King Lear by William Shakespeare: Act 5

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:01):
Act five of King Lear. This is a Liberyvox recording.
All Liberyvox recordings are in the public domain. For more
information or to volunteer, please visit librevox dot org. King
Lear by William Shakespeare, Act five, Scene one. The camp

(00:26):
of the British forces near Dover enter with drum and
colors Edmund Reagan, officers, soldiers and others.

Speaker 2 (00:38):
To an officer know of the Duke, if his last
purpose hold or whether since he is advised by Aught
to change the course to Reagan. He's full of alteration
and self reproving to an officer, bring his constant pleasure.

Speaker 1 (00:55):
Exit Officer.

Speaker 3 (00:57):
Our sister's man has certainly as.

Speaker 2 (01:00):
Yard tis to be doubted.

Speaker 3 (01:02):
Madam nows we Lord, you know the goodness I intend
upon you. Tell me but truly, but then speak the truth.
Do you not love my.

Speaker 2 (01:13):
Sister in honored love?

Speaker 3 (01:15):
But have you never found my brother's way to be
the fourfended.

Speaker 2 (01:20):
Place that thought abuses you?

Speaker 3 (01:23):
I am doubtful that you have been conjunct and bosomed
with her. As far as we call.

Speaker 2 (01:28):
Us, no bind mine, honor, Madam.

Speaker 3 (01:31):
I never shall endure. Dear my Lord, be not familiar with.

Speaker 2 (01:35):
Her fear me not. She and the Duke her husband.

Speaker 1 (01:41):
Enter with drum and colors, Albany Goneril and soldiers.

Speaker 4 (01:47):
I had rather lose the battle than that sister should
loosen him and.

Speaker 5 (01:51):
Me, Our very loving sister, well be met, Sir, this
I heard the king is come to his daughter, with
others whom the rigor of our state forced to cry
out where I could not be honest. I never yet
was valiant for this business. It toucheth us as France

(02:11):
invades our land, not bolds the king with others whom
I fear most just and heavy causes make.

Speaker 2 (02:18):
A pose, Sir, you speak nobly.

Speaker 4 (02:22):
Wi is this reasoned combine together against the enemy? For
these domestic and particular broils are not the question here.

Speaker 5 (02:30):
Let's then determine with the ancient of war on our proceeding.

Speaker 2 (02:35):
I shall attend you presently at your tact.

Speaker 3 (02:38):
Sister. You'll go with us? No, t is the most
convenient pray you go with us?

Speaker 4 (02:44):
Oh, I know the riddle.

Speaker 1 (02:46):
I will go exiont both the armies. As Albany is
going out, enter Edgar.

Speaker 6 (02:53):
If ere your grace hath speech with man so poor
hear me one word to his.

Speaker 5 (02:59):
Captain, I'll overtake you to Edgar.

Speaker 6 (03:02):
Speak before you fight the battle, ope this letter. If
you have victory, let the trumpet sound for him that
brought it wretched, though I seem I can produce a
champion that will prove what is avouched there. If you
miscarry your business of the world, hath so an end
and machination ceases fortune?

Speaker 5 (03:25):
Love you Stay till I have read the letter I
was forbid it.

Speaker 6 (03:30):
When time shall serve, Let but the herald cry, and
I'll appear again.

Speaker 5 (03:35):
Exit, Why fare thee well, I will o'erlook.

Speaker 2 (03:38):
Thy paper, Enter Edmund, the enemies in view, draw up
your powers. Here is the guests of their true strength
and forces by diligent discovery. But your haste has now
urged on you.

Speaker 5 (03:52):
We will greet the time.

Speaker 2 (03:54):
Exit To both these sisters, have I sworn my love,
each jealous of the other as the stung are of
the adder. Which of them shall I take? Both? Um
one or neither neither can be enjoyed? Of both remain alive.

(04:22):
To take the widow exasperates makes matter sister goneril, and
hardly shall I carry out my side her husband being alive.
Now then will use his countenance for the battle which
being done, Let her, who would be rid of him,
devise his speedy taking off, as for the mercy which

(04:46):
he intends to Leer and to Cordelia. The battle done,
and they within our power shall never see his pardon,
for my state stands on me to defend, not to debate.

Speaker 1 (05:01):
Exit Scene two, a field between the two camps, Alarum within,
Enter with Drum and colors, Lear Cordelia holding his hand,
and soldiers over the stage and exit. Enter Edgar and Gloucester.

