3 Forces his outside, or his appearance, to something totally different from his natural disposition."

4 Silly or rather sely, is simple or rustic. Nicely here is with scrupulous nicely, punctilious observance. 5 This expressive word is now only applied to the motion and scintillation of flame. Dr. Johnson says that it means to flutter, which is certainly one of its oldest meanings, it being used in that sense by Chaucer. But its application is more properly made to the fluc-i. tuating scintillations of flame or light. In The Cuckoo, by Nicols, 1607, we have it applied to the eye :

Their soft maiden voice and flickering eye.' 6 Though I should win you, displeased as you now are, to like me so well as to entreat me to be a knave.' 7A young soldier is said to flesh his sword the first time he draws blood with it. Fleshment, therefore, is here metaphorically applied to the first act of service, which Kent, in his new capacity, had performed for his master; at the same time, in a sarcastic sense, as though he had esteemed it an heroic exploit to trip a man behind who was actually falling.

8 i. e. Ajax is a fool to them. These rogues and cowards talk in such a boasting strain that, if we were w credit their account of themselves, Ajax would ap

SENI IV.

Tace vantage, heavy eyes, not to behold
This shameful lodging.

KING LEAR.

Fortune, good night; smile once more; turn thy
[He sleeps.
wheel!
SCENE III. A Part of the Heath. Enter EDGAR.
Edg I heard myself proclaim'd;
And, by the happy hollow of a tree,
Escap the hunt. No port is free; no place,
That giard, and most unusual vigilance,

Does not attend my taking. While I may scape,
I will peserve myself: and am bethought
To take the basest and most poorest shape,
That evir penury, in contempt of man,
Brought near to beast: my face I'll grime with filth;
Blanket ny loins; elf all my hair in knots;'
And with presented nakedness outface
The wines, and persecutions of the sky.
The country gives me proof and precedent
Of Bedian beggars, who, with roaring voices,
Strike in heir numb'd and mortified bare arms
Pins, wooden pricks, nails, sprigs of rosemary;
And with this horrible object, from low farms,
Poor pelting villages, sheep-cotes and mills,
Sometimewith lunatic bans, sometime with prayers,
poor
Enforce their charity.-Poor Turly good!

Tom!

That's something yet; Edgar, I nothing am.

Kent. No, my lord.

407

Fool. Ha, ha; look! he wears cruel garters! Horses are tied by the heads; dogs, and bears, by the neck; monkeys by the loins, and men by the legs: when a man is over-lusty at legs, then he

wears wooden nether-stocks.9

Lear. What's he, that hath so much thy place
mistook

To set thee here?

Kent.

It is both he and she,

Your son and daughter.
Lear. No.
Kent. Yes.
Lear. No, I say.
Kent. I say, yea.

Lear. No, no; they would not.
Kent. Yes, they have.
Lear. By Jupiter, I swear, no.
Kent. By Juno, I swear, ay.10
Lear. They durst not do't;

They could not, would not do't; 'tis worse than
murder,

To do, upon respect, such violent outrage:11
Resolve me, with all modest haste, which way
Thou might'st deserve, or they impose, this usage,
Coming from us.

Kent.

My lord, when at their home
I did commend your highness' letters to them,
[Exit. Ere I was risen from the place that show'd
Enter My duty kneeling, came there a reeking post,
Stew'd in his haste, half breathless, panting forth
From Goneril his mistress, salutations:
Lear. "Tis strange, that they should so depart Deliver'd letters, spite of intermission,'

SCENE V. Before Gloster's Castle."
LEAR, Fool, and Gentleman.

from home,

And not send back my messenger.
As I learn'd,
Gent.
The night before there was no purpose in them
Of this remove.

Kent.

Lear. How!

Hail to thee, noble master!

