Maintain
it to be fit that sons at perfect age and
father's decline, the father should be as ward to the son,
and the son manage his revenue.

Speaker 3 (24:25):
Oh, villain, villain, his very opinion in the letter, abhorred villain, unnatural, detested,
brutish villain, worse than brutish. Go surah, seek him, I'll
apprehend him, abominable villain. Where is he?

Speaker 4 (24:45):
I do not well know, my lord. If it shall
please you to suspend your indignation against my brother till
you can derive from him better testimony of his intent,
you should run a certain course where if you violently
proceed against him, mistaking his purpose, it would make a
great gap in your own honor and shake in peaces

(25:08):
the heart of his obedience. I dare pawn down my
life for him that he hath writ this, to feel
my affection to your honor, and to no other pretense
of danger, think you so, if your honor judged meat,
I would place you where you shall hear us confer
of this, and by an auricular assurance, have your satisfaction,

(25:31):
and that without any further delay than this very evening.

Speaker 3 (25:36):
He cannot be such a monster. Nor it is not
sure to his father that so tenderly and entirely loves him,
Heaven and earth Edmund seek him out, wind me into him.
I pray you frame the business after your own wisdom.
I would unstate myself to be in a due resolution.

Speaker 4 (26:00):
I will seek them, sir, presently, convey the business as
I shall find means, and acquaint you withal.

Speaker 3 (26:08):
These late eclipses in the sun and moon portend no
good to us, though the wisdom of nature can reason
it thus, and thus yet nature finds itself scourged by
the sequent effects. Love cools, friendship falls off, Brothers divide

(26:29):
in cities, mutinies in countries, discord in palaces, treason, and
the bond cracked TwixT son and father. This villain of
mine comes under the prediction theirs son against father. The
king falls from bias of nature, theirs father against child.

(26:53):
We have seen the best of our time, machinations, hollowness, treachy,
and all ruinous disorders follow us disquietly to our graves.
Find out this villain edmund, it shall lose thee nothing.
Do it carefully, and the noble and true hearted kent

(27:16):
banished his offense. Honesty tis strange exit.

Speaker 4 (27:26):
This is the excellent foppery of the world, that, when
we are sick in fortune, often to the surfeit of
our own behavior, we make guilty our own disasters, the sun,
the moon, and the stars, as if we were villains
on necessity, fools by heavenly compulsion, knaves, thieves and treatures

(27:48):
by spherical predominance, drunkards, liars and adulters by an enforced
obedience of planetary influence, and all the we are evil
in by a divine thrusting on an admirable evasion of horror.
Master man to lay as goatish disposition to the charge

(28:10):
of a star. My father compounded with my mother under
the dragon's tail, and my nativity was under ursa major
so that it follows I am rough and lecherous tart.
I should have been that I am had the maidenly

(28:32):
a star in the firmament twinkled on my bastardizing and
to Edgar pat he comes like the catastrophe of the
old comedy. My cue is villainous, melancholy, with a sigh
like tom o' bedlamp. Oh, these eclipses do portend, these

(28:55):
divisions fasolami.

Speaker 12 (29:00):
How now, brother Edmund, what serious contemplation are you in?

Speaker 4 (29:04):
I am thinking rather of a prediction I read this
other day? What should follow these eclipses?

Speaker 12 (29:12):
Do you busy yourself with that?

Speaker 4 (29:14):
I promise you The effects, he writes, of succeed unhappily,
as of unnaturalness between the child and the parent, Death, dearth,
dissolusions of ancient amities, divisions in state, menaces and maledictions
against king and nobles, needless diffidences, banishment of friends, dissipitation

(29:34):
of cohorts, nuptial breaches.

Speaker 12 (29:37):
And I know not what how long have you been
a secretary astronomical Come?

Speaker 4 (29:43):
Come? When saw you my father last.

Speaker 12 (29:47):
The night gone by? Spoke you with him a two
hours together.

Speaker 4 (29:52):
Parted you in good terms, founding no displeasure in him
by word.

Speaker 12 (29:56):
Or countenance, none at all.

Speaker 4 (29:58):
Bethink yourself wherein you may have offended him? And at
my entreaty forbear his presence until some little time hath
qualified the heat of a displeasure, which at this instance
so rageth in him, that with the mischief of your
person it would scarcely.

