Gracious my lord, hard by here is a hovel;
Some friendship will it lend you 'gainst the
tempest:

Repose you there, while I to this hard house,
(More harder than the stones whereof 'tis rais'd;
Which even but now, demanding after you,
Denied me to come in) return, and force
Their scanted courtesy.

LEAR.
Come on, my boy: how dost, my boy? art cold?
I am cold myself. Where is this straw, my
fellow?

My wits begin to turn.—

The art of our necessities is strange,

And can make vile things precious. Come, your hovel.―

Poor fool and knave, I have one part in
That's sorry yet for thee.

FOOL. [Singing.]

my heart

He that has and a little tiny wit,—
With hey, ho, the wind and the rain,—
Must make content with his fortunes fit,
Though the rain it raineth every day.

LEAR. True, boy.-Come, bring us to this hovel."

[Exeunt LEAR and KENT. FOOL. This is a brave night to cool a courtezan.I'll speak a prophecy ere I go:

When priests are more in word than matter;
When brewers mar their malt with water;
When nobles are their tailors' tutors;
No heretics burn'd, but wenches' suitors:
When every case in law is right;
No squire in debt, nor no poor knight;
When slanders do not live in tongues;
Nor cutpurses come not to throngs;
When usurers tell their gold i' the field;

And bawds and whores do churches build ;-
Then shall the realm of Albion

Come to great confusion:

Then comes the time, who lives to see 't,
That going shall be us'd with feet.

This prophecy Merlin shall make; for I live before his time.

[Exit.

a Come, bring us to this hovel.] The remainder of the scene is only found in the folio.

SCENE III.-A Room in Gloucester's Castle.

Enter GLOUCESTER and EDMUND.

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 of mine own house; charged me, on pain of their* perpetual displeasure, neither to speak of him, 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; 't is dangerous to be spoken;-I have locked 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 ‡ 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 threatened me, the king my old master must be relieved. There is strange things toward, Edmund; pray you, be careful.

In, boy; go first.-[To the Fool.] You houseless poverty,

Nay, get thee in. I'll pray, and then I'll sleep.—
[Fool goes in.
Poor naked wretches, wheresoe'er you are,
That bide the pelting of this pitiless storm,
How shall your houseless heads and unfed sides,
Your loop'd and window'd raggedness, defend you
From seasons such as these? O, I have ta'en
Too little care of this! Take physic, pomp ;
Expose thyself to feel what wretches feel,
That thou mayst shake the superflux to them,
And show the heavens more just.

EDG. [Within.] Fathom and half, fathom and
half! poor Tom!

[The Fool runs out from the hovel. FOOL. Come not in here, nuncle, here's a spirit. Help me, help me!

KENT. Give me thy hand.-Who's there?
FOOL. A spirit, a spirit; he says his name's poor
Tom.

KENT. What art thou that dost grumble there
i' the straw? Come forth.

Enter EDGAR, disguised as a Madman. EDG. Away! the foul fiend follows me !Through the sharp hawthorn blows the cold wind,*

Hum! go to thy cold bed," and warm thee. LEAK. Hast thou given all to thy two daughters? And art thou come to this?

EDG. Who gives anything to poor Tom? whom the foul fiend hath led through fire and through flame, through ford+ and whirlpool, o'er bog and quagmire; that hath laid knives under his pillow,(1) and halters in his pew; set ratsbane by his porridge; made him proud of heart, to ride on a bay trotting-horse over four-inched bridges; to course his 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 there, and there again,-and there.

с

[Storm continues. LEAR. What, have his daughters brought him to this pass?—

(*) First folio, blow the windes.

(1) First folio, Sword. (1) First folio, Ha's his Daughters.

ago to thy cold bed, and warm thee.] The commentators, with admirable unanimity, persist in declaring this line to be a ridicule on one in "The Spanish Trajedy," Act II.

"What outcries pluck me from my naked bed !"

