Enter EDGAR. ACT IV. Enter GLOUCESTER, led by an old man. My father, poorly led ?-World, world, O world! But that thy strange mutations make us hate thee, Life would not yield to age. OLD MAN. O my good lord, I have been your tenant, and your father's tenant, these fourscore years. GLO. Away, get thee away; good friend, be Thy comforts can do me no good at all, OLD MAN. You cannot see your way. I stumbled when I saw. So long as we can say, This is the worst. Is it a beggar-man? GLO. As flies to wanton boys, are we to the gods,— EDG. [Aside.] How should this be?- Ay, my lord. GLO. Then, pr'ythee, get thee gone : if, for sake, my This was an old stumbling-block to the critics Some have altered it to,-"Our mean secures us," &c., that is, our middle state keeps us in safety: others would read,-"Our meanness secures us: Johnson proposed,- - Our means seduce us; or "Our maims secure us: and Mr. Collier's annotator reads,-" Our wants secure us." All this controversy arose apparently from misapprehension of the sense in which the word "secure" is to be understood. To secure now means only to protect, to keep safely; but in old language it very commonly signified also, to render us EDG. [Aside.] And yet I must.-Bless thy sweet eyes, they bleed. GLO. Know'st thou the way to Dover? EDG. Both stile and gate, horse-way and footpath. Poor Tom hath been scared out of his good wits bless thee, good man's son, from the foul fiend!-five fiends have been in poor Tom at once; of lust, as Obidicut; Hobbididance, prince of dumbness; Mahu, of stealing; Modo, of murder; and Flibbertigibbet, of mopping and mowing,-who since possesses chamber - maids and waiting-women. So, bless thee, master! GLO. Here, take this purse, thou whom the heavens' plagues Have humbled to all strokes: that I am wretched, And each man have enough.-Dost thou know [head GLO. There is a cliff, whose high and bending Looks fearfully in the confined deep : Bring me but to the very brim of it, And I'll repair the misery thou dost bear, With something rich about me: from that place EDG. [Exeunt. I told him of the army that was landed; (*) First folio omits, and. careless, over-confident, unguarded, and this appears to be its meaning here. Thus, in Sir T. More's "Life of Edward V.":"Oh the uncertain confidence and shortsighted knowledge of man! When this lord was most afraid, he was most secure; and when he was secure, danger was over his head." Again, in Judges viii. 11:-" And Gideon went up by the way of them that dwelt in tents on the east of Nobah and Jogbehah, and smote the host, for the host was secure." b Then, pr'ythee, get thee gone:] So the quartos; the folio reads, "Get thee away," &c. c-five fiends, &c.] The remainder of the speech is not given in the folio. When I inform'd him, then he call'd me sot, him; What like, offensive. GON. [To EDMUND.] Then shall you go no further. It is the cowish terror of his spirit, That dares not undertake: he'll not feel wrongs, Which tie him to an answer. Our wishes on the way May prove effects. Back, Edmund, to my brother; If you dare venture in your own behalf, EDM. Yours in the ranks of death. My most dear Gloster! [Exit EDMUND. O, the difference of man and man! To thee a woman's services are due; My fool usurps my body." Osw. Madam, here comes my lord. [Exit. Most barbarous, most degenerate!-have you madded. Could my good brother suffer you to do it? If that the heavens do not their visible spirits Like monsters of the deep. GON. Milk-liver'd man! That bear'st a cheek for blows, a head for wrongs; Who hast not in thy brows an eye discerning Thine honour from thy suffering; that not know'st, Fools do those villains pity who are punish'd Ere they have done their mischief. Where's thy drum? France spreads his banners in our noiseless land; With plumed helm thy state begins to threat; Whiles thou, a moral fool, sitt'st still, and criest, Alack! why does he so? ALB. See thyself, devil! Proper deformity seems not in the fiend So horrid as in woman. GON. ALB. Thou changed and self-cover'd thing, for shame, O vain fool! GENT. Not to a rage: patience and sorrow strove* Who should express her goodliest. You have seen Sunshine and rain at once: her smiles and tears KENT. Pantingly forth, as if it press'd her heart; Let pity not be believ'd! There she shook KENT. It is the stars, -burdocks,-] The folio has "Hardokes," the quartos "hordocks." Farmer suggested harlocks, citing the following lines from Drayton,- Darnel, and all the idle weeds that grow In the restoring his bereaved sense? "The honey-suckle, the harlocke, The lilly, and the lady-smocke," &c. |