LEAR.
I would learn that; for by the marks of sovereignty, knowledge and reason, I should be false persuaded I had daughters.
FOOL.
Which they will make an obedient father.
LEAR.
Your name, fair gentlewoman?
GONERIL.
This admiration, sir, is much o’ the favour
Of other your new pranks. I do beseech you
To understand my purposes aright:
As you are old and reverend, you should be wise.
Here do you keep a hundred knights and squires;
Men so disorder’d, so debosh’d and bold
That this our court, infected with their manners,
Shows like a riotous inn. Epicurism and lust
Makes it more like a tavern or a brothel
Than a grac’d palace. The shame itself doth speak
For instant remedy. Be, then, desir’d
By her that else will take the thing she begs
A little to disquantity your train;
And the remainder that shall still depend,
To be such men as may besort your age,
Which know themselves, and you.
LEAR.
Darkness and devils!
Saddle my horses; call my train together.
Degenerate bastard! I’ll not trouble thee:
Yet have I left a daughter.
GONERIL.
You strike my people; and your disorder’d rabble
Make servants of their betters.
Enter Albany.
LEAR.
Woe that too late repents!—
[To Albany.] O, sir, are you come?
Is it your will? Speak, sir.—Prepare my horses.
Ingratitude, thou marble-hearted fiend,
More hideous when thou show’st thee in a child
Than the sea-monster!
ALBANY.
Pray, sir, be patient.
LEAR.
[to Goneril.] Detested kite, thou liest.
My train are men of choice and rarest parts,
That all particulars of duty know;
And in the most exact regard support
The worships of their name. O most small fault,
How ugly didst thou in Cordelia show!
Which, like an engine, wrench’d my frame of nature
From the fix’d place; drew from my heart all love,
And added to the gall. O Lear, Lear, Lear!
[Striking his head.] Beat at this gate that let thy folly in
And thy dear judgement out! Go, go, my people.