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.

[Exit.

SCENE IV. Before GLOSTER's castle; KENT in the stocks.

Enter LEAR, Fool, and Gentleman.

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

Gent.

As I learn'd,

Fool. Ha, ha! he wears cruel garters. Horses are tied by the head, dogs and bears by the neck, monkeys by the loins, and men by the legs: when a man's over-lusty at legs, then he wears wooden nether-stocks.

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

They could not, would not do't; 'tis 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 show'd
My duty kneeling, came there a reeking post,
Stew'd in his haste, half breathless, panting forth
From Goneril his mistress salutations;
Deliver❜d letters, spite of intermission,

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. 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 canst tell in a year.

Lear. O, how this mother swells up toward my Hysterica passio,

- down, thou climbing sorrow, Thy element 's below! Where is this daughter?

Kent. With the earl, sir, here within.

heart!

Lear. Stay here.

Follow me not;

[Exit.

Gent. Made you no more offence but what you speak of? Kent. None.

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.

Kent. Where learned you this, fool?

Fool. Not i' the stocks, fool.

Re-enter LEAR with GLOSTER.

Lear. Deny to speak with me? They're sick? they're

weary?

They have travell'd all the night? Mere fetches;

The images of revolt and flying-off.

Fetch me a better answer.

Glo.

My dear lord,

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

In his own course.

Lear. Vengeance! plague! death! confusion! Fiery? what quality? Why, Gloster, Gloster, I'd speak with the Duke of Cornwall and his wife. Glo. Well, my good lord, I have inform'd them so. Lear. Inform'd them! Dost thou understand me, man? Glo. Ay, my good lord.

Lear. The king would speak with Cornwall; the dear father

Would with his daughter speak, commands her service:
Are they inform'd of this? My breath and blood!

Fiery? the fiery duke? - Tell the hot duke that

No, but not yet:
Infirmity doth still neglect all office

may be he is not well:

Whereto our health is bound; we're not ourselves
When nature, being oppress'd, commands the mind
To suffer with the body: I'll forbear;

And am fall'n out with my more headier will,

To take the indispos'd and sickly fit

For the sound man.

Should he sit here?

Death on my state! wherefore

This act persuades me That this remotion of the duke and her

[Looking on Kent.

Is practice only. Give me my servant forth.

Go tell the duke and 's wife I'd speak with them,
Now, presently: bid them come forth and hear me,
Or at their chamber-door I'll beat the drum

Till it cry sleep to death.

Glo. I would have all well betwixt you.
Lear. O me, my heart, my rising heart!

[Exit. but, down!

Fool. Cry to it, nuncle, as the cockney did to the eels when she put 'em i' the paste alive; she knapped 'em o' the coxcombs with a stick, and cried, "Down, wantons, down!" "Twas her brother that, in pure kindness to his horse, buttered his hay.

Enter CORNWALL, REGAN, GLOSTER, and Servants.
Lear. Good morrow to you both.

Corn.

Hail to your grace!

Reg. I am glad to see your highness.

[Kent is set at liberty.

Lear. Regan, I think you are; I know what reason
I have to think so: if thou shouldst not be glad,
I would divorce me from thy mother's tomb,
Sepulchring an adultress. [To Kent] O, are you free?
Some other time for that. - Beloved Regan,
Thy sister 's naught: O Regan, she hath tied
Sharp-tooth'd unkindness, like a vulture, here,

[Points to his heart.

I can scarce speak to thee; thou'lt not believe
Of how deprav'd a quality - O Regan!

Reg. I pray you, sir, take patience: I have hope
You less know how to value her desert

Than she to scant her duty.

Lear.

Say, how is that?

Reg. I cannot think my sister in the least
Would fail her obligation: if, sir, perchance
She have restrain'd the riots of your followers,
'Tis on such ground, and to such wholesome end,
As clears her from all blame.

Lear. My curses on her!

Reg.
O, sir, you are old;
Nature in you stands on the very verge

Of her confíne: you should be rul'd, and led
By some discretion that discerns your state
Better than you yourself. Therefore, I pray you,
That to our sister you do make return;

Say you have wrong'd her, sir.

Do

Lear.

you

Ask her forgiveness?

but mark how this becomes the house: "Dear daughter, I confess that I am old;

Age is unnecessary: on my knees I beg

That you'll vouchsafe me raiment, bed, and food."

[Kneeling.

Reg. Good sir, no more; these are unsightly tricks: Return you to my sister.