Speaker 12 (30:17):
Allay some villain hath done me wrong.

Speaker 4 (30:21):
That's my fear. I pray you have a continent forbearance
till the speed of his rage goes slower, And as
I say, retire with me to my lodging, from whence
I will fitly bring you to hear my lord speak.
Pray you go, there's my key. If you do stir abroad, go.

Speaker 12 (30:39):
Armed armed brother, brother.

Speaker 4 (30:44):
I advise you to the best. I am no honest man.
If there be any good meaning towards you, I have
told you what I have seen and heard, but faintly
nothing like the image and horror of it.

Speaker 12 (30:58):
Pray you away, shall I hear from you?

Speaker 4 (31:00):
Anon, I do serve you in this business. Exit Edgar,
credulous father and a brother noble whose nature is so
far from doing harms that he suspects none on whose
foolish honesty my practice is ride easy. I see the business.

(31:23):
Let me if not by birth have lands, by wit,
all with me is meet that I confession fit.

Speaker 1 (31:33):
Exit Scene three A room in the Duke of Albany's palace,
Entergneril and Oswald her Steward.

Speaker 6 (31:46):
Did my father strike my gentleman for chiding of his fool?

Speaker 5 (31:50):
I am madam.

Speaker 6 (31:51):
By day and night he wrongs me. Every hour he
flashes into one gross crime or another that sets us
all at odds. I'll not endure his knights grow riotous
and himself upbraids us on every trifle. When he returns
from hunting, I will not speak with him, say I
am sick. If you come slack of former services, you
shall do well the fault of it, I'll answer.

Speaker 4 (32:13):
He's coming, Madam.

Speaker 9 (32:14):
I hear him put on.

Speaker 6 (32:16):
What weary negligence you please you and your fellows. I'd
have it come to question if he distaste it. Let
him to our sister, whose mind and mine I know
in that are one not to be overruled. Idle old
man that still would manage those authorities that he hath
given away now by my life. Old fools are babes
again and must be used with checks as flatteries. When

(32:38):
they are seen abused. Remember what I have said very well, Madam,
and let his knights have colder looks among you. What
grows of it? No matter advise your fellows. So I
would breed from hence occasions, and I shall that I
may speak. I'll write straight to my sister to hold
my very course, prepare for.

Speaker 1 (32:57):
Dinner, exiant scene for a hall in Albany's palace, Enter
Kent in disguise.

Speaker 2 (33:11):
If but as well I other accent sporrow that can
my speech diffuse? My good intent may carry through itself
to that full issue for which I raised my likeness,
now banished Kent. If thou canst serve where thou dost

(33:34):
stand condemned, so may it come thy master, whom thou
lufst shall find thee full.

Speaker 1 (33:42):
Of labors, horns within and to lear and knights.

Speaker 5 (33:48):
Let me not stay at jot for dinner, Go get
it ready.

Speaker 1 (33:52):
Exit first night.

Speaker 8 (33:54):
Ah.

Speaker 5 (33:55):
Now what art thou a man, sir? What dost thou prefer?
What wouldst thou with us?

Speaker 2 (34:03):
I do profess to be no less than I seem.
To serve him truly. That will put me in trust
to love him, that is honest, to converse with him
that is wise and says little, to fear judgment, to
fight when I cannot choose and to eat no fish?

(34:25):
What art thou a very honest hearted fellow and as
poor as the king?

Speaker 5 (34:32):
If thou beast as poor for a subject as he
for a king, or poor enough? What wouldst thou service?
Who wouldst thou serve you? Dost thou know me? Fellow?

Speaker 2 (34:45):
No, sir, but you have that and your countenance, which
I would fain call master? What's that authority?

Speaker 5 (34:54):
What services canst thou do?

Speaker 2 (34:56):
I can keep honest, counsel, ride, run mar a curious
tale in telling it, and deliver a plain message bluntly,
that which ordinary men are fit for. I am qualified
in and the best of me is diligence.

Speaker 5 (35:17):
How old art thou not so young.

Speaker 2 (35:19):
Sir to love a woman for singing, nor so old
to don't on her for anything? I have years on
my back forty eight follow me?

Speaker 5 (35:32):
Thou shalt serve me? If I like THEE? No worse
after dinner? I will not part from THEE yet? Dinner,
Oh dinner? Where's my knave? My fool? Go you and
call my fool.

