Some (I hope) better focus, maybe less excess, a bit more bite to the
sarcasm and disgust.
ken
THE DUKE OF ALBANY TELEPHONES KING LEAR
Well, my King, my Liege Lord,
congratulations, you're a grandfather.
Goneril has had a daughter.
Good sport at her making be damned,
she got through it and the kid is born.
Yes, you made quite a scene, didn't you.
You wished sterility on her, you foul old fool.
Know what we did? Went upstairs and fucked like mad,
three or four times in a row.
Nothing like blind rage to get a couple hot.
We were like wolves, set to the act,
and one of those times she conceived.
Addled bastard, your curse was vain,
you spat into your own face!
The wind blew into you, monstrous!
You were smeared with your own hate.
Your curses are vain, you are vain.
First you stupidly divide you kingdom
so no one is in charge.
Cornwall hates me his soul,
and I'd not mourn him either, would I?
Then you start to disinherit your children.
Cordelia is over in France as Queen Regnant,
and I've heard she is with child.
And now you've turned on my wife
because these men you're brought to serve you
are drunken swine who rape the maids,
so I must go out of pocket
to find them worthy husbands
who'll accept your damaged goods!
Will our child be of spleen,
a torment to Goneril and to me?
Can we know? can you, old man?
Are your wishes actions in the world,
God-ordained acts of fate
brought down upon my house,
robbing us of you
as we rob you now of our child?
My King, my Liege Lord, did your parents love you?
Did your father beat the life from you,
thinking it was Hell he drove from your body?
Did your mother refuse you the tit
and turn nursing to some milkmaid,
half filled with cheap wine when she nursed?
What else accounts for the father you've become?
Do you think you'll ever see my daughter?
Maybe your daughter again, at some progress,
looking past you to the greater distance
but our daughter, never, only in Heaven's face
a face like the man in the moon,
unrelenting, cold, forever distant.
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