[Stage] Enter in conquest with drum and colors Edmund, with Lear and Cordelia as prisoners, and First Captain with soldiers
Edmund(爱德蒙)
Some officers take them away. Good guard
Until their greater pleasures first be known
That are to censure them.
Cordelia(科迪莉亚)
[to Lear
]
We are not the first
Who with best meaning have incurred the worst.
For thee, oppressèd King, I am cast down.
Myself could else outfrown false fortune’s frown.
Shall we not see these daughters and these sisters?
Lear(李尔)
No, no, no, no! Come, let’s away to prison.
We two alone will sing like birds i’ th’ cage.
When thou dost ask me blessing, I’ll kneel down
And ask of thee forgiveness.
So we’ll live,
And pray, and sing, and tell old tales, and laugh
At gilded butterflies, and hear poor rogues
Talk of court news, and we’ll talk with them too—
Who loses and who wins, who’s in, who’s out—
And take upon ’s the mystery of things
As if we were God’s spies.
And we’ll wear out
In a walled prison packs and sects of great ones
That ebb and flow by the moon.
Edmund(爱德蒙)
Take them away.
Lear(李尔)
Upon such sacrifices, my Cordelia,
The gods themselves throw incense. Have I caught thee?
He that parts us shall bring a brand from heaven
And fire us hence like foxes.
Wipe thine eyes.
The good years shall devour them, flesh and fell,
Ere they shall make us weep. We’ll see ‘em starve
first.
Come.
[Stage] Exeunt Lear and Cordelia, led by soldiers
Edmund(爱德蒙)
Come hither, captain. Hark.
[gives First Captain a document]
Take thou this note.
Go follow them to prison.
One step I have advanced thee. If thou dost
As this instructs thee, thou dost make thy way
To noble fortunes.
Know thou this: that men
Are as the time is. To be tender-minded
Does not become a sword.
Thy great employment
Will not bear question. Either say thou’lt do ’t,
Or thrive by other means.
First Captain(第一队长)
I’ll do ’t, my lord.
Edmund(爱德蒙)
About it, and write “happy” when thou’st done.
Mark, I say, instantly, and carry it so
As I have set it down.
First Captain(第一队长)
I cannot draw a cart, nor eat dried oats.
If it be man’s work, I’ll do ’t.
[Stage] Exit First Captain
[Stage] Flourish. Enter the Duke of Albany, the two ladies Goneril and Regan, a Second Captain, and soldiers
Albany(奥尔巴尼)
[to Edmund]
Sir, you have shown today your valiant
strain,
And fortune led you well. You have the captives
That were the opposites of this day’s strife.
I do require them of you, so to use them
As we shall find their merits and our safety
May equally determine.
Edmund(爱德蒙)
Sir, I thought it fit
To send the old and miserable king
To some retention and appointed guard—
Whose age has charms in it, whose title more—
To pluck the common bosom on his side,
An turn our impressed lances in our eyes
Which do command them.
With him I sent the queen,
My reason all the same, and they are ready
Tomorrow or at further space t’ appear
Where you shall hold your session.
At this time
We sweat and bleed. The friend hath lost his friend,
And the best quarrels, in the heat, are cursed
By those that feel their sharpness.
The question of Cordelia and her father
Requires a fitter place.
Albany(奥尔巴尼)
Sir, by your patience,
I hold you but a subject of this war,
Not as a brother.
Regan(里根)
That’s as we list to grace him.
Methinks our pleasure might have been demanded
Ere you had spoke so far.
He led our powers,
Bore the commission of my place and person—
The which immediacy may well stand up
And call itself your brother.
Goneril(贡纳莉)
Not so hot.
In his own grace he doth exalt himself
More than in your addition.
Regan(里根)
In my rights,
By me invested, he compeers the best.
Albany(奥尔巴尼)
That were the most if he should
husband you.
Regan(里根)
Jesters do oft prove prophets.
Goneril(贡纳莉)
Holla, holla!
That eye that told you so looked but asquint.
Regan(里根)
Lady, I am not well, else I should answer
From a full-flowing stomach.
[to Edmund
]
General,
Take thou my soldiers, prisoners, patrimony.
Dispose of them, of me. The walls is thine.
Witness the world that I create thee here
My lord and master.
Goneril(贡纳莉)
Mean you to enjoy him then?
Albany(奥尔巴尼)
The let-alone lies not in your good will.
Edmund(爱德蒙)
Nor in thine, lord.
Albany(奥尔巴尼)
Half-blooded fellow, yes.
Regan(里根)
[to Edmund] Let the drum strike and prove my title
thine.
Albany(奥尔巴尼)
Stay yet. Hear reason.—Edmund, I arrest thee
On capital treason, and in thine attaint
This gilded serpent.
