Page 1902 - Shakespeare - Vol. 3

GLOUCESTER

What! is he dead?

EDGAR
Sit you down, father; rest you. [250]
Let’s see these pockets; the letters that he speaks of
May be my friends. He’s dead; I am only sorry

He had no other deathsman. Let us see:
Leave, gentle wax; and, manners, blame us not:
To know our enemies’ minds, we rip their hearts; [255]
Their papers is more lawful.

(Reads.)
Let our reciprocal vows be remembered. You have many opportunities to cut
him off; if your will want not, time and place will be fruitfully offer’d. There is
nothing done if he

return the conqueror; then am I the prisoner, and his bed my [260] gaol;
from the loathed warmth whereof deliver me, and supply the place for your
labour.
Your wife, so I would say −

Affectionate servant,
GONERIL. [265]
O indistinguish’d space of woman’s will!
A plot upon her virtuous husband’s life,

And the exchange my brother! Here, in the sands,
Thee I’ll rake up, the post unsanctified
Of murtherous lechers; and in the mature time [270]
With this ungracious paper strike the sight

Of the death-practis’d Duke. For him ’tis well
That of thy death and business I can tell.

GLOUCESTER
The King is mad: how stiff is my vile sense
That I stand up, and have ingenious feeling [275]

Of my huge sorrows! Better I were distract:
So should my thoughts be sever’d from my griefs,
And woes by wrong imaginations lose
The knowledge of themselves.
(Drum afar off.)