Let shame come when it will, I do not call it : Not altogether so: Is this well spoken? [ance Gon. Why might not you, my lord, receive attendFrom those that she calls servants, or from mine? Reg. Why not, my lord? If then they chanc'd to slack you, We could control them. If you will come to me, To bring but five and twenty: to no more Lear. I gave you all. Reg. And in good time you gave it. Lear. Made you my guardians, my depositaries, But kept a reservation to be follow'd With such a number. What! must I come to you With five and twenty? Regan, said you so? Reg. And speak 't again, my lord; no more with me. Lear. Those wicked creatures yet do look wellfavour'd, When others are more wicked; not being the worst If only to go warm were gorgeous, That all the world shall-I will do such things:- I have full cause of weeping; but this heart [Exeunt LEAR, GLOSTER, KENT, and Fool. Gon. 'T is his own blame hath put himself from res; He must needs taste his folly. Reg. For his particular, I'll receive him gladly, But not one follower. Gon. So am I purpos'd. Re-enter GLOSTER. Where is my lord of Gloster? Corn. Follow'd the old man forth.-He is return'd. Whither is he going? Glo. He calls to horse; but will I know not whither. Corn. 'Tis best to give him way; he leads himself. Reg. And what they may incense him to, being apt Strives in his little world of man to out-scorn The to-and-fro-conflicting wind and rain. A Storm, with Thunder and Lightning. Enter KENT, This night, wherein the cub-drawn bear would couch and a Gentleman, meeting. Kent. Who's here, beside foul weather? Gent. One minded, like the weather, most unquietly. Bids the wind blow the earth into the sea, Or swell the curled waters 'bove the main, The lion and the belly-pinched wolf Kent. Sir, I do know you, That things might change or cease: tears his white hair, And dare, upon the warrant of my note, Catch in their fury, and make nothing of: Commend a dear thing to you There is division, Although as yet the face of it be cover'd 1 fellow: in quartos. 2 This and the next speech, to "horse," are not in quartos. 3 not: in quartos. The rest of this speech is so in folio. With mutual cunning, 'twixt Albany and Cornwall;1 To make you. зpeed to Dover, you shall find I am a gentleman of blood and breeding, Gent. I will talk farther with you. No, do not. Gent. Give me your hand. Have you no more to say? Kent. Few words, but, to effect, more than all yet; That, when we have found the king, in which your pain That way, I'll this, he that first lights on him, Holla the other. [Exeunt severally. SCENE II-Another Part of the Heath. Storm continues. Enter LEAR and Fool. Lear.Blow, winds, and crack your cheeks! rage! blow! You cataracts and hurricanoes spout, Till you have drench'd our steeples, drown'd the cocks! You sulphurous and thought-executing fires, Vaunt-couriers to oak-cleaving thunder-bolts, Singe my white head! And thou, all-shaking thunder, Strike flat the thick rotundity o' the world: Crack nature's moulds, all germins spill at once, That make ingrateful man! Fool. O nuncle, court holy-water' in a dry house is better than this rain-water out o' door. Good nuncle, in, and ask thy daughter's blessing: here's a night pities neither wise men nor fools. [Thunder. Lear. Rumble thy bellyfull! Spit, fire! spout, rain! Nor rain, wind, thunder, fire, are my daughters: I tax not you, you elements, with unkindness; I never gave you kingdom, call'd you children, You owe me no subscription: then, let fall Your horrible pleasure; here I stand, your slave, A poor, infirm, weak, and despis'd old man. But yet I call you servile ministers, That will with two pernicious daughters join' Your high-engender'd battles 'gainst a head So old and white as this. O! O! 't is foul! Fool. He that has a house to put 's head in has a good head-piece. 1 This and the seven following lines, are not in quartos. The rest of the speech is not in folio. 5 your in quartos. Cotgrave's Dict. 8 have in quartos. join'd: in quartos. folio; thundering: in quartos. 14 The quartos insert: man. speech not in quartos. Fool. Marry, here's grace, and a cod-piece; that's a wise man, and a fool. Kent. Alas, sir! are you here? Things that love night, Love not such nights as these; the wrathful skies Gallow the very wanderers of the dark, And make them keep their caves. Since I was man Such sheets of fire, such bursts of horrid thunder, Such groans of roaring wind and rain, I never Remember to have heard: man's nature cannot carry Th' affliction, nor the fear.12 Lear. Let the great gods, That keep this dreadful pother13 o'er our heads, Find out their enemies now. Tremble, thou wretch, That hast within thee undivulged crimes, Unwhipp'd of justice: hide thee, thou bloody hand; Thou perjure, and thou simuler1 of virtue That art incestuous: caitiff, to pieces shake, That under covert and convenient seeming Hast practis'd on man's life: close pent-up guilts, Rive your concealing continents,13 and cry These dreadful summoners grace.