[Rising] Never, Regan: On her ingrateful top! Strike her young bones, Corn. Fie, sir, fie! Lear. You nimble lightnings, dart your blinding Into her scornful eyes! Infect her beauty, [flames You fen-suck'd fogs, drawn by the powerful sun, To fall and blast her pride! Reg. O the blest gods! so will you wish on me, Thee o'er to harshness: her eyes are fierce; but thine Thy half o' the kingdom hast thou not forgot, Reg. Good sir, to the purpose. Lear. Who put my man i' the stocks? [Tucket within. Corn. What trumpet 's that? Reg. I know 't, my sister's: this approves her That she would soon be here. [letter, Enter Oswald. Is your lady come? Lear. This is a slave, whose easy-borrow'd pride Dwells in the fickle grace of her he follows. Out, varlet, from my sight! Corn. What means your grace? Lear. Who stock'd my servant? Regan, I have good hope [heavens, Thou didst not know on 't. Who comes here? Enter Goneril. If you do love old men, if your sweet sway Make it your cause; send down, and take my part! You did you? To keep base life afoot. Return with her? Gon. Why might not you, my lord, receive attendance From those that she calls servants or from mine? Reg. Why not, my lord? If then they chanced to slack you, We could control them. If you will come to me,- Reg. me. Thy fifty yet doth double five-and-twenty, Why, nature needs not what thou gorgeous wear'st, What they are, yet I know not; but they shall be I have full cause of weeping; but this heart [Exeunt Lear, Gloucester, Kent, and Fool. Storm and tempest. Corn. Let us withdraw; 't will be a storm. Reg. This house is little: the old man and his people Cannot be well bestow'd. Re-enter Gloucester. Glou. The king is in high rage. Corn. Whither is he going? Glou. He calls to horse; but will I know not whither. [self. Corn. 'Tis best to give him way; he leads himGon. My lord, entreat him by no means to stay. Glou. Alack, the night comes on, and the bleak Do sorely ruffle; for many miles about [winds There's scarce a bush. O, sir, to wilful men, Reg. Gon. T is his own blame; hath put himself from The injuries that they themselves procure rest, Must be their schoolmasters. Shut up your doors: ACT III. Storm still. Enter Kent and a Gentleman, meeting. Kent. Who's there, besides foul weather? Gent. One minded like the weather, most unquiKent. I know you. Where's the king? [etly. Gent. Contending with the fretful element; Bids the wind blow the earth into the sea, Or swell the curled waters 'bove the main, [hair, That things might change or cease; tears his white Which the impetuous blasts, with eyeless rage, Catch in their fury, and make nothing of; Strives in his little world of man to out-scorn The to-and-fro-conflicting wind and rain. This night, wherein the cub-drawn bear would The lion and the belly-pinched wolf Keep their fur dry, unbonneted he runs, And bids what will take all. [couch, But who is with him? who labours to outjest Sir, I do know you; And dare, upon the warrant of my note, To make your speed to Dover, you shall find I am a gentleman of blood and breeding; No, do not. Gent. I will talk further with you. Kent. For confirmation that I am much more Than my out-wall, open this purse, and take [say? Gent. Give me your hand: have you no more to Kent. Few words, but, to effect, more than all yet; [your pain That, when we have found the king,-in which That way, I'll this, he that first lights on him [Exeunt severally. Holla the other. SCENE II.—Another part of the heath. Storm still. Enter Lear and Fool. Lear. Blow, winds, and crack your cheeks! rage! You cataracts and hurricanoes, spout [blow! Till you have drench'd our steeples, drown'd the cocks! You sulphurous and thought-executing fires, [der, Good Fool. O nuncle, court holy-water in a dry house The cod-piece that will house The man that makes his toe And turn his sleep to wake. Fool. Marry, here's grace and a cod-piece; that's a wise man and a fool. [night Kent. Alas, sir, are you here? things that love 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 The affliction nor the fear. Gracious my lord, hard by here is a hovel; Lear. Fool. [Singing] He that has and a little tiny wit,- When priests are more in word than matter; Come to great confusion: Then comes the time, who lives to see 't, This prophecy Merlin shall make; for I live before his time. [Exit. SCENE III.-Gloucester's castle. Enter Gloucester and Edmund. Glou. 