Take vantage, heavy eyes, not to beholdThis shameful lodging.
Fortune, good night: smile once more, turn thy wheel!
[He sleeps.]
SCENE III. The open Country.
[Enter Edgar.]
Edg.
I heard myself proclaim’d;
And by the happy hollow of a tree
Escap’d 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’ll 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 numb’d and mortified bare arms
Pins, wooden pricks, nails, sprigs of rosemary;
And with this horrible object, from low farms,
Poor pelting villages, sheepcotes, and mills,
Sometime with lunatic bans, sometime with prayers,
Enforce their charity.—Poor Turlygod! 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,
The night before there was no purpose in them
Of this remove.
Kent.
Hail to thee, noble master!
Lear.
Ha!
Mak’st thou this shame thy pastime?
Kent.
No, my lord.
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 is 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?
Kent.
It is both he and she,
Your son and daughter.
Lear.
No.
Kent.
Yes.
Lear.
No, I say.
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 would not, could 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;