-I am a man, More sinn'd against, than sinning. Kent. Alack bare-headed. Gracious my lord, hard by here is a hovel; My wits begin to turn.Come on, my boy. How dost, my boy' Art cold? I am cold myself.-Where is this straw my fellow? The art of our necessities is strange, That can make vile things precious. Come, your hove.... Poor fool and knave, I have one part in my heart That's sorry yet for thee. Fool. He that has a little tiny wit, [Sing With heigh, ho, the wind and the rain,Must make content with his fortunes fit; For the rain it raineth every day. hovel. Lear. True, my good boy.-Come, bring us to the When priests are more in word than matter; When nobles are their tailors' tutors; No heretics burn'd, but wenches suitors: speculations: in f. e. 3 Dislikes, and intrigues. ♦ furnishings: in t. 10 have: in quartos. 11 Seare. 12 force in quartos. 13 pudder: n 16 concealed centres: in quartos. 16 harder than tne: in folio. Nor cutpurses come not to throngs; Come to great confusion: Then comes the time, who lives to see 't, That going shall be us'd with feet. This prophecy Merlin shall make; for I live before his time. [Exit. SCENE III-A Room in GLOSTER'S Castle. Enter GLOSTER and EDMUND. Glo. 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 their perpetual displeasure, neither to speak of him, entreat for him, nor any way sustain him. Edm. Most savage, and unnatural! Glo. Go to; say you nothing. There is division between the dukes, and a worse matter than that. I have received a letter this night;-'t is dangerous to be spoken-I have locked the letter in my closet. These injuries the king now bears will be revenged home; there is 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 [Exit. The body's delicate: the tempest in my mind poverty, Nay, get thee in. I'll pray, and then I'll sleep.- Poor naked wretches, wheresoe'er you are, Edg. [Within.] Fathom and half, fathom and half! Kent. Give me thy hand.-Who's there? Fool. A spirit, a spirit: he says his name 's poor Tom. Kent. What art thou that dost grumble there i' the Come forth. [straw? Enter EDGAR, disguised as a Madman. Edg. Away! the foul fiend follows me !— "Through the sharp hawthorn blows the cold wind.”Humph! go to thy cold' bed, and warm thee. Lear. Hast thou given all to thy two daughters? And art thou come to this? Edg. Who gives any thing to poor Tom? whom the foul fiend hath led through fire and through flame, through swamp and whirlpool, over bog and quagmire; and hath laid knives under his pillow, and halters in his pew; set ratsbane by his porridge; made him proud of heart, to ride on a bay trotting-horse over four-inched bridges, to course his own shadow for a traitor.-Bless thy five wits! Tom's a-cold.-O! do de, do de, do de.-Bless thee from whirlwinds, star-blasting, and taking1. Do poor Tom some charity, whom the foul fiend vexes.-There could I have him now,-and there, -and there,-and there again, and there. [Strikes." Storm continues. Lear. What have his daughters brought him to this pass? Couldst thou save nothing? Didst thou give them all? Fool. Nay, he reserved a blanket, else we had been all shamed. Lear. Now, all the plagues, that in the pendulous air Hang fated o'er men's faults, light on thy daughters! Kent. He hath no daughters, sir. Lear. Death, traitor! nothing could have subdued nature To such a lowness, but his unkind daughters.— Edg. Pillicock sat on Pillicock-hill:- Fool. This cold night will turn us all to fools and madmen. Edg. Take heed o' the foul fiend. Obey thy parents; keep thy word; do justice; swear not; commit not with man's sworn spouse; set not thy sweet heart on proud array. Tom's a-cold. This line is 89 Not in folio. 10 ford in 14 There is a nursery thyme 1 This and the next line, form part of a prophecy resembling this, in Chaucer. 2 landed in folio. sure in quartos. not in quartos. you all in quartos. This and the next line, not in quartos. night in quartos. Le.1 The five senses were formerly so called. 12 Malignant influence. 