Edm. Parted you in good terms? Found you no displeasure in him by word nor countenance? Edg. None at all. Edm. 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; which at this instant so rageth in him, that with the mischief of your person it would scarcely allay. Edg. Some villain hath done me wrong. Edm. That's my fear. I pray you, have a continent 23 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 ye, go; there's my key: if you do stir abroad, go arm'd. Edg. Arm'd, brother! Edm. Brother, I advise you to the best; I am no honest man if there be any good meaning toward you. I have told you what I have seen and heard; but faintly,24 nothing like the image and horror of it: pray you, away. Edg. Shall I hear from you anon? Edm. I do serve you in this business. A credulous father! and a brother noble, Whose nature is so far from doing harms, [Exit EDGAR. That he suspects none; on whose foolish honesty All with me's meet that I can fashion fit. 23 Continent in its old sense of self-restrained or subdued. 25 Contrivance, plot, stratagem are old meanings of practice. [Exit. SCENE III. - A Room in ALBANY'S Palace. Enter GONERIL and OSWALD. Gon. Did my father strike my gentleman for chiding of his Fool? Osw. Ay, madam. Gon. By day and night he wrongs me; every hour He flashes into one gross crime or other, That sets us all at odds: I'll not endure it : 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. [Horns within. Osw. He's coming, madam; I hear him. Gon. Put on what weary negligence you please, You and your fellows; I'd have it come to question: If he distaste it, let him to my sister, Whose mind and mine, I know, in that are one, Not to be over-ruled. 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 Osw. Very well, madam. Gon. 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 dinner. [Exeunt. SCENE IV.-A Hall in the Same. Enter KENT, disguised. Kent. If but as well I other accents borrow, For which I razed my likeness. Now, banish'd Kent, Horns within. Enter LEAR, Knights, and Attendants. Lear. Let me not stay a jot for dinner; go get it ready. [Exit an Attendant.] - How now ! what art thou? Kent. A man, sir. Lear. What dost thou profess? What wouldst thou with us? Kent. 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 2 with him that is wise, and says little ; to fear judgment; to fight when I cannot choose; and to eat no fish.3 1 To defuse (sometimes spelt diffuse) is to confuse, and to disguise by confusing; though the general sense of disorder seems to lie at the bottom of the word. It appears that the form defuse was common in the Poet's time. So in Armin's Nest of Ninnies: “It is hard that the taste of one apple should distaste the whole lumpe of this defused chaios." See, also, vol. xii. page 121, note 8.- Kent has disguised his person so as to pass unrecognized; and now he is apprehensive that his speech or accents may betray him. 2 To converse signifies properly to keep company, to have commerce with. His meaning is, that he chooses for his companions men who are not tattlers or talebearers. 3 Eating fish on the fast-days of the Church, though enjoined by the civil authorities, was odious to the more advanced Protestants as a badge of popery. So in Marston's Dutch Courtezan: "I trust I am none of the wicked that eat fish a fridays." This is probably the reason why Kent makes eating no fish a recommendation to employment. Lear. What art thou? Kent. A very honest-hearted fellow, and as poor as the King. Lear. If thou be as poor for a subject as he is for a king, What wouldst thou? thou art poor enough. Kent. Service. Lear. Who wouldst thou serve? Kent. You. Lear. Dost thou know me, fellow? Kent. No, sir; but you have that in your countenance which I would fain call master. Lear. What's that? Kent. Authority. Lear. What services canst thou do? Kent. 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. Lear. How old art thou? Kent. Not so young, sir, to love a woman for singing, nor so old to dote on her for any thing: I have years on my back forty-eight. Lear. Follow me; thou shalt serve me: if I like thee no worse after dinner, I will not part from thee yet. - Dinner, ho, dinner!—Where's my knave?4 my Fool?-Go you, and call my Fool hither. [Exit an Attendant. Enter OSWALD. You, you, sirrah, where's my daughter? Osw. So please you, [Exit. 5 Lear. What says the fellow there? Call the clotpoll 4 Knave was a common term of familiar endearment. 5 Clot is clod, and poll is head; so that clotpoll comes to blockhead. back. [Exit a Knight.]-Where's my Fool, ho? I think the world's asleep.— Re-enter the Knight. How now! where's that mongrel? Knight. He says, my lord, your daughter is not well. Lear. Why came not the slave back to me when I call'd him? Knight. Sir, he answered me in the roundest 6 manner, he would not. Lear. He would not! Knight. My lord, I know not what the matter is; but, to my judgment, your Highness is not entertain'd with that ceremonious affection as you were wont there's a great abatement of kindness appears as well in the general dependants as in the duke himself also and your daughter. Lear. Ha! sayest thou so? Knight. I beseech you, pardon me, my lord, if I be mistaken; for my duty cannot be silent when I think your Highness wronged. Lear. Thou but remember'st 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 pretence 7 and purpose of unkindness: I will look further into't. But where's my Fool? I have not seen him this two days. Knight. Since my young lady's going into France, sir, the Fool hath much pined away.8 6 Round is blunt, downright, plain-spoken. See vol. xii. page 84, note 16. 7" Jealous curiosity" seems to mean a suspicious, prying scrutiny, on the watch to detect slights and neglects. - Pretence, again, for intent or design. Very in the sense of real or deliberate. -The passage is rather curious as discovering a sort of double consciousness in the old King. 8 This aptly touches the keynote of the Fool's character. "The Fool," says Coleridge," is no comic buffoon to make the groundlings laugh, - no forced condescension of Shakespeare's genius to the taste of his audience. |