Mak'st thou this shame thy pastime?

or turelureau, Fr.; both, among other things, signify. ing a fool or madman. It would perhaps be difficult to decide with certainty whether those words are corrup 1 Hair thus knotted was supposed to be the work of tions of turlupino and turlupin; but at least it seems elves and fairies in the night. So in Romeo and Juliet: probable. The Turlupins were a fanatical sect, which overran the continent in the thirteenth and fourteenth 6 -plate the manes of horses in the night, centuries, calling themselves Beghards or Beghins. And bakes the elf locks in foul sluttish hairs, Their manners and appearance exhibited the strongest Which, once untangled, much misfortune bodes.' 2 Aubrey, in his MS. Remaines of Gentilisme and indications of lunacy and distraction; and their popular Judaisme, Part III. p. 234, b. (MS. Lansdowne, 226,) name, Turlupins, was probably derived from the wolf says:- Before the civil warrs, I remember Toma Bed- ish howlings they made in their fits of religious ra lans went about begging. They had been such as had ving. Genebrard thus describes them :- Turlupin cybeen in Bedlam, and come to some degree of sober-nicorum sectam suscitantes, de nuditate pudendorum, et nesse; and when they were licenced to goe out, they publico coitu." It has not been remarked that Cotgrave had on their left arme an armilla of tiune printed, of interprets Mon Turelureau, My Pillicock, my pretty about three inches breadth, which was sodered on.-H. knave.' Ellis.

Randle Holme, in his Academy of Arms and Blazon, b. iii. c. 3, gives the following description of a class of vagabonds feigning themselves mad: The Bedlam is in the same garb, with a long staff, and a cow or oxhorn by his side; but his cloathing is more fantastick and ridiculous; for being a madman, he is madly decked and dressed all over with rubins, feathers, cuttings of cloth, and what not; to make him seem a madman, or one distracted, when he is no other than a dissem bling knave.'

In the Bell-Man of London, by Decker, 5th edit. 1640, is another account of one of these characters, under the title of Abraham Man:-' He sweares he hath been in Bedlam, and will talke frantickely of purpose: you see pinnes stuck in sundry places of his naked flesh, espe cially in his armes, which paine he gladly puts himselfe to, only to make you believe he is out of his wits. He calls himselfe by the name of Poore Tom, and coming near any body, cries out Poor Tom is a-cold. Of these Abraham-men some be exceeding merry, and doe nothing bat sing songs fashioned out of their own braines Snie will dance, others will doe nothing but either laugh or weepe: others are dogged, and so sullen both in toke and speech, that spying but a small company in a house they boldly and bluntly enter, compelling the servants through feare to give them what they demand. I is probable, as Steevens remarks, that to sham Abra hum, a cant term still in use among sailors and the vul gar, may have this origin.

31. e. skewers: the euonymus, or spindle-tree, of which the best skewers are made, is called prick-wood.

6 Turlygood, an English corruption of turluru, Ital.;

His cruell garters cross about the knee.' 9 The old word for stockings. 10 This dialogue being taken partly from the folio and partly from the quarto, is left without any metrical division, as it was not probably all intended to be preserved.

11 To do, upon respect, such violent outrage,' I
Cordelia says, in the
think, means to do such violent outrage, deliberately,
or upon consideration. Respect is frequently used for
consideration by Shakspeare.'
first scene:-

Since that respects of fortune are his love,
I shall not be his wife.'

There's the respect

That makes calamity of so long life.

I cannot think that respect here means a respected person, as Johnson supposed; or that it is intended for a personification, as Malone asserts.

12 i. e. spite of leaving me unanswered for a time.' Goneril's messenger delivered letters, which they read notwithstanding Lear's messenger was yet kneeling unanswered.

13 Meiny, signifying a family household, or retinue of was anciently written, mesnie; which word is regarded servants, is certainly from the French meinie, or as it by Du Cange as equivalent with mesonie or maisonie, appear that the Saxons used many for a family or from maison; in modern French, menage. It does not household.

And meeting here the other messenger,
Whose welcome, I perceiv'd, had poison'd mine
(Being the very fellow that of late

Display'd so saucily against your highness,)
Having more man than wit about me, drew;1
He rais'd the house with loud and coward cries:
Your son and daughter found this trespass worth
The shame which here it suffers.

Fool. Winter's not gone yet, if the wild geese fly
that way.2

Fathers, that wear rags,

Do make their children blind;
But fathers, that bear bags,

Shall see their children kind.
Fortune, that arrant whore,

Ne'er turns the key to the poor.

