LENFILM
FIRST Creative Team 1970
KING LEAR
Based on the tragedy by Shakespeare Translated into Russian by B. Pasternak
The Fool's songs in translation by S. Marshak
Written and directed by Grigory KOZINTSEV
Second Director Iosif SHAPIRO
Main Camera lonas GRITSIUS
Production design - E. YENEI V. ULITKO - decorations
S. VIRSALADZE - costumes
Music by Dmitri SHOSTAKOVICH
Sound by E. VANUNTS State Leningrad Orchestra Conductors: D. Dalgat, N. Rabinovich
Makeup V. Goryunov, L. Eliseeva Costume design G. Deeva Decorators I. Zaitseva, E. Yakba
Camera A. SYSOEV, V. KOMAROV, V. AMOSENKO Assistants I. MOCHALOVA, I. VISHNEVSKAYA V. KUZNETSOVA, V. KRAVCHENKOG, A. TIGAI
Editors E. Makhan'kova, L. Rakhmanov Consultants M. Gukovski, Yu.Natsvaladze R. Sot, L. Tarasyuk Fencing consultant I. Kokh
Directors M. SHOSTAK N. ELISEEV
CAST:
King Lear - Jyuri YARVET
Goneril - E. RADZINYR Regan - G. VOLCHEK
Cordelia - V. SHENDRIKOVA
Fool - O. DAL Gloster - K. SEBRIS
Edgar - L. MERZIN Edmund - R. ADOMAITIS
Kent - V. YEMELYANOV
Duke of Cornwall - A. VOKACH
Duke of Albany - D. BANIONIS
Oswald - A. PETRENKO
King of France - I. BUDRAITIS
Episodic Roles
I thought the king had more affected
the Duke of Albany than Cornwall.
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.
Is not this your son, my lord?
I have so often blushed to acknowledge him,
that now I am brazed to it.
I cannot conceive you.
This young fellow's mother could:
she had a son for her cradle before she had a husband for her bed.
Do you smell a fault?
I cannot wish the fault undone,
the issue of it being so proper.
But I have a son, sir, by order of law,
some year elder than this.
Attend the Lords of France
and Burgundy, Gloster.
I shall, my liege.
Meantime we shall express
our darker purpose.
Know all.
Know all:
We have divided in three our kingdom.
'tis our intent to shake all cares from our age,
conferring them on younger strengths,
while we unburdened crawl toward death.
Our son of Cornwall,
and you, our son of Albany, we have this hour a constant will to publish
our daughters' several dowers,
that future strife may be prevented now.
The princes, France and Burgundy,
great rivals in our youngest daughter's love,
long here are to be answered.
Tell me, my daughters...
which of you doth love us most?
That we our largest bounty may extend
where nature doth with merit challenge.
Goneril, our eldest born, speak first.
In French: Goneril, speak first.
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, honour.
As much as child e'er loved,
or father found.
A love that makes my speech unable, beyond all manner so much I love you.
What shall Cordelia do?
Of all these bounds, even from this line to this,
we make thee lady: to thine and Albany's issue be this perpetual.
What says our second daughter, our dearest Regan,
wife to Cornwall? Speak.
I am made of that self metal as my sister,
and prize me at her worth.
In my true heart
I find she names my very deed of love,
only she comes too short.
And find am alone felicitate in your dear highness' love.
In your dear highness' love.
To thee and thine hereditary ever
remain this ample third of our fair kingdom.
Then poor Cordelia!
And yet not so,
since my love's more richer than my tongue.
Now, ourjoy,
what can you say to draw a third more opulent than your sisters'?
Nothing, my lord.
Nothing?
Nothing.
Nothing will come of nothing.
Speak again.
Unhappy that I am, I cannot heave my heart into my mouth.
I love your majesty according to my bond,
nor more nor less.
IN FRENCH: I love your Majesty as my duty requires, not more, nor less.
Cordelia, mend your speech a little,
lest it may 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 honour you.
Why have my sisters husbands, if they say they love you all?
Haply, when I shall wed,
that lord 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.
But goes thy heart with this?
Ay, good my lord.
So young, and so untender?
So young, my lord, and true.
Let it be so,- thy truth, then, be your dower!
For, by the sacred radiance of the sun,
here I disclaim all my paternal care,
propinquity and property of blood, and as a stranger to my heart and me
hold thee, from this, for ever!
Peace, Kent!
I loved her most,
and thought to set my rest on her kind nursery.
Hence, and avoid my sight!
Call France! Call Burgundy!
Cornwall and Albany, with my two daughters' dowers digest this third.
Let pride, which she calls plainness, marry her.
Ourself, by monthly course, with reservation of an hundred knights,
shall our abode make with you by due turns.
We still retain the name, and all the additions to a king,
the sway, revenue, execution of the rest be yours.
Royal Lear, whom I have ever honoured as my king,
as my great patron thought on in my prayers...
The bow is bent and drawn!
Make from the shaft!
Let it fall rather, though the fork invade the region of my heart.
Be Kent unmannerly, when Lear is mad.
What wouldst thou want?
That duty shall have dread to speak, when power to flattery bows?
Answer my life my judgement,
thy youngest daughter does not love thee least.
Nor are those empty-hearted
whose low sound reverbs no hollowness.
Kent, on thy life, no more.
My life I never held but as a pawn to wage against thy enemies.
No fear to lose it, thy safety being the motive.
- Out of my sight! - See better, Lear.
Now, by Apollo!
Now, by Apollo, king, thou swear'st thy gods in vain.
O, vassal! miscreant!
Dear sir, forbear.
Hear me, recreant! On thine allegiance, hear me!
If tomorrow thy banished trunk be found in our dominions,
the moment is thy death!
Fare thee well, king!
Sith thus thou wilt appear,
freedom leaves hence, and banishment is here.
Here's France and Burgundy, my noble lord.
My Lord of Burgundy, we first address towards you,
who with this king have rivalled for our daughter.
