LEAR.
I’ll tell thee. [To Goneril.] Life and death! I am asham’d
That thou hast power to shake my manhood thus;
That these hot tears, which break from me perforce,
Should make thee worth them. Blasts and fogs upon thee!
Th’untented woundings of a father’s curse
Pierce every sense about thee! Old fond eyes,
Beweep this cause again, I’ll pluck ye out,
And cast you with the waters that you lose
To temper clay. Ha! Let it be so.
I have another daughter,
Who, I am sure, is kind and comfortable:
When she shall hear this of thee, with her nails
She’ll flay thy wolvish visage. Thou shalt find
That I’ll resume the shape which thou dost think
I have cast off for ever.
[Exeunt Lear, Kent and Attendants.]
GONERIL.
Do you mark that?
ALBANY.
I cannot be so partial, Goneril,
To the great love I bear you,—
GONERIL.
Pray you, content. What, Oswald, ho!
[To the Fool.] You, sir, more knave than fool, after your master.
FOOL.
Nuncle Lear, nuncle Lear, tarry and take the fool with thee.
A fox when one has caught her,
And such a daughter,
Should sure to the slaughter,
If my cap would buy a halter;
So the fool follows after.
[Exit.]
GONERIL.
This man hath had good counsel.—A hundred knights!
’Tis politic and safe to let him keep
At point a hundred knights: yes, that on every dream,
Each buzz, each fancy, each complaint, dislike,
He may enguard his dotage with their powers,
And hold our lives in mercy. Oswald, I say!
ALBANY.
Well, you may fear too far.
GONERIL.
Safer than trust too far:
Let me still take away the harms I fear,
Not fear still to be taken: I know his heart.
What he hath utter’d I have writ my sister:
If she sustain him and his hundred knights,
When I have show’d th’unfitness,—