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 qualityO 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.
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 I 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 bath abated me of half my train;

Thy half o'the kingdom hast thou not forgot,
Wherein I thee endow'd..

Reg. Good Sir, to the purpose.

Trumpets within.
Lear. Who put my man i'the stocks!
Corn. What trumpet's that?

Enter STEWARD.

Reg. I know't, my sister's: this approves her
79 [conje?
letter, m
That she would soon be here. Is your lady
Lear. This is a slave whose easy-borrow'd

pride

Dwells in the fickle grace of her het follows:-
Out, varlet, from my sight!

Corn. What means your grace?

Lear. Who stock'd my servant? Regan, I
have good hope

Thou didst not know oft.-Who comes here?
O heavens,

Enter GONERIL.

If you do love old men, if your sweet sway
Allow obedience, if yourselves are old,
Make it your cause: send down, and take my
part !-

Art not asham'd to look upon this beard?--
[To GONERIL.

O Regan, wilt thou take her by the hand?
Gon. Why not by the hand, Sir? How have
I offended?

And dotage terms so.
All's not offence that indiscretion finds,

Lear. O sides, you are to tough!

Will you yet hold?-How came my man i'the stocks?

Corn. I set him there, Sir: but his own dis-
orders

Deserv'd much less advancement.
Lear. You! did you?

Reg. I pray you, father, being weak, seem so.
If, till the expiration of your month,
You will return and sojourn with my sister, b
Dismissing half your train, come then to me;
I am now from home, and out of that pro
vision

Which shall be needful for your entertainment..
Lear. Return to her, and fifty men dismiss'd ?
No, rather I abjure all roofs, and choose
To wage against the enmity o'the the air;
To be a comrade with the wolf and owl,-
Necessity's sharp pinch!-Return with her?
Why the hot blooded France, that dowerless
took

Our youngest born, 1 could as well be brought

Look'd black upon me; struck me with her To knee his throne, and, squire-like, pension

tongue,

Most serpent-like, upon the very heart :

All the stor'd vengeances of heaven fall

On her ingrateful top! Strike her young bones,
You taking airs, with lameness!

Corn. Fie, fie, fie!

Lear. You nimble lightnings, dart your blind-
ing flames

Into her scornful eyes! Infect her beauty,
You fen-suck'd fogs, drawn by the powerful sun,
To fall and blast her pride!

Reg. O the bless'd gods!

So will you wish on me, when the rash mood's

on.

Lear. No, Regan, thou shalt never have my

curse;

Thy tender-hefted nature shall not give
Thee o'er to harshness: her eyes are fierce,

but thine

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,
And, in conclusion, to oppose the bolt
Against my coming in: thou better know'st
The offices of nature, bond of childhood,
Effects of courtesy, dues of gratitude;

+ The order of families.
• Be wanting in.
Contract my allowances.

Or, rather, a disease that's in my flesh,
Which I must needs call mine: thou art a boil,
A plague-sore, an embossed § carbuncle,
But I'll not chide
In my corrupted blood.

thee;

Let shame come when it will, I do not call it :

I do not bid the thunder-bearer shoot,
Nor tell tales of thee to high-judging Jove :
Mend, when thou canst; be better, at thy

leisure:

I can be patient; I can stay with Regan,
I, and my hundred knights.
Reg. Not altogether so, Sir;

1 A horse that Swelling.

Lear. Made you my guardians, my deposi- And what they may incense him to, being apt

Kent. I know you; Where's the king?
Gent. Contending with the fretful element:
Bids the wind blow the earth into the sea,

Lear. Oh! reason not the need: our basest Or swell the curled waters 'bove the main,

Scene II.

Whereof, perchance, these

KING LEAR are but furnish

[power
ings,⚫-
[But, true it is, from France there comes a
Into this scatter'd kingdom; who already,
Wise in oar negligence, have secret feet
In some of our best ports, and are at point
To show their open banner.-Now to you:
If on my credit you dare build so far

To make your speed to Dover, you shall find
Some that will thank you, making just report
Of how unnatural and bemadding sorrow
The king hath cause to plain.

I am a gentleman of blood and breeding;
And, from some knowledge and assurance, offer
This office to you.]

Gent. I will talk further with you.

- Kent. No, do not.

For confirmation that I am much more
Than my out wall, open this purse, and take
What it contains: If you shall see Cordelia,
(As fear not but you shall,) show her this ring;
And she will tell you who your fellow + is
That yet you do not know. Fie on this storm!
I will go seek the king.

Geat. 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

Holla the other.