When she was dear to us, we did hold her so,
but now her price is fallen.
Will you, with those infirmities she owes, dowered with our curse,
and stranger'd with our oath, take her or leave her?
I tell you all her wealth.
Pardon me, royal sir.
For you, great king, I would not from your love
make such a stray, to match you where I hate.
In FRENCH: I don't wish you the evil to unite you with what I hate.
IN FRENCH: I need a miracle to believe what my reason refuses to admit.
Must be a faith that reason without miracle should never plant in me.
I yet beseech your majesty,
if for I want that glib and oily art, to speak and purpose not,
that you make known
it is no vicious blot, murder,
or foulness that hath deprived me of your grace and favour,
but even for want of that for which I an richer,-
a still-soliciting eye, and such a tongue as I am glad I have not.
IN FRENCH: Say goodbye to him!
Thou hast her, France: let her be thine!
For we have no such daughter!
Time shall unfold what pleated cunning hides:
who covers faults, at last shame them derides.
An hundred knights to add to retinue!
A hundred knights to add to retinue!
Saddle the horses! Call the train together!
The barbarian that makes his generation messes to gorge his appetite,
shall to my bosom be as well relieved, as thou my sometime daughter.
[Marriage Rites in Latin]
Thou, nature, art my goddess!
To thy law my services are bound.
Wherefore should I permit deprive me, if I'm 12 moonshines lag of a brother?
Why bastard?
Wherefore base?
Why brand they us with base?
Who, in the lusty stealth of nature, take more composition and quality
than doth, within a dull, stale, tired bed,
go to th'creating a whole tribe of fobs?
Well, my legitimate!
Kent banished thus!
And the king gone tonight!
Subscribed his power!
All this done upon the gad!
Edmund, how now! What news?
So please your lordship, none.
Why so earnestly seek you to put up that letter?
I know no news, my lord.
What paper were you reading?
Nothing, my lord.
Why, then, that terrible dispatch of it into your pocket? Let's see.
Sir, pardon me. It is a letter from my brother.
I find it not fit for your o'er-looking.
Give me the letter.
I shall offend, either to detain or give it.
I hope, for my brother's justification, he wrote this
but as a taste of my virtue.
<<The 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 find an idle bondage in the oppression of aged tyranny,
who sways, not as it hath power,
but 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 for ever,
and live the beloved of your brother, Edgar>>.
Hum... Conspiracy!
O villain! Abhorred villain!
Unnatural, detested, brutish villain!
Where is he?
Suspend your indignation
till you can derive from him better testimony of his intent.
Edmund, seek him out,
wind me into him.
These late eclipses in the sun and moon
portend no good to us:
brothers divide,
in cities, mutinies, in countries, discord,
in palaces, treason.
And the bond cracked twixt son and father.
We have seen the best of our time.
- When saw you my father last? - The night gone by.
- Spake you with him? - Ay, two hours together.
Parted you in good terms? Found you no displeasure in him?
None at all.
Bethink yourself wherein you may have offended him.
And at my entreaty forbear his presence
till some little time hath qualified the heat of his displeasure.
Some villain hath done me wrong.
Have a continent forbearance till the speed of his rage goes slower.
Retire with me to my lodging. There's my key.
If you do stir abroad, go armed.
Armed, brother!
He hath no good meaning toward you.
What I have told you is nothing like the image and horror of it.
By the surfeit of our own behaviour,
we make guilty of our disasters the sun, the moon, and the stars.
As if we were fools by heavenly compulsion,
by an enforced obedience of planetary influence.
And admirable evasion of whore-master man,
to lay his goatish disposition to the charge of a star!
Fut, I should have been what I am,
had the maidenliest star in the firmament
twinkled on my bastardizing.
Let me not stay a jot for dinner! Go get it ready!
Dinner, ho, dinner!
Where's my fool? Go you, and call my fool hither.
You, you sirrah, where's my daughter?
So please you...
What says the fellow there? Call the clotpoll back!
Where's my fool? I think the world's asleep.
Where's that mongrel?
He says, your daughter is not well.
Why came not the slave back to me?
He answered me, he would not.
He would not!
My lord, to my judgement, your highness is not entertained
with that ceremonious affection as you were wont.
But where's my fool?
I have not seen him this two days.
Since my young lady's going into France, the fool hath much pined away.
No more of that. Go you,
and tell my daughter I would speak with her.
Go you, call hither my fool!
O, you sir, you, come you hither, sir.
Who am I, sir?
My lady's father.
<<My lady's father>>? My lord's knave!
- I'll not be struck, my lord! - Nor tript neither, football player.
I thank thee, fellow. What art thou?
A man, sir. A very honest- hearted fellow,
and as poor as the king.
If thou be as poor for a subject as he is for a king,
thou art poor enough.
What wouldst thou?
To serve you.
If I like thee no worse after dinner, I will not part from thee yet.
There's earnest of thy service.
Let me hire him too.
How now, my pretty knave! How dost thou?
- You were best take my coxcomb. - Why, fool?
For taking one's part that's out of favour.
This fellow hath banisht two one's daughters,
and did the third a blessing against his will.
If thou follow him, thou must needs wear my coxcomb.
Take heed, sirrah, the whip.
Truth's a dog must to kennel, he must be whipped out,
when Lady the brach
may stand by the fire and stink.
A bitter fool!
Dost thou know the difference between a bitter fool and a sweet fool?
No, lad. Teach me.
That lord that counselled 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.
Dost thou call me fool?
All thy other titles thou hast given away, that thou wast born with.
This is not altogether fool.
Fools had never less grace in a year,
For wise men are grown foppish,
And know not how their wits to wear, Their manners are so apish.
When were you wont to be so full of songs?
Ever since thou madest thy daughters thy mothers:
for when thou gavest them the rod, and putt'st down thine own breeches.
