Re-enter LEAR, with CORDELIA dead in his arms; EDGAR, Officer, and others

Lear. Howl, howl, howl, howl!-O? you are men of stone:

Had I your tongues and eyes, I'd use them so
That heaven's vault should crack.-She's gone for

ever.

I know when one is dead, and when one lives;
She's dead as earth.-Lend me a looking-glass;
If that her breath will mist or stain the stone,
Why, then she lives.

Kent.

Is this the promised end?

Edg. Or image of that horror?

Alb.

Fall, and cease!

Lear. This feather stirs ; she lives! if it be so,

It is a chance which does redeem all sorrows

Lear. A plague upon you, murderers, traitors

all!

I might have saved her; now, she's gone for

ever!

Cordelia, Cordelia! stay a little Ha!

What is 't thou say'st?—Her voice was ever soft,
Gentle, and low,- —an excellent thing in woman.-
I killed the slave that was a-hanging thee.

Off. "T is true, my lords, he did.

Lear.

Did I not, fellow?

I have seen the day, with my good biting falchion
I would have made them skip: I am old now,
And these same crosses spoil me.-Who are you?
Mine eyes are not o' the best :-I'll tell you
straight.

Kent. If fortune brag of two she loved and hated, One of them we behold.

Lear. This is a dull sight.—Are you not Kent? Kent. The same; Your servant Kent. Where is your servant Caius ? Lear. He's a good fellow, I can tell you that ; He'll strike, and quickly too. He's dead and

rotten.

Kent. No, my good lord; I am the very man,Lear. I'll see that straight.

Kent. That from your first of difference and

decay

Have followed your sad steps

Lear.

You are welcome hither.

Kent. Nor no man else.-All's cheerless, dark,

and deadly:

Your eldest daughters have fordone themselves,
And desperately are dead.

Lear.

Ay, so I think.

Alb. He knows not what he says, and vain is it,

That we present us to him.

You lords and noble friends, know our intent.
What comfort to this great decay may come,
Shall be applied for us, we will resign,
During the life of this old majesty,

To him our absolute power.-[To EDGAR and
KENT.] You, to your rights,

With boot, and such addition as your honours Have more than merited.-All friends shall taste The wages of their virtue, and all foes

The cup of their deservings.-O! see, see !

Lear. And my poor fool is hanged! No, no, no

life!

Why should a dog, a horse, a rat, have life,
And thou no breath at all? Thou 'lt come no more,

Never, never, never, never, never !

Pray you, undo this button :-thank you, sir.

Do you see this? Look on her,-look,—her lips,—
Look there, look there!-

Edg. He faints!-My lord, my lord!—
Kent. Break, heart; I pr'ythee, break!

Edg.

[Dies.

Look up, my lord.

Kent. Vex not his ghost: O, let him pass! he

hates him

That would upon the rack of this tough world

Stretch him out longer.

Edg.

He is gone, indeed.

Kent. The wonder is, he hath endured so long:

He but usurped his life.

Alb. Bear them from hence.-Our present business

Is general woe.-[To KENT and EDGAR.] Friends of my soul, you twain

Rule in this realm, and the gored state sustain.
Kent. I have a journey, sir, shortly to go:
My master calls me,-I must not say, no.

Edg. The weight of this sad time we must obey;
Speak what we feel, not what we ought to say.
The oldest hath borne most: we, that are young
Shall never see so much, nor live so long.

[Exeunt, with a dead march.

NOTES

I. i. p. 23. Scythian.-Some writers have stated that the Scythians fed upon human flesh.

I. ii. p. 38. These late eclipses.-Perhaps an allusion to recent eclipses. (Cf. the earthquake reference in Romeo and the floods in Midsummer Night's Dream.)

I. ii. p. 39. Tóm o' Bedlam.-A mad beggar, or one who feigned madness. (See Bedlam beggars, II. iii. p. 78.)

I. iv. p. 48. Coxcomb.-The professional jester's cap was ornamented with an appendage in scarlet cloth formed like a cock's comb, and even sometimes with the cock's comb itself. In Minshew's Dictionary (1617) it is said. "Natural idiots and fools have, and still do accustom themselves to weare in their cappes cockes feathers, or a hat with a cocke and heade of a cocke on the top, and a bell thereon."

I. iv. p. 52. Frontlet.-A forehead cloth, worn by ladies formerly to prevent wrinkles. Often associated as here with frowning. In Lyly's Euphues and his England (1580), we have "The next day coining to the gallery where she was solitary, walking, with her frowning cloth, as sick lately of the sullens," &c. In George Chapman's Hero and Leander there is the following:

"E'en like the forehead cloth that in the night,
Or when they sorrow, ladies used to wear."

I. iv. p. 55. The sea-monster.-Probably the hippopotamus, which was the hieroglyphical symbol of impiety and ingratitude. Sandys, in his Travels, mentions that this animal killeth his sire."

II. ii. p. 70. Worsted-stocking knave.-Stockings in England, when Shakspere wrote, were a very expensive