You will return and fojourn with my fister,
Difmiffing half your train, come then to me;
I am now from home, and out of that provifion
Which fhall be needful for your entertainment.
Lear. Return to her, and fifty men difmifs'd?
No, rather I abjure all roofs, and choose

1

10

To wage 1 against the enmity o' the air;
To be a comrade with the wolf and owl,-
Neceffity's fharp pinch!Return with her?
Why, the hot-blooded France, that dowerless took
Our youngest born, I could as well be brought
To knee his throne, and, fquire-like, penfion beg
To keep bafe life afoot2;-Return with her?
Perfuade me rather to be flave and fumpter 3
To this detefted groom.` [Looking on the fterward.
Gon. At your choice, fir.
[me mad;
Lear. Now I pr'ythee, daughter, do not make
I will not trouble thee, my child; farewel:
We'll no more meet, no more fee one another:-
But yet thou art my flesh, my blood, my daughter; 20
Or, rather, a disease that's in my flesh,

4

Which I must needs call mine: thou art a bile,
A plague-fore, an embossed + carbuncle,
In my corrupted blood. But I'll not chide thee;
Let fhame 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 canft; be better, at thy leifure:
I can be patient; I can stay with Regan,
I, and my hundred knights.

Reg. Not altogether fo, fir;

I look'd not for you yet, nor am provided
For your fit welcome: Give ear, fir, to my fifter;
For those that mingle reason with your paffion,
Must be content to think you old, and fo
But she knows what she does.

Lear. Is this well spoken now?

Reg. I dare avouch it, fir: What, fifty followers?

Is it not well? What should you need of more?

15

Lear. O, reafon not the need: our basest beggars
Are in the poorest thing fuperfluous:

Allow not nature more than nature needs,
Man's life is cheap as beaft's: thou art a lady;
If only to go warm were gorgeous,

Why, nature needs not what thou gorgeous wear'st,
Which fcarcely keeps thee warm.-But, for true

need,

[need!
You heavens, give me that patience, patience I
You fee me here, you gods, a poor old man,
As full of grief as age; wretched in both!
If it be you that ftir these daughters' hearts
Againft their father, fool me not so much
To bear it tamely; touch me with noble anger!
250, let not women's weapons, water-drops,

Stain my man's cheeks!-No, you unnatural hags,
I will have fuch revenges on you both,
That all the world fhall,-I will do fuch things,-
What they are, yet I know not; but they fhall be
30 The terrors of the earth. You think, I'll weep:
No, I'll not weep:-

35

I have full caufe of weeping; but this heart
Shall break into a hundred thousand flaws,
Or ere I'll weep:-O fool, I shall go mad!
[Exeunt Lear, Glofter, Kent, and Fool,
Corn. Let us withdraw, 'twill be a ftorm.
[Storm and tempeft beard.
Reg. This houfe is little; the old man and his
people

Yea, or so many? fith that both charge and danger 40 Cannot be well beftow'd.

Speak 'gainst fo great a number? How, in one

houfe,

freft,

Gon.'Tis his own blame; he hath put himself from And muft needs tafte his folly.

Reg. For his particular, I'll receive him gladly, But not one follower.

Gon. So am I purpos'd.

Where is my lord of Glofter?

Re-enter Glofter.

Corn. Follow'd the old man forth:-he is return'd.
Glo. The king is in high rage.

Corn. Whither is he going?

[whither.

Glo. He calls to horfe; but will I know not
Corn. 'Tis best to give him way; he leads himself,
Gon. My lord, entreat him by no means to ftay.
Glo. Alack, the night comes on, and the bleak
winds

Do forely ruffle; for many miles about
There's fcarce a bush.

Reg. O, fir, to wilful men,

The injuries, that they themselves procure,
Must be their fchool-mafters: Shut up your doors;
He is attended with a defperate train;

1 i. e. to make war. 2 i. e. in a fervile state. 3 Sumpter is a horse that carries neceffaries on a journey, though fometimes used for the cafe to carry them in. 4 Embed is fuelling, protuberant. 3 P

And

frolI am a gentleman of blood and breeding,
And from fome knowledge and affurance, offer
This office to you.

Gent. I will talk further with you.

Kent. No, do not.

1 The main feems to fignify here the main land, the continent. drawn dry by its young. 3 My obfervation of your character. 5 i. e. colours, external pretences.