Then they for sudden joy did weep, And I for sorrow sung,
That such a king should play bo-peep,
And go the fools among.
Prithee, nuncle, keep a schoolmaster
that can teach thy fool to lie.
An you lie, we'll have you whipped.
Thy daughters will have me whipped for speaking true,
thou'It for lying, and sometimes I'm whipped for holding my peace.
I had rather be any kind o'thing than a fool.
And yet I would not be thee, nuncle.
Thou hast pared thy wit o'both sides, and left nothing in the middle.
Here comes one of the parings.
How now, daughter! What makes that frontlet on?
Methinks you are too much of late in the frown.
Thou wast a pretty fellow
when thou hadst no need to care for her frowning.
Yes, forsooth, I will hold my tongue.
So your face bids me...
though you say nothing.
Not only, sir, this your all-licensed fool,
but other of your insolent retinue
do hourly carp and quarrel.
I had thought, by making this well known unto you,
to have found a safe redress,
but now grow fearful that you protect this course.
Which if you should,
the fault would not scape censure, which might in their working
do you that offence, which else were shame,
that then necessity will call discreet proceeding.
For, you trow, nuncle.
The hedge-sparrow fed
The cuckoo so long,
That it had its head
Bit off by its young!
So, out went the candle, and we were left darkling.
Are you our daughter?
I would you would make use of that good wisdom,
and put away these dispositions, that transform you from what you are.
Doth any here know me?
Why, this is not Lear!
Doth Lear walk thus? Speak thus?
Where are his eyes?
Either his notion weakens, or his discernings are lethargied?
Ha! Waking? 'Tis not so...
Who is it that can tell me who I am?
Lear's shadow.
I would learn that.
For, by the marks of sovereignty,
knowledge, and reason,
I should be false-persuaded
I had daughters.
Your name, fair gentlewoman?
This admiration, sir,
is much of the savour of other your new pranks.
I do beseech you to understand my purposes aright.
Here do you keep a hundred knights and squires,
men so disordered, so debosht, and bold,
that this our court
shows like a riotous inn.
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 which know themselves and you.
Darkness and devils! Saddle my horses!
Saddle my horses!
Call my train together!
Degenerate bastard!
I'll not trouble thee.
Yet have I left a daughter.
Woe, that too late repents.
Saddle my horses!
Is it your will? Speak, sir. Prepare my horses.
Pray, sir, be patient.
Detested kite! Thou liest!
Beat at this gate, that let thy folly in, and thy dearjudgement out!
Go, go, my people!
I am guiltless, as I am ignorant of what hath moved you.
It may be so, my lord.
Hear, nature, hear, dear goddess, hear!
Into her womb convey sterility!
If she must teem,
create her child that be a thwart disnatured torment to her!
That she may feel how sharper
than a serpent's tooth it is to have a thankless child.
Away, away!
But let his disposition have that scope that dotage gives it.
What, Oswald, ho!
This man hath had good counsel: a hundred knights!
On every fancy, he may enguard 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.
What he hath uttered I have writ my sister.
If she sustain him and his hundred knights, when I've showed th'unfitness.
Take you some company, and away to horse.
Inform her full of my particular fear.
This milky gentleness and course of yours,
though I condemn not, yet, under pardon,
you are much more at task for want of wisdom
than praised for harmful mildness.
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.
Old fond eyes, beweep this cause again.
I have another daughter.
With her nails she'll flay thy wolvish visage.
I'll resume the shape
which thou dost think I have cast off for ever.
Thou shalt find it, I warrant thee!
Go to the Duchess of Cornwall with these letters.
If your diligence be not speedy, I shall be there afore you.
I will not sleep, my lord, till I have delivered your letter.
Nuncle, canst tell why a snail has a house?
No.
To put's head in,
not to give it away to his daughters,
and leave his horns without a case.
O, let me not be mad, not mad, sweet heaven!
Keep me in temper: I would not be mad!
Brother, a word!
Descend: brother, I say!
My father watches: fly this place.
Intelligence is given where you are hid.
You have now the good advantage of the night.
I hear my father coming.
In cunning I must draw my sword upon you. Seem to defend yourself.
Fly, brother!
Torches, torches!
So, farewell.
Father, father! Stop, stop! No help?
Where's the villain?
Here stood he, his sharp sword out,
conjuring the moon to stand's auspicious mistress.
Look, sir, I bleed.
Where is the villain?
Fled this way, sir, when by no means he could...
Pursue him, ho! Go after.
By no means what?
Persuade me to the murder of your lordship.
How now, my noble friend! I have heard strange news.
If it be true, all vengeance comes too short. How dost, my lord?
O madam, my old heart is cracked, is cracked!
What, did my father's godson seek your life? Your Edgar?
O lady, shame would have it hid!
Was he not companion with the riotous knights that tend upon my father?
I know not. Tis too bad, too bad.
Yes, madam, he was of that consort.
No marvel, then, 'tis they have put him on the old man's death,
to have the expense and waste of his revenues.
I have been from my sister well informed of them.
If they come to sojourn at my house, I'll not be there.
Edmund, I hear that you have shown your father a child-like office.
- Is he pursued? - Ay, my good lord.
For you, Edmund, whose virtue and obedience
doth this instant so much commend itself,
you shall be ours.
You know not why we came to visit you.
Our father he hath writ, so hath our sister, of differences,
which I best thought it fit to answer from your home.
Lay comforts to your bosom, and bestow your needful counsel
to our business, which craves the instant use.
I serve you, madam,
Your Graces are right welcome.
Filthy coward!
Draw, you rascal! Come your ways!
Help, ho!
Stand, rogue, stand! You neat slave, strike!
You come with letters against the king?!
What is the matter?
With you, goodman boy, an you please?
Weapons! Arms! What's the matter here?
Keep peace, upon your lives!
He dies that strikes again. What is the matter?
The messengers from our sister and the king.
- What is your difference? Speak. - I am scarce in breath, my lord.
