Not in this land shall he remain uncaught;
And found, despatch. The noble duke my master,
My worthy arch and patron, comes to-night:
By his authority I will proclaim it

That he which finds him shall deserve our thanks,
Bringing the murderous coward to the stake:
He that conceals him, death.

Edm. When I dissuaded him from his intent,
And found him pight to do it, with curst speech
I threatened to discover him: he replied,
"Thou unpossessing bastard! dost thou think,
If I would stand against thee, would the reposal
Of any trust, virtue, or worth, in thee,
Make thy words faithed? No: what should I deny
(As this I would; ay, though thou didst produce
My very character), I'd turn it all

To thy suggestion, plot, and damnéd practice:
And thou must make a dullard of the world,
If they not thought the profits of my death
Were very pregnant and potential spurs
To make thee seek it."

Glo. I know not, madam: 'tis too bad, too bad. Edm. Yes, madam, he was of that consort. Reg. No marvel, then, though he were ill affected:

'Tis they have put him on the old man's death,
To have the waste and spoil of his revenues.
I have this present evening from my sister
Been well informed of them; and with such
cautions,

That, if they come to sojourn at my house,
I'll not be there.
Corn.

Nor I, assure thee, Regan.-
Edmund, I hear that you have shewn your father
A childlike office.
Edm.

It was my duty, sir.

Edm. Truly, however else. Glo.

For him I thank your grace.
Corn. You know not why we came to visit you,—
Reg. Thus out of season; threading dark-
eyed night.

Occasions, noble Gloster, of some poize,
Wherein we must have use of your advice :-
Our father he hath writ, so hath our sister,
Of differences, which I best thought it fit
To answer from our home: the several messengers
From hence attend despatch. Our good old friend,
Lay comforts to your bosom; and bestow
Your needful counsel to our business,
Which craves the instant use.
Glo. I serve you, madam :
Your graces are right welcome.

[Exeunt.

SCENE II.-Before GLOSTER's Castle. Enter KENT and Steward, severally. Stew. Good dawning to thee, friend: art of

the house?

Kent. Ay.

Stew. Where may we set our horses?
Kent. I' the mire.

Stew. Pr'y thee, if thou love me, tell me.
Kent. I love thee not.

Stew. Why, then I care not for thee. Kent. If I had thee in Lipsbury pinfold, I would make thee care for me.

Stew. Why dost thou use me thus? I know thee not.

Kent. Fellow, I know thee.

Stew. What dost thou know me for?

Kent. A knave; a rascal; an eater of broken meats; a base, proud, shallow, beggarly, threesuited, hundred-pound, filthy worsted-stocking knave; a lily-livered, action-taking knave; a whoreson, glass-gazing, superserviceable, finical rogue; one-trunk-inheriting slave; one that wouldst be a bawd, in way of good service; and art nothing but the composition of a knave, beggar, coward, pander, 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.

Stew. 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 know'st me! Is it two days ago since I tripped up thy heels and beat thee, before the king? Draw, you rogue; for, though it be night, the moon shines: I'll make a sop o'the moonshine of you. Draw, you whoreson cullionly barber-monger; draw. [Drawing his sword. Stew. Away; I have nothing to do with thee. Kent. Draw, you rascal: you come with letters against the king, and take vanity the puppet's part against the royalty of her father. Draw, you rogue, or I'll so carbonado your shanks,-draw, you rascal: come your ways. Stew. Help, ho! murder! help! Kent. Strike, you slave: stand, rogue, stand: you neat slave, strike! [Beating him. Stew. Help, ho! murder; murder!

Enter EDMUND, CORNWALL, REGAN, GLOSTER, and Servants.

Edm. How now? What's the matter?-Part! Kent. With you, goodman boy, if you please : come, I'll flesh you; come on, young master. Glo. Weapons! arms! What's the matter here? Corn. Keep peace, upon your lives: He dies that strikes again. What is the matter? Reg. The messengers from our sister and the king.

Corn. What is your difference? speak. Stew. 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? Stew. This ancient ruffian, sir, whose life I have spared

At suit of his grey beard,—

Kent. Thou whoreson zed! thou unnecessary letter!-My lord, if you will give me leave, I will tread this unbolted villain into mortar, and daub the wall of a jakes with him.-Spare may grey beard, you wagtail!