Speaker 6 (05:27):
Here, father, take the shadow of this tree for your
good host. Pray that the right may thrive. If ever
I return to you again, I'll bring you comfort grace.

Speaker 2 (05:37):
Go with you, sir.

Speaker 1 (05:40):
Exit Edgar Alarum and retreat within. Enter Edgar Away, old man,
give me thy hand. Away, King Lear hath lost he
and his daughter ten give me thy hand.

Speaker 7 (05:53):
Come on no further, sir, A man may rot even here.

Speaker 6 (05:58):
What in ill thought? Again, men must endure their going
hence even as their coming hither ripeness is all come.

Speaker 1 (06:05):
On, And that's true too, exellant. Scene three, the British
camp near Dover. Enter in Conquest with Drum and colors Edmund,
Lea and Cordelia as prisoners, officers, soldiers, et cetera.

Speaker 2 (06:31):
Some officers take them away good guard until their greater
pleasures first be known, that are to censor them.

Speaker 8 (06:38):
We are not the first who, with best meaning have
incurred the worst for the oppressed king. I am cast
down myself, could else out frown false fortunes, frown to Edmund.
Shall we not see these daughters and these sisters?

Speaker 9 (06:56):
No, no, no, no, Come, let's await the prison. We
two alone will sing like birds of the 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

(07:16):
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 the mystery of things as
if we were God's spies. And we'll wear out in
a wall in prison. Packs and sects of great ones
that ebb and flow by the moon take them away

(07:40):
upon such sacrifices, My Cordelia, the gods themselves throw incense.
Have I caught thee.

Speaker 1 (07:46):
He embraces her.

Speaker 9 (07:47):
He that parts us shall bring a brand from heaven
and fire. As 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 starve.

Speaker 1 (08:01):
First come exitent Lear and Cordelia guarded.

Speaker 2 (08:07):
Come hither, Captain, Hark, Take thou this note, go follow
them to prison. One step. I have advanced 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

(08:31):
become a sword. Thy great employment will not bear question,
either say thou doot or thrive by other means.

Speaker 10 (08:42):
I'll do it, my Lord.

Speaker 2 (08:43):
About it, and right happy when thou hast done mark,
I say, instantly, and carry it so as I have
set it down.

Speaker 7 (08:53):
I cannot draw a cart, nor eat dry oats. If
it be man's work, I'll do it.

Speaker 1 (08:58):
Exit, flourish, enter Albany, Goneril Reagan and.

Speaker 5 (09:04):
Officers, Sir, you have showed to day your valiant strain
and fortune led you well. You have the captives who
are the opposites of this day's strife. We do require
them of you, so to use them as we shall
find their merits, and our safety may equally determine.

Speaker 2 (09:22):
Sir, I thought it fit to send the old and
miserable king to some retention and appointed guard, whose age
has charms in it, with title, more to pluck the
common bosom on his side, and turn our impressed lances
in our eyes, which do command them with him. I
sent the Queen my reason all the same, and they

(09:45):
are ready to morrow, or at further space, to 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 cursed by those
that feel their sharpness. The question of Cordelia and her

(10:06):
father requires a fitter place.

Speaker 5 (10:10):
Sir, by your patience, I hold you but a subject
of this war, not as a brother.

Speaker 3 (10:16):
That's as we list to grace him. Methinks our pleasure
might have been demanded ere you had spoke so a
he led our powers bore the commission of my place
in person, the which immediacy he may well stand up
and call itself your brother.

Speaker 4 (10:35):
Not so hot in his own grace. He doth exalt
himself more than in your addition.

Speaker 2 (10:41):
In my rights.

Speaker 3 (10:42):
By me invested, he can bears the best.

Speaker 4 (10:45):
That were the most. If he should husband.

Speaker 3 (10:47):
You jestures, do oft prove profits.

Speaker 4 (10:51):
Halla, Halla, that I that told you so looked but
a squint.

Speaker 3 (10:56):
Lady, I am not well. Else I should answer from
full flowing stomach to Edmund. General, take thou my soldiers, prisoners, patrimony,
dispose of them of me. The walls are thine witness
the world that I create. Thee here, my lord Avda mean.

Speaker 4 (11:17):
You to enjoy him.

Speaker 5 (11:18):
The let alone lies not in your good will nor
in thine, lord, half blooded fellow, Yes, to Edmund.

Speaker 3 (11:27):
Let the drums drike and prove my title.

Speaker 5 (11:30):
Thine stay yet here, reason Edmund, I arrest thee on
capital treason, and in thine arrest this gilded serpent.

