"King Lear"

[fiefoe]

So much ravings. The only consolation was how swiftly people dropped dead in the final (5th) act.

• A love that makes breath poor and speech unable
• To plainness honor’s bound149 When majesty falls to folly.
• Nor are those emptyhearted whose low sounds Reverb no hollowness155.
• which to believe of her Must be a faith that reason without miracle Should never plant in me.
• Time shall unfold what plighted cunning hides;284
• Who in the lusty stealth of nature take11 More composition and fierce quality Than doth within a dull, stale, tirèd bed
• This is the excellent foppery121 of the world, that when we are sick in fortune—often the surfeits of our122 own behavior—we make guilty of our disasters the sun, the moon, and stars, as if we were villains on124 necessity, fools by heavenly compulsion, knaves, thieves, and treachers by spherical predominance126, drunkards, liars, and adulterers by an enforced obedience of planetary influence, and all that we are evil in, by a divine129 thrusting on.
• and pat he comes like the catastrophe137 of the old comedy.
• Old fools are babes again, and must be used With checks as flatteries, when they are seen abused21.
• Not so young, sir, to love37 a woman for singing, nor so old to dote on her for anything.
• Mark it, nuncle: Have more than thou showest115, Speak less than thou knowest, Lend less than thou owest117, Ride more than thou goest118, Learn more than thou trowest119, Set less than thou throwest120;
• If I speak like myself in160 this, let him be whipped that first finds it so. [Sings.]     “Fools had ne’er less grace in a year,162
• FOOL    I have used168 it, nuncle, e’er since thou mad’st thy daughters thy mothers; for when thou gav’st them the rod and putt’st down thine own breeches,
• Ingratitude, thou marble-hearted fiend, More hideous when thou show’st thee in a child Than the sea monster!
• 268 Oh, Lear, Lear, Lear! Beat at this gate [striking his head] that let thy folly in And thy dear270 judgment out!—
• If she must teem279, Create her child of spleen280, that it may live And be a thwart disnatured281 torment to her! Let it stamp wrinkles in her brow of youth, With cadent tears fret283 channels in her cheeks, Turn all her mother’s pains and benefits284 To laughter and contempt, that she may feel How sharper than a serpent’s tooth it is To have a thankless child!
• —Thus out of season, threading dark-eyed night:
• A knave, a rascal, an eater of broken meats14;
• lily-livered, action-taking, whoreson, glass-gazing, superserviceable, finical rogue; one-trunk-inheriting
• though it be night, yet the moon shines. I’ll make a sop o’th’ moonshine of you, you whoreson, cullionly32 barbermonger.
• You cowardly rascal, nature disclaims in55 thee. A tailor made thee.
• leave, I will tread this unbolted66 villain into mortar and daub the wall of a jakes67 with him.—
• A good man’s fortune may grow out at heels160.
• Fortune, that arrant whore, Ne’er turns the key52 to th’ poor.
• You nimble lightnings, dart your blinding flames Into her scornful eyes! Infect her beauty, You fen-sucked167 fogs drawn by the powerful sun To fall and blister168!
• Thou art a boil, A plague-sore, or embossèd225 carbuncle In my corrupted blood.
• REGAN    Oh, sir, to willful men The injuries that they themselves procure Must be their schoolmasters.
• FOOL    Oh, nuncle, court holy water10 in a dry house is better than this rainwater out o’door.
• I am a man More sinned against than sinning.
• When usurers tell their gold i’th’ field91, And bawds and whores do churches build, Then comes the time, who93 lives to see’t, That going shall be used with feet94.
• This seems a fair deserving, and must draw me23 That which my father loses—no less than all. The younger rises when the old doth fall. Exit.
• Oh, I have ta’en Too little care of this! Take physic, pomp33; Expose thyself to feel what wretches feel, That thou mayst shake the superflux35 to them And show the heavens more just.
• Unaccommodated105 man is no more but such a poor, bare, forked animal as thou art.
• Our flesh and blood, my lord, is grown so vile143 That it doth hate what gets it.
• Child Rowland181 to the dark tower came; His word was still, “Fie, foh, and fum,182 I smell the blood of a British man.”
• Who alone suffers suffers most i’th’ mind,
• But then the mind much sufferance doth o’erskip When grief hath mates, and bearing fellowship.
• FIRST SERVANT Oh, I am slain! My lord, you have one eye left To see some mischief85 on him. Oh! [He dies.]
• The lamentable change is from the best;5 The worst returns to laughter.
• World, world, O world! But that thy strange mutations make us hate thee,11 Life would not yield to age.
• The worst is not27 So long as we can say, “This is the worst.”
• As flies to wanton36 boys are we to th’ gods; They kill us for their sport.
• ’Tis the time’s plague46, when madmen lead the blind.
• undertake. He’ll not feel wrongs13 Which tie him to an answer.
• Wisdom and goodness to the vile seem vile; Filths savor but themselves40.
• If that the heavens do not their visible47 spirits Send quickly down to tame these vile offenses, It will come, Humanity must perforce prey on itself, Like monsters of the deep.
• Through tattered clothes small vices do appear;164 Robes and furred gowns hide all.
• A most poor man, made tame224 to fortune’s blows, Who, by the art of known and feeling225 sorrows, Am pregnant226 to good pity.
• EDGAR    ’Chill not let go, zir, without vurther ’cagion238.
• Men must endure Their going hence, even as their coming hither; Ripeness11 is all.
• So we’ll live, And pray, and sing, and tell old tales, and laugh At gilded butterflies13, and hear poor rogues Talk of court news; and we’ll talk with them too—
• The good years shall devour them, flesh and fell,24 Ere they shall make us weep. We’ll see ’em starved first.
• that men Are as the time is32. To be tender-minded Does not become a sword33.
• And from th’extremest upward139 of thy head To the descent140 and dust below thy foot A most toad-spotted traitor.
• Howl, howl, howl! Oh, you are men of stones! Had I your tongues and eyes, I’d use them so That heaven’s vault should crack. She’s gone forever.
• say’st? Her voice was ever soft, Gentle, and low, an excellent thing in woman.
• All’s cheerless, dark, and deadly.
• No, no, no life? Why should a dog, a horse, a rat have life, And thou no breath at all?