Beautiful Stories from ShakespeareShakespeare, William
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Beautiful Stories from Shakespeare
Shakespeare, William
Children's literature; Shakespeare, William, 1564-1616 -- Stories, plots, etc. -- Juvenile literature
So Cordelia became Queen of France, and the Earl of Kent, for having
ventured to take her part, was banished from the kingdom. The King now
went to stay with his daughter Goneril, who had got everything from her
father that he had to give, and now began to grudge even the hundred
knights that he had reserved for himself. She was harsh and undutiful
to him, and her servants either refused to obey his orders or pretended
that they did not hear them.
Now the Earl of Kent, when he was banished, made as though he would
go into another country, but instead he came back in the disguise of
a servingman and took service with the King. The King had now two
friends--the Earl of Kent, whom he only knew as his servant, and his
Fool, who was faithful to him. Goneril told her father plainly that his
knights only served to fill her Court with riot and feasting; and so she
begged him only to keep a few old men about him such as himself.
“My train are men who know all parts of duty,” said Lear. “Goneril, I
will not trouble you further--yet I have left another daughter.”
And his horses being saddled, he set out with his followers for the
castle of Regan. But she, who had formerly outdone her sister in
professions of attachment to the King, now seemed to outdo her in
undutiful conduct, saying that fifty knights were too many to wait on
him, and Goneril (who had hurried thither to prevent Regan showing any
kindness to the old King) said five were too many, since her servants
could wait on him.
Then when Lear saw that what they really wanted was to drive him away,
he left them. It was a wild and stormy night, and he wandered about the
heath half mad with misery, and with no companion but the poor Fool.
But presently his servant, the good Earl of Kent, met him, and at last
persuaded him to lie down in a wretched little hovel. At daybreak the
Earl of Kent removed his royal master to Dover, and hurried to the Court
of France to tell Cordelia what had happened.
Cordelia's husband gave her an army and with it she landed at Dover.
Here she found poor King Lear, wandering about the fields, wearing a
crown of nettles and weeds. They brought him back and fed and clothed
him, and Cordelia came to him and kissed him.
“You must bear with me,” said Lear; “forget and forgive. I am old and
foolish.”
And now he knew at last which of his children it was that had loved him
best, and who was worthy of his love.
Goneril and Regan joined their armies to fight Cordelia's army, and were
successful; and Cordelia and her father were thrown into prison. Then
Goneril's husband, the Duke of Albany, who was a good man, and had not
known how wicked his wife was, heard the truth of the whole story; and
when Goneril found that her husband knew her for the wicked woman she
was, she killed herself, having a little time before given a deadly
poison to her sister, Regan, out of a spirit of jealousy.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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