The untuned and jarring senses, O, wind up, Phys. So please your majesty, That we may wake the king? he hath slept long. Cor. Be governed by your knowledge, and proceed I' the sway of your own will. Is he arrayed? Gent. Ay, madam; in the heaviness of his sleep, We put fresh garments on him. Phys. Be by, good madam, when we do awake him; I doubt not of his temperance. Cor. Very well. Phys. Please you, draw near.-Louder the music there.2 Cor. O my dear father! Restoration, hang Thy medicine on my lips; and let this kiss Have in thy reverence made! Kent. Kind and dear princess! Cor. Had you not been their father, these white flakes. Had challenged pity of them. Was this a face Of quick, cross lightning? to watch (poor perdu!) 1 That is, changed by his children; a father whose jarring senses have been untuned by the ingratitude of his daughters. 2 This and the foregoing speech are not in the folio. It has been already observed, that Shakspeare considered soft music as favorable to sleep. Lear, we may suppose, had been thus composed to rest; and now the physician desires louder music to be played, for the purpose of waking him. 3 The lines in crotchets are not in the folio. The allusion is to the forlorn hope of an army, called in French enfans perdus; amongst other desperate adventures in which they were engaged, the night-watches seem to have been a common one. 'Tis wonder, that thy life and wits at once Had not concluded all.'-He wakes; speak to him. Phys. Madam, do you; 'tis fittest. Cor. How does my royal lord? How fares your majesty? Lear. You do me wrong, to take me out o' the grave. Thou art a soul in bliss; but I am bound Cor. Sir, do you know me? Lear. You are a spirit, I know; when did you die? Cor. Still, still, far wide! Phys. He's scarce awake; let him alone awhile. Lear. Where have I been? Where am I?-Fair daylight? I am mightily abused.2-I should even die with pity, Of my condition. Cor. And hold your hands in benediction o'er me. Lear. O, look upon me, sir, Pray, do not mock me. I am a very foolish, fond old man, Fourscore and upward; and, to deal plainly, I fear I am not in my perfect mind. Methinks I should know you, and know this man: What place this is; and all the skill I have 2 I am strangely imposed upon by appearances; I am in a strange mist of uncertainty. 3 The folio here adds the words "not an hour more or less;" which have been regarded as the interpolation of some player. Cor. If And so I am, I am. Lear. Be your tears wet? Yes, 'faith. I pray, weep not; you have poison for me, I will drink it. I know you do not love me; for your sisters You have some cause; they have not. Cor. Lear. Am I in France? Lear. Do not abuse me. No cause, no cause. Phys. Be comforted, good madam. The great rage, You see, is killed in him; [and yet it is danger To make him even o'er the time he has lost.] Till further settling. Cor. Will't please your highness walk? You must bear with me; 'Pray you now, forget and forgive; I am old and foolish. [Exeunt LEAR, CORDELIA, Physician, and Attendants. [Gent. Holds it true, sir, That the duke of Cornwall was so slain? They say, Edgar, His banished son, is with the earl of Kent In Germany. Kent. Report is changeable. "Tis time to look about; the powers o' the kingdom Approach apace. Gent. The arbitrement is like to be a bloody. Fare you well, sir. 1 "To make him even o'er the time he has lost," [Exit. is to make the occurrences of it plain or level to his troubled mind. See Baret's Alvearie, 1573, E. 307. |