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Now, our joy, Although our last and least

King Lear
Now, our joy,
Although our last and least, to whose young love
The vines of France and milk of Burgundy
Strive to be interessed, what can you say to draw
A third more opulent than your sisters'? Speak.

Come not between the dragon and his wrath.

Cordelia
Nothing, my lord.
King Lear
Nothing?
Cordelia
Nothing.
King Lear
Nothing will come of nothing. Speak again.
Cordelia
Unhappy that I am, I cannot heave
My heart into my mouth. I love your Majesty
According to my bond, no more nor less.
King Lear
How, how, Cordelia? Mend your speech a little,
Lest you may mar your fortunes.
Cordelia
Good my lord,
You have begot me, bred me, loved me.
I return those duties back as are right fit:
Obey you, love you, and most honor you.
Why have my sisters husbands if they say
They love you all? Haply, when I shall wed,
That lord whose hand must take my plight shall carry
Half my love with him, half my care and duty.
Sure I shall never marry like my sisters,
To love my father all.
King Lear
But goes thy heart with this?
Cordelia
Ay, my good lord.
King Lear
So young and so untender?
Cordelia
So young, my lord, and true.
King Lear
Let it be so. Thy truth, then, be thy dower,
For by the sacred radiance of the sun,
The mysteries of Hecate and the night,
By all the operation of the orbs
From whom we do exist and cease to be,
Here I disclaim all my paternal care,
Propinquity, and property of blood,
And as a stranger to my heart and me
Hold thee from this forever. The barbarous Scythian,
Or he that makes his generation messes
To gorge his appetite, shall to my bosom
Be as well neighbored, pitied, and relieved
As thou my sometime daughter.
Kent
Good my liege—
King Lear
Peace, Kent.
Come not between the dragon and his wrath.
I loved her most and thought to set my rest
On her kind nursery. To Cordelia. Hence and avoid my sight!—
So be my grave my peace as here I give
Her father's heart from her.

Source:
Act 1
Scene 1
Line 91

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Spoken by:
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Themes:
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