SparkNotes: Complete Text of King Lear: Act III, Scene iii

Act III, Scene iii:
A Room in Gloster's Castle.

[Enter Gloster and Edmund.]

Glou.:

Alack, alack, Edmund, I like not this unnatural dealing. When I

desired their leave that I might pity him, they took from me the

use of mine own house; charged me on pain of perpetual displeasure,

neither to speak of him, entreat for him, nor any way sustain him.

Edm.:

Most savage and unnatural!

Glou.:

Go to; say you nothing. There is division betwixt the dukes,

and a worse matter than that: I have received a letter this

night;—'tis dangerous to be spoken;—I have locked the letter in

my closet: these injuries the king now bears will be revenged

home; there's part of a power already footed: we must incline to

the king. I will seek him, and privily relieve him: go you and

maintain talk with the duke, that my charity be not of him

perceived: if he ask for me, I am ill, and gone to bed. If I

die for it, as no less is threatened me, the king my old master

must be relieved. There is some strange thing toward, Edmund;

pray you be careful.

[Exit.]

Edm.:

This courtesy, forbid thee, shall the duke

Instantly know; and of that letter too:—

This seems a fair deserving, and must draw me

That which my father loses,—no less than all:

The younger rises when the old doth fall.

[Exit.]