Scene II

Welcome, my lord: I marvel our mild husbandNot met us on the way.

Madam, within; but never man so changed.I told him of the army that was landed;He smiled at it: I told him you were coming:His answer was “The worse:” of Gloucester’s treachery,And of the loyal service of his son,When I inform’d him, then he call’d me sot,And told me I had turn’d the wrong side out:What most he should dislike seems pleasant to him;What like, offensive.

To Edmund. Then shall you go no further.It is the cowish terror of his spirit,That dares not undertake: he’ll not feel wrongsWhich tie him to an answer. Our wishes on the wayMay prove effects. Back, Edmund, to my brother;Hasten his musters and conduct his powers:I must change arms at home, and give the distaffInto my husband’s hands. This trusty servantShall pass between us: ere long you are like to hear,If you dare venture in your own behalf,A mistress’s command. Wear this; spare speech; Giving a favour.Decline your head: this kiss, if it durst speak,Would stretch thy spirits up into the air:Conceive, and fare thee well.

Yours in the ranks of death.

My most dear Gloucester! Exit Edmund.O, the difference of man and man!To thee a woman’s services are due:My fool usurps my body.

Madam, here comes my lord. Exit.

I have been worth the whistle.

O Goneril!You are not worth the dust which the rude windBlows in your face. I fear your disposition:That nature, which contemns its origin,Cannot be border’d certain in itself;She that herself will sliver and disbranchFrom her material sap, perforce must witherAnd come to deadly use.

No more; the text is foolish.

Wisdom and goodness to the vile seem vile:Filths savour but themselves. What have you done?Tigers, not daughters, what have you perform’d?A father, and a gracious aged man,Whose reverence even the head-lugg’d bear would lick,Most barbarous, most degenerate! have you madded.Could my good brother suffer you to do it?A man, a prince, by him so benefited!If that the heavens do not their visible spiritsSend quickly down to tame these vile offences,It will come,Humanity must perforce prey on itself,Like monsters of the deep.

Milk-liver’d man!That bear’st a cheek for blows, a head for wrongs;Who hast not in thy brows an eye discerningThine honour from thy suffering; that not know’stFools do those villains pity who are punish’dEre they have done their mischief. Where’s thy drum?France spreads his banners in our noiseless land;With plumed helm thy slayer begins threats;Whiles thou, a moral fool, sit’st still, and criest“Alack, why does he so?”

See thyself, devil!Proper deformity seems not in the fiendSo horrid as in woman.

O vain fool!

Thou changed and self-cover’d thing, for shame,Be-monster not thy feature. Were’t my fitnessTo let these hands obey my blood,They are apt enough to dislocate and tearThy flesh and bones: howe’er thou art a fiend,A woman’s shape doth shield thee.

Marry, your manhood now—

O, my good lord, the Duke of Cornwall’s dead:Slain by his servant, going to put outThe other eye of Gloucester.

A servant that he bred, thrill’d with remorse,Opposed against the act, bending his swordTo his great master; who, thereat enraged,Flew on him, and amongst them fell’d him dead;But not without that harmful stroke, which sinceHath pluck’d him after.

This shows you are above,You justicers, that these our nether crimesSo speedily can venge! But, O poor Gloucester!Lost he his other eye?

Both, both, my lord.This letter, madam, craves a speedy answer;’Tis from your sister.

Aside. One way I like this well;But being widow, and my Gloucester with her,May all the building in my fancy pluckUpon my hateful life: another way,The news is not so tart.—I’ll read, and answer. Exit.

Ay, my good lord; ’twas he inform’d against him;And quit the house on purpose, that their punishmentMight have the freer course.

Gloucester, I liveTo thank thee for the love thou show’dst the king,And to revenge thine eyes. Come hither, friend:Tell me what more thou know’st. Exeunt.