That way; I'll this ;) he that first lights on him,
[Exeunt severally.
SCENE II.-Another Part of the Heath.-
Storm continues.

Enter LEAR and FOOL.

Lear. Blow, wind, and crack your cheeks!
rage! blow!

You cataracts, and hurricanoes, spout
Till you have drench'd our steeples, drown'd the

cocks!

thunder,

You sulphurous and thought-executing fires,
Vaant couriers to oak-cleaving thunderbolts,
And thou, all-shaking
Singe my white head!
Strike flat the thick rotundity o'the world!
Crack nature's moulds, all germens 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 fouls.

Lear. Ramble my bellyfull! Spit, fire, spout,
[ters:
rain !
Nor rain, wind, thunder, fire, are my daugh-
I tax not you, you elements, with unkindness;
I never gave you kingdom, call'd you children;
You owe me no subscription; why then, let
[slave,
fall
Your horrible pleasure; here I stand, your
A poor, infirm, weak, and despis'd old man :-
But yet I call you servile ministers,
That have with two pernicious daughters join'd
Your high engender'd battles, 'gainst a head
So old and white as this. OO! 'tis foul!
Fool. He that has a house to put his head in,
as a good head-piece.

The cod-piece that will house,
Before the head has any,
The head and he shall louse-
So beggars marry many.

The man that makes his toe

What he his heart should make,

Shall of a corn cry woe,

And turn his sleep to wake.

Enter KENT.

Lear. No, I will be the pattern of all patience;
I will say nothing.

Kent. Who's there?

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
[skies
love night,
Love not such nights as these; the wrathful
Gallow the very wanderers of the dark,
And make them keep their caves: Since I was

man,

[der,

Such sheets of fire, such bursts of horrid thun-
Such groans of roaring wind and rain, I never
Remember to have heard; man's nature cannot
carry

The affliction, nor the fear.

Lear. Let the great gods,

That keep this dreadful pother + 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
haud;

Thou perjur'd, and thou simular‡ man of vir

tue

That art incestuous: Caitiff, to pieces shake,
That under covert and convenient seeming
Hast practis'd on man's life!-Close peut-up
guilts,

Rive your concealing continents, and cry
These dreadful summoners grace. -I am
man,

2

More sinu'd against than sinning.
Kent. Alack, bare-headed!
Gracious my lord, hard by here is a hovel;
Some friendship will it lend you 'gainst the
tempest;

Repose you there: while I to this hard house,
(More hard than is the stone whereof 'tis rais'd;
Which even but now, demanding ¶ after you,
Denied me to come in,) return, and force
Their scanted courtesy.

Lear. 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.
your hovel.

For the rain it raineth every day. **

Lear. True, my good boy.-Come, bring us to this hovel. [Exeunt LEAR and KENT. Fool. This is a brave night to cool a courtezan. I'll speak a prophecy ere I go;

When priests are more in word than matter;
When brewers mar their malt with water;
When nobles are their tailor's tutors;
No heretics burn'd, but wenches' suitors:
When every case in law is right;
No squire in debt, nor no poor knight;
When slanders do not live in tongues;

Nor cutpurses come not to throngs

When usurers tell their gold i'the field;
And bawds and whores do churches build :-
Then shall the realm of Albion

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

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; -'tis dangerous to be spoken;-I have locked the letter in my closet: these injuries the king now bears will be revenged at 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, Edmand; 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 fail.

poor Tom.

Kent. What art thou that dost gramble 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.

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 though flame, through ford and whirlpool, over 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 trotting-horse over four-iached bridges, to course his own shadow for a traitor: Exit.Bless thy five wits! Tom's a-cold. O, do de, do de, do de.-Bless thee from whirlwinds, starblasting, and taking! 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.

SCENE IV.—A Part of the Heath, with a
Hovel.

Enter LEAR, KENT, and FOOL.

Kent. Here is the place, my lord; good, my
lord, enter:

The tyranny of the open night's too rough
For nature to endure.

Lear. Let me alone.

[Storm still.

Kent. Good my lord, enter here.
Lear. Wilt break my heart?

Kent. I'd rather break mine own: Good my

lord, enter.

Lear. Thou think'st 'tis much, that this con-
tentious storm

Invades us to the skin so 'tis to thee;
But where the greater malady is fix'd,
The lesser is scarce felt. Thou'dst shun a bear:
But if thy flight lay toward the raging sea,
Thou'dst meet the bear i'the mouth. When the
mind's free,

The body's delicate the tempest in my mind
Doth from my senses take all feeling else,
Save what beats there.-Filial ingratitude!
Is it not as this mouth should tear this hand,
For lifting food to't ?-But I will punish home :-
No, I will weep no more.-In such a night
To shut me out!-Pour on; I will endure:
In such a night as this! O Regan, Goneril!-
Your old kind father, whose frank heart gave
all,-

Oh! that way madness lies: let me shun that;
No more of that,-

Kent. Good my lord, enter here.

