SCENE III.]

Alb.

KING LEAR.

Run, run, O, run!

Edg. To who, my lord? Who hath the office? send Thy token of reprieve.

Edm. Well thought on: take my sword,

Give it the captain.

Alb.

Haste thee, for thy life.

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[Exit Edgar.

Edm. 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 fordid herself.

Alb. The gods defend her! Bear him hence awhile.

[Edmund is borne off.

Re-enter LEAR, with CORDELIA dead in his arms; EDGAR, Captain, and others following.

Lear. Howl, howl, howl, howl! O, you are men of

stones:

Had I your tongues and eyes, I'ld use them so

That heaven's vault should crack. She's gone forever!
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.
Kent.

Is this the promised end?
Edg. Or image of that horror?
Alb.

Fall, and cease!
Lear. This feather stirs; she lives! if it be so,
It is a chance which does redeem all sorrows

That ever I have felt.

Kent. [Kneeling] O my good master!
Lear. Prithee, away.

Edg.

'Tis noble Kent, your friend.

Lear. A plague upon you, murderers, traitors all!
I might have saved her; now she's gone forever!
Cordelia, Cordelia! stay a little. Ha!

What is't thou say'st? Her voice was ever soft,
Gentle, and low, an excellent thing in woman.

I kill'd the slave that was a-hanging thee.
Capt. "Tis true, my lords, he did.

Lear.

Did I not, fellow?
I have seen the day, with my good biting falchion
I would have made them skip: I am old now,
And these same crosses spoil me.
Mine eyes are not o' the best: I'll tell you straight.
Kent. If fortune brag of two she loved and hated,
One of them we behold.

Who are you?

Lear. This is a dull sight. Are you not Kent?

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270

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The same,

Kent.
Your servant Kent. Where is your servant Caius?
Lear. He's a good fellow, I can tell you that;
He'll strike, and quickly too: he's dead and rotten.
Kent. No, my good lord; I am the very man,-
Lear. I'll see that straight.

Kent. That, from your first of difference and decay, Have follow'd your sad steps.

Lear.

You are welcome hither.

Kent. Nor no man else: all's cheerless, dark, and deadly. Your eldest daughters have fordone themselves,

And desperately are dead.

Lear.

Ay, so I think.

Alb. He knows not what he says: and vain it is That we present us to him.

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Edg.

Very bootless.

Enter a Captain.

1

Capt. Edmund is dead, my lord.
Alb.

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: [To Edgar and Kent] you, to

your rights;

With boot, and such addition as your honours

Have more than merited. All friends shall taste

The wages of their virtue, and all foes

The cup of their deservings. O, see, see!

Lear. And my poor fool is hang'd! No, no, no life! Why should a dog, a horse, a rat, have life,

And thou no breath at all? Thou'lt 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 there!

Edg.

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310 [Dies.

Look up, my lord.

He faints! My lord, my lord!
Kent. Break, heart; I prithee, break!

Edg.

Kent. Vex not his ghost: O, let him pass! he hates him much

That would upon the rack of this tough world

Stretch him out longer,

Edg.

He is gone, indeed.

Kent. The wonder is, he hath endured so long: He but usurp'd his life.

Alb. Bear them from hence. Our present business

Is general woe. [To Kent and Edgar] Friends of my soul,

you twain

Rule in this realm, and the gored state sustain.
Kent. I have a journey, sir, shortly to go;

My master calls me, I must not say no.

Alb. The weight of this sad time we must obey; Speak what we feel, not what we ought to say. The oldest hath borne most: we that are young Shall never see so much, nor live so long.

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[Exeunt, with a dead march.

Enter RODERIGO and IAGO.

Rod. Tush! never tell me; I take it much unkindly
That thou, Iago, who hast had my purse

As if the strings were thine, shouldst know of this.
Iago. 'Sblood, but you will not hear me:

If ever I did dream of such a matter,

Abhor me.

Rod. Thou told'st me thou didst hold him in thy hate. Iago. Despise me, if I do not. Three great ones of the city,

In personal suit to make me his lieutenant,

Off-capp'd to him: and, by the faith of man,

I know my price, I am worth no worse a place:
But he, as loving his own pride and purposes,
Evades them, with a bombast circumstance
Horribly stuff'd with epithets of war;
And, in conclusion,

Nonsuits my mediators; for, "Certes," says he,
"I have already chose my officer.

10

And what was he?

Forsooth, a great arithmetician,
One Michael Cassio, a Florentine,

A fellow almost damn'd in a fair wife;
That never set a squadron in the field,

Nor the division of a battle knows

More than a spinster; unless the bookish theoric,
Wherein the toged consuls can propose

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As masterly as he: mere prattle, without practice,
Is all his soldiership. But he, sir, had the election:
And I, of whom his eyes had seen the proof
At Rhodes, at Cyprus and on other grounds
Christian and heathen, must be be-lee'd and calm'd
By debitor and creditor: this counter-caster,
He, in good time, must his lieutenant be,
And I-God bless the mark!-his Moorship's ancient.
Rod. By heaven, I rather would have been his hangman.
Iago. Why, there's no remedy; 'tis the curse of service,
Preferment goes by letter and affection,

And not by old gradation, where each second

Stood heir to the first. Now, sir, be judge yourself,
Whether I in any just term am affined -

To love the Moor.

Rod.

I would not follow him then.
Iago. O, sir, content you:

I follow him to serve my turn upon him:
We cannot all be masters, nor all masters
Cannot be truly follow'd.

You shall mark

Many a duteous and knee-crooking knave,

That, doting on his own obsequious bondage,

Wears out his time, much like his master's ass,

For nought but provender, and when he's old, cashier'd:
Whip me such honest knaves. Others there are

Who, trimm'd in forms and visages of duty,
Keep yet their hearts attending on themselves,

And, throwing but shows of service on their lords,

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Do well thrive by them and when they have lined their coats

Do themselves homage: these fellows have some soul;
And such a one do I profess myself. For, sir,

It is as sure as you are Roderigo,

Were I the Moor, I would not be Iago:

In following him, I follow but myself;

Heaven is my judge, not I for love and duty,
But seeming so, for my peculiar end:

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For when my outward action doth demonstrate
The native act and figure of my heart