Speaker 1 (11:41):
He points to Goneril.

Speaker 5 (11:43):
For your claim, fair sister, I bar it in the
interest of my wife Tis. She is subcontracted to this lord,
and I her husband, contradict your bands. If you will marry,
make your loves to me. My lady is Besore spoke
on interlude, Thou art armed Gloucester, let the trumpet sound,

(12:05):
if none appear to prove upon thy person, thy heinous
manifest and many treasons. There is my.

Speaker 1 (12:12):
Pledge, he throws down his glove.

Speaker 5 (12:15):
I'll prove it on thy heart. Ere I taste bread,
thou art in nothing less than I have here proclaimed thee.

Speaker 3 (12:21):
Sick, oh sick.

Speaker 4 (12:24):
If not, I'll ne'er trust medicine.

Speaker 1 (12:26):
There's my exchange, throwing down his glove.

Speaker 2 (12:30):
What in the world he is that names me traitor? Villain?
Like he lies call by thy trumpet, he that dares
approach on him, on you who not, I will maintain
my truth and honor firmly.

Speaker 5 (12:45):
A herald ho enter, a herald trust to thy single virtue,
for thy soldiers all levied in my name, have in
my name took their discharge.

Speaker 3 (12:57):
My sickness grows upon me.

Speaker 5 (13:00):
She is not well, convey her to my tent.

Speaker 1 (13:02):
Exit. Reagan supported a herald o a herald A trumpet sounds.

Speaker 11 (13:09):
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.

Speaker 1 (13:29):
First trumpet again, second trumpet again, third trumpet, trumpet answers
within enter Edgar, armed a trumpet before him, ask him
his purposes?

Speaker 5 (13:46):
Why he appears upon this call the trumpet?

Speaker 11 (13:49):
What are you? Your name, your quality? And why you
answer this present summons?

Speaker 6 (13:56):
No, my name is lost by treason, tooth, bare, norn
and canker bit. Yet am my noble as the adversary?
I come to.

Speaker 5 (14:06):
Cope, which is that adversary?

Speaker 6 (14:09):
What's he that speaks for Edmund, Earl of Gloucester himself?

Speaker 2 (14:13):
What sayest thou to him?

Speaker 6 (14:15):
Draw thy sword, that if my speech offend a noble heart,
thy arm may do thee justice Here is mine?

Speaker 1 (14:23):
He draws his sword.

Speaker 6 (14:24):
Behold, it is the privilege of mine, honors, my oath,
and my profession. I protest Morga, thy strength, youth, place,
and eminence, despite thy victor's sword and fire, new fortune,
thy valor, and thy heart. Thou art a traitor false
to thy gods, thy brother and thy father consporant gainst

(14:48):
this high illustrious prince, And from the extremest upward of
thy head to the descent and dust beneath thy foot,
a most toad spotted traitor, Say thou, no, this sword,
this arm, and my best spirits are bent to prove
upon my heart. Where too, I speak thou liest.

Speaker 2 (15:08):
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 those treasons to thy head

(15:30):
with the hell hated lie, orwhelm 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.

Speaker 1 (15:49):
Fights. Edmond falls to Edgar about to kill Edmund.

Speaker 5 (15:54):
Save him, Save him.

Speaker 4 (15:56):
This is mere practice Gloucester. By the law of arms,
Thou wast not bound to answer an unknown opposite. Thou
art not vanquished but cozened and beguiled.

Speaker 5 (16:05):
Shut your mouth, dame, or with this paper I shall
stop it.

Speaker 1 (16:09):
Hold sir to Goneril.

Speaker 5 (16:10):
Thou worse than any name. Read thine own evil, no tearing, lady.
I perceive you know it.

Speaker 4 (16:17):
Say if I do. The laws are mine, not thine,
who can arraign me for.

Speaker 5 (16:21):
It most monstrous? Knowest thou this paper?

Speaker 4 (16:25):
Ask me not what I know?

Speaker 1 (16:27):
Exit goneril go after her.

Speaker 5 (16:29):
She's desperate govern her, Exit officer.

Speaker 2 (16:32):
What you have charged 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 art noble,

(16:55):
I do forgive.

Speaker 6 (16:57):
Thee Let's exchange charity. I am no less in blood
than thou art Edmund. If more the more thou hast
wronged 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

(17:17):
thee God cost him his eyes.

Speaker 2 (17:20):
Thou hast spoken right? Tis true? The wheel is come
full circle.

