William Shakespeare: The Tragedy of King Lear

ACT IV. 2. Scene II. Before the Duke of Albany's Palace. (continued)

Gon.
No more; the text is foolish.

Alb.
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 benefited!
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.

Gon.
Milk-liver'd man!
That bear'st a cheek for blows, a head for wrongs;
Who hast not in thy brows an eye discerning
Thine honour from thy suffering; that not know'st
Fools do those villains pity who are punish'd
Ere they have done their mischief. Where's thy drum?
France spreads his banners in our noiseless land;
With plumed helm thy slayer begins threats;
Whiles thou, a moral fool, sitt'st still, and criest
'Alack, why does he so?'

Alb.
See thyself, devil!
Proper deformity seems not in the fiend
So horrid as in woman.

Gon.
O vain fool!

Alb.
Thou changed and self-cover'd thing, for shame!
Be-monster not thy feature! Were't my fitness
To let these hands obey my blood.
They are apt enough to dislocate and tear
Thy flesh and bones:--howe'er thou art a fiend,
A woman's shape doth shield thee.

Gon.
Marry, your manhood now!

[Enter a Messenger.]

Alb.
What news?

Mess.
O, my good lord, the Duke of Cornwall's dead;
Slain by his servant, going to put out
The other eye of Gloster.

Alb.
Gloster's eyes!

Mess.
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
Hath pluck'd him after.