Lear. Pr'ythee, go in thyself; seek thine own

ease:

[Storm continues. Lear. What, have his daughters brought hi to this pass?

Couldst thou save nothing? Didst thou give

them all?

du'd nature

To such a lowness, but his unkind daughters.-
Is it the fashion, that discarded fathers
Should have thus little inercy on their flesh?
Judicious punishment! 'twas tais flesh begot
Those pelican daughters.

Edg. Pillicock sat on pillicock's-hill;—
Halloo, halloo, loo, loo!

Fool. This cold night will turn us all to fools and madmen.

Edg. Take heed o'the foul field: 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, Nay, get thee in. I'll pray, and then I'll sleep.-out-paramoured the Turk: False of heart, light

This tempest will not give me leave to ponder
On things would burt me more.-But I'll go in
In, boy; go first.-[To the FooL.] You house-
less poverty,

[Fool goes in.
Poor naked wretches, wheresoe'er you are,
That bide the pelting of this pitiless storm,
How shall your houseless heads, and unfed
sides,

Your loop'd and window'd raggedness, defend you

A force already landed.

of ear, bloody of hand; Hog in slotb, fox in stealth, wolf in greediness, dog in maduess, lion in prey. Let not the creaking of shoes, nor the rustling of silks, betray thy poor heart to women: Keep thy foot out of brothels, thy hand out of

• To take is to blast, or strike with malignant influence. + It was the custom to wear gloves in the hat, as the favour of a mistress.

Scene IV.

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 were 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 of us 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 off his Clothes. Fool. Pr'ythee, nuncle, be contented; this is a naughty night to swim in.-Now a little fire in a wild field were like an old lecher's heart; a small spark, all the rest of his 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 the pin, squints the eye, and makes the hare-lip; mildews the white wheat, and hurts the poor creature of

earth.

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

Smolkin; tt

follower-Peace,
my
peace, thou fiend!
Gle. What, bath your grace no better com-
pany?

Edg. The prince of darkness is a gentleman;
Modo he's call'd, and Mahu. ‡

Gle. Our flesh and blood, my lord, is grown
so vile,

That it doth hate what gets it.

Edg. Poor Tom's a-cold.

Gle. Go in with me; my duty cannot suffer To obey in all your daughter's hard commands: Though their injunction be to bar my doors, And let this tyrannous night take hold upon

you;

Yet have I ventur'd to come seek you out,
And bring you where both fire and food is
ready.

Lear. First let me talk with this philoso-
pher :-

What is the cause of thunder?

Kent. Good, my lord, take his offer;

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 pri

vate.

Kent. Impórtune him once more to go, my lord,

His wits begin to unsettle.

Glo. Canst thou blame him?

His

He

daughters seek his death :-Ah! that good Kent

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 sou dearer: true to tell thee,
[Storm continues,
What a night's

The grief hath craz'd my wits.

this!

I do beseech your grace,—

Lear. Oh! cry you mercy,
Noble philosopher, your company.
Edg. Tom's a-cold.

Glo. In, fellow, there, to the hovel, keep thee

warm.

Lear. Come, let's in all.

Kent. This way, my lord.

Lear. With him;

I will keep still with my philosopher.

Kent. Good, my lord, sooth him; let bim take the fellow.

Glo. Take him you on.

Kent. Sirrab, come on; go along with us.
Lear. Come, good Athenian.

Glo. No words, no words a

Hush.

Edg. Child Rowiana to the dark tower

came

His word was still,-Fie, foh, and fum,
I smell the blood of a British man.

[Exeunt.

SCENE V.-A Room in GLOSTER'S Castle.

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 reproveable badness in himself.

Edm. How malicious is my fortune, that I inust repent to be just! This is the letter he spoke of, which approves him an intelligent party to the advantages of France. vens! that this treason were not, or not I the

detector!

O hea

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 ear! of Gloster. Seek out where thy father is, that he may be ready for our apprehension.

Edm. [Aside.] If I find him comforting the king, it will stuff his suspicion more fully.-I will persevere in my course of loyalty, though The words unbutton here, are probably only a margi- the conflict be sore between that and my blood. direction crept into the matter.