The Tragedy of King Lear - Closing

KENT I have a journey sir, shortly to go:
My master calls me; I must not say no.
EDGAR 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

The Tragedy of King Lear - V:4.6.75

LEAR I am a very foolish, fond old man.
Fourscore and upward,
Not an hour more nor less; and to deal plainly,
I fear I am not in my perfect mind.
Methinks I should know you and know this man;
Yet I am doubtful: for I am mainly ignorant
What place this is, and all the skill I have
Remembers not these garments, nor I know not
For, as I am a man, I think this lady
To be my child Cordelia.

The Tragedy of King Lear - V:3.4.97

LEAR What hast thou been?
EDGAR A servingman, proud in heart and mind, that curled my hair, wore gloves in my cap, served the lust of my mistress' heart, and did the act of darkness with her. Swore as many oaths as I spake words, and broke them in the sweet face of heaven. One that slept in the contriving of lust and waked to do it. Wine loved I dearly, dice dearly, and in woman outparamoured the Turk. False of heart, light of ear, bloody of hand; hog in sloth, fox in stealth, wold in greediness, dog in madness, lion in prey. Let now the creaking of shoes nor the rustling of silks betray thy poor heart to woman. Keep thy foot out of brothels, thy hand out of plackets, thy pen from lender's books, and defy the foul fiend. Still through the hawthorn blows the cold wind, says suum, mun, nonny. Dauphin, my boy, boy, cessez! let him trot by.

The Tragedy of King Lear - V:3.4.39

LEAR Prithee, go in thyself, seek thine own ease.
This tempest will not give me leave to ponder
On things would hurt me more; but I'll go in.
In, boy, go first. You houseless poverty --
Nay, get thee in; I'll pray, and then I'll sleep.
Exit[Fool}

Poor naked wretches, wheresoe'er you are
That bide the pelting of this pitiless storm,
How shall your houseless heads and unfed sides,
Your looped and windowed raggedness defend you
From seasons such as these? O I have ta'en
Too little care of this. Take physic, pomp,
Expose thyself to feel what wretches feel,
That thou mayst shake the superflux to them
And show the heavens more just.

The Tragedy Of King Lear - V:3.4.25

LEAR Prithee, go in myself, seek thine own ease.

This tempest will not give me leave to ponder

On things would hurt me more; but I'll go in.

In, boy, go first. You houseless poverty --

Nay, get thee in; I'll pray, and then I'll sleep.

Exit[Fool]

Poor naked wretches, wheresoe'er you are

That bide the pelting of this pitiless storm,

How shall your houseless heads and unfed sides,

Your looped and windowed raggedness defend you

From seasons such as these? O I have ta'en

Too little care of this. Take physic, pomp

Expose thyself to feel what wretches feel,

That thou mayst shake the superflux to them

And show the heavens more just.

The Tragedy Of King Lear - V:2.2.37

KENT A knave, a rascal, an eater of broken meats, a base, proud, shallow, beggarly, three-suited, hundred-pound, filthy worsted-stocking knave; a lily-livered, action-taking, whoreson glass-gazing, superserviceavble, finical rogue; one-trunk-inheriting slave; one that wouldst be a bawd in way of good service, and art nothing but the composition of a knave, beggar, coward, pander, and the son and heir of a mongrel bitch, one whom I will beat into clamorous whining if thou deniest the least syllable of thy addition.

The Tragedy Of King Lear - V:1.5.26

FOOL If a man's brain were in's heels, were't not in danger of kibes?

The Tragedy Of King Lear - V:1.4.255

LEAR It may be so, my lord.

Hear, Nature, hear, dear goddess, hear:

Suspend thy purpose, if thou didst intend

To make this creature fruitful.

Into her womb convey sterility,

Dry up in her the organs of increase,

And from her derogate body never spring

A babe to honour her. If she must teem,

Create her child of spleen, that it may live

And be a thwart disnatured torment to her.

