Edg.As I stood here below, methought his eyes
Were two full moons; he had a thousand noses,
Horns whelk’d and wav’d like the enridged sea:
It was some fiend; therefore, thou happy father,
Think that the clearest gods, who make them honours
Of men’s impossibility, have preserv’d thee.
Glou.
I do remember now: henceforth I’ll bear
Affliction till it do cry out itself,
‘Enough, enough,’ and die. That thing you speak of,
I took it for a man; often ‘twould say,
‘The fiend, the fiend’:—he led me to that place.
Edg.
Bear free and patient thoughts.—But who comes here?
[Enter Lear, fantastically dressed up with flowers.]
The safer sense will ne’er accommodate
His master thus.
Lear.
No, they cannot touch me for coining;
I am the king himself.
Edg.
O thou side-piercing sight!
Lear. Nature ‘s above art in that respect.—There’s your press money. That fellow handles his bow like a crow-keeper: draw me a clothier’s yard.—Look, look, a mouse! Peace, peace;—this piece of toasted cheese will do’t. There’s my gauntlet; I’ll prove it on a giant.—Bring up the brown bills. O, well flown, bird!—i’ the clout, i’ the clout: hewgh!—Give the word.
Edg.
Sweet marjoram.
Lear.
Pass.
Glou.
I know that voice.
Lear. Ha! Goneril with a white beard!—They flattered me like a dog; and told me I had white hairs in my beard ere the black ones were there. To say ‘ay’ and ‘no’ to everything I said!—‘Ay’ and ‘no’, too, was no good divinity. When the rain came to wet me once, and the wind to make me chatter; when the thunder would not peace at my bidding; there I found ‘em, there I smelt ‘em out. Go to, they are not men o’ their words: they told me I was everything; ‘tis a lie—I am not ague-proof.
Glou.
The trick of that voice I do well remember:
Is’t not the king?
Lear.
Ay, every inch a king:
When I do stare, see how the subject quakes.
I pardon that man’s life.—What was thy cause?—
Adultery?—
Thou shalt not die: die for adultery! No:
The wren goes to’t, and the small gilded fly
Does lecher in my sight.
Let copulation thrive; for Gloster’s bastard son
Was kinder to his father than my daughters
Got ‘tween the lawful sheets.
To’t, luxury, pellmell! for I lack soldiers.—
Behold yond simpering dame,
Whose face between her forks presages snow;
That minces virtue, and does shake the head
To hear of pleasure’s name;—
The fitchew nor the soiled horse goes to’t
With a more riotous appetite.
Down from the waist they are centaurs,
Though women all above:
But to the girdle do the gods inherit,
Beneath is all the fiend’s; there’s hell, there’s darkness,
There is the sulphurous pit; burning, scalding, stench,
consumption; fie, fie, fie! pah, pah!
Give me an ounce of civet, good apothecary, to sweeten my
imagination: there’s money for thee.
Glou.
O, let me kiss that hand!
Lear.
Let me wipe it first; it smells of mortality.
Glou.
O ruin’d piece of nature! This great world
Shall so wear out to naught.—Dost thou know me?
Lear.
I remember thine eyes well enough. Dost thou squiny at me?
No, do thy worst, blind Cupid; I’ll not love.—Read thou this
challenge; mark but the penning of it.
Glou.
Were all the letters suns, I could not see one.
Edg.
I would not take this from report;—it is,
And my heart breaks at it.
Lear.
Read.
Glou.
What, with the case of eyes?
Lear. O, ho, are you there with me? No eyes in your head, nor no money in your purse? Your eyes are in a heavy case, your purse in a light: yet you see how this world goes.
Glou.
I see it feelingly.
Lear. What, art mad? A man may see how the world goes with no eyes. Look with thine ears: see how yond justice rails upon yond simple thief. Hark, in thine ear: change places; and, handy-dandy, which is the justice, which is the thief?—Thou hast seen a farmer’s dog bark at a beggar?
Glou.
Ay, sir.
Lear.
And the creature run from the cur? There thou mightst behold