No marvel. You cowardly rascal.
One-trunk-inheriting slave, a superserviceable rogue,
one that wouldst be a bawd in way of good service!
Speak yet, how grew your quarrel?
This ancient ruffian, whose life I've spared at suit of his gray beard.
Let me tread him into mortar, and daub the wall of a jakes with him.
Peace, sirrah! You beastly knave, know you no reverence?
Yes, sir, but anger hath a privilege.
Why art thou angry?
That such a slave should wear a sword, who wears no honesty.
Such smiling rogues as these
renege, affirm and turn their halcyon beaks
with every gale and vary of their masters,
knowing naught, like dogs, but following.
Smile you my speeches, as I were a fool?
What, art thou mad, old fellow?
How fell you out? Say that.
No contraries hold more antipathy than I and such a knave.
- What's his offence? - His countenance likes me not.
No more, perchance, does mine, nor his, nor hers?
Sir, 'tis my occupation to be plain:
I have seen better faces in my time than that I see this instant.
Fetch forth the stocks!
You reverend braggart, we'll teach you!
I am too old to learn.
Call not your stocks for me.
I serve the king, on whose employment I was sent to you.
You shall do small respect, stocking his messenger.
Fetch forth the stocks!
There shall he sit till noon.
Why, madam, if I were your father's dog, not messenger...
Sir, being his knave, I will!
This is a fellow of the self-same colour our sister speaks of.
Let me beseech your Grace not to do so.
The good king his master will check him for it.
I'll answer that.
Put in his legs!
I am sorry for thee, tis the duke's pleasure.
I'll entreat for thee.
Pray, do not, sir, I've watched, and travelled hard,
a good man's fortune may grow out at heels. Give you good morrow!
The duke's to blame in this.
This strange that they should depart, and not send back my messenger.
As I learned, the night before there was no purpose in them of this remove.
Poor Tom's a-cold...
The foul fiend follows me...
Away!
Croack not, black angel! I have no food for thee.
The foul fiend vexes him.
He hath led him through fire and through flame...
Fie, foh, and fum!
Bless thee from whirlwinds, star-blasting, and taking!
Hail to thee, noble master!
He wears cruel garters.
Horses are tied by the heads, dogs and bears by the neck,
monkeys by the loins, and men by the legs.
When a man's over-lusty at legs,
then he wears wooden nether-stocks.
What's he that hath so much thy place mistook
to set thee here?
It is both he and she,- your son and daughter.
- No. - Yes.
- No, I say. - I say, yes.
No, no, they would not!
Winter's not gone yet, if the wild-geese fly that way.
Fathers that wear rags
Do make their children blind,
But fathers that bear bags
Shall see their children kind.
Fortune, that arrant whore,
Ne'er turns the key to the poor.
O, how this mother swells up toward my heart!
Down, thou climbing sorrow,
thy element's below!
Where is this daughter?
With the earl, sir, here within.
Follow me not! Stay here.
How chance the king comes with so small a train?
An thou hadst been set in the stocks for that question,
thou hadst well deserved it.
Why, fool?
Let go thy hold when a great wheel runs down a hill,
but the great one that goes up the hill, let him draw thee after.
Where learned you this, fool?
Not in the stocks, fool.
Deny to speak with me? They have travelled all the night?
Mere fetches.
My dear lord!
You know the fiery quality of the duke, how unremovable he is in his course.
Vengeance! Death! Confusion! Fiery?
Why, Gloster, Gloster, I'Id speak with the duke and his wife!
Well, my good lord, I have informed them so.
- Dost thou understand me, man? - Ay, my good lord.
The king would speak with Cornwall,
the dear father would with his daughter speak:
are they informed of this?
My breath and blood! No!
Tell the hot duke that...
No, but not yet.
May be he is not well, infirmity doth still neglect all office.
I'll forbear. And am fallen out with my more headier will,
to take the indisposed and sickly fit for the sound man.
Death on my state!
Wherefore should he sit here?
No, this remotion of the duke and her is practice only.
Give me my servant forth!
Go tell the duke and's wife
I'Id speak with them, now, presently:
bid them come forth and hear me,
or at their chamber-door I'll beat the drum
till it cry sleep to death.
I would have all well betwixt you.
O me, my heart, my rising heart!
But, down!
- Good morrow to you both. - Hail to your Grace!
I am glad to see your highness.
Regan, I think you are!
O, are you free?
Some other time for that.
Beloved Regan,
thy sister's naught.
She hath tied sharp-toothed unkindness, like a vulture, here.
Thou'It not believe of how depraved a quality - O Regan!
Take patience, sir, I have hope you less know how to value her desert.
Say, how is that?
I cannot think my sister in the least would fail her obligation:
if, sir, perchance she have restrained the riots of your men...
My curses on her!
O, sir, you are old.
You should be ruled, and led by some discretion
that discerns your state better than you yourself.
Therefore, I pray you, that to our sister you do make return.
Say you have wronged her, sir.
Ask her forgiveness?
Dear daughter, I confess that I am old; age is unnecessary.
On my knees I beg that you'll vouchsafe me raiment, bed and food.
Good sir, no more.
These are unsightly tricks. Return you to my sister.
Never, Regan!
All the stored vengeances of heaven fall on her ingrateful top!
Strike her young bones, you taking airs, with lameness!
You nimble lightnings, dart your blinding flames into her scornful eyes!
Infect her beauty, to fall and blast her pride!
O the blest gods! so you will wish on me,
when the rash mood is on.
No, Regan, thou shalt never have my curse!
Thy tender-hefted nature shall not give thee over to harshness.
Thou better know'st the bond of childhood;
Thy half of the kingdom hast thou not forgot,
wherein I thee endowed.
Good sir, to the purpose.
Who put my man in the stocks?
I set him there, sir.
But his own disorders deserved much less advancement.
O heavens, if you love old men, if yourselves are old, take my part!