But to an audience of Shakespeare's age there was nothing risible in either line. The phrase to go to a cold bed meant only to go cold to bed; to rise from a naked bed signified to get up naked

Couldst thou save nothing? Didst thou give

'em all?

FOOL. Nay, he reserved a blanket, else we had been all shamed.

LEAR. Now, all the plagues that in the pen

dulous air

Hang fated o'er men's faults, light on thy daughters!

KENT. He hath no daughters, sir.

LEAR. Death, traitor! nothing could have subdu'd nature

To such a lowness, but his unkind daughters.—
Is it the fashion, that discarded fathers
Should have thus little mercy on their flesh?
Judicious punishment! 'twas this flesh begot
Those pelican daughters.

EDG. Pillicock sat on Pillicock-hill ;Halloo, halloo, loo, loo! 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-man, proud in heart and mind; that curled my hair; wore gloves in my cap,(2) served the lust of my mistress' heart, and did the act of 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 waked to do it. Wine loved I deeply; ‡ dice dearly; and in woman, out-paramoured the Turk 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 woman: keep thy foot out of brothels, thy 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, my boy, sessa; let him trot by. [Storm continues.

LEAR. Why, thou were better in thy || grave, than to answer with thy uncovered body this extremity of the skies.-Is man no more than this? Consider him well. Thou owest the worm no silk,

from bed, and to say one lay on a sick bed (a form of expression far from uncommon even now) implied merely that he was lying sick a-bed. It is to be observed that the folio, probably by accident, as it gives the line correctly in "The Taming of the Shrew," omits the word "cold."

b Hast thou given all to thy two daughters?] So the quarto; the folio reads, "Did'st thou give all to thy daughters?" C- - taking!] See note (b), p. 80.

the beast no hide, the sheep no wool, the cat no perfume. Ha! here 's three on's are sophisticated! Thou art the thing itself: unaccommodated man is no more but such a poor, bare, forked animal as thou art.—Off, off, you lendings!—come, unbutton here.[Tearing off his clothes.

FOOL. Pr'ythee, nuncle, be contented; 't is a naughty night to swim in.-Now a little fire in a wild field were like an old lecher's heart,—a small spark, all the rest on's body cold.-Look, here comes a walking fire.

a

EDG. This is the foul fiend Flibbertigibbet: " he begins at curfew, and walks till the first cock; he 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 wold;

He met the night-mare, and her nine-fold;
Bid her alight,

And her troth plight,

And, aroint thee, witch, aroint thee!
KENT. How fares your grace?

Enter GLOUCESTER, with a torch.
LEAR. What's he?

KENT. Who's there? What is't you seek? GLO. What are you there? Your names? EDG. Poor Tom; that eats the swimming frog, the toad, the tadpole, the wall-newt and the water; that in the fury of his heart, when the foul fiend rages, eats cow-dung for sallets; swallows the old rat, and the ditch-dog; drinks the green mantle of the standing pool; who is whipped from tything to tything, and stocked, punished, and imprisoned; who hath had three suits to his back, six shirts to his body, horse to ride, and weapon to

(*) First folio omits. fiend.

(1) First folio, walkes at. (1) First folio omits, had. a-Flibbertigibbet:] See quotation from Harsnet, in the Illustrative Comments to this Act.

b the web and the pin,-] The cataract. One of the manings to Cataratta in Florio's Dictionary is, "A dimnesse of sight occasioned by humores hardned in the eies called a Cataract or a pin and a web,"

e Saint Withold footed thrice the wold;] The old copies have Swithold for "Saint Withold," and old at the end of the line

EDG. Poor Tom's a-cold.

GLO. Go in with me; my duty cannot suffer To obey in all your daughters' hard commands: Though their injunction be to bar my doors, And let this tyrannous night take hold upon you, Yet have I ventur'd to come seek you out, And bring you where both fire and food is ready.

LEAR. First let me talk with this philosopher.What is the cause of thunder?

KENT. Good my lord, take his offer; go into the house.

LEAR. I'll talk a word with this same learned Theban.What is your study?

EDG. How to prevent the fiend, and to kill vermin.