13 This direction is not in f. e. similar to this line. is word justly: in f. e; word's justice: in first folio; words, justice: in second folio. Lear. What hast thou been? Edg. A serving1-man, proud in heart and mind; that curled my hair, wore gloves in my cap, served the lust of my mistress's heart, and did the act of darkness with her; swore as many oaths as I spake words, and broke them in the sweet face of heaven one, that slept in the contriving of lust, and waked to do it. Wine loved I deeply; dice dearly; and in woman, out-paramoured the Turk false of heart, light of ear, bloody of hand; hog in sloth, fox in stealth, wolf in greediness, dog in madness, lion in prey. Let not the creaking of shoes, nor the rustling of silks, betray thy poor heart to woman: keep thy foot out of brothels, thy hand out of plackets, thy pen from lenders' books, and defy the foul fiend." Still through the hawthorn blows the cold wind;" says suum. mun, ha no nonny. Dolphin my boy, my boy; sessa! let him trot by. [Storm still continues. Lear. Why, thou wert better in thy grave, than to answer with thy uncovered body this extremity of the skies. Is man no more than this? Consider him well. Thou owest the worm no silk, the beast no hide, the sheep no wool, the cat no perfume.-Ha! here's three on's are sophisticated: thou art the thing itself: unaccommodated man is no more but such a poor, bare, forked animal as thou art.-Off, off, you lendings.Come; unbutton here.[Tearing his clothes. Fool. Pr'ythee, nuncle, be contented; 't is a naughty night to swim in -Now, a little fire in a wide field were like an old lecher's heart; a small spark, all the rest on 's body cold.-Look! here comes a walking fire. Edg. This is the foul fiend Flibbertigibbet: he begins at curfew, and walks till the first cock; he gives the web and pin', squints the eye, and makes the hare-lip; mildews the white wheat, and hurts the poor creature of earth. Saint Withold footed thrice the wold; He met the night-mare, and her nine-fold; And her troth plight, And, aroint' thee, witch, aroint thee! Kent. How fares your grace? Enter GLOSTER, with a Torch. Lear. What's he? Kent. Who's there? What is 't you seek? Glo. What are you there? Your names? Edg. Poor Tom; that eats the swimming frog, the toad, the tadpole, the wall-newt, and the water; that in the fury of his heart, when the foul fiend rages, eats cow-dung for sallets; swallows the old rat, and the ditch-dog; drinks the green mantle of the standing pool who is whipped from tything to tything, and stocked, punished, and imprisoned; who hath had three suits to his back, six shirts to his body, horse to ride, and weapon to wear, But mice, and rats, and such small deer, Have been Tom's food for seven long year. Beware my follower.-Peace, Smulkin! peace, thou fiend! Glo. What! hath your grace no better company? Edg. The prince of darkness is a gentleman; Modo he 's call'd, and Mahu.1o Glo. Our flesh and blood, my lord, is grown so vile, That it doth hate what gets it. Edg. Poor Tom's a-cold. Glo. Go in with me. My duty cannot suffer To obey in all your daughters' hard commands: 6 Water-newt. Though their injunction be to bar my doors, Kent. Good my lord, take his offer: go into the house. Lear. I'll talk a word with this same learned Theban. What is your study? Edg. How to prevent the fiend, and to kill vermin. Lear. Let me ask you one word in private. [They talk apart." Kent. Importune him once more to go, my lord, His wits begin t' unsettle. Glo. Canst thou blame him? His daughters seek his death.-Ah, that good Kent!He said it would be thus, poor banish'd man!— Thou say'st, the king grows mad : I'll tell thee, friend, I am almost mad myself. I had a son, Now outlaw'd from my blood; he sought my life, But lately, very late: I lov'd him, friend, No father his son dearer: true to tell thee, The grief hath craz'd my wits. What a night's this! [Storm continues. I do beseech your grace,— Lear. O! cry you mercy, sir.Noble philosopher, your company. Edg. Tom's a-cold. Edg. No words, no words: "Child Rowland to the dark tower came, Enter CORNWALL and EDMUND. Corn. I will have my revenge, ere I depart his house. Edm. How, my lord, I may be censured, that nature thus gives way to loyalty, something fears me to think of. Corn. I now perceive, it was not altogether your brother's evil disposition made him seek his death; but a provoking merit, set a-work by a reprovable badness, in himself. Edm. How malicious is my fortune, that I must repent to be just! This is the letter which he spoke of, which approves him an intelligent party to the advantages of France. O heavens! that this treason were not, or not I the detector! Corn. Go with me to the duchess. Edm. If the matter of this paper be certain, you have mighty business in hand. Corn. True, or false, it hath made thee earl of Gloster. Seek out where thy father is, that he may be ready for our apprehension. 1 Servant in the old sense of lover. 2 cease: in quartos. 3 Cataract in the eye. 4 Swithold in old copies. 5 Get out, begon The ordinary punishment, for what an old author calls "idle rogueing about the country." 89 10 The names of the fiends were derived from Bp. Harsnet's "Declaration of egregious Popish Impostures," 1603. In Suckling's "Goblins," we find, The prince of darkness is a gentleman: Mahu, Mahu, is his name." 11 most: in quartos. 12 Not in f. e. |