O Regan, wilt thou take her by the hand?
Why not by the hand, sir?
All's not offence that indiscretion finds
and dotage terms so.
I am now from home, and out of that provision which shall be needful.
Sojourn with my sister, dismissing half your train.
Return to her? And fifty men dismist?
No, rather I abjure all roofs.
Return with her?
Persuade me rather to be a slave to this detested groom.
- At your choice, sir. - Daughter!
I prithee, do not make me mad.
I will not trouble thee.
Farewell, my child.
We'll no more meet, no more see one another.
But yet thou art my flesh, my blood, my daughter.
Or rather a disease that's in my flesh,
which I must needs call mine, thou art a boil,
a plague-sore in my corrupted blood.
But I'll not chide thee.
Let shame come when it will.
Mend when thou canst. I can be patient.
I can stay with Regan, I and my hundred knights.
Not altogether so, I looked not for you yet.
If you will come to me, I entreat you to bring
but five-and-twenty knights.
- I gave you all! - And in good time you gave it.
Made you my guardians, my depositaries,
but kept a reservation to be followed with such a number.
What need you five-and-twenty, ten or five, in a house
where twice so many have a command to tend you?
What need one?
O, reason not the need.
Our basest beggars are in the poorest thing superfluous.
Allow not nature more than nature needs,
man's life is cheap as beast's.
You heavens, give me that patience! Patience I need!
You see me here, you gods,
a poor old man.
If it be you that stir these daughters against their father,
fool me not so much to bear it tamely,
touch me with noble anger.
No, you unnatural hags, I will have such revenges on you both
that they shall be the terrors of the earth.
You think I'll weep?
No, I'll not weep.
I have full cause of weeping, but this heart shall break into
a hundred flaws, or e'er I'll weep.
O fool, I shall go mad!
Most savage and unnatural!
I like not this unnatural dealing!
I have received a letter and locked it in my closet.
These injuries the king now bears
will be revenged.
We must incline to the king. I will seek him.
Go you, and maintain talk with the duke,
that my charity be not of him perceived.
Pray you, be careful.
This seems a fair deserving,
and must draw me that which my father loses.
The younger rises when the old falls.
End of Part One
Part Two
Blow, winds, and crack your cheeks!
You cataracts and hurricanoes, spout!
And thou, all-shaking thunder, strike flat the thick rotundity o'the world!
Good nuncle, in, and ask thy daughters' blessing.
Here's a night pities neither wise man nor fool.
Nor rain, wind, thunder, fire, are my daughters.
I tax you not with unkindness.
I never gave you kingdom, called you children.
You owe me no subscription.
Then let fall your horrible pleasure!
But yet I call you servile ministers
that have with two pernicious daughters joined
your high-engendered battles
gainst a head so old and white as this.
O! 'tis foul!
He that has a house to put's head in
has a good head-piece.
The cod-piece that will house
Before the head has any,
The head and he shall louse,-
So beggars marry many.
No, I will be the pattern of all patience.
I will say nothing.
Who's there?
Marry, here's grace and a cod-piece,
that's a wise man and a fool.
Alas, sir, are you here?
Tremble, thou wretch!
That hast within thee undivulged crimes,
unwhipt of justice!
Hide thee, thou bloody hand, thou perjured!
Cry these dreadful summoners grace!
I'm a man more sinned against
than sinning.
Gracious my lord, hard by here is a hovel.
My wits begin to turn.
Come on, my boy, how dost, my boy? Art cold?
I am cold myself.
Poor fool and knave, I have one part in my heart
that's sorry yet for thee.
Here is the place, my lord, enter.
- Let me alone. - Enter here.
Wilt break my heart?
I had rather break my own. Good my lord, enter.
Thou think 'tis much that this contentious storm invades us?
Good my lord, enter here.
Prithee, go in thyself, seek thine own ease.
This tempest will not give me leave to ponder on things that hurt me more.
But I'll go in.
In, boy, go first. You houseless poverty.
I'll pray, and then I'll sleep.
Poor naked wretches,
that bide the pelting of this pitiless storm,
how shall your houseless heads and unfed sides,
your loopt and window'd raggedness,
defend you from seasons such as these?
O, I have taken too little care of this!
Take physic,
pomp!
Expose thyself to feel
what wretches feel.
Fathom and half! Poor Tom!
Come not in here, nuncle, here's a spirit.
Who's there? What art thou that dost grumble i'the straw? Come forth.
Away! The foul fiend follows me!
Through the sharp hawthorn blows the cold wind.
Go to thy cold bed, and warm thee.
Hast thou given all to thy two daughters? And art thou come to this?
Who gives any thing to poor Tom?
Whom the foul fiend hath led through fire and flame, over bog,
made him course his own shadow
for a traitor.
Bless thy five wits!
Didst thou give 'em all? Couldst thou save nothing?
He reserved his blanket.
Else we had been all shamed.
- He hath no daughters, sir. - Death, traitor!
Is it the fashion,
that discarded fathers should have thus little mercy on their flesh?
Judicious punishment!
Twas this flesh begot those pelican daughters.
Pillicock sat on Pillicock-hill - Halloo, halloo, loo, loo...
This cold night will turn us all to fools and madmen.
Take heed of the foul fiend. Tom's a-cold.
Why, thou wert better in thy grave
than to answer with thy uncovered body this extremity of the skies.
Is man no more than this?
Consider him well.
Thou owest the worm no silk, the beast no hide.
Here's three on's are sophisticated! Thou art the thing itself.
Unaccommodated man
is no more but such a poor, bare, forkt animal
as thou art.
Off, off!
You lendings!
Come, unbutton here.
Prithee, nuncle, be contented, tis a naughty night to swim in.
- How fares your Grace? - It shall be done!
I will arraign them straight!
Come, sit thou here, most learned justicer.
Thou, sapient sir, sit here.
Now, you she foxes!