Speaker 5 (17:26):
I am here methought thy very gait did prophecy a
royal nobleness. I must embrace thee Let. Sorrow split my
heart if ever I did hate thee or thy father
worthy prince, I note, where have you hid yourself? How
have you known the miseries of your father.

Speaker 6 (17:44):
By nursing them? My lord? List a brief tale, and
when tis told, how my heart would burst the bloody
proclamation to escape that followed me so near, oh our lives, sweetness,
that with the pain of death, we'd hourly die rather
than die at once, taught me to shift into a

(18:05):
madman's rags, to assume a semblance that very dogs disdained.
And in this habit bet I my father, with his
bleeding rings, their precious stones new lost, became his guide,
led him, begged for him, saved him from despair, never
o fault revealed myself unto him until some half hour passed,

(18:26):
when I was armed, not sure, though hoping of this
good success, I asked his blessing, and from first to
last told him my pilgrimage. But his flawed heart a lacked,
too weak the conflict to support to two extremes of passion,
joy and grief burst smilingly.

Speaker 2 (18:46):
The speech of yours hath moved me, and shall perchance
too good. But speak you once you look as you
had something more to say.

Speaker 5 (18:57):
If there be more more, woeful, hold it in, for
I am almost ready to dissolve. Hearing of this.

Speaker 6 (19:03):
This would have seemed 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 a man who, having seen me in my
worst estate, shunned my abhorred society. But then finding who
twas that so endured with his strong arms. He fastened

(19:26):
on my neck and bellowed out as he burst Heaven
threw him on. My father told the most piteous tale
of Leir and him that ever ear received, which, in
recounting his grief, grew puissant, and the strings of life
began to crack twice. Then the trumpet sounded, and there
I left him tranced.

Speaker 5 (19:46):
But who was this.

Speaker 6 (19:48):
Kent, Sir? The banished Kent, who in disguise followed his
enemy king and did him service improper for a slave.

Speaker 1 (19:56):
Enter a gentleman with a bloody knife?

Speaker 10 (20:00):
Help, Oh help.

Speaker 6 (20:02):
What kind of help?

Speaker 5 (20:03):
Speak? Man?

Speaker 6 (20:04):
What means that bloody knife?

Speaker 4 (20:05):
Tis hot? It smokes?

Speaker 10 (20:08):
It came even from the heart of Oh she's dead?

Speaker 5 (20:12):
Who dead? Speak man?

Speaker 4 (20:14):
Your lady, sir, Your lady and her sister by her
is poisoned.

Speaker 6 (20:19):
She hath confessed it.

Speaker 2 (20:20):
I was contracted to them. Both All three now marry
in an instant.

Speaker 5 (20:25):
Here comes Kent, and to Kent produce their bodies, be
they alive or dead. This judgment of the heaven that
makes us tremble touches us not with pity.

Speaker 7 (20:35):
Exit, gentlemen, I am come to bid my king and
master I good night? Is he not here?

Speaker 5 (20:43):
Great thing of us forgot? Speak Edmund? Where's the king?
And where's Cordelia?

Speaker 1 (20:49):
Goneril's and Reagan's bodies are brought out?

Speaker 2 (20:53):
Lack why thus yet Edmund was beloved the one, the
other poisoned for my sake, and after slew herself.

Speaker 5 (21:03):
Even so cover their faces.

Speaker 2 (21:05):
I panted for life. Some good I mean to do,
despite of mine own nature. Quickly said, be brief in
it to the castle, for my writ is on the
life of Leir and on Cordelia. Nay, send in.

Speaker 6 (21:20):
Time, run run o, run to who, my lord, who
has the office? Send thy token of reprieve, well thought God.

Speaker 2 (21:30):
To an officer, Take my sword, give it to the
captain hastee for thy life.

Speaker 1 (21:35):
Exit officer.

Speaker 2 (21:36):
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 forbid herself.

Speaker 5 (21:46):
The gods defend her bear him.

Speaker 1 (21:48):
Hence, a while Edmund is borne off enter Lear with
Cordelia in his arms, followed by the officer and others.

Speaker 9 (21:58):
Ho, ho, how how oh you are men of stone,
and I your tongues and eyes. I'd use them so
that heaven's vultured.

Speaker 3 (22:09):
Crack.

Speaker 9 (22:09):
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?

Speaker 6 (22:26):
Is this the promised end or image of that horror?

Speaker 5 (22:31):
Fall and cease?

