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?