[indicates Goneril
]
[to Regan
]
For your claim, fair sister,
I bar it in the interest of my wife.
‘Tis she is subcontracted to this lord.
And I, her husband, contradict your banns.
If you will marry, make your loves to me,
My lady is bespoke.
Goneril(贡纳莉)
An interlude!
Albany(奥尔巴尼)
Thou art armed, Gloucester. Let the trumpet sound.
If none appear to prove upon thy person
Thy heinous, manifest, and many treasons,
There is my pledge.
[throws down his glove]
I’ll make it on thy heart,
Ere I taste bread, thou art in nothing less
Than I have here proclaimed thee.
Regan(里根)
Sick, oh, sick!
Goneril(贡纳莉)
[aside] If not, I’ll ne’er trust medicine.
Edmund(爱德蒙)
[throwing down his glove]
There’s my exchange. What in the world he is
That names me traitor, villainlike he lies.
Call by thy trumpet.
He that dares approach,
On him—on you, who not?—I will maintain
My truth and honor firmly.
Albany(奥尔巴尼)
A herald, ho!
Edmund(爱德蒙)
A herald, ho, a herald!
[Stage] Enter a Herald
Albany(奥尔巴尼)
[to Edmund] Trust to thy single virtue, for thy
soldiers,
All levied in my name, have in my name
Took their discharge.
Regan(里根)
My sickness grows upon me.
Albany(奥尔巴尼)
She is not well. Convey her to my tent.
[Stage] Exit Regan, led
Come hither, herald.—Let the trumpet sound,—
And read out this. [gives the Herald a document]
Second Captain(二等船长)
Sound, trumpet!
[Stage] A trumpet sounds
Herald(传令官)
[reads]
“If any man of quality or degree within the lists of
the army will maintain upon Edmund, supposed Earl of
Gloucester,
that he is a manifold traitor, let him
appear by the third sound of the trumpet. He is bold in
his defense.”
[Stage] First trumpet
Herald(传令官)
Again!
[Stage] Second trumpet
Herald(传令官)
Again!
[Stage] Third trumpet Trumpet answers within Enter Edgar, at the third sound, armed, a trumpet before him
Albany(奥尔巴尼)
[to Herald] Ask him his purposes, why he appears
Upon this call o’ th’ trumpet.
Herald(传令官)
What are you?
Your name, your quality, and why you answer
This present summons?
Edgar(爱德加)
O, know, my name is lost.
By treason’s tooth bare-gnawn and canker-bit.
Yet am I noble as the adversary
I come to cope withal.
Albany(奥尔巴尼)
Which is that adversary?
Edgar(爱德加)
What’s he that speaks for Edmund, Earl of Gloucester?
Edmund(爱德蒙)
Himself. What sayst thou to him?
Edgar(爱德加)
Draw thy sword,
That if my speech offend a noble heart
Thy arm may do thee justice.
[draws his sword]
Here is
mine.
Behold: it is the privilege of mine honors,
My oath, and my profession. I protest—
Maugre thy strength, youth, place, and eminence,
Despite thy victor sword and fire-new fortune,
Thy valor and thy heart—thou art a traitor,
False to thy gods, thy brother, and thy father,
Conspirant ‘gainst this high illustrious prince,
And from th’ extremest upward of thy head
To the descent and dust below thy foot
A most toad-spotted traitor.
Say thou “No,”
This sword, this arm, and my best spirits are bent
To prove upon thy heart, whereto I speak,
Thou liest.
Edmund(爱德蒙)
In wisdom I should ask thy name.
But since thy outside looks so fair and warlike,
And that thy tongue some say of breeding breathes,
What safe and nicely I might well delay
By rule of knighthood, I disdain and spurn.
Back do I toss these treasons to thy head,
With the hell-hated lie o’erwhelm thy heart—
Which, for they yet glance by and scarcely bruise,
This sword of mine shall give them instant way,
Where they shall rest for ever.—Trumpets, speak!
[Stage] Alarums Edmund and Edgar fight Edmund falls
Albany(奥尔巴尼)
Save him, save him!
Goneril(贡纳莉)
This is practice, Gloucester.
By th’ law of arms thou wast not bound to answer
An unknown opposite.
Thou art not vanquished,
But cozened and beguiled.
Albany(奥尔巴尼)
Shut your mouth, dame,
Or with this paper shall I stop it.—Hold, sir,
[gives the letter to Edmund
]
Thou worse than any name, read thine own evil.—
[to Goneril]
Nay, no tearing, lady. I perceive you know
it.
Goneril(贡纳莉)
Say, if I do? The laws are mine, not thine.
Who can arraign me for ’t?
Albany(奥尔巴尼)
Most monstrous, oh!
[to Edmund] Know’st thou this paper?
Edmund(爱德蒙)
Ask me not what I know.
