[Reg. But have you never found my brother's way To the forefended2 place?

Edm.

That thought abuses3 you. Reg. I am doubtful that you have been conjunct And bosom'd with her, as far as we call hers.] Edm. No, by mine honour, madam.]

Reg. I never shall endure her: Dear my lord, Be not familiar with her.

Edm.

Fear me not:

She, and the duke her husband,→→

Enter ALBANY, GONERIL, and Soldiers.

Gon. I had rather lose the battle, than that sister Should loosen him and me. ]

[Aside. Alb. Our very loving sister, well be met.Sir, this I hear, The king is come to his daughter, With others, whom the rigour of our state Forc'd to cry out. [Where I could not be honest, I never yet was valiant: for this business,

It toucheth us as France invades our land,

Not bolds the king; with others, whom, I fear,
More just and heavy causes make oppose.
Edm. Sir, you speak nobly.]

Reg.

Why is this reason'd?

2 The first and last of these speeches within crotchets are inserted in Hanmer's, Theobald's, and Warburton's editions, the two intermediate ones, which were omitted in all others, are restored from the 4to. 1608. Whether they were left out through negligence, or because the imagery contained in them might be thought too Juxuriant, I cannot determine; but surely a material injury is done to the character of the Bastard by the omission; for he is made to deny that flatly at first, which the poet only meant to make him evade, or return slight answers to, till he is urged so far as to be obliged to shelter himself under an immediate falsehood. Query, however, whether Shakspeare meant us to believe that Edmund had actually found his way to the forefended (i. e. forbidden) place?— Steevens.

3 Imposes on you; you are deceived.

This business (ays Albany) touches us, as France invades our land, not as it emboldens or encourages the king to assert his former title." Thus in the ancient Interlude of Hycke Scorner:

Alas, that I had not one to bolde me.'

Again in Arthur Hull's translation of the fourth Iliad, 4to. 1581:And Pallas bolds the. Greeks,' &c.

To make bolde, to encourage, animum addere.—Baret.

-Gon. Combine together 'gainst the enemy:
For these domestic and particular broils5
Are not to question here.

Alb.

Let us then determine

With the ancient of war on our proceedings.

Edm. I shall attend you presently at your tent. Reg. Sister, you'll go with us?

Gon. No.

Reg. 'Tis most convenient; 'pray you, go with us. Gon. O, ho, I know the riddle: [Aside.] I will go.

As they are going out, Enter EDGAR, disguised. Edg. If e'er your grace had speech with man so poor,

Hear me one word.

Alb.

I'll overtake you.-Speak. [Exeunt EDMUND, REGAN, GONERIL, Officers, Soldiers, and Attendants.

Edg. Before you fight the battle, ope this letter. If you have victory, let the trumpet sound For him that brought it: wretched though I seem, I can produce a champion, that will prove What is avouched there: If you miscarry, Your business of the world hath so an end, And machination ceases. Fortune love you! Alb. Stay till I have read the letter. Edg.

I was forbid it.

5 The quartos have it :

For these domestic doore particulars.'

The folio reads, in the subsequent line:

'Are not the question here.'

6 This speech is wanting in the folio.

i. e. all designs against your life will have an end. These words are not in the quartos.

8 i. e. the conjecture, or what we can gather by diligent espial, of their strength. So in King Henry IV. Part 1. Act iv. Sc. 1:send discoverers forth

6

To know the number of our enemies."

The passage has only been thought obscure for want of a right understanding of the word discovery, which neither Malone nor Steevens seem to have understood.

When time shall serve, let but the herald cry,
And I'll appear again.

[Exit.

Alb. Why, fare thee well; I will o'erlook thy paper.

Re-enter EDMUND.

Edm. The enemy's in view, draw up your powers, Here is the guess of their true strength and forces By diligent discovery8;-but your haste

Is now urg'd on you.

Alb.
We will greet the time9. [Exit.
Edm. To both these sisters have I sworn my love;
Each jealous of the other, as the stung

Are of the adder. Which of them shall I take?
Both one? or neither? Neither can be enjoy'd,
If both remain alive; To take the widow,
Exasperates, makes mad her sister Goneril;
And hardly shall I carry out my side1o,

Her husband being alive. Now then, we'll use
His countenance for the battle; which being done,
Let her, who would be rid of him, devise
His speedy taking off. As for the mercy
Which he intends to Lear, and to Cordelia,-
The battle done, and they within our power,
Shall never see his pardon: for my state
Stands on me to defend, not to debate11.

[Exit.