Will you lie down and rest upon the cushions?
Arraign her first. Tis Goneril.
I here take my oath before this honourable assembly,
she kicked
the poor king her father.
And here's another, whose warpt looks proclaim
what store her heart is made on.
Stop her there! Arms, arms, sword, fire!
Corruption in the place!
Then let them anatomize Regan.
See what breeds about her heart. Is there any cause that makes it hard.
You, sir, I entertain for one of my hundred.
Only I do not like the fashion of your garments.
Now, my good lord, lie here and rest awhile.
Make no noise, make no noise.
Draw the curtains...
So, so, so.
We'll go to supper in the morning.
So, so, so.
And I'll go to bed at noon.
Who's there? What is't you seek?
What are you there? Your names?
This is the foul fiend! He walks till the first cock, he gives the web.
Aroint thee, witch!
What are you?
My name is poor Tom!
But mice and rats, and such small deer,
Have been Tom's food for seven long year.
What, have your Grace no better company?
Trouble him not. His wits are gone.
I'll bring you where both fire and food is ready.
And drive towards Dover where thou shalt meet welcome and protection.
If thou shouldst dally, his life, and ours, stand in assured loss.
His daughters seek his death.
Thou say'st the king grows mad.
I am almost mad myself.
I had a son, now outlaw'd from my blood.
I will have my revenge!
How, my lord, I may be censured
that nature thus gives way to loyalty.
O heavens! That this treason were not,
or not I the detector!
The letter hath made thee Earl of Gloster.
I will persevere in my course of loyalty,
though the conflict be sore between that and my blood.
Post speedily to my lord your husband, show him this letter.
The army of France is landed.
Seek out the traitor Gloster!
Hang him instantly.
Keep you our sister company.
Advise the duke to a most festinate preparation.
Our posts shall be swift and intelligent betwixt us.
Where's the king?
My Lord of Gloster hath conveyed him hence.
- Who's there? The traitor? - Ingrateful fox! 'tis he.
Bind fast his corky arms.
Good my friends, consider you are my guests: do me no foul play.
- Bind him, I say! - Hard, hard! O filthy traitor!
I'm none!
To this chair bind him.
What will you do?
What letters had you late from France?
We know the truth.
What confederacy have you with the traitors late footed in the kingdom?
- A letter not from one opposed. - It's false.
Where hast thou sent the king?
- To Dover. - Wast thou not charged at peril?
Wherefore to Dover?
I am tied to the stake, and I must stand the course.
Wherefore to Dover?
Because I would not see thy cruel nails pluck out his poor old eyes.
But I shall see the winged vengeance overtake such children.
See't shalt thou never. Fellows, hold the chair.
Upon these eyes of thine I'll set my foot.
Give me some help! O cruel!
One side will mock another; the other too.
If you see vengeance...
Hold your hand.
I have served you ever since I was a child. I bid you, hold!
How now, you dog!
I bid you hold, too! What do you mean?
My villain!
Nay, then, come on, and take the chance of anger!
A peasant stand up thus!
My lord, you have one eye left...
- ... to see some mischief on him. - Lest it see more, prevent it.
Edmund!
Edmund! Edmund!
All dark and comfortless!
Edmund, enkindle all the sparks of nature to quit this horrid act.
Thou call'st on him that hates thee.
It was he that made the overture of thy treason to us.
O my follies! Then Edgar was abused.
Go thrust him out at gates!
And let him smell his way to Dover.
Turn out that eyeless villain. Throw this slave upon the dunghill.
Untimely comes this hurt.
Give me your arm.
Yet better thus, and known to be contemn'd,
than still contemn'd and flatter'd.
To be the worst, the lowest thing of fortune,
stands still in esperance, lives not in fear.
The lamentable change is from the best.
The worst returns to laughter.
Welcome, then, thou unsubstantial air that I embrace!
The wretch that thou hast blown unto the worst owes nothing to thy blasts.
Away, good friend, be gone.
Thy comforts can do me no good at all, thee they may hurt.
Alack, sir, you cannot see your way.
I have no way, and therefore want no eyes.
I stumbled when I saw.
O dear son Edgar!
Might I but live to see thee in my touch,
I'Id say I had eyes again!
Tis poor mad Tom. Fellow, where goest?
Is it the naked beggar-man?
Madman and beggar too.
He has some reason, else he could not beg.
In the last night's storm I such a fellow saw.
Which made me think a man a worm.
My son came then into my mind.
I have heard more since.
As flies to wanton boys, are we to the gods.
They kill us for their sport.
I will entreat him to lead me.
Alack, sir, he is mad.
Tis the times' plague, when madmen lead the blind.
- Sirrah, naked fellow! - Poor Tom's a-cold.
Come hither, fellow.
I cannot daub it further.
And yet I must.
Bless thy sweet eyes, they bleed.
Know'st thou the way to Dover?
Both stile and gate, horse-way and foot-path.
Poor Tom hath been scared. Bless thee, good man, from the foul fiend.
Here, take this purse.
- Dost thou know Dover? - Ay, master.
There's a cliff, whose high and bending head looks in the deep.
Bring me but to the very brim of it, and I'll repair thou the misery.
From that place I shall no leading need.
Give me thy arm. Poor Tom shall lead thee.
Welcome, my lord.
I marvel our mild husband not met us on the way.
- Now, where's your master? - Within, but never man so changed.
I told him of the army that was landed, he smiled at it.
I told him you were coming, his answer was, <<The worse. >>
Of Gloster's treachery and of the loyal service of his son when I
informed him, then he called me sot, and that I'd turned the wrong side out.
Then shall you go no further. It is the cowish terror of his spirit.
Our wishes on the way may prove effects.
Back to my brother. Hasten his musters
and conduct his powers.
Decline your head.
I have been worth the whistle.
You are not worth the dust which the rude wind blows in your face.
She that herself will sliver and disbranch from her material sap,
perforce must wither, and come to deadly use.