LEAR. Let me ask you one word in private. KENT. Impórtune him once more to go, my lord,

His wits begin to unsettle.
GLO.

Canst thou blame him? His daughters seek his death:-ah, that good Kent!

He said it would be thus,-poor banish'd man!— Thou say'st the king grows mad; I'll tell thee, friend,

I am almost mad myself: I had a son,
Now outlaw'd from my blood; he sought my life,
But latey, very late: I lov'd him, friend,
No father his son dearer true to tell thee,

[Storm continues. The grief hath craz'd my wits.-What a night's this!

I do beseech your grace,

LEAR.
O, cry you mercy, sir.—
Noble philosopher, your company.
EDG. Tom's a-cold.

GLO. In, fellow, there, into the hovel: keep
thee warm.
LEAR. Come, let's in all.
KENT.

LEAR.

This way, my

lord. With him;

GLO.
No words, no words: hush.
EDG. Child Rowland to the dark tower came,
His word was still,-Fie, foh, and fum,
I smell the blood of a British man. (4)

[Exeunt.

SCENE V.-A Room in Gloucester's Castle.

Enter CORNWALL and EDMUND. CORN. I will have my revenge, ere I depart

his house.

EDM. How, my lord, I may be censured, that nature thus gives way to loyalty, something fears me to think of.

CORN. I now perceive, it was not altogether your brother's evil disposition made him seek his death; but a provoking merit, set a-work by a reproveable badness in himself.

EDM. How malicious is my fortune, that I must repent to be just! This is the letter* he spoke of, which approves him an intelligent party to the advantages of France. O heavens! that this treason were not, or not I the detector!

CORN. Go with me to the duchess. EDM. If the matter of this paper be certain, you have mighty business in hand.

CORN. True, or false, it hath made thee earl of Gloster. Seek out where thy father is, that he may be ready for our apprehension.

EDM. [Asule.] If I find him comforting the king, it will stuff his suspicion more fully. I will perséver in my course of loyalty, though the conflict be sore between that and my blood.

CORN. I will lay trust upon thee; and thou shalt find a dearer father in my love. [Exeunt,

SCENE VI-A Chamber in a Farm-house, adjoining the Castle.

Enter GLOUCESTER, LEAR, KENT, Fool, and EDGAR.

GLO. Here is better than the open air; take it ¦ thankfully. I will piece out the comfort with what addition I can: I will not be long from you.

KENT. All the power of his wits have given way to his impatience:-the gods reward your kindness! [Brit GLOUCESTER.

(*) First folio inserts, which

* First follo, decre.

a Frateretto calls me, See the quotation from Harsnet, in the Plustrative Comments to this Act.

Pray, innocent. The term "innocent," though at Erst given only to idets, came in time to be applied to pr. fessed fools, Fool No; he's a yeoman, &e. This speech is not in the quartos.

The foul fend bites my back! This, with the whole of what follows, down to, ard inclusive of

"False justicer, why hast thou let her 'scape?"

is omitted in the Wit

FOOL. No, he's a yeoman that has a gentleman to his son; for he's a mad yeoman, that sees his son a gentleman before him. [spits

LEAR. To have a thousand with red burning Come hissing in upon 'em :

EDG. The foul fiend bites my back.d

FOOL. He's mad, that trusts in the tameness of a wolf, a horse's health, a boy's love, or a whore's oath.

LEAR. It shall be done; I will arraign them straight.—

Come, sit thou here, most learned justicer; *

[To EDGAR. Thou, sapient sir, sit here. [To the Fool.]-Now, you she-foxes !—

EDG. Look, where he stands and glares !— Wantest thou eyes at trial, madam?

Come o'er the bourn,† Bessy, to me :— FOOL. Her boat hath a leak,

And she must not speak

Why she dares not come over to thee.

EDG. The foul fiend haunts poor Tom in the voice of a nightingale. Hopdance cries in Tom's belly for two white herring. Croak not, black angel; I have no food for thee.

KENT. How do you, sir? Stand you not so