The First Web Folio Edition of Shakespeare's Works
Before ALBANY's palace. |
[Enter GONERIL and EDMUND] |
GONERIL | Welcome, my lord: I marvel our mild husband | ||
Not met us on the way. | |||
[Enter OSWALD] | |||
Now, where's your master'? |
OSWALD | Madam, within; but never man so changed. | ||
I told him of the army that was landed; | 5 | ||
He smiled at it: I told him you were coming: | |||
His answer was 'The worse:' of Gloucester's treachery, | |||
And of the loyal service of his son, | |||
When I inform'd him, then he call'd me sot, | |||
And told me I had turn'd the wrong side out: | 10 | ||
What most he should dislike seems pleasant to him; | |||
What like, offensive. |
GONERIL | [To EDMUND] Then shall you go no further. | ||
It is the cowish terror of his spirit, | |||
That dares not undertake: he'll not feel wrongs | 15 | ||
Which tie him to an answer. Our wishes on the way | |||
May prove effects. Back, Edmund, to my brother; | |||
Hasten his musters and conduct his powers: | |||
I must change arms at home, and give the distaff | |||
Into my husband's hands. This trusty servant | 20 | ||
Shall pass between us: ere long you are like to hear, | |||
If you dare venture in your own behalf, | |||
A mistress's command. Wear this; spare speech; | |||
[Giving a favour] | |||
Decline your head: this kiss, if it durst speak, | |||
Would stretch thy spirits up into the air: | 25 | ||
Conceive, and fare thee well. |
EDMUND | Yours in the ranks of death. |
GONERIL | My most dear Gloucester! | ||
[Exit EDMUND] | |||
O, the difference of man and man! | |||
To thee a woman's services are due: | 30 | ||
My fool usurps my body. |
OSWALD | Madam, here comes my lord. | ||
[Exit] | |||
[Enter ALBANY] |
GONERIL | I have been worth the whistle. |
ALBANY | O Goneril! | ||
You are not worth the dust which the rude wind | 35 | ||
Blows in your face. I fear your disposition: | |||
That nature, which contemns its origin, | |||
Cannot be border'd certain in itself; | |||
She that herself will sliver and disbranch | |||
From her material sap, perforce must wither | 40 | ||
And come to deadly use. |
GONERIL | No more; the text is foolish. |
ALBANY | Wisdom and goodness to the vile seem vile: | ||
Filths savour but themselves. What have you done? | |||
Tigers, not daughters, what have you perform'd? | 45 | ||
A father, and a gracious aged man, | |||
Whose reverence even the head-lugg'd bear would lick, | |||
Most barbarous, most degenerate! have you madded. | |||
Could my good brother suffer you to do it? | |||
A man, a prince, by him so benefited! | 50 | ||
If that the heavens do not their visible spirits | |||
Send quickly down to tame these vile offences, | |||
It will come, | |||
Humanity must perforce prey on itself, | |||
Like monsters of the deep. | 55 |
GONERIL | Milk-liver'd man! | ||
That bear'st a cheek for blows, a head for wrongs; | |||
Who hast not in thy brows an eye discerning | |||
Thine honour from thy suffering; that not know'st | |||
Fools do those villains pity who are punish'd | 60 | ||
Ere they have done their mischief. Where's thy drum? | |||
France spreads his banners in our noiseless land; | |||
With plumed helm thy slayer begins threats; | |||
Whiles thou, a moral fool, sit'st still, and criest | |||
'Alack, why does he so?' | 65 |
ALBANY | See thyself, devil! | ||
Proper deformity seems not in the fiend | |||
So horrid as in woman. |
GONERIL | O vain fool! |
ALBANY | Thou changed and self-cover'd thing, for shame, | 70 | |
Be-monster not thy feature. Were't my fitness | |||
To let these hands obey my blood, | |||
They are apt enough to dislocate and tear | |||
Thy flesh and bones: howe'er thou art a fiend, | |||
A woman's shape doth shield thee. | 75 |
GONERIL | Marry, your manhood now-- | ||
[Enter a Messenger] |
ALBANY | What news? |
Messenger | O, my good lord, the Duke of Cornwall's dead: | ||
Slain by his servant, going to put out | |||
The other eye of Gloucester. | 80 |
ALBANY | Gloucester's eye! |
Messenger | A servant that he bred, thrill'd with remorse, | ||
Opposed against the act, bending his sword | |||
To his great master; who, thereat enraged, | |||
Flew on him, and amongst them fell'd him dead; | 85 | ||
But not without that harmful stroke, which since | |||
Hath pluck'd him after. |
ALBANY | This shows you are above, | ||
You justicers, that these our nether crimes | |||
So speedily can venge! But, O poor Gloucester! | 90 | ||
Lost he his other eye? |
Messenger | Both, both, my lord. | ||
This letter, madam, craves a speedy answer; | |||
'Tis from your sister. |
GONERIL | [Aside] One way I like this well; | 95 | |
But being widow, and my Gloucester with her, | |||
May all the building in my fancy pluck | |||
Upon my hateful life: another way, | |||
The news is not so tart.--I'll read, and answer. | |||
[Exit] |
ALBANY | Where was his son when they did take his eyes? | 100 |
Messenger | Come with my lady hither. |
ALBANY | He is not here. |
Messenger | No, my good lord; I met him back again. |
ALBANY | Knows he the wickedness? |
Messenger | Ay, my good lord; 'twas he inform'd against him; | 105 | |
And quit the house on purpose, that their punishment | |||
Might have the freer course. |
ALBANY | Gloucester, I live | ||
To thank thee for the love thou show'dst the king, | |||
And to revenge thine eyes. Come hither, friend: | 110 | ||
Tell me what more thou know'st. | |||
[Exeunt] |
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