No more! The text is foolish!
Wisdom and goodness to the vile seem vile,
filths savour but themselves.
What have you done? Tigers, not daughters,
what have you performed?
Milk-liver'd man!
That bear'st a cheek for blows, a head for wrongs!
Who hast not an eye discerning thine honour from thy suffering.
Where's thy drum? France spreads his banners in our noiseless land.
Whiles thou, a moral fool,
sitt'st still, and criest: <<Alack, why does he so?>>
See thyself, devil!
Proper deformity seems not in the fiend so horrid as in woman.
- What news? - My lord, the Duke of Cornwall's dead.
That shows you're above, that our nether crimes so speedily can venge!
This letter, madam, craves a speedy answer. 'Tis from your sister.
I'll read, and answer.
Why the King of France so suddenly gone back?
Something he left imperfect in the state required his return.
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.
To be acknowledged, madam, is overpaid.
A century send forth!
Search every acre in the high-grown fields.
What can man's wisdom in the restoring his bereaved sense?
There is means, madam.
Our foster-nurse of nature is repose.
Seek, seek for him,
lest his ungoverned rage dissolves his life!
No, they cannot touch me for coining.
I have this right.
I am the king himself.
Nature's above art in that respect.
There's your press-money.
That fellow handles his bow like a crow-keeper.
Draw me a clothier's yard.
There's my gauntlet.
I'll prove it on a giant.
Give the word.
- Sweet marjoram. - Pass.
Ha! Goneril! With a white beard!
They flattered me like a dog,
and told me I had white hairs in my beard here.
To say 'ay' and 'no' to every thing that I said!
There I smelt 'em out. They are not men of their words.
They told me I was every thing.
Tis a lie. I'm not ague-proof.
Is't not the king?
Ay, every inch a king!
When I do stare, see how the subject quakes!
I pardon that man's life.
What was thy cause? Adultery? Die for adultery? No!
Let copulation thrive, for I lack soldiers.
Give me an ounce of civet, good apothecary,
to sweeten my imagination.
There's money for thee.
O, let me kiss that hand!
Let me wipe it first. It smells of mortality.
Dost thou know me?
I remember thine eyes well enough.
Dost thou squiny at me?
Read thou this challenge.
Mark but the penning on't.
Were all the letters suns, I could not see one.
- Read. - What, with the case of eyes?
What, art mad?
A man may see how this world goes with no eyes.
Look with thine ears.
See how yond justice rails upon yond simple thief?
Hark, in thine ear:
change places, and, handy-dandy,
which is the justice, which is the thief?
Through tattered clothes small vices do appear,
robes and furred gowns hide all.
Plate sin with gold, and the strong lance ofjustice hurtless breaks.
Arm it in rags, a pigmy's straw does pierce it.
None does offend, none.
I say, none!
I'll able 'em, take that of me
who have the power to seal the accuser's lips.
Get thee glass eyes,
and, like a scurvy politician,
seem to see the things thou dost not.
Pull off my boots. Harder, harder.
I know thee well enough. Thy name is Gloster.
Thou must be patient. We came crying hither,
the first time that we smell the air,
we wawl and cry.
I will preach to thee: mark.
Alack, alack the day!
When we are born, we cry that we are come to this great stage of fools.
It were a delicate stratagem
to shoe a troop of horse with felt,
and when I have stolen
upon these sons-in-law, then, kill, kill, kill, kill, kill!
Sir, your most dear daughter...
No rescue?
Use me well, you shall have ransom.
Let me have a surgeon. I am cut to the brains.
You shall have any thing.
No seconds? All myself?
Good sir...
I will die bravely, like a smug bridegroom.
I will be jovial. Come, come.
I am a king. My masters, know you that.
You are a royal one, and we obey you.
Then there's life in it.
Nay, an you get it, you shall get it by running.
Thou old unhappy traitor!
The sword is out that must destroy thee!
Now let thy friendly hand put strength enough to it.
Let go, slave! Out, dunghill!
Take my purse.
Give the letter which thou find'st about me to Edmund earl of Gloster.
Seek him out upon the English party.
What, is he dead?
I'm only sorry he had no other death's-man.
<<Let our reciprocal vows be remembered.
His bed is my gaol,
from the warmth loathed whereof deliver me.
Your wife, so I would say, affectionate servant, Goneril.
How does the king?
Madam, sleeps still.
There are many simple operative
whose power will close the eye of anguish.
O you kind gods!
Cure this great breach in his abused nature!
So please your majesty that we may wake the king.
- He hath slept long. - Very well.
Please you, draw near. Louder the music there!
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!
Had you not been their father, these white flakes
had challenged pity of them.
Mine enemy's dog should have stood that night against my fire.
And wast thou fain, poor father, to hovel thee in short and musty straw?
He wakes. Speak to him.
Madam, do you; 'tis fittest.
How fares your majesty?
You do me wrong to take me out of the grave.
Thou art a soul in bliss,
but I am bound upon a wheel of fire.
Sir, do you know me?
You are a spirit, I know. When did you die?
- Still, still, far wide! - He's scarce awake.
Where have I been?
Where am I?
Fair daylight?
I am mightily abused.
O, look upon me, sir, and hold your hands in benediction over me.
No, sir, you must not kneel!
Pray, do not mock me.
I fear I am not in my perfect mind.
Methinks I should know you,
and know this man.
And all the skill I have remembers not these garments.
Nor I know not where I did lodge last night.
Do not laugh at me!
For, as I am a man, I think this lady
to be my child Cordelia.
And so I am!
Be your tears wet?
Let me see.
Yes, faith.
I pray, weep not. If you have poison for me, I will drink it.
I know you do not love me.
Your sisters have done me wrong.
You have some cause, they have not.
No cause, no cause.
Am I in France?
In your own kingdom, sir.
Do not abuse me.
You must bear with me.
Pray you now, forget and forgive.