But, for all this, thou shalt have as many dolours3 for thy daughters, as thou can'st tell in a year.

Lear. O, how this mother swells up toward my
heart!

Hysterica passio! down, thou climbing sorrow,
Thy element's below!-Where is this daughter?
Kent. With the earl, sir, here within.
Lear.

Stay here.

Follow me not; [Exit. Gent. Made you no more offence than what you speak of?

Kent. None.

How chance the king comes with so small a train?
Fool. An thou hadst been set i' the stocks for
that question, thou hadst well deserved it.
Kent. Why, fool?

5

Fool. We'll set thee to school to an ant, to teach thee there's no labouring in the winter. All that follow their noses are led by their eyes, but blind men; and there's not a nose among twenty, but can smell him that's stinking. Let go thy hold, when a great wheel runs down a hill, lest it break thy neck with following it; but the great one that goes up the hill, let him draw thee after. When a wise man gives thee better counsel, give me mine again: I would have none but knaves follow it, since a fool gives it."

That sir, which serves and seeks for gain,
And follows but for form,

Will pack, when it begins to rain,

And leave thee in the storm.

But I will tarry, the fool will stay,
And let the wise man fly:
The knave turns fool, that runs away;
The fool no knave, perdy.

1 The personal pronoun, which is found in the preceding line, is understood before the word having, or before drew. The same license is taken by Shakspeare in other places.

2 If this be their behaviour, the king's troubles are not yet at an end.' This speech is omitted in the quartos. 3 A quibble between dolours and dollars.

Glo. Ay, my good lord.

Lear. The king would speak with Cornvall; the dear father

Would with his daughter speak, comm.nds ber service:

Are they inform'd of this?-My brath and
blood!-

Fiery? the fiery duke?-Tell the hot dule, that—
No, but not yet:-may be, he is not well
Infirmity doth still neglect all office,
Whereto our health is bound; we are not ourselves,
When nature, being oppress'd, command. the mind
To suffer with the body: I'll forbear;
And am fallen out with my more headier will,
To take the indispos'd and sickly fit
For the sound man. Death on my state! where-
Should he sit here? This act persuades me,
[Looking on KENT.
That this remotion of the duke and her
Go, tell the duke and his wife, I'd speak with them,
Is practice only. Give me my servant forth:
Now, presently: bid them come forth and hear me,
or at their chamber door I'll beat the drum,
Till it cry-Sleep to death.

fore

Glo. I'd have all well betwixt you.
Lear. O, me, my heart, my rising heart!-but,
down.

Fool. Cry to it, nuncle, as the cockney did to the eels, when she put them i' the paste alive; she rapp'd 'em o' the coxcombs with a stick, and cry'd,

him whose mellow-hangings' have been all shaken down, and who by one winter's brush' has been leit 'open and bare for every storm that blows.'

6 All men, but blind men, though they follow their noses, are led by their eyes; and this class of mankmd, seeing the king ruined, have all deserted him with respect to the blind, who have nothing but their noses to guide them, they also fly equally from a king whose fortunes are declining; for of the noses of blind men there is not one in twenty but can smell him who, being muddy'd in fortune's mood, smells somewhat strong of her displeasure. You need not therefore be surprised at Lear's coming with so small a train.