Speaker 1 (35:43):
Hither exit, second knight, enter Oswald.

Speaker 5 (35:48):
You you Sarah? Where's my daughter?

Speaker 1 (35:51):
So please you exit?

Speaker 5 (35:54):
What says the fellow there call the clock.

Speaker 1 (35:56):
Pole back exit third night?

Speaker 5 (36:00):
Where's my fool? Oh? I think the world's asleep?

Speaker 1 (36:04):
Enter third night?

Speaker 5 (36:06):
How now? Where's that mongrel?

Speaker 13 (36:08):
He says? My lord? Your daughter is not well?

Speaker 5 (36:11):
Why came not the slave back to me? When I
called him, sir?

Speaker 13 (36:14):
He answered me in the roundest manner, he would not.

Speaker 5 (36:18):
He would not.

Speaker 13 (36:20):
My Lord, I know not what the matter is. But
to my judgment, your Highness is not entertained with that
ceremonious affection as you were wont There's a great abatement
of kindness appears as well in the general dependence, as
in the Duke himself also and your daughter.

Speaker 5 (36:37):
Huh, sayest thou?

Speaker 13 (36:38):
So I beseech you pardon me, my lord, if I
be mistaken for my duty. Cannot be silent when I
think your Highness wronged.

Speaker 5 (36:46):
Thou, but rememberest me of mine own conception. I have
perceived a most faint neglect of late, which I have
rather blamed as mine own jealous curiosity than as a
very pretense and purpose of unkindness. I will look further
into it. But where's my fool? I have not seen
him these two days since my.

Speaker 13 (37:07):
Young lady's going into France. Sir, the fool hath much
pind away?

Speaker 5 (37:11):
No more of that I have noted it. Well, go
you and tell my daughter I would speak with her.

Speaker 1 (37:18):
Exit third night, go you call hither my fool exit
another knight enter Oswald.

Speaker 5 (37:28):
Oh you sir, you come hither, sir? Who am I?

Speaker 8 (37:31):
Sir?

Speaker 5 (37:33):
My lady's father, My lady's father, my lord's knave? You
horse and dog, you slave, you cur? I am none
of these, my Lord. I beseech your pardon. Do you
bandy looks with me, you rascal?

Speaker 1 (37:47):
He strikes him.

Speaker 2 (37:48):
I'll not be struck, my lord, nor tripped neither you
base football player.

Speaker 1 (37:55):
He trips him.

Speaker 5 (37:57):
I thank thee, fellow, Thou servest me.

Speaker 1 (38:00):
I love thee to Oswald.

Speaker 2 (38:02):
Come, sir, arise away, I'll teach you differences. Away away,
if you will measure your lubber's length again, terry, but away,
go to have you wisdom.

Speaker 1 (38:18):
He pushes Oswald out.

Speaker 5 (38:20):
So now, my friendly knave, I thank thee. There's ernest
of thy service.

Speaker 1 (38:26):
He gives him money, and to the full.

Speaker 14 (38:30):
Let me hire him too. Here's my coxcomb.

Speaker 5 (38:34):
How now, my pretty knave, how dost thou Sarah?

Speaker 14 (38:38):
You were best take my coxcomb. Why fool, Why for
taking one's part? That's out of favor? Nay, And thou
canst not smile as the wind sits dealt catch cold shortly? There,
take my coxcomb. Why this fellow has banished two one's
daughters and did the third of blessing against his will?

(38:59):
If thou follow, thou must needs wear my cocks comb.
How now, nuncle, would I had two cockscombs and two daughters. Why,
my boy, if I gave them all my living, i'd
keep my coxcombs myself. There's mine, beg another of thy daughters.

Speaker 5 (39:18):
Take heed, Sarah, the whip truths.

Speaker 14 (39:21):
The dog must to kennel. He must be whipped out
when the lady brac may stand by the fire and stink.

Speaker 5 (39:28):
A pestilent gold to me.

Speaker 14 (39:30):
Sarah, I'll teach thee a speech. Do market, nuncle, have
more than thou ShoWest. Speak less than thou knowest, land
less than thou owest, ride, more than thou goest, learn,
more than thou throwest, set less than thou throwest, leave

(39:53):
thy drink in thy horror, and keep in a door.
And thou shalt have more than two tens to a score.

