You will return and sojourn with my sister, 1 -Return with her? When others are more wicked; not being the worst, Stands in some rank of praise:-I'll go with thee; [To Goneril. Thy fifty yet doth double five-and-twenty, 5 And thou art twice her love. Why, the hot-blooded-France, that dowerless took 10 3 Gon. Hear me, my lord; What need you five-and-twenty, ten, or five, Reg. What need one? Leur. O, reason not the need: our basest beggars Lear. Now I pr'ythee, daughter, do not make Reg. Not altogether so, sir; I look'd not for you yet, nor am provided For your fit welcome: Give ear, sir, to my sister; Lear. Is this well spoken now? 35 Reg. I dare avouch it, sir: What, fifty followers: Should many people, under two commands, Gon. Why might not you, my lord, receive 45] attendance I have full cause of weeping; but this heart Reg. This house is little; the old man and his Cannot be well bestow'd. [from rest, Gon. 'Tis his own blame; he hath put himself And must needs taste his folly. Reg. For his particular, I'll receive him gladly, Gon. So am I purpos'd. Re-enter Gloster. [turn'd. [whither. Corn, Follow'd the old man forth:-He is re- Do sorely ruffle; for many miles about Reg. O, sir, to wilful men, The injuries, that they themselves procure, 3 ́1i. e. to make war. 2 i, e. in a servile state. Sumpter is a horse that carries necessaries on a journey; though sometimes used for the case to carry them in. Embossed is swelling, protuberant. 3 P And And what they may incense him to, being apt My Regan counsels well: come out o' the storm. [Exeunt. SCENE I. ACT III. A Storm is heard, with thunder and lightning. Kent. WHO's there, besides foul weather? Gent. One minded like the weather, Kent. I know you: Where's the king? Which the impetuous blasts, with eyeless rage, Kent. But who is with him? Gent. None but the fool; who labours to out-jest His heart-struck injuries. Kent. Sir, I do know you; 10 am a gentleman of blood and breeding, Gent. I will talk further with you. Kent. No, do not. 15 For confirmation that I am much more 1301 You cataracts, and hurricanoes, spout [cocks! 35Till you have drench'd our steeples, drown'd the You sulphurous and thought-executing fires, Vaunt-couriers to cak-cleaving thunder-bolts, Singemy white head! And thouall-shakingthunder, Strike flat the thick rotundity o' the world! Crack nature's moulds; all germens spill at once', That make ingrateful inan! And dare, upon the warrant of my note 3, To make your speed to Dover, you shall find Fool. Onuncle, court holy-water' in a dry house is better than this rain-water out o' door. Good nuncle, in, and ask thy daughters blessing; here's a night pities neither wise men nor fools. Lear. Rumble thy belly full! Spit, fire! spout, rain! Nor rain, wind, thunder, fire, are my daughters: 55 That have with two pernicious daughters join'd 2 Cub-drawn means, whose dugs 4 The main seems to signify here the main land, the continent. are drawn dry by its young. 'My observation of your character. Snuffs are dislikes, and packings underhand contrivances. 'i. e. colours, external pretences. i. e. divided, unsettled. Avant-couriers, Fr. That is, "Crack nature's mould, and spill (or destroy) all the seeds of matter that are hoarded within it." ' Court holy-water is a proverbial expression, meaning fair tords. Subscription for obedience. Fool. 10 i. e. shameful, dishonourable. Love not such nights as these; the wrathful skies [carry Must make content with his fortun ́s fit; to this hovel. When priests are more in word than matter; 10 No heretics burn'd, but wenches' suitors: 20 Come to great confusion. 25 Lear. Let the great gods, Kent. Alack, bare-headed! Gracious my lord, hard by here is a hovel; Lear. My wits begin to turn.-————— That can make vile things precious. Come, your Poor fool and knave, I have one part in my heart Fool. He that has a little tiny wit,— With heigh, ho, the wind and the rain, 1i. e. A beggar marries a wife and lice. That there is no discretion below the girdle. 2 35 This prophecy Merlin shall make; for I live be- SCENE III. An Apartment in Gloster's Castle. Enter Gloster, and Edmund. [Exit. 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 perpetual displeasure, neither to speak of him, of mine own house; charg'd me, on pain of their 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 lock'd the letter in my closet: 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 seek 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 master must be relieved. 45 There is some strange thing toward, Edmund; pray you, be careful. [Exit. Edm. This courtesy, forbid thee, shall the duke Instantly know; and of that letter too :That which my father loses; no less than all: This seems a fair deserving, and must draw me The younger rises, when the old doth fall. [Exit. SCENE IV. 50 55 3 A Part of the Heath, with a Hovel. Enter Lear, Kent, and Fool. Kent. Here is the place, my lord; good my lord, enter: › Con Alluding perhaps to the saying of a contemporary wit, Gallow, a west-country word, signifies to scare or frighten. * Convenient seeming is appearance such as may promote his purpose to destroy. tinent stands for that which contains or incloses. Summoners mean here the officers that summon offenders before a proper tribunal. 