Corn. Peace, sirrah!

You beastly knave, know you no reverence?
Kent. Yes, sir; but anger has a privilege.
Corn. Why art thou angry ?

Kent. That such a slave as this should wear a

sword,

Who wears no honesty. Such smiling rogues as these,

Like rats, oft bite the holy cords atwain
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 beaks
With every gale and vary of their masters,
As knowing nought, like dogs, but following.-
A plague upon your epileptie visage!
Smile you my speeches, as I were a fool?
Goose, if I had you upon Sarum plain,
I'd drive ye cackling home to Camelot.
Corn. What, art thou mad, old fellow
Glo. How fell you out?
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. Corn. No more, perchance, does mine, or his. or hers.

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
Before me at this instant.

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 it.

Corn. What was the offence you gave him?
Stew. I never gave him any.

It pleased the king his master, very late,
To strike at me, upon his misconstruction;
When he, conjunct and flattering his displeasure,
Tripped me behind: being down, insulted, railed,
And put upon him such a deal of man,
That worthy'd him, got praises of the king
For him attempting who was self-subdued :
And, in the fleshment of this dread exploit,
Drew on me here again.

Reg.

Sir, being his knave, I will. [Stocks brought out. Corn. This is a fellow of the self-same colour Our sister speaks of.-Come, bring away the stocks.

Glo. 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 purposed low correction

Is such as basest and contemned'st wretches, For pilferings and most common trespasses, Are punished with. The king must take it ill, That he, so slightly valued in his messenger, Should have him thus restrained.

To have her gentleman abused, assaulted,
For following her affairs.—Put in his legs.

[KENT is put in the stocks.

Come, my good lord; away.

[Exeunt REGAN and CORNWALL.

Glo. I am sorry for thee, friend: 'tis the duke's pleasure,

Whose disposition, all the world well knows, Will not be rubbed nor stopped. I'll entreat for thee.

Kent. Pray, do not, sir. I have watched and

travelled hard ·

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

Glo. The duke's to blame in this: 't will be ill taken. [Exit. Kent. Good king, that must approve the com

mon saw;

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 'tis from Cordelia ;
Who hath most fortunately been informed
Of my obscured course; and shall find time
From this enormous state,-seeking to give
Losses their remedies:-All weary and o'er-
watched,

Take vantage, heavy eyes, not to behold
This shameful lodging.

Fortune, good night: smile once more; turn
thy wheel!
[He sleeps.

SCENE III-A Part of the Heath.
Enter EDGAR.

Edg. I heard myself proclaimed;
And, by the happy hollow of a tree,
Escaped 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 bethought
To take the basest and most poorest shape
That ever penury, in contempt of man,
Brought near to beast. My face I 'il grime with
filth;

Blanket my loins; elf all my hair in knots;
And with presented nakedness outface
The winds and persecutions of the sky.
The country gives me proof and precedent
Of Bedlam beggars, who, with roaring voices,
Strike in their numbed and mortified bare arms,
Pins, wooden pricks, nails, sprigs of rosemary;
And with this horrible object, from low farms

Kent. I say, yea.

Lear. No, no; they would not.
Kent. Yes, they have.
Lear. By Jupiter, I swear, no.
Kent. By Juno, I swear, ay.
Lear. They durst not do 't;

They could not, would not do 't: 't is worse than murder,

To do upon respect such violent outrage. Resolve me, with all modest haste, which way Thou mightst deserve, or they impose, this usage, Coming from us.

Kent.

My lord, when at their home

I did commend your highness' letters to them,
Ere I was risen from the place that shewed
My duty kneeling, came there a reeking post,
Stewed in his haste, half breathless, panting
forth,

From Goneril his mistress, salutations :
Delivered letters, spite of intermission,
Which presently they read: on whose contents
They summoned 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 perceived had poisoned mine
(Being the very fellow that of late

Displayed so saucily against your highness),
Having more man than wit about me, drew:
He raised the house with loud and coward cries:
Your son and daughter found this trespass worth
The shame which here it suffers.

Fool. Winter's not gone yet, if the wild geese fly that way.

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 carst 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. Follow me not:
Stay here.

[Exit. Gent. Made you no more offence than what you 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 in 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.
Kent. Where learned 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 travelled hard to-night? Mere fetches;
The images of revolt and flying off!
Fetch me a better answer.