Know of the duke if his last purpose hold,
or whether since he is advised by aught to change the course?
He's full of alteration.
Bring his constant pleasure.
Our sister's man is certainly miscarried.
Tis to be doubted, madam.
Now, sweet lord,
you know the goodness I intend upon you. Tell me, but truly...
Some officers take them away! Good guard!
Until their greater pleasures first be known that are to censure them.
Shall we not see these daughters and these sisters?
No, no! Come, let's away to prison.
We two alone will sing like birds in 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 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 we'll wear out, in a walled prison,
packs and sects of great ones,
that ebb and flow by the moon.
Take them away!
My Cordelia, have I caught thee? He that parts us
shall bring a brand from heaven, and fire us hence like foxes.
Wipe thine eyes.
The good-years shall devour them, ere they shall make us weep.
Come.
Captain, hark! Go follow them to prison.
One step I have advanced thee.
If thou dost as this instructs thee, thou dost make thy way still higher.
Know thou this, that men are as the time is:
To be tender-minded does not become a sword.
Edmund! Edmund!
Thy great employment will not bear question: either say thou'It do't or...
I'll do it. I cannot draw a cart, nor eat dried oats.
If it be man's work, I'll do it.
Sir, you have shown today your valiant strain.
And fortune led you well.
You have the captives. We do require them of you.
So to use them as we shall find their merits
and our safety may equally determine.
I thought it fit to send the old king to some retention and appointed guard.
His age has charms in it, his title more,
to pluck the common bosom on his side.
Sir, by your patience, I hold you a subject of this war, not as a brother.
That's as we list to grace him.
He led our powers, bore the commission of my place and person.
Not so hot: in his own grace he doth exalt himself, not your addition.
In my rights by me invested, he compeers the best.
That were the most, if he should husband you.
Jesters do oft prove prophets.
That eye that told you so looked but a-squint.
General! Witness the world that I create thee here my lord and master.
Mean you to enjoy him?
The let-alone lies not in your good will.
Nor in thine, lord.
Let the drum strike, and prove my title thine.
Stay yet. Edmund, I arrest thee.
On capital treason.
For your claim, fair sister, I bar it in the interest of my wife.
Tis she is sub-contracted to this lord.
An interlude!
Thou art armed, Gloster. Let the trumpet sound.
If none appear to prove upon thy person
thy heinous, manifest, and many treasons,
there is my pledge.
- Sick, O, sick! - If not, I'll never trust medicine.
There's my exchange.
What in the world he is that names me traitor,
villain-like he lies.
- A herald, ho! - Come hither, herald!
Let the trumpet sound, and read out this.
If any man of quality or degree within the lists of the army
will maintain
upon Edmund, supposed Earl of Gloster, that he's a manifold traitor,
let him appear by the third sound of the trumpet.
Ask him his purposes, why he appears upon this call of the trumpet.
What are you? Your name, your quality?
And why you answer this present summons?
Know, my name is lost, by treason's tooth bare-gnawn and canker-bit.
Yet am I noble as the adversary I come to cope.
Which is that adversary?
Thou art a traitor!
And, from thy head to the descent
and dust below thy foot, a most toad-spotted traitor.
Back do I toss these treasons to thy head!
Trumpets, speak!
- Save him, save him! - Thou art but cozen'd and beguiled.
Shut your mouth, dame!
Or with this paper shall I stop it!
No tearing, lady. I perceive you know it.
Say, if I do! The laws are mine, not thine.
Who can arraign me for it?
Most monstrous! Know'st thou this paper?
Ask me not what I know.
Go after her, she's desperate, govern her.
What you have charged me with, that have I done, and more, much more.
But what art thou?
The wheel is come full circle.
Let sorrow split my heart,
if ever I did hate thee or thy father!
I know it.
Where have you hid yourself? How have you known thy father's miseries?
By nursing them.
O, our lives' sweetness!
That we the pain of death would hourly die
rather than die at once!
- What now? - O, she's dead!
Who dead? Speak, man.
Your lady, sir.
And her sister by her is poisoned.
She hath confest it.
Produce their bodies.
This judgement of the heavens, that makes us tremble.
I was contracted to them both.
All three now marry in an instant.
I pant for life.
Some good I mean to do,
despite of mine own nature.
Quickly send to the castle!
For my writ is on the life of Lear and on Cordelia.
Quickly send to the castle!
For my writ is on the life of Lear and on Cordelia.
Run, run, O, run!
Howl, howl, howl, howl!
O, you are men of stone!
Had I your tongues and eyes,
I'Id use them so that heaven's vault should crack!
She's gone for ever...
I know when one is dead, and when one lives.
She's dead as earth.
Is this the promised end?
Or image of that horror?
Fall, and cease!
This feather stirs. She lives!
If it be so, it is a chance
which does redeem all sorrows that ever I have felt.
- O my good master! - Prithee, away.
A plague upon you, murderers, traitors all!
I might have saved her!
Now she's gone for ever!
Cordelia, Cordelia! Stay a little!
What is't thou say'st?
Her voice was ever soft, gentle, and low,-
an excellent thing in woman.
Who are you? Mine eyes are not o'the best.
- Your servant Kent. - He was a good fellow.
He'll strike, and quickly too... He's dead and rotten.
No, my good lord. I am the very man.
And my poor fool is hanged.
No, no, no life!
Why should a dog, a horse, a rat, have life,
and thou no breath at all? Thou'It come no more.
Never, never, never!
Never, never!
Pray you, undo this button.
Thank you, sir.
Do you see this? Look on her. Look, her lips.
Look there!
Look up, my lord!
Vex not his ghost. O, let him pass!
He hates him that would upon the rack of this tough world
stretch him out longer.
Bear them from hence.
Our present business is general woe.
Friends of my soul,
you twain rule in this realm, and the gored state sustain.
I have a journey, sir, shortly to go.
My master calls me.
I must not say no.
The End