Let it stamp wrinkles in her brow of youth,

With cadent tears fret channels in her cheeks,

Turn all her mother's pains and benefits

To laughter and contempt, that she may feel

How sharper than a serpent's tooth it is

To have a thankless child. Away, away!

The Tragedy Of King Lear - V:1.4.183

LEAR Does anyone know me? This is not Lear:

Does Lear walk thus? speak thus? Where are his eyes?

Either his notion weakens, his discernings

Are lethargized -- Ha! Waking? 'Tis not so!

Who is it that can tell me who I am?

The Tragedy Of King Lear - V:1.4.143

FOOL I marvel what kin thou and thy daughters are: they'll have me whipped for speaking true, thou'lt have me whipped for lying, and sometimes I am whipped for holding my peace. I had rather be any kind o'thing than a fool, and yet I would not be thee, nuncle; thou hast pared thy wit o'both sides and left nothing i'th'middle. Here comes one o'the parings.

The Tragedy Of King Lear - Opening

I.I Enter KENT, GLOUCESTER, and EDMOND

KENT I thought the king had more affected the Duke of Albany than Cornwall.

GLOUCESTER It did always seem so to us: but now in the division of the kingdom, it appears not which of the dukes he values most, for qualities are so weighed that curiosity in neither can make choice of either's moiety.

Cambridge University Press 1992, 2005

This book is in copyright. Subject to statutory exception

and to the provisions of relevant collective licensing agreements,

no reproduction of any part may take place without

the written permission of Cambridge University Press.

First published 1992

Twelfth printing 2004

Updated edition 2005

Printed in the United Kingdom at the University Press, Cambridge

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

IN MEMORIAN

PHILIP BROCKBANK, 1922-1989

Edited by

JAY L. HALIO

Emeritus Professor of English, University of Delaware

Hamlet, Prince Of Denmark - Closing

FORTINBRAS Let four captains
Bear Hamlet like a soldier to the stage,
For he was likely, had he been put on,
To have proved most royal; and for his passage,
The soldier's music and the rite of war
Speak loudly for him.
Take up the bodies. Such a sight as this
Becomes the field, but here shows much amiss.
Go bid the soldiers shoot.
Exeunt marching, after the which a peal of ordnance are shot off

Hamlet, Prince Of Denmark - V:5.2.11

HAMLET Sir, in my heart there was a kind of fighting

That would not let me sleep. Methought I lay

Worse than the mutines in the bilboes. Rashly,

And praised be rashness for it – let us know,

Our indiscretion sometime serves us well

When our deep plots do pall, and that should learn us

There's a divinity that shapes our ends,

Rough-her them how we will --

Hamlet, Prince Of Denmark - V:5.1.160

HAMLET Let me see. [Takes the skull.] Alas poor Yorick! I knew him Horatio, a fellow of infinite jest, of most excellent fancy, he hath borne me on his back a thousand times – and now how abhorred in my imagination it is! My gorge rises at it. Here hung those lips that I have kissed I know not how oft. Where be your gibes now? Your gambols, your songs, your flashes of merriment that were wont to set the table on a roar? Now one now, to mock your own grinning? Quite chop-fallen? Now get you to my lady's chamber, and tell her, let her paint an inch thick, to this favour she must come. Make her laugh at that. – Prithee Horatio, tell me one thing.

The Tragedy Of King Lear - Opening

I.I Enter KENT, GLOUCESTER, and EDMOND

KENT I thought the king had more affected the Duke of Albany than Cornwall

GLOUCESTER It did always seem so to us: but now in the division of the kingdom, it appears not which of the dukes he values most, for qualities are so weighed that curiosity in neither can make choice of either's moiety

KENT Is not this your son, my lord?

GLOUCESTER His breeding, sir, hath been at my charge. I have so often blushed to acknowledge him, that now I am brazed to't.

KENT I cannot conceive you.