Speaker 2 (40:01):
Hmm, this is nothing fool.

Speaker 14 (40:04):
Then tis like the breath of an unfeed lawyer. You
gave me nothing for it? Can you make no use
of nothing?

Speaker 2 (40:12):
Uncle?

Speaker 10 (40:13):
Why?

Speaker 5 (40:14):
No, boy, nothing can be made out of nothing?

Speaker 14 (40:17):
Kent prithee tell him so much the rent of his
land comes to He will not.

Speaker 5 (40:22):
Believe a fool, a bitter fool.

Speaker 14 (40:25):
Dost thou know the difference, my boy, between a bitter
fool and a sweet one.

Speaker 5 (40:31):
No, lad, teach me that lord.

Speaker 14 (40:34):
That counseled thee to give away thy land. Come place
him here by me? Do thou for him stand? The
sweet and bitter fool will presently appear, the one in
Motley here, the other found out there.

Speaker 5 (40:50):
Dost thou call me fool boy?

Speaker 14 (40:52):
All thy other titles thou hast given away that thou
wast born with.

Speaker 2 (40:56):
This is not altogether fool, my lord.

Speaker 14 (41:00):
No faith lords and great men will not let me.
If I had a monopoly out, they would have part
aunt and loads too. They will not let me have
all the fool to myself. They'll be snatching. N Uncle,
give me an egg, and I'll give thee two crowns.

Speaker 5 (41:17):
What two crowns shall they be?

Speaker 14 (41:19):
Why? After I've cut the egg in the middle and
eat up to meat the two crowns of the egg.
When thou clovest thy crown in the middle and gavest
the way both parts, thou boreest thine ass on thy
back o'er the dirt Thou hadst little wit in thy
bald crowned, when thou gavest thy golden one away. If
I speak like myself in this, let him be whipped

(41:42):
that first finds it so fools head ne'er let's grace.
In a year four wise men are grown foppish and
know not how their wits to wear. Their manners are
so apish.

Speaker 5 (41:58):
When will you want to be so full of songs? Sarah?

Speaker 14 (42:01):
I have used it, nuncle ere, since thou madest thy daughters,
thy mothers. For when thou gavest them the rod and
puttest down thine own breeches, then they first said enjoy
did weep, and I for sorrow sung that such a
king should play bo peep and go the fools among

(42:25):
prythee Nuncle, keep a school master that can teach thy
fool to lie. I would fain learn to lie.

Speaker 5 (42:32):
And you lie, Sarah, We'll have you whipped.

Speaker 14 (42:35):
I marvel what kin thou and thy daughters are. They'll
have me whip for speaking true. They'll have me whipped
for lying, And sometimes I am whipped for holding my peace.
I had rather be any kind of thing than a fool,
and yet I would not be thee nuncle. Thou hast
pared thy widow both sides and left nothing in the middle.

(42:55):
Here comes one of the pairings.

Speaker 5 (42:58):
And to Goneril, now, daughter, what makes that frontal Dohn
methinks thou art too much of late of the frown.

Speaker 14 (43:06):
Thou wast a pretty fellow when thou haddest no need
to care for her frowning. Now thou art to know
without a figure, I am better than thou art. I
am a fool. Thou art nothing. To Goneril, yes, forsooth,
I will hold my tongue so to your face bids me,
though you say nothing, Mum mum. He that keeps nor

(43:29):
crust nor crumb, weary of all, shall want some.

Speaker 1 (43:33):
He points to Leah.

Speaker 14 (43:35):
That's a shield peace God.

Speaker 6 (43:38):
Not only sir this you're all licensed fool, but other
of your insolent retinue do hourly carp and quarrel breaking
forth in rank and not to be endured riots. Sir,
I had thought, by making this well known unto you,
to have found a safe redress. But now grow fearful
by what yourself, too late have spoken done, that you
protect this course and put it on by your allowance,

(44:01):
which if you should, the fault would not escape censure
nor the redress's sleep, which, in the tender of a
wholesome wheel might in their working. Do you that offense
which else were shame? That then necessity will call discreet proceeding, For.

Speaker 14 (44:15):
You know nunco the hedge sparrow fed the cuckoo so
long that it had its head bit off by it young.
So out went the candle and we were left darkling.

Speaker 5 (44:27):
Are you out, daughter?

