King Lear

TEXT: Published in Quarto in 1608 under the title M. William Shakspeare: HIS True Chronicle Historie of the life and death of King LEAR and his three Daughters. With the vnfortunate life of Edgar, sonne and heire to the Earle of Gloster, and his sullen and assumed humor of TOM of Bedlam: As it was played before the Kings Maiestie at Whitehall vpon S. Stephans night in Christmas Hollidayes. By his Maiesties seruants playing vsually at the Gloabe on the Bancke-side. This text was very poorly printed, partly because its printer (Nicholas Okes) was unaccustomed to setting plays and also because it seems to derive from Shakespeare’s own working manuscript, which would have been difficult to read. Quarto includes about 300 lines that are not in the 1623 Folio text, which was entitled “The Tragedy of King Lear,” and has clear signs of derivation from the theatrical playbook (though, to complicate matters, the Folio printing was also influenced by a reprint of the Quarto that appeared in 1619 as one of the ten plays published by Thomas Pavier in an attempt to produce a collected Shakespeare). The Folio in turn has about 100 lines that are not in the Quarto, and nearly 1,000 lines have variations of word or phrase. The two early texts thus represent two different stages in the life of the play, with extensive revision having been carried out, either systematically or incrementally. Revisions include diminution of the prominence given to the invading French army (perhaps for political reasons), clarification of Lear’s motives for dividing his kingdom, and weakening of the role of Albany (including reassignment from him to Edgar of the play’s closing speech, and thus by implication—since it was a convention of Shakespearean tragedy that the new man in power always has the last word—of the right to rule Britain). Among the more striking cuts are the mock trial of Goneril in the hovel and the moment of compassion when loyal servants apply a palliative to Gloucester’s bleeding eyes. For centuries, editors have conflated the Quarto and Folio texts, creating a play that Shakespeare never wrote. We endorse the body of scholarship since the 1980s and the new editorial tradition in which Folio and Quarto are regarded as discrete entities. We have edited the more theatrical Folio text but have corrected its errors (which are plentiful, since much of it was set in type by “Compositor E,” the apprentice who was by far the worst printer in Isaac Jaggard’s shop). The influence of Quarto copy on the Folio is of great assistance in making these corrections. Textual notes are perforce more numerous than for any other work by Shakespeare; several hundred Quarto variants are listed. All the most significant Quarto-only passages are printed at the end of the play.

THE TRAGEDY

OF KING LEAR

LIST OF PARTS

LEAR, King of Britain

GONERIL, Lear’s eldest daughter

REGAN, Lear’s middle daughter

CORDELIA, Lear’s youngest daughter

Duke of ALBANY, Goneril’s husband

Duke of CORNWALL, Regan’s husband

King of FRANCE, suitor and later husband to Cordelia

Duke of BURGUNDY, suitor to Cordelia

Earl of KENT, later disguised as Caius

Earl of GLOUCESTER

EDGAR, Gloucester’s son, later disguised as Poor Tom

EDMUND, Gloucester’s illegitimate son

OLD MAN, Gloucester’s tenant

CURAN, Gloucester’s retainer

Lear’s FOOL

OSWALD, Goneril’s steward

GENTLEMAN, a Knight serving Lear

GENTLEMAN, attendant on Cordelia

SERVANT of Cornwall

HERALD

CAPTAIN

Knights attendant upon Lear, other Attendants, Messengers, Soldiers, Servants, and Trumpeters

 

Act 1 Scene 1

running scene 1

Enter Kent, Gloucester and Edmund

KENT    I thought the king had more affected¹ 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 neither⁵

can make choice of either’s moiety.

KENT    Is not this your son, my lord?

GLOUCESTER    His breeding⁸, sir, hath been at my charge. I have so

often blushed to acknowledge him that now I am brazed⁹ to’t.

KENT    I cannot conceive¹⁰ you.

GLOUCESTER    Sir, this young fellow’s mother could; whereupon

she grew round-wombed and had indeed, sir, a son for her

cradle ere¹³ she had a husband for her bed. Do you smell a

fault¹⁴?

KENT    I cannot wish the fault undone¹⁵, the issue of it being

so proper¹⁶.

GLOUCESTER    But I have a son, sir, by order of law, some¹⁷ year elder

than this, who yet is no dearer in my account¹⁸, though this