Page:King Lear (1917) Yale.djvu/61

King Lear, II. ii

Kent. No contraries hold more antipathy

Than I and such a knave.

Corn. Why dost thou call him knave? What is his fault?

Kent. His countenance likes me not.

Corn. No more, perchance, does mine, nor

his, nor hers.

Kent. Sir, 'tis my occupation to be plain:

I have seen better faces in my time

Than stands on any shoulder that I see

Before me at this instant.

Corn. This is some fellow,

Who, having been prais'd for bluntness, doth affect

A saucy roughness, and constrains the garb

Quite from his nature: he cannot flatter, he,

An honest mind and plain, he must speak truth:

An they will take it, so; if not, he's plain.

These kind of knaves I know, which in this plainness

Harbour more craft and more corrupter ends

Than twenty silly-ducking observants,

That stretch their duties nicely.

Kent. Sir, in good sooth, in sincere verity,

Under the allowance of your grand aspect,

Whose influence, like the wreath of radiant fire

On flickering Phœbus' front,—

Corn. What mean'st by this?

Kent. To go out of my dialect, which you

discommend so much. I know, sir, I am no

flatterer: he that beguiled you in a plain accent

was a plain knave; which for my part I will not

be, though I should win your displeasure to en-

treat me to 't.

 103 constrains the garb: forces the fashion

104 from: contrary to

109 observants: courtiers

111 sooth: truth