Speaker 9 (22:33):
This feather stirs? She lives? If it be so, it
is a chance which does redeem all sorrows that ever
I have felt.

Speaker 7 (22:41):
Oh, my good master.

Speaker 6 (22:44):
Prithee away tis noble, kent your friend the.

Speaker 9 (22:47):
Plague upon you, murderers, trait us all I might have
saved her. Now she's gone for ever, Cordelia, Cordelia, stay
a little? Ah, what est thou saying? Her voice was
ever soft, gentle and low, an excellent thing in woman.
I killed the slave that was a hanging thee did

(23:09):
I not, fellow, I have seen the day with my
good biting falshion, that I would have made them skip.
I am old now, and these same crosses spoil me?
Who are you?

Speaker 5 (23:22):
Mine?

Speaker 9 (23:22):
Eyes are not the best. I'll tell you straight.

Speaker 7 (23:25):
If fortune brag of two she loved and hated one
of them.

Speaker 5 (23:32):
We behold, this is a dull sight.

Speaker 7 (23:35):
Are you not kent the same? Your servant kent? Where
is your servant chaos?

Speaker 9 (23:42):
He's a good fellow. I can tell you that he'll
strike and quickly too. He's dead and rotten.

Speaker 7 (23:51):
No, my good lord, I am the very man.

Speaker 9 (23:56):
I'll see that straight.

Speaker 7 (23:58):
That from your first of difference and decay have followed
your sad steps. You're welcome hither nor no man else.
All's cheerless, dark and deadly. Your eldest daughters have fordone

(24:19):
themselves and desperately are dead.

Speaker 1 (24:24):
Aye.

Speaker 9 (24:24):
So I think he.

Speaker 5 (24:26):
Knows not what he says? And vain is it that
we present us to him?

Speaker 1 (24:31):
Very bootless enter a messenger.

Speaker 4 (24:34):
Edmund is dead, my lord.

Speaker 5 (24:36):
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.

Speaker 1 (24:52):
To Edgar and Kent to you.

Speaker 5 (24:54):
Your rights with boot and such addition, as your honors
have more than merited, all friends shall taste the wages
of their virtue, and I'll foes the cup of their deservings.
Oh see see.

Speaker 9 (25:10):
And my poor fool is hanged. No, no, no life.
Why should a dog, oh, sir rat have life? And
thou no breath at all? Thou come no more? Never, never, never,
never pray you undo this button, Thank you, sir. Do

(25:35):
you see this? Look on her? Look her lips? Look there,
Look there.

Speaker 10 (25:44):
He dies, He faints, my lord, my lord, break heart,
I prithee, break look up, my lord, that's not his ghost.

Speaker 7 (25:57):
Oh let him pass. He hates him, that would, upon
the wreck of this rough world, stretch him out longer
he is gone. Indeed, though wonder is he hath endured
so long? He but usurped his life.

Speaker 5 (26:21):
Bear them from Hence our present business is general.

Speaker 1 (26:25):
Woe to Kent and Edgar.

Speaker 5 (26:27):
Friends of my soul, You twain rule this realm and
the Gord state sustain.

Speaker 7 (26:33):
I have a journey, sir, shortly to go, my master
calls me. I must not say no.

Speaker 5 (26:46):
The weight of this sad, sad time. We must obey,
speak what we feel, not what we ought to say.
The oldest have borne. Most we that are young shall
never see so much live so long.

Speaker 1 (27:03):
Exellant with a dead march end of King Lear by
William Shakespeare. Your caste have been Andy Minter as Lear,
King of Britain, Eswar as the King of France, Justin

(27:24):
Barrett as the Duke of Burgundy, the Messenger and the Captain,
Cory Samuel as the Duke of Cornwall, Christin Lemoyne as
the Duke of Albany, Denny Sayers as the Earl of Kent,
Julian Jamieson as the Earl of Gloucester, Simon Taylor as Edgar,

(27:46):
John Gonzales as Edmund, Karen Savage as Curran, Carl Manchester
as the old Man, Scott Walter as the Physician, Shawn
mcgahey as the Fall, Andrew Lebron as Oswald, Henry Fregon
as the Officer, car Shallenberg as the Gentleman, Gazina as

(28:12):
the Herald, Ophelia Darcy as the first Servant, Esther as
the second servant, Kirsten Ferrari as the third servant, and
the Knight, Laura Barnes as a messenger. Goneril was played
by Rosalind Wills Reagan by Jemma Blythe and Cordelia by

(28:36):
Christine Hughes. Stage directions and production by David Barnes.