SCENE II. A Field between the two Camps. Alarum within. Enter, with Drum, and Colours, LEAR, CORDELIA, and their Forces; and exeunt. Enter EDGAR and GLOSTER1.

Edg. Here, father, take the shadow of this tree For your good host; pray that the right may thrive:

9 i. e. be ready to meet the occasion.

10 Hardly shall I be able to make my side (i. e. my party) good; to maintain the game. Steevens has shown that it was a phrase commonly used at cards. So in the Paston Letters, vol. iv. p. 155:Heydon's son hath borne out the side stoutly here,' &c.

Such is my determination concerning Lear; as for my state, it requires now not deliberation, but defence and support.' Those who are curious to know how far Shakspeare was indebted

If ever I return to you again,
I'll bring you comfort.
Glo.

Grace go with you, sir!
[Exit EDGAR.

Alarums; afterwards a Retreat. Re-enter Edgar. Edg. Away, old man, give me thy hand, away; King Lear hath lost, he and his daughter ta'en: Give me thy hand, come on.

Glo. No further, sir; a man may rot even here. Edg. What, in ill thoughts again? Men must endure

Their going hence, even as their coming hither: Ripeness is all2: Come on.

Glo.

(And that's true too.
[Exeunt.

SCENE III. The British Camp near Dover.

Enter, in Conquest, with Drum and Colours, EDMUND; LEAR and CORDELIA, as Prisoners; Officers, Soldiers, &c.

Edm. Some officers take them away; good guard; Until their greater pleasures first be known That are to censure1 them.

Cor. We are not the first, Who, with best meaning, have incurr'd the worst2. For thee, oppressed king, am I cast down; Myself could else outfrown false fortune's frown. Shall we not see these daughters, and these sisters? Lear. No, no, no, no! Come, let's away to prison:

to the Arcadia, will find a chapter entitled The Pitifull State and Storie of the Paphlagonian unkinde King, and his kinde Sonne; first related by the Sonne, then by the blinde Fater,' at p. 141 of the edition of 1590, 4to.

2 i. e. to be ready, prepared, is all. So in Hamlet: If it be not now, yet it will come: the readiness is all.

i. e. to pass sentence or judgment on them, So in Othello *— Remains the censure of this hellish villain.'

2 That is the worst that fortune can inflict.'

We two alone will sing like birds i'the cage:
When thou dost ask me blessing, I'll kneel down,
And ask of thee forgiveness: So we'll live,

And pray, and sing, and tell old tales, and laugh
At gilded butterflies, and hear poor rogues
Talk of court news; and we'll talk with them too,
Who loses, and who wins; who's in, who's out;-
And take upon us the mystery of things,

As if we were God's spies3: And we'll wear out,
In a wall'd prison, packs and sects of great ones,
That ebb and flow by the moon,

Edm.

Take them away. Lear. Upon such sacrifices, my Cordelia,

The gods themselves throw incense5. Have I caught

thee?

He, that parts us, shall bring a brand from heaven,
And fire us hence, like foxes. Wipe thine eyes;
The goujeers shall devour them, flesh and fell, good year.

3 As if we were angels, endowed with the power of prying into the original motives of action and the mysteries of conduct 4 Packs and sects are combinations and parties.

5 The thought is extremely noble, and expressed in a sublime of magery that Seneca fell short of on a similar occasion:-' Ecce spectaculum dignum ad quod respiciat intenti operi suo deus: ecce par des dignum vir fortis cum mala fortuna compositus.'-Warburton. 6 Alluding to the old practice of smoking foxes out of their holes. So in Harington's translation of Ariosto, b. xxvii stan. 17 :—

'E'en as a fore whom smoke and fire doth fright,

So as he dare not in the ground remaine,

Bolts out and through the smoke and fire he flieth
Into the tarriers mouth, and there he dieth.'

'The goujeers shall devour them flesh and fell.
The goujeers, i. e. morbus Gallicus. Gouge, Fr. is a soldier's
trull; and as the disease was first dispersed over Europe by the
French army, and the women who followed it, the first name it
obtained among us was the goujeries, i. e. the disease of the gouges.
-Hanmer. The expression, however, soon became obscure, its
origin not being generally known, and it was at length corrupted
to the good year; a very opposite form of expression. In the present
instance the quartos, following the common corruption, have the
good yeares. Flesh and fell is flesh and skin. Thus in The Specu-
Ium Vitæ, MS. :-

That alle men sal a domesday rise

Oute of their graves in fleshe and felle.

So in The Dyar's Playe, Chester Mysteries, MS. in the Brit.
Museum :-

'I male thee man of flesh and fell.

us