Speaker 6 (44:29):
Come, sir? I would you would make use of that
good wisdom whereof I know you are fraught, and put
away these dispositions that of late transform you from what
you rightly are.

Speaker 14 (44:39):
May not in ask know when the cart draws the horse, whoop,
jug I love thee.

Speaker 5 (44:46):
Doth any here know me? This is not leir doth
lear walk? Thus speak? Thus where are his eyes? Either
his notion weakens his discernings are lethargyd ah waking tis
not so who is it that can tell me who
I am?

Speaker 14 (45:04):
Dear saddle, I would learn.

Speaker 5 (45:07):
That, for by the marks of sovereignty, knowledge and reason,
I should be false persuaded.

Speaker 14 (45:11):
I had daughters, which they will make an obedient father
your name a fair gentlewoman.

Speaker 6 (45:19):
This admiration, sir, is much of the favor of your
other new pranks. I do beseech you to understand my purposes. Aright,
as you are old and reverend, you should be wise.
Here do you keep a hundred knights and squires, men
so disordered, so debashed and bold, that this our court,
infected with their manners, shows like a riotous in epicurism

(45:41):
and lust make it more like a tavern or a
brothel than a graced place. The shame itself doth speak
for instant remedy be then desired by her, that else
will take the thing she begs. A little to disquantity
your train and the remainder that shall still depend to
be such men as may besoort your aid, which know themselves, and.

Speaker 5 (46:01):
You darkness and devils saddle my horses call my train together,
degenerate bustard, I'll not trouble thee yet, have I left
a daughter.

Speaker 6 (46:12):
You strike my people, and your disordered rabble makes servants
of their betters enter.

Speaker 5 (46:18):
Albany woe that too late repents, Oh, sir, are you come?
Is it your will? Speak? Sir? Prepare my horses ingratitude, Thou,
marble hearted fiend, more hideous when thou show'st thee in
a child than the sea monster.

Speaker 11 (46:35):
Pray, sir, be patient.

Speaker 5 (46:37):
To goneril detested kite. Thou liest my train are men
of choice and rarest parts. At all particulars of duty,
know and in the most exact regards, support the worships
of their name. Oh, most small fault, How ugly didst
thou in Cordelia show, which like an engine wrenched my
frame of nature from the fixed place, drew from my

(47:00):
heart all love and added to the gall Oh lear, lear, lear,
beat at this gait that let thy folly in.

Speaker 1 (47:09):
He strikes his head.

Speaker 5 (47:11):
And thy dear judgment out go go my people, exellant
kent and knights.

Speaker 11 (47:18):
My Lord, I am guiltless, as I am ignorant of
what hath moved you.

Speaker 5 (47:23):
It may be so, my Lord, he kneels here, Nature here,
dear Goddess, here suspend thy purpose. If thou didst intend
to make this creature fruitful into her womb, convey sterility,
dry up in her the organs of increase, and from
her derogate body never spring a babe to honor her.

(47:43):
If she must team create her child of spleen, that
it may live and be athwart this natured torment to her,
let it stamp wrinkles in her brow of youth with
cadent tears, fret channels in her cheeks, turn all her
mother's pains and benefits to life after, and contempt that
she may feel how sharper than a serpent's tooth it

(48:05):
is to have a thankless child away away exit.

Speaker 11 (48:11):
Now, Gods that we adore, whereof comes.

Speaker 6 (48:14):
This, never afflict yourself to know more of it. But
let his disposition have that scope that dotage gives it.

Speaker 5 (48:21):
And to Leah, what fifty of my followers at a
clap within a fortnight?

Speaker 11 (48:27):
What's the matter, sir?

Speaker 5 (48:28):
To Goneril, I'll tell thee life and death. I am
ashamed that thou hast power to shake my manhood, Thus
that these hot tears which break from me before should
make THEE worth them blasts and fogs upon THEE than tempted.
Woundings of her father's curse pierce every sense about thee
old fond eyes beweat this cause again I'll pluck you

(48:49):
out and cast you with the waters that you lose
to temper clay ha. Let it be so. I have
another daughter, who I am sure is kind and comfortab.
When she shall hear of this with her nail, she'll
flay thy wolfish visage. Thou shalt find that I resume
the shape. If thou dost think I have cast off forever.

Speaker 11 (49:12):
Exit, do you mark that I cannot be so partial?
Goneriil to the great love I bear you.