7 One cannot too much commend the caution which

4 Lear affects to pass off the swelling of his heart, ready to burst with grief and indignation, for the disease called the mother, or hysterica passio, which, in the poet's time, was not thought peculiar to women only.It is probable that Shakspeare had this suggested to our moral poet uses on all occasions to prevent his senhim by a passage in Harsnet's Declaration of Popish (timent from being perversely taken. So here, having Impostures, which he may have consulted in order to given an ironical precept in commendation of perfidy furnish out his character of Tom of Bedlam with demo- and base desertion of the unfortunate, for fear it should niacal gibberish. Ma. Maynie had a spice of the his- be understood seriously, though delivered by his bufterica passio, as it seems, from his youth, he himself foon or jester, he has the precaution to add this beauti termes it the moother, It seems the priests persuaded ful corrective, full of fine sense-I would have nons him it was from the possession of the devil. The dis- but knaves follow it, since a fool gives it."-Warbur ease I spake of was a spice of the mother, wherewith ton. I had been troubled before my going into Fraunce; s The meaning of this passage seems to be, I'll beat whether I doe rightly term it the mother or no, I knowe the drum till it cries out-Let them awake no more; let not. A Scottish Doctor of Physic, then in Paris, called their present sleep be their last. Somewhat similar it, as I remember, virgitinem capitis. It riseth of a occurs in Troilus and Cressida :winde in the bottome of the belly, and proceeding with a great swelling, causeth a very painful collicke in the stomack, and an extraordinary giddines in the head. 5 Go to the ant, thou sluggard, (says Solomon,) learn her ways, and be wise; which having no guide, overseer, or ruler, provideth her meat in the summer, and gathereth her food in harvest.' If, says the fool, you had been schooled by the ant, you would have known that the king's train, like that sagacious sect, prefer the summer of prosperity to the colder season of advereity, from which no profit can be derived; and desert

the death tokens of it Cry no recovery? Mason would read, death to sleep,' instead of 'sleep to death.'

9 Bullokar, in his Expositor, 1616, under the word Cockney, says, 'It is sometimes taken for a child that is tenderly or wantonly brought up; or for one that has been brought up in some great town, and knows nothing of the country fashion. It is used also for a Londoner, or one born in or near the city, (as we say,) within the sound of Bow bell. The etymology, (says Mr. Nares,)

[To KENT.

Some other time for that.-Beloved Regan,
Thy sister's naught: O, Regan, she hath tied
Sharp-tooth'd unkindness, like a vulture here,-
[Points to his heart.
I can scarce speak to thee: thou'lt not believe,
Of how deprav'd a quality. -O, Regan!
Reg. I pray you, sir, take patience; I have hope,
You less know how to value her desert,
Than she to scant her duty.'
Lear.

Say, how is that?
Reg. I cannot think, my sister in the least
Would fail her obligation: If, sir, perchance,
She have restrain'd the riots of your followers,
'Tis on such ground, and to such wholesome end,
As clears her from all blame.

Lear. My curses on her!
Reg.
O, sir, you are old;
Nature in you stands on the very verge
Of her confine: you should be rul'd, and led
By some discretion, that discerns your state
Better than you yourself: Therefore, I pray you,
That to our sister you do make return;
Say, you have wrong'd her, sir.2
Lear..
Ask her forgiveness?
Do you but mark how this becomes the house:
Dear daughter, I confess that I am old;

Age is unnecessary: on my knees 1 beg, [Kneeling.
That you'll vouchsafe me raiment, bed, and food.

Reg. Good sir, no more; these are unsightly

tricks:

Return you to my sister.

Lear.

Never, Regan: She hath abated me of half my train;

seems most probable, which derives it from cookery.Le pays de cocagne,or coquaine, in old French, means a country of good cheer. Cocagna, in Italian, has the same meaning. Both might be derived from coquina. This famous country, if it could be found, is described as a region where the hills were made of sugar-candy, and the loaves ran down the hills, crying Come eat me.' Some lines in Camden's Remaines seem to make cokeney a name for London as well as its inhabitants. This Lubberland, as Florio calls it, seems to have been proverbial for the simplicity or gullibility of its inhabitants. A cockney and a ninny-hammer, or simpleton, were convertible terms. Thus Chaucer, in the Reve's Tale:

'I shall be holden a duffe or a cokeney.' It may be observed that cockney is only a diminutive of cock; a wanton child was so called as a less circumlocutory way of saying, my little cork, or my bra-cock. Decker, in his Newes from Hell, 1568, says, "Tis not our fault; but our mothers, our cockering mothers, who for their labour made us to be called cockneys. In the passages cited from the Tournament of Tottenham, and Heywood, it literally means a little cock. The reader will find a curious article on the subject in Mr. Douce's Illustrations of Shakspeare, vol. ii. p. 151.