[Stage] Exit Goneril
Albany(奥尔巴尼)
Go after her. She’s desperate. Govern her.
[Stage] Exit a soldier
Edmund(爱德蒙)
What you have charged me with, that have I done—
And more, much more. The time will bring it out.
‘Tis past, and so am I.
[to Edgar
]
But what art thou
That hast this fortune on me? If thou’rt noble,
I do forgive thee.
Edgar(爱德加)
Let’s exchange charity.
I am no less in blood than thou art, Edmund.
If more, the more thou’st wronged me.
My name is Edgar, and thy father’s son.
The gods are just, and of our pleasant vices
Make instruments to plague us.
The dark and vicious place where thee he got
Cost him his eyes.
Edmund(爱德蒙)
Thou’st spoken right. ‘Tis true.
The wheel is come full circle. I am here.
Albany(奥尔巴尼)
Methought thy very gait did prophesy
A royal nobleness. I must embrace thee.
Let sorrow split my heart if ever I
Did hate thee or thy father.
Edgar(爱德加)
Worthy prince, I know ’t.
Albany(奥尔巴尼)
Where have you hid yourself?
How have you known the miseries of your father?
Edgar(爱德加)
By nursing them, my lord. List a brief tale,
And when ’tis told, oh, that my heart would burst!
The bloody proclamation to escape,
That followed me so near—
O our lives’ sweetness,
That we the pain of death would hourly die
Rather than die at once!—
taught me to shift
Into a madman’s rags, t’ assume a semblance
That very dogs disdained.
And in this habit
Met I my father with his bleeding rings,
Their precious stones new lost,
became his guide,
Led him, begged for him, saved him from despair.
Never—O fault!—revealed myself unto him
Until some half-hour past, when I was armed.
Not sure, though hoping of this good success,
I asked his blessing, and from first to last
Told him my pilgrimage.
But his flawed heart—
Alack, too weak the conflict to support—
‘Twixt two extremes of passion, joy and grief,
Burst smilingly.
Edmund(爱德蒙)
This speech of yours hath moved me,
And shall perchance do good. But speak you on.
You look as you had something more to say.
Albany(奥尔巴尼)
If there be more, more woeful, hold it in.
For I am almost ready to dissolve,
Hearing of this.
Edgar(爱德加)
This would have seemed a period
To such as love not sorrow, but another
To amplify too much would make much more
And top extremity.
Whilst I was big in clamor came there in a man
Who, having seen me in my worst estate,
Shunned my abhorred society, but then, finding
Who ’twas that so endured, with his strong arms
He fastened on my neck, and bellowed out
As he’d burst heaven,
threw him on my father,
Told the most piteous tale of Lear and him
That ever ear received—
which in recounting
His grief grew puissant and the strings of life
Began to crack. Twice then the trumpets sounded,
And there I left him tranced.
Albany(奥尔巴尼)
But who was this?
Edgar(爱德加)
Kent, sir, the banished Kent, who in disguise
Followed his enemy king and did him service
Improper for a slave.
[Stage] Enter Second Knight with a bloody knife
Second Knight(第二骑士)
Help, help, O, help!
Edgar(爱德加)
What kind of help?
Albany(奥尔巴尼)
Speak, man.
Edgar(爱德加)
What means that bloody knife?
Second Knight(第二骑士)
‘Tis hot, it smokes.
It came even from the heart of—oh, she’s dead!
Albany(奥尔巴尼)
Who dead? Speak, man.
Second Knight(第二骑士)
Your lady, sir, your lady. And her sister
By her is poisoned. She confesses it.
Edmund(爱德蒙)
I was contracted to them both. All three
Now marry in an instant.
Edgar(爱德加)
Here comes Kent.
Albany(奥尔巴尼)
Produce their bodies, be they alive or dead.
This judgment of the heavens that makes us tremble
Touches us not with pity.
[Stage] Exit Second Knight
[Stage] Enter Kent
Oh, is this he?
The time will not allow the compliment
Which very manners urges.
Kent(肯特)
I am come
To bid my king and master aye good night.
Is he not here?
Albany(奥尔巴尼)
Great thing of us forgot!—
Speak, Edmund, where’s the king? And where’s Cordelia?—
[Stage] Regan’s and Goneril’s corpses are brought out
Seest thou this object, Kent?
Kent(肯特)
Alack, why thus?
Edmund(爱德蒙)
Yet Edmund was beloved.
The one the other poisoned for my sake,
And after slew herself.
Albany(奥尔巴尼)
Even so.—Cover their faces.
Edmund(爱德蒙)
I pant for life. Some good I mean to do
Despite of mine own nature. Quickly send—
Be brief in it—to th’ castle,
for my writ
Is on the life of Lear and on Cordelia.