'i. e. invent fashions for them. The disease to which wenches' suitors are particularly exposed, was called in Shakspeare's time the brenning or burning. 3 P 2 The mind's free, The body's delicate: the tempest in my mind O, that way madness lies; let me shun that; [ease; fquagmire; 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-inch'd bridges, to course 5 nis own shadow for a traitor:-Bless thy five wits!! ---Tom's a-cold.---O, do de, do de, do de.---Bless thee from whirlwinds, star-blasting, and taking! Do poor Tom some charity, whom the foul fiend vexes:- -There could I have him now,--and 10there,---and there, and there again, and there. [Storm still. Lear. What, have his daughters brought him to this pass? [all? Could'st thou save nothing? Didst thou give them 15 Fool. Nay, he reserv'd a blanket, else we had been all shamed. 201 lous air Lear. Now, all the plagues that in the pendu[ters! Hang fated o'er men's faults, light on thy daugh Kent. He hath no daughters, sir. Lear. Death, traitor! nothing could have sub- To such a lowness, but his unkind daughters. 25 Should have thus little mercy on their flesh? Kent. Good my lord, enter here. Nay, get thee in. I'll pray, and then I'll sleep.- Edg. [within.] Fathom and half, fathom and Fool. Come not in here, nuncle, here's a spirit. i' 35 Edg. Pillicock sat on pillicock-hill; Fool. This cold night will turn us all to fools and madmen. Edg. Take heed o' the foul fiend: 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-inan, proud in heart and mind; that curl'd my hair, wore gloves in my cap, serv'd the lust of my mistress's heart, and did the act of 40 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 wak'd to do it: Wine lov'd I deeply; dice dearly; and in woman, out-paramour'd the Turk: 45 False of heart, light of ear, bloody of hand; Hog in sloth, fox in stealth, wolf in greediness, dog in madness, 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, 50thy hand out of 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, boy, Sessy; let him trot by. [Storm still. Enter Edgar, disguised as a madman. Lear. Hast thou given all to thy two daughters? Edg. Who gives any thing to poor Tom? whom the foul fiend hath led through fire and throug! flame, through ford and whirlpool, over bog and Lear. Why thou wert better in thy grave, than to answer with thy uncover'd body this extremity of the skies.-Is man no more than this? Consider nim 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 So the five senses were called by our old writers. 2 To take is to blast, or strike with malignant influence. "The young pelican is fabled to suck the mother's blood. * i. e. his mistress' fayours: which was the fashion of that time. i. e. ready to receive malicious reports. more more but such a poor, bare, forked animal as thou -Off,off, you lendings:-Come; unbutton [Tearing off his clothes. art. here. Fool. Pr'ythee, nuncle, be contented; this is a naughty night to swim in.-Now a little fire in a 5 wild field, were like an old lecher's heart; a small spark, and all the rest of his body cold.-Look, here comes a walking fire. Edg. This is the foul fiend Flibbertigibbet: he beg ns at curfew, and walks 'till the first cock; he 10 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. Saint Withold footed thrice the world2; And her troth plight, And, Aroynt thee, witch, aroynt thee?! Kent. How fares your grace? Enter Gloster, with a torch. Lear. What's he? 15I am almost mad myself; I had a son, Kent. Who's there? What is 't you seek? But mice, and rats, and such small deer, 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 so Glo. Go in with me; my duty cannot suffer Kent. My good lord, take his offer; Lear. O, cry you mercy, sir:- [warm. Glo. In, fellow, there, to the hovel: keep thee Kent. This way, my lord. Lear. With him; will keep still with my philosopher. Kent. Good my lord, sooth him; let him take the fellow. Glo. Take him you on. Kent. Sirrah, come on; go along with us. Glo. No words, no words; hush. These 1 Diseases of the eye. 2 Wold signifies a down, or ground hilly and void of wood. verses were no other than a popular charm, or night-spell against the Epialtes; and the last line is the formal execration or apostrophe of the speaker of the charm to the witch, aroynt thee right, i. e. depart forthwith.-Bedlams, gipsies, and such-like vagabonds, used to sell these kind of spells or charms to the people. They were of various kinds for various disorders. A tything is a division of a place, a district; the same in the country, as a ward in the city. In the Saxon times, every hundred was divided into tythings. "Deer in old language is a general word for wild animals." 6 In the old times of chivalry, the noble youth who were candidates for knighthood, during the season of their probation, were called Infans, Varlets, Damoysels, Bacheliers; the most noble of the youth particularly, Infans. Here a story is told, in some old ballad, of the famous hero and giant-killer Roland, before he was knighted, who is, therefore, called Infans; which the ballad-maker translated, Child Roland. 3 P3 of, |