Speaker 6 (49:19):
Pray you content what oswald ho to the fool? You, sir,
more knave than fool after your master, No.

Speaker 14 (49:27):
Goleer, no colier terry take the fool with thee a
fox when one has caught her. And such a daughter
should sure to the slaughter if my cap would buy
a halter, so the fool follows after exit.

Speaker 6 (49:44):
This man hath had good counsel. A hundred knights. 'tis
politic and safe to let him keep at point a
hundred knights? Yes, that on every dream, each buzz, each fancy,
each complaint, dislike he maynnguard his dotage with their powers
and hold our lives in mercy. Oswald, I say, well,
you may fear too far safer than trust too far.

(50:05):
Let me still take away the harms I fear not,
fear still to be taken. I know his heart what
he hath uttered. I have writ to my sister if
she sustain him in his hundred nights, when I have
showed then fitness. And to Oswald, how now, Oswald, what
have you writ that letter to my sister? I, madam,
take you some company and away to horse, inform her

(50:25):
full of my particular fear, and there to add such
reasons of your own as may compact it more. Get
you gone, and hasten.

Speaker 1 (50:31):
Your return exit Oswald.

Speaker 6 (50:34):
No, no, my lord, this milky gentleness and course of yours,
though I condemn it, not yet under pardon. You are
much more a tasked for want of wisdom than praised
for harmful mildness.

Speaker 11 (50:45):
How far your eyes may pierce I cannot tell. Striving
to better oft we mar what's well?

Speaker 4 (50:52):
Nay?

Speaker 8 (50:52):
Then?

Speaker 4 (50:53):
Well?

Speaker 13 (50:54):
Well?

Speaker 11 (50:54):
The event.

Speaker 1 (50:56):
Exit Scene five caught before the Duke of Albany's palace
and to lear Kent the fool and a gentleman to kent.

Speaker 5 (51:11):
Go you before to Gloucester with these letters. Acquaint my
daughter no further with anything you know that comes from
her demand out of the letter. If your diligence be
not speedy, I shall be there for you.

Speaker 2 (51:24):
I will not sleep, my lord, until I have delivered
your letter.

Speaker 1 (51:30):
Exit.

Speaker 14 (51:31):
If a man's brains were in his heels, were it
not in danger of kibes ay, boy, then I prithee
be merry. Thy wit shall not go slipshod ha ha,
shalt see thy other daughter will use thee kindly for those.
She is as like this as a crab's like an apple.
Yet I can tell what I can tell?

Speaker 5 (51:52):
What canst tell? Boy?

Speaker 14 (51:54):
Shall taste is like this as a crab does to
a crab? Thou canst tell why one's not who stands
in the middle of one's face? No, why to keep
one's eyes of either side's nose? That what a man
cannot smell out he may spy into.

Speaker 5 (52:11):
I did her wrong?

Speaker 14 (52:13):
Can't tell how an oyster makes his shell?

Speaker 5 (52:16):
No, nor I neither.

Speaker 14 (52:19):
But I can tell why a snail has a house.
Why why to put his head in? Not to give
it away to his daughter's and leave his horns without
a case.

Speaker 5 (52:29):
I will forget my nature so kind of father, Be
my horses ready.

Speaker 14 (52:35):
Thy asses are gone about him. The reason why the
seven stars are no more than seven is a.

Speaker 5 (52:40):
Pretty reason, because they are not eight.

Speaker 14 (52:43):
Yes, indeed, thou wouldst make a good.

Speaker 5 (52:46):
Fool to take it again perforce monster ingratitude.

Speaker 14 (52:51):
If thou wert my fool and uncle, I'd have thee
beaten for being old before thy time? How's that thou
shouldest not have been old till thou haddest been wise.

Speaker 5 (53:04):
Oh, let me not be mad, not mad, Sweet Heaven,
keep me in temper. I would not be mad. How
now are the horses ready?

Speaker 14 (53:14):
Ready?

Speaker 3 (53:14):
My lord?

Speaker 5 (53:15):
Come boy?

Speaker 1 (53:17):
Exit?

Speaker 14 (53:18):
All except the fool she that's a maid now and
laughs at my departure, shall not be a maid long
unless things be cut shorter.

Speaker 1 (53:28):
Exit end of Act one, King Lea