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! Glou. Go to say you nothing. There's a division betwixt 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 's 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. Though 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 Instantly know; and of that letter too: This seems a fair deserving, and must draw me That which my father loses; no less than all: The younger rises when the old doth fall. [Exit. SCENE IV.-The heath. Before a hovel. Enter Lear, Kent, and Fool. Kent. Here is the place, my lord; good my lord, The tyranny of the open night's too rough [enter: For nature to endure. [Storm still. Lear. Let me alone. Kent. Good my lord, enter here. Lear. Wilt break my heart? Kent. I had rather break mine own. Good my lord, enter. [tious storm Lear. Thou think'st 't is much that this contenInvades us to the skin: so 't is to thee; But where the greater malady is fix'd, The lesser is scarce felt. Thou 'ldst shun a bear; But if thy flight lay toward the raging sea, Thou 'ldst meet the bear i' the mouth. mind's free, When the The body's delicate: the tempest in my mind poverty, Nay, get thee in. I'll pray, and then I'll sleep. Edg. [Within] Fathom and half, fathom and half! Poor Tom! [The Fool runs out from the hovel. Fool. Come not in here, nuncle, liere's a spirit. Help me, help me! 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 straw? Come forth. Enter Edgar disguised as a madman. Edg. Away! the foul fiend follows me! Through the sharp hawthorn blows the cold wind. Hum! 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, and through ford and whirlipool, o'er bog and quagmire; that 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 trottinghorse 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 taking! Do poor Tom some charity, whom the foul fiend vexes: there could I have him now, and there, and there again, and there. [Storm still. Lear. What, have his daughters brought him to this pass? [all? Couldst thou save nothing? Didst thou give them Fool. Nay, he reserved a blanket, else we had been all shamed. [air Lear. Now, all the plagues that in the pendulous Hang fated o'er men's faults light on thy daughters! Kent. He hath no daughters, sir. [nature Lear. Death, traitor! nothing could have subdued To such a lowness but his unkind daughters. Is it the fashion, that discarded fathers Should have thus little mercy on their flesh? Judicious punishment! 't was this flesh begot Those pelican daughters. Edg. Pillicock sat on Pillicock-hill: Halloo, halloo, loo, loo! 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 justly; swear not; commit not with man's sworn spouse; set not thy sweet heart on proud array. Tom 's a-cold. Lear. What hast thou been? Edg. A serving-man, proud in heart and mind; that curled my hair; wore gloves in my cap; served the lust of my mistress' 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: Dolphin my boy, my boy, sessa! let him trot by. Kent. Who's there? What is 't you seek? Glou. 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 tithing to tithing, and stock-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! Glou. What, hath your grace no better company? Edg. The prince of darkness is a gentleman: Modo he 's call'd, and Mahu. [lord, Glou. Our flesh and blood is grown so vile, my That it doth hate what gets it. Edg. Poor Tom's a-cold. Glou. Go in with me: my duty cannot suffer To obey in all your daughters' hard commands: Though their injunction be to bar my doors, And let this tyrannous night take hold upon you, Yet have I ventured to come seek you out, And bring you where both fire and food is ready. Lear. First let me talk with this philosopher. What is the cause of thunder? [house. Kent. Good my lord, take his offer; go into the Lear. I'll talk a word with this same learned What is your study? [Theban. Edg. How to prevent the fiend, and to kill vermin. Lear. Let me ask you one word in private. Kent. Importune him once more to go, my lord; His wits begin to unsettle. Glou. Canst thou blame him? [Storm still. 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 loved him, friend; No father his son dearer: truth to tell thee, The grief hath crazed my wits. What a night's this? I do beseech your grace,— Lear. O, cry you mercy, sir. Noble philosopher, your company. Edg. Tom 's a-cold. [warm. I Glou. In, fellow, there, into the hovel: keep thee Lear. Come, let's in all. Kent. Lear. This way, my lord. With him; will keep still with my philosopher. Kent. Good my lord, soothe him; let him take the fellow. Glou. Take him you on. Kent. Sirrah, come on; go along with us. Glou. No words, no words: hush. I smell the blood of a British man. [Exeunt. |