Let shame come when it will, I do not call it :
I do not bid the thunder-bearer shoot,
Nor tell tales of thee to high judging Jove.
Mend, when thou canst; be better. at thy leisure:
I can be patient; I can stay with Regan,
I, and my hundred knights.
Reg.

Not altogether so:
I look'd not for you yet, nor am provided
For your fit welcome. Give ear, sir, to my sister;
For those that mingle reason with their passion,
Must be content to think you old, and so-
But she knows what she does.
Lear.

Is this well spoken?
Reg. I dare avouch it, sir. What! fifty followers?
Is it not well? What should you need of more?
Yea, or so many, sith that both charge and danger
Speak 'gainst so great a number? How, in one house.
Should many people, under two commands,
Hold amity? T is hard: almost impossible.

[ance

Gon. Why might not you, my lord, receive attendFrom those that she calls servants, or from mine? Reg. Why not, my lord? If then they chanc'd to slack you,

We could control them. If you will come to me,
(For now I spy a danger) I entreat you

To bring but five and twenty: to no more
Will I give place, or notice.

Lear. I gave you all.

Reg. And in good time you gave it. Lear. Made you my guardians, my depositaries, But kept a reservation to be follow'd With such a number. What! must I come to you With five and twenty? Regan, said you so?

Reg. And speak 't again, my lord; no more with me. Lear. Those wicked creatures yet do look wellfavour'd,

When others are more wicked; not being the worst
Stands in some rank of praise.-I'll go with thee:
[To GONERIL.
Thy fifty yet doth double five and twenty,
And thou art twice her love.

If only to go warm were gorgeous,
Why, nature needs not what thou gorgeous wear'st,
Which scarcely keeps thee warm. But, for true need,-
You heavens, give me but patience, patience I need!
You see me here, you gods, a poor old man,'
As full of grief as age; wretched in both:
If it be you that stir these daughters' hearts
Against their father, fool me not so much
To bear it tamely; touch me with noble anger.
O! let not women's weapons, water-drops,
Stain my man's cheeks.-No, you unnatural hags,
I will have such revenges on you both,

That all the world shall-I will do such things:-
What they are, yet I know not; but they shall be
The terrors of the earth. You think, I 1 weep;
No, I'll not weep:—

I have full cause of weeping; but this heart
[Storm heard at a distance
Shall break into a hundred thousand flaws,
Or ere I'll weep.-O, fool' I shall go mad.

[Exeunt LEAR, GLOSTER, KENT, and Fool.
Corn. Let us withdraw, 't will be a storm.
Reg. This house is littie: the old man and 's people
Cannot be well bestow'd.

Gon. 'T is his own blame hath put himself from res; He must needs taste his folly.

Reg. For his particular, I'll receive him gladly, But not one follower.

Gon.

So am I purpos'd.

Re-enter GLOSTER.

Where is my lord of Gloster?

Corn. Follow'd the old man forth.-He is return'd.
Gio. The king is in high rage.
Corn.

Whither is he going? Glo. He calls to horse; but will I know not whither.

Corn. 'Tis best to give him way; he leads himself.
Gon. My lord, entreat him by no means to stay.
Glo. Alack! the night comes on, and the bleak wind,
Do sorely ruffle for many miles about
There's scarce a bush.

Reg.
O sir! to wilful men,
The injuries that they themselves procure
Must be their schoolmasters. Shut up your doors:
He is attended with a desperate train,

And what they may incense him to, being apt
To have his ear abus'd, wisdom bids fear.
Corn. Shut up your doors, my lord; 't is a wild right
My Regan counsels well.-Come out o' the storm.
[Exeun:

Strives in his little world of man to out-scorn The to-and-fro-conflicting wind and rain.

and a Gentleman, meeting.

Kent. Who's here, beside foul weather?

Gent. One minded, like the weather, most unquietly.
Kent. I know you. Where's the king?
Gent. Contending with the fretful elements;

Bids the wind blow the earth into the sