CORDELIA.
Unhappy that I am, I cannot heave
My heart into my mouth: I love your majesty
According to my bond; no more nor less.
LEAR.
How, how, Cordelia? Mend your speech a little,
Lest you may mar your fortunes.
CORDELIA.
Good my lord,
You have begot me, bred me, lov’d me: I
Return those duties back as are right fit,
Obey you, love you, and most honour you.
Why have my sisters husbands if they say
They love you all? Haply, when I shall wed,
That lord whose hand must take my plight shall carry
Half my love with him, half my care and duty:
Sure I shall never marry like my sisters,
To love my father all.
LEAR.
But goes thy heart with this?
CORDELIA.
Ay, my good lord.
LEAR.
So young, and so untender?
CORDELIA.
So young, my lord, and true.
LEAR.
Let it be so, thy truth then be thy dower:
For, by the sacred radiance of the sun,
The mysteries of Hecate and the night;
By all the operation of the orbs,
From whom we do exist and cease to be;
Here I disclaim all my paternal care,
Propinquity and property of blood,
And as a stranger to my heart and me
Hold thee from this for ever. The barbarous Scythian,
Or he that makes his generation messes
To gorge his appetite, shall to my bosom
Be as well neighbour’d, pitied, and reliev’d,
As thou my sometime daughter.
KENT.
Good my liege,—
LEAR.
Peace, Kent!
Come not between the dragon and his wrath.
I lov’d her most, and thought to set my rest
On her kind nursery. [To Cordelia.] Hence and avoid my sight!
So be my grave my peace, as here I give
Her father’s heart from her! Call France. Who stirs?
Call Burgundy! Cornwall and Albany,
With my two daughters’ dowers digest this third:
Let pride, which she calls plainness, marry her.
I do invest you jointly with my power,
Pre-eminence, and all the large effects
That troop with majesty. Ourself, by monthly course,
With reservation of an hundred knights,
By you to be sustain’d, shall our abode
Make with you by due turn. Only we shall retain
The name, and all the addition to a king; the sway,
Revenue, execution of the rest,
Beloved sons, be yours; which to confirm,
This coronet part between you.