SCENE II. Before GLOSTER'S Castle. Enter KENT and OSWALD, severally. Oswald. Good dawning to thee, friend: art of this house? Osw. Where may we set our horses? Kent. I' the mire. Osw. Pr'ythee, if thou love me, tell me. Kent. I love thee not. Osw., Why, then I care not for thee. Kent. If I had thee in Lipsbury pinfold,1 I would make thee care for me. Osw. Why dost thou use me thus? I know thee not. Osw. What dost thou know me for? 4 6 Kent. A knave, a rascal, an eater of broken meats; a base, proud, shallow, beggarly, three-suited, hundred-pound, 2 filthy, worsted-stocking knave; a lily-liver'd,3 action-taking knave; a whoreson glass-gazing, superserviceable, finical rogue; one trunk-inheriting slave; one that wouldest be a bawd, in way of good service, and art nothing but the composition of a knave, beggar, coward, pandar, and the son and heir of a mongrel bitch: one whom I will beat into clamorous whining, if thou deniest the least syllable of thy addition." Osw. Why, what a monstrous fellow art thou, thus to rail on one, that is neither known of thee, nor knows thee. Kent. What a brazen-faced varlet art thou to deny thou knowest me. It is two days since I tripped up thy heels, and beat thee, before the king? Draw, you rogue; for though it be night, yet the moon shines: I'll make a sop 9 5. i. e. who employs his time before the looking-glass. 6. i. e. who possesses but one trunk in the world; whose whole worldly effects are contained in one trunk. 7. Addition, titles. 8. We should now say, to rail at. 9. A sop is anything steeped into liquor, commonly to be eaten; i. e. Kent will beat him to such a jelly that he shall appear like a sop steeped in the moonshine. o' the moonshine of you: [Drawing his sword.] Draw, you whoreson cullionly barbermonger, draw. 1 Oswald. Away! I have nothing to do with thee. Kent. Draw, you rascal: you come with letters against the king, and take Vanity,2 the puppet's part, against the royalty of her father. Draw, you rogue, or I'll so carbodraw, you rascal; come your ways. 3 nado your shanks: Osw. Help, ho! murder! help! Kent. Strike, you slave: stand, rogue, stand; you neat slave, strike. Osw. Help, ho! murder! murder! 4 [Beating him. Enter CORNWALL, REGAN, GLOSTER, EDMUND, and Servants. Kent. With you,5 goodman boy, if you please: come I'll flesh you; come on, young_master. Gloster. Weapons! arms! What 's the matter here? He dies, that strikes again. What is the matter? Osw. I am scarce in breath, my lord. Kent. No marvel, you have so bestirred your valour. You cowardly rascal, nature disclaims in thee: a tailor made thee. Corn. Thou art a strange fellow: a tailor make a man? Kent. Ay, a tailor, Sir: a stone-cutter, or a painter, could not have made him so ill, though they had been but two hours at the trade. Corn. Speak yet, how grew your quarrel? Osw. This ancient ruffian, Sir, whose life I have spar'd At suit of his grey beard, 1. A cullion is a scoundrel, a mean wretch. Cullionly, scoundrelly, mean, base. 2. Alluding to the old plays called Moralities, in which Vanity, Iniquity, and other vices were personified. 3. To carbonado, to cut, or hack: a carbonado signifying meat cut across to be broiled upon the coals. 4. The meaning of this epithet neat may be gathered from a passage in "Winter's Tale", Act I., Sc. 2: 66 Come, captain, We must be neat; not neat, but cleanly, captain; And yet the steer, the heifer, and the calf, Are all call'd neat." 5. i. e. The matter is with you, I will deal with you; goodman boy is an ironical mode of address; I'll flesh you means, I'll give you a first lesson in the use of the sword. See note 3, page 38. 1 Kent. Thou whoreson zed! thou unnecessary letter! My lord, if you will give me leave, I will tread this unbolted1 villain into mortar, and daub the wall of a jakes 2 with him. Spare my grey beard, you wagtail? Cornwall. Peace, sirrah! You beastly knave, know you no reverence? Kent. That such a slave as this should wear a sword, 3 Which are too intrinse & t' unloose; smooth every passion That in the natures of their lords rebels; Bring oil to fire, snow to their colder moods; Renege, affirm, and turn their halcyon 5 beaks 7 8 Corn. What! art thou mad, old fellow? Gloster. How fell you out? 10 say that. Kent. No contraries hold more antipathy, Than I and such a knave. Corn. Why dost thou call him knave? What's his offence? Kent. His countenance likes me not. 11 Corn. No more, perchance, does mine, nor his, nor hers. 1. Unbolted mortar is mortar made that means show from which point it of unsifted lime, and therefore to blew. break the lumps it is necessary to tread it by men in wooden shoes. This unbolted villain, is therefore this caarse rascal. 2. Jakes, a back-house, or privy. 3. Intrinse for intrinsecate, perplexed, entangled. Not in use. 4. Renege, to disown. 6. Meaning, the frighted countenance of a man ready to fall into a fit. 7. i. e. at my speeches. 8. Salisbury was called New Sarum in distinction from Old Sarum, an ancient borough two miles distant from the new city. court in the West. 9. Camelot was the place where 5. The halcyon is the bird otherwise the romances say King Arthur kept called the king-fisher. The vulgar his opinion was, that this bird, if hung up, would vary with the wind, and by 10. To fall out, to quarrel. 11. i. e. pleases me not, does not please me. Kent. Sir, 't is my occupation to be plain: I have seen better faces in my time, Than stands on any shoulder that I see Cornwall. This is some fellow, Who, having been prais'd for bluntness, doth affect Kent. Sir, in good sooth, in sincere verity, Corn. What mean'st by this? Kent. To go out of my dialect, which you discommend so much. I know, Sir, I am no flatterer: he that beguiled you in a plain accent was a plain knave; which, for my part, I will not be, though I should win your displeasure to entreat me to 't. 6 Corn. What was the offence you gave him? 7 It pleas'd the king, his master, very late, 8 That worthied him,' got praises of the king Kent. 3 But Ajax is their fool.4 Cornwall. None of these rogues, and cowards, Fetch forth the stocks! You stubborn ancient knave, you reverend braggart, We'll teach you Kent. Sir, I am too old to learn. Call not your stocks for me; I serve the king, You shall do small respect, show too bold malice Corn. Fetch forth the stocks! As I have life and honour, there shall he sit till noon. Regan. Till noon! till night, my lord; and all night too. Kent. Why, Madam, if I were your father's dog, You should not use me so. Reg. Our sister speaks of. Sir, being his knave, I will. Corn. This is a fellow of the self-same colour Come, bring away the stocks! [Stocks brought out. Gloster. Let me beseech your grace not to do so. His fault is much, and the good king his master Will check him for 't: your purpos'd low correction Is such as basest and contemned'st wretches, For pilferings and most common trespasses, Are punish'd with. The king must take it ill, That he, so slightly valued in his messenger, Should have him thus restrain'd. Corn. I'll answer that. Reg. My sister may receive it much more worse, 1. And made pretence of. such bravery, that he was exalted in the estimation of the king, who praised him &c. Such a deal could not now be said with propriety, it being necessary to place good or great between the article and the substantive: a great deal. 2. To attempt, to attack. 3. A young soldier is said to flesh his sword the first time he draws blood with it. Fleshment means, therefore, the zeal inspired by the success of his first attack. See note 5, page 35. 4. i. e. is a fool to them. |