409

Do comfort, and not burn: "Tis not in thee
To grudge my pleasures, to cut off my train,
To bandy hasty words, to scant my sizes,"
Against my coming in: thou better know'st
And, in conclusion, to oppose the bolt
The offices of nature, bond of childhood,
Effects of courtesy, dues of gratitude;
Thy half o' the kingdom hast thou not forgot,
Wherein I thee endow'd.
Good sir, to the purpose.
[Trumpets within.

Reg.

Lear. Who put my man i the stocks?
Corn.

What trumpet's that?

Enter Steward.

4 Unnecessary is here used in the sense of neces sitous; in want of necessaries and unable to procure them. Perhaps this is also the meaning of the word in The Old Law, by Massinger :

6

Your laws extend not to desert,
But to unnecessary yeurs, and, my lord,
His are not such."

signifying to humble or pull down. Ye fen-suck'd
5 Fall seems here to be used as an active verb,
fogs, drawn from the earth by the powerful action of the
sun, infect her beauty, so as to fall and blast, i. e. hum-
ble and destroy her pride.'

tenderness. The quartos read tender-hested, which 6 Tender-hefted inay mean moved, or hearing with may be right, and signify giving tender hests or com. mands. Miranda says, in The Tempest :

'O my father, I have broke your hest to say so.' 7 A size is a portion or allotment of food. The word and its origin are explained in Minsheu's Guide to Tongues, 1617. The term sizer is still used at Cambridge for one of the lowest rank of students, living on

a stated allowance.

8 Thus in Othello:

"The Moor,--I know his trumpet.

1 It is clear that the intended meaning of this passage is as Steevens observes: You less know how to value her desert, than she (knows) to scant her duty, i. e. It should seem therefore that the approach of great to be wanting in it. It is somewhat inaccurately personages was announced by some distinguishing note expressed, Shakspeare having, as on some other occasions, perplexed himself by the word less. But all the verbiage of Malone was not necessary to lay this

open.

2 Say,' &c. This line and the following speech is omitted in the quartos.

3 i. e. the order of families, duties of relation. So Sir Thomas Smith, in his Commonwealth of England, 1601-The house I call here, the man, the woman, their children, their servants, bond and free.'

or tune appropriately used by their own trumpeters.Cornwall knows not the present sound; but to Regan, who had often heard her sister's trumpet, the first flourish of it was as familiar as was that of the Moor to the ears of lago.

10

9 To allow is to approve, in old phraseology. Thus in Psalm xi. ver. 6: The Lord alloweth the righteous' hoc oro, munus concede parenti, Si tua maturis signentur tempora canie, Et sis ipse parens.' Statius Theb. x. 705.

Corn. I set him there, sir: but his own disorders Deserv'd much less advancement.'

You did you?
Reg. I pray you, father, being weak, seem so.2
If, till the expiration of your month,

You will return and sojourn with my sister,
Dismissing half your train, come then to me;
I am now from home, and out of that provision
Which shall be needful for your entertainment.

Lear. Return to her, and fifty men dismiss'd?
No, rather I adjure all roofs, and choose
To wage against the enmity o' the air;
To be a comrade with the wolf and owl,—
Necessity's sharp pinch !4-Return with her?
Why, the hot-blooded France, that dowerless took
Our youngest born, I could as well be brought
To knee his throne, and, squirelike, pension beg
To keep base life afoot ;-Return with her?
Persuade me rather to be slave and sumpters
To this detested groom. [Looking on the Steward.
At your choice, sir.

- haud quid sit scio, Sed grande quiddam est.' Seneca Thyestes. Let such as are unwilling to allow that copiers of Lature must occasionally use the same thoughts and expres sions, remember that of both these authors there were early translations. Golding thus renders the passage from Ovid :

The thing that I do purpose on is great, whate'er it is I know not what it may be yet.

10 Flairs anciently signified fragments, as well as mere cracks. Among the Saxons it certainly had tb 4 meaning. The word, as Bailey observes, was expe

You should have had a sumpter, thought had cost me cially applied to the breaking off shivers or thin pisto The laying out myself.'