Nay, send in time!
Albany(奥尔巴尼)
Run, run, O, run!
Edgar(爱德加)
To who, my lord?—Who hath the office? Send
Thy token of reprieve.
Edmund(爱德蒙)
Well thought on. Take my sword. The captain—
Give it the captain.
Albany(奥尔巴尼)
Haste thee for thy life.
[Stage] Exit a soldier
Edmund(爱德蒙)
He hath commission from thy wife and me
To hang Cordelia in the prison and
To lay the blame upon her own despair,
That she fordid herself.
Albany(奥尔巴尼)
The gods defend her!—bear him hence awhile.
[Stage] Exit soldiers with Edmund
[Stage] Enter Lear with Cordelia in his arms, a Third Knight following
Lear(李尔)
Howl, howl, howl, howl! Oh, you are men of stones.
Had I your tongues and eyes, I’d use them so
That heaven’s vault should crack. She’s gone forever.
I know when one is dead and when one lives.
She’s dead as earth. Lend me a looking-glass.
If that her breath will mist or stain the stone,
Why then, she lives.
Kent(肯特)
Is this the promised end?
Edgar(爱德加)
Or image of that horror?
Albany(奥尔巴尼)
Fall and cease.
Lear(李尔)
This feather stirs. She lives. If it be so,
It is a chance which does redeem all sorrows
That ever I have felt.
Kent(肯特)
O my good master!
Lear(李尔)
Prithee, away.
Edgar(爱德加)
‘Tis noble Kent, your friend.
Lear(李尔)
A plague upon you, murderers, traitors all!
I might have saved her. Now she’s gone for ever.—
Cordelia, Cordelia, stay a little. Ha?
What is ’t thou say’st?—
Her voice was ever soft,
Gentle and low, an excellent thing in woman.—
I killed the slave that was a-hanging thee.
Third Knight(第三骑士)
‘Tis true, my lords, he did.
Lear(李尔)
Did I not, fellow?
I have seen the day with my good biting falchion
I would have made them skip.
I am old now,
And these same crosses spoil me.
[to Kent
]
Who are you?
Mine eyes are not o’ th’ best, I’ll tell you straight.
Kent(肯特)
If Fortune brag of two she loved and hated,
One of them we behold.
Lear(李尔)
This a dull sight.
Are you not Kent?
Kent(肯特)
The same. Your servant Kent.
Where is your servant Caius?
Lear(李尔)
He’s a good fellow, I can tell you that.
He’ll strike, and quickly too. He’s dead and rotten.
Kent(肯特)
No, my good lord. I am the very man—
Lear(李尔)
I’ll see that straight.
Kent(肯特)
That from your first of difference and decay
Have followed your sad steps.
Lear(李尔)
You’re welcome hither.
Kent(肯特)
Nor no man else. All’s cheerless, dark, and deadly.
Your eldest daughters have fordone themselves,
And desperately are dead.
Lear(李尔)
Ay, so I think.
Albany(奥尔巴尼)
He knows not what he says, and vain it is
That we present us to him.
[Stage] Enter Third Messenger
Edgar(爱德加)
Very bootless.
Third Messenger(第三信使)
Edmund is dead, my lord.
Albany(奥尔巴尼)
That’s but a trifle here.—
You lords and noble friends, know our intent.
What comfort to this great decay may come
Shall be applied.
For us, we will resign
During the life of this old majesty
To him our absolute power.
[to Edgar and Kent
]
You, to your rights
With boot, and such addition as your honors
Have more than merited.—
All friends shall taste
The wages of their virtue, and all foes
The cup of their deservings. O, see, see!
Lear(李尔)
And my poor fool is hanged.—No, no, no life?
Why should a dog, a horse, a rat have life,
And thou no breath at all? Oh, thou’lt come no more,
Never, never, never, never, never.—
Pray you, undo this button. Thank you, sir.
Do you see this? Look on her. Look, her lips.
Look there, look there. O, O, O, O.
[dies]
Edgar(爱德加)
He faints!—My lord, my lord!
Kent(肯特)
Break, heart. I prithee, break!
Edgar(爱德加)
[to Lear] Look up, my lord.
Kent(肯特)
Vex not his ghost. O, let him pass. He hates him
That would upon the rack of this tough world
Stretch him out longer.
Edgar(爱德加)
Oh, he is gone indeed.
Kent(肯特)
The wonder is he hath endured so long.
He but usurped his life.
Albany(奥尔巴尼)
Bear them from hence. Our present business
Is to general woe.
[to Kent and Edgar]
Friends of my soul, you twain
Rule in this realm, and the gored state sustain.
Kent(肯特)
I have a journey, sir, shortly to go.
My master calls me. I must not say no.
Edgar(爱德加)
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.
[Stage] Exeunt with a dead march