Page 1841 - Shakespeare - Vol. 3
P. 1841

LEAR

               I prithee, daughter, do not make me mad:
               I will not trouble thee, my child; farewell.
               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, [220]
               Which I must needs call mine: thou art a boil,
               A plague-sore, or embossed carbuncle,
               In my corrupted blood. But I’ll not chide thee;

               Let shame come when it will, I do not call it;
               I do not bid the thunder-bearer shoot, [225]
               Nor tell tales of thee to high-judging Jove.

               Mend when thou canst; be better at thy leisure;
               I can be patient; I can stay with Regan,
               I and my hundred knights.



              REGAN
                               Not altogether so;
               I look’d not for you yet, nor am provided [230]

               For your fit welcome. Give ear, Sir, to my sister;
               For those that mingle reason with your passion
               Must be content to think you old, and so −
               But she knows what she does.



              LEAR

                               Is this well spoken?


              REGAN

               I dare avouch it, sir: what! fifty followers? [235]
               Is it not well? What should you need of more?
               Yea, or so many, sith that both charge and danger
               Speak ’gainst so great a number? How, in one house,

               Should many people, under two commands,
               Hold amity? ’Tis hard; almost impossible. [240]



              GONERIL
               Why might not you, my Lord, receive attendance
               From those that she calls servants, or from mine?
   1836   1837   1838   1839   1840   1841   1842   1843   1844   1845   1846