To have her gentleman abus'd, assaulted,
For following her affairs. — Put in his legs.

[KENT is put in the stocks. Come, my lord, away. [Exeunt REGAN and CORNWALL. Gloster. I am sorry for thee, friend; 't is the duke's pleasure,

Whose disposition, all the world well knows,

Will not be rubb'd,1 nor stopp'd: I 'll entreat for thee.
Kent. Pray, do not, Sir. I have watch'd, and travell❜d hard;

Some time I shall sleep out, the rest I'll whistle.
A good man's fortune. may grow out at heels: 2
Give you good morrow!

Glos. The duke 's to blame in this: 't will be ill taken.

[Exit.

Kent. Good king, that must approve the common saw: 3

Thou out of heaven's benediction com'st

To the warm sun.

Approach, thou beacon to this under globe,

That by thy comfortable beams I may

Peruse this letter. Nothing almost sees miracles,
But misery: I know, 't is from Cordelia;
Who hath most fortunately been inform'd
Of my obscured course; and shall find time
From this enormous state, seeking to give
Losses their remedies.5 All weary and o'er-watch'd,
Take vantage, heavy eyes, not to behold
This shameful lodging. Fortune, good night;
Smile once more; turn thy wheel!

[He sleeps.

Edgar. I heard myself proclaim'd;
And by the happy hollow of a tree
Escap'd the hunt. No port is free; no place,
That guard, and most unusual vigilance,
Does not attend my taking. While I may 'scape,
I will preserve myself; and am bethought1
To take the basest and most poorest shape,
That ever penury, in contempt of man,

Brought near to beast: my face I'll grime with filth,
- Blanket my loins, elf all my hair in knots,2
And with presented nakedness out-face
The winds, and persecutions of the sky.

3

The country gives me proof and precedent
Of Bedlam beggars, who, with roaring voices,
Strike in their 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,
Sometime with lunatic bans, sometime with prayers,
Enforce their charity. Poor Turlygood poor Tom!
That's something yet: - Edgar I nothing am.

5

[Exit.

1. And am bethought, and after ma- | peculiarities. Edgar borrows his dress ture reflection am decided. of them, and the phrases of Poor Tom, Poor Tom is a-cold, these lunatics being also called Tom o'Bedlams.

2. Hair thus knotted was vulgarly supposed to be the work of elves and fairies in the night.

3. Bedlam, corrupted from Bethlehem, the name of a religious house in London, converted afterwards into a hospital for the mad and lunatic. The Bedlam beggars were such lunatics as had been confined in Bethlehem Hospital, but, owing to the want of funds to support them there longer, or from their being partially restored to their senses, were dismissed into the world with a licence to beg. The sympathy excited by these unfortunates, occasioned many sturdy vagabonds to counterfeit and exaggerate their dress and

SCENE IV.

Before GLOSTER'S Castle.

Enter LEAR, Fool, and a Gentleman.

Lear. 'T is strange that they should so depart from home, And not send back my messenger.

Gentleman.

As I learn'd,

The night before there was no purpose in them

Of this remove.

Kent.

Lear. Ha!

Hail to thee, noble master!

No, my lord.

Fool. Ha, ha! look; he wears cruel garters.1 Horses are tied by the head; 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. 2

Lear. What's he, that hath so much thy place mistook, To set thee here?

They could not, would not do 't: 't is worse than murder, To do upon respect such violent outrage.3

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,

1. A quibble is probably intended here, crewel signifying worsted of which stockings, garters, &c. are made.

2. Nether-stocks is the old word for

stockings; breeches being called overstocks, or upper-stocks.

3. To be so grossly deficient in respect.

4. To resolve, to inform.

Ere I was risen from the place that show'd
My duty kneeling, came there a reeking post,1
Stew'd in his haste, half breathless, panting forth
From Goneril, his mistress, salutations;

Deliver❜d letters, spite of intermission,2

3

Which presently they read: on whose contents,
They summon'd up their meiny, straight took horse;
Commanded me to follow, and attend

The leisure of their answer; gave me cold looks:
And meeting here the other messenger,
Whose welcome, I perceiv'd, had poison'd mine,
(Being the very fellow which of late

Display'd so saucily against your highness)
Having more man than wit about me, drew:
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.

that way.

Winter 's not gone yet, if the wild geese fly

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 dolours for thy daughters, as thou canst 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.

5. Dolours, a quibble between dolours and dollars.

6. To tell, to count.

7. Lear here 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 was anciently not thought peculiar to women only.

Gent. Made you

no more offence than what

you

Kent. None.

speak of?

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?

Fool. We'll set thee to school to an ant, to teach thee there's no labouring i' 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.2.

Kent. Where learn'd you this, fool?

Fool. Not i' the stocks, fool.

Re-enter LEAR, with GLOSTER.

Lear. Deny to speak with me? They are sick? they

are weary?

They have travell'd hard to-night? Mere fetches,3

The images of revolt and flying off.

Fetch me a better answer.

Glos.

My dear lord,

You know the fiery quality of the duke;
How unremovable and fix'd he is

In his own course.

1. i. e. How does it chance? how does it happen?

2. Perdy, verily, in truth. Dr. Johnson thought the sense would be mended if we read,

"The fool turns knave that runs away; The knave no fool, perdy."

3. Fetch, a trick, an artifice.