IN MEMORIAM

PHILIP BROCKBANK, 1922--1989

CAMBRIDGE UNIVERSITY PRESS

The Edinburgh Building, Cambridge

Published in the United States of America by Cambridge University Press, New York

Printed in the United Kingdom at the University Press, Cambridge

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

Hamlet, Prince Of Denmark - V:4.5.130

CLAUDIUS Let him demand his fill.

LAERTES How came he dead? I'll not be juggled with.

To hell allegiance, vows to the blackest devil,

Conscience and grace to the profoundest pit!

I dare damnation. To this point I stand,

That both the worlds I give to negligence,

Let come what comes, only I'll be revenged

Most thoroughly for my father.

Hamlet, Prince Of Denmark - V:3.3.10

ROSENCRATZ The single and peculiar life is bound

With all the strength and armous of the mind

To keep itself from noyance; but much more

That spirit upon whose weal depends and rests

The lives of many. The cess of majesty

Dies not alone, but like a gulf doth draw

What's near it with it. It is a massy wheel

Fixed on the summit of the highest mount,

To whose huge spokes ten thousand lesser things

Are mortised and adjoined, which when it falls,

Each small annexment, petty consequence,

Attends the boisterous ruin. Never alone

Did the king sigh, but with a general groan.

Hamlet, Prince Of Denmark - V:3.2.350

HAMLET By and by easily said. -- Leave me, friends.

Exeunt all but Hamlet

'Tis now the very witching time of night,

When churchyard yawn, and hell itself breathes out

Contagion to this world. Now could I drink hot blood,

And do such bitter business as the day

Would quake to look on. Soft, now to my mother.

O heart, lost not thy nature; let not ever

The soul of Nero enter this firm bosom.

Let me be cruel, not unnatural:

I will speak daggers to her but use none.

My soul in this be hypocrites,

How in my words somever she be shent,

To give them seals never my soul consent.

Hamlet, Prince Of Denmark - V:3.1.60

HAMLET To be, or not to be, that is the question --

Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer

The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune,

And by opposing end them. To die, to sleep --

No more; and by a sleep to say we end

The heart-ache and the thousand natural shocks

That flesh is heir to -- 'tis a consummation

Devoutly to be wished. To die, to sleep --

To sleep, perchance to dream. Ay, there's the rub,

For in that sleep of death what dreams may come,

When we have shuffled off this mortal coil,

Must give us pause. There's the respect

That makes calamit of so long life,

For who would bear the whips and scorns of time,

Th'oppressor's wrong, the proud man's contumely,

The pangs of disprized love, the law's delay,

The insolence of office, and the spurns

That patient merit of th'unworth takes,

When he himself might his queitus make

With a bare bodkin? Who would fardels bear,

To grunt and sweat under a weary life,

But that the dread of something after death,

The undiscovered country from whose bourn

No traveller returns, puzzles the will,

And makes us rather bear those ills we have

Than fly to others that we know not of??

Thus conscience makes cowards of us all,

And thus the native hue of resolution

Is sicklied o'er with the pale cast of thought,

And enterprises of great pitch and moment

With this regards their currents turn awry

Hamlet, Prince Of Denmark - V:2.2.280

HAMLET I will tell you why. So shall my anticipation prevent your discovery, and your secrecy to the king and queen moult no feather. I have of late, but wherefore I know not, lost all my mirth, forgone all customs of exercises; and indeed it goes so heavily with my disposition that this goodly frame,the earth, seems to me a sterile promontory; this most excellent canopy the air, look you, this brave o'erhanging firmament, this majestical roof fretted with golden fire --why, it appeareth no other thing to me but a foul and pestilent congregation of vapours. What a piece of work is a man! How noble in reason, how infinite in faculties, in form and moving how express and admirable, in action how like an angel, in apprehension how like a god! The beauty of the world, the paragon of animals -- and yet to me, what is this quintessence of dust? Man delights not me -- no, nor woman neither, though by your smiling you seem to say so.