GONERIL
Welcome, my lord. I marvel our mild husband
Not met us on the way. Now, where’s your master?
OSWALD
Madam, within; but never man so chang’d.
I told him of the army that was landed;
He smil’d at it: I told him you were coming;
His answer was, ‘The worse.’ Of Gloucester’s treachery
And of the loyal service of his son
When I inform’d him, then he call’d me sot,
And told me I had turn’d the wrong side out.
What most he should dislike seems pleasant to him;
What like, offensive.
GONERIL
Then shall you go no further.
It is the cowish terror of his spirit,
That dares not undertake. He’ll not feel wrongs
Which tie him to an answer. Our wishes on the way
May prove effects. Back, Edmund, to my brother;
Hasten his musters and conduct his powers.
I must change names at home, and give the distaff
Into my husband’s hands. This trusty servant
Shall pass between us. long you are like to hear,
If you dare venture in your own behalf,
A mistress’s command.
Wear this; spare speech;
Decline your head. This kiss, if it durst speak,
Would stretch spirits up into the air.
Conceive, and fare well.
EDMUND
Yours in the ranks of death.
GONERIL
My most dear Gloucester.
O, the difference of man and man!
To a woman’s services are due;
My fool usurps my body.
OSWALD
Madam, here comes my lord.
GONERIL
I have been worth the whistle.
ALBANY
O Goneril!
You are not worth the dust which the rude wind
Blows in your face! I fear your disposition;
That nature which contemns its origin
Cannot be bordered certain in itself.
She that herself will sliver and disbranch
From her material sap, perforce must wither
And come to deadly use.
GONERIL
No more; the text is foolish.
ALBANY
Wisdom and goodness to the vile seem vile;
Filths savour but themselves. What have you done?
Tigers, not daughters, what have you perform’d?
A father, and a gracious aged man,
Whose reverence even the head-lugg’d bear would lick,
Most barbarous, most degenerate, have you madded.
Could my good brother suffer you to do it?
A man, a prince, by him so benefitted!
If that the heavens do not their visible spirits
Send quickly down to tame these vile offences,
It will come,
Humanity must perforce prey on itself,
Like monsters of the deep.
GONERIL
Milk-liver’d man!
That bear’st a cheek for blows, a head for wrongs;
Who not in brows an eye discerning
honour from suffering; that not know’st
Fools do those villains pity who are punish’d
they have done their mischief. Where’s drum?
France spreads his banners in our noiseless land;
With plumed helm state begins to threat,
Whilst , a moral fool, sitt’st still, and criest
‘, why does he so?’
ALBANY
See thyself, devil!
Proper deformity seems not in the fiend
So horrid as in woman.
GONERIL
O vain fool!
ALBANY
changed and self-cover’d thing, for shame!
Be-monster not feature! Were’t my fitness
To let these hands obey my blood,
They are apt enough to dislocate and tear
flesh and bones. Howe’er art a fiend,
A woman’s shape shield .
GONERIL
Marry, your manhood, mew!
ALBANY
What news?
MESSENGER
O, my good lord, the Duke of Cornwall’s dead;
Slain by his servant, going to put out
The other eye of Gloucester.
ALBANY
Gloucester’s eyes!
MESSENGER
A servant that he bred, thrill’d with remorse,
Oppos’d against the act, bending his sword
To his great master; who, thereat enrag’d,
Flew on him, and amongst them fell’d him dead;
But not without that harmful stroke which since
pluck’d him after.
ALBANY
This shows you are above,
You justicers, that these our nether crimes
So speedily can venge! But, O poor Gloucester!
Lost he his other eye?
MESSENGER
Both, both, my lord.
This letter, madam, craves a speedy answer;
from your sister.
GONERIL
One way I like this well;
But being widow, and my Gloucester with her,
May all the building in my fancy pluck
Upon my hateful life. Another way
The news is not so tart. I’ll read, and answer.
ALBANY
Where was his son when they did take his eyes?
MESSENGER
Come with my lady .
ALBANY
He is not here.
MESSENGER
No, my good lord; I met him back again.
ALBANY
Knows he the wickedness?
MESSENGER
Ay, my good lord. he inform’d against him;
And quit the house on purpose, that their punishment
Might have the freer course.
ALBANY
Gloucester, I live
To thank for the love show’dst the King,
And to revenge eyes. Come , friend,
Tell me what more know’st.