8 That is, "Crack nature's mould, and spill (or destroy) all the feeds of matter that are
9 Court boly-awater is a proverbial expreflion, meaning fair words.
11 i. e. fhameful, difhonourable.

Fool. Marry, here's grace, and a cod-piece2; that's a wife man, and a fool.

Kent. Alas, fir, are you here? things that love
night,

Love not fuch nights as these; the wrathful skies
Gallow 3 the very wanderers of the dark,
And make them keep their caves: Since I was man,
Such sheets of fire, fuch 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.

Lear. Let the great gods,

5

Muft make content with bis fortunes fit;
For the rain it raineth every day.

Lear. True, my good boy.-Come, bring us to this hovel. [Exit.

Fool. This is a brave night to cool a courtezan.
I'll fpeak a prophecy ere I go :

When priests are more in word than matter;
When brewers mar their malt with water;
When nobles are their tailors' tutors 7;

10 No heretics burn'd, but wenches' fuitors:
Then comes the time, who lives to fee 't,
That going fhall be us'd with feet.-
When every cafe in law is right;

No fquire in debt, nor no poor knight;
15 When flanders do not live in tongues ;
Nor cut-purfes come not to throngs;
When ufurers tell their gold i' the field;
And bawds, and whores, do churches build;
Then fhall the realm of Albion

20 Come to great confufion.

25

That keep this dreadful pother o'er our heads,
Find out their enemies now. Tremble,thou wretch, 30
That haft within thee undivulged crimes,
Unwhipt of justice: Hide thee, thou bloody hand;
Thou perjur'd, and thou fimular man of virtue
That art inceftucus: Caitiff, to pieces shake,
That under covert and convenient seeming 4
Haft practis'd on man's life !—Close pent up guilts,
Rive your concealing continents 5, and cry
Thefe dreadful fummoners grace.—I am a man,
More finn'd against, than finning.

Kent. Alack, bare-headed!

Gracious my lord, hard by here is a hovel;
Some friendship will it lend you 'gainst the tempeft;
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,
Deny'd me to come in) return, and force
Their fcanted courtesy.

This prophecy Merlin fhall make; for I live be fore his time.

An Apartment in Glofter's Castle.

Enter Glofter, and Edmund.

[Exit.

Glo. Alack, alack, Edmund, I like not this unnatural dealing: When I defired their leave that I might pity him, they took from me the use perpetual displeasure, neither to speak of him, enof mine own house; charg'd me, on pain of their treat for him, nor any way sustain him.

Edm. Moft favage, and unnatural!

Glo. Go to; fay you nothing: There is divifion between the dukes; and a worse matter than that: 35I have received a letter this night;-'tis dangerous to be spoken.I have lock'd the letter in my clofet: these injuries the king now bears will be revenged home; there is part of a power already footed: we must incline to the king. I will feek 40 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 threaten'd me, the king my old mafter must be relieved. 45 There is fome strange thing toward, Edmund ; pray you, be careful. [Exit.

i. e. A beggar marries a wife and lice. That there is no difcretion below the girdle. frighten. 4 Convenient feeming is appearance ment ftands for that which contains or inclfes. 6 Summoners mean. here the officers that fummon offenders before a proper tribunal. 7 i. e. invent fashions for them. The disease to 'which wenches' fuiters are particularly expofed, was called in Shakspeare's time the brenning or burning,

2 Alluding perhaps to the saying of a contemporary wit,
3 Gallow, a weft-country word, fignifies to fcare or
fuch as may promote his purpose to destroy.
5 Conti-

Fool. Come not in here, nuncle, here's a fpirit.
Help me, help me! [The Fool runs out from the bowel.
Kent. Give me thy hand.- Who's there?
Fool. A fpirit, a fpirit; he fays his name's poor
Tom.
[the ftraw? 50
Kent. What art thou that doft grumble there i'
Come forth.

Enter Edgar, disguis'd as a madman.
Edg. Away! the foul fiend follows me!-
Through the sharp hawthorn blows the cold wind.--|55|
Humph! go to thy cold bed, and warm thee.

Lear. Haft 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|60 flame, through ford and whirlpool, over bog and

So the five fenfes were called by our old writers. 2 To take is to blaft, or ftrike with malignant influence. 3 The young pelican is fabled to fuck the mother's blood. 4 i. e. his miftrefs' favours: which was the fashion of that time. 5 i. e. ready to receive malicious reports.

more but fuch a poor, bare, forked animal as thou
art.- ———Off, off, you lendings:-Come; unbutton
here.-
[Tearing off bis 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 fpark, and all the reft of his body cold.-Look, here comes a walking fire.

Edg. How to prevent the fiend, and to kill ver-
Lear. Let me ask you one word in private.
Kent. Importune him once more to go, my lord,
His wits begin to unfettle.

Glo. Canft thou blame him?

[Storm fill.

Edg. This is the foul fiend Flibbertigibbet: he begins at curfew, and walks 'till the first cock; he 10 His daughters feek his death:—Ah, that good

Kent!

He faid it would be thus :-Poor banish'd man!-
Thou fay'ft, the king grows mad; I'll tell thee,
friend,

15I am almoft mad myself: I had a fon,
Now out-law'd from my blood; he fought my life,
But lately, very late; I lov'd him, friend,-
No father his fon dearer: true to tell thee,

The grief hath craz'd my wits, What a night's this! 20I do befeech your grace,

Lear. O, cry you mercy, fir:-
Noble philofopher, your company.
Edg. Tom's a-cold.

[warm.

Glu. In, fellow, there, to the hovel: keep thee
Lear. Come, let's in all.

Kent. This way, my lord.
Lear. With him;

Kent. Who's there? What is 't you feek?
Glo. What are you there? Your,names?
Edg. Poor Tom; that eats the fwimming frog,
the toad, the tadpole, the wall-newt, and the wa-25
ter-newt; that in the fury of his heart, when the
foul fiend rages, eats cow-dung for fallets; fwal-|
lows the old rat, and the ditch-dog; drinks the
green mantle of the standing pool; who is whipt
from tything to tything 4, and stock'd, punish'd, 30the fellow.
and imprison'd; who hath had three fuits to his
back, fix fhirts to his body, horse to ride, and
weapon to wear,—

But mice, and rats, and fuch small deer 3,
Have been Tom's food for ferven long year.
Beware my follower :-Peace, Smolkin; peace,
thou fiend!

Glo. What, hath your grace no better company?
Edg. The prince of darkness is a gentleman;
Modo he's call'd, and Mahu.

35

[vile, 40

Glo. Our flesh and blood, my lord, is grown fo That it doth hate what gets it.

Edg. Poor Tom's a-cold.

Glo. 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 ventur'd to come feek you out,
And bring you where both fire and food is ready.
Lear. First let me talk with this philofopher:
What is the cause of thunder?

Kent. My good lord, take his offer;

I will keep ftill with my philofopher.

Kent. Good my lord, footh him; let him take

Glo. Take him you on.

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

Glo. No words, no words; hush.

Edg. Child 6 Reruland to the dark tower came,
His word was ftill,-Fie, feb, and fum,
Ifmell the blood of a British man.

SCE NE V.

Glofter's Cafile.

Enter Cornwall, and Edmund.

[Excunt.

Corn. I will have my revenge, ere I depart this houfe.

Edm. How, my lord, I may be cenfur'd, that 45 nature thus gives way to loyalty, fomething fears me to think of.

Corn. I now perceive, it was not altogether your brother's evil difpofition made him feek his death; but a provoking merit, fet a-work by a reprovable 50 badnefs in himfelf.

Edm. How malicious is my fortune, that I muft repent to be just! This is the letter which he spoke

3 Thefe

• Diseases of the eye. 2 Wold fignifies a down, or ground hilly and void of wood. verfes were no other than a popular charm, or night-spell against the Epialtes; and the laft line is the formal execration or apoftrophe of the fpeaker of the charm to the witch, aroynt thee right, i. e. depart forthwith. Bedlams, gipfies, and fuch-like vagabonds, ufed to fell thefe kind of fpells or charms to the people. They were of various kinds for various disorders. 4 A tything is a divifion of a place, a district; the fame in the country, as a ward in the city, In the Saxon times every hundred was divided into tythings. 5 Deer in old language is a general word for wild animals. the old times of chivalry, the noble youth who were candidates for knighthood, during the season of their probation, were called Infans, Varlets, Damoyfels, Bacheliers; the most noble of the youth particularly, Infans. Here a ftory is told, in fome old ballad, of the famous hero and giant-killer Roland, before he was knighted, who is, therefore, called Infans; which the ballad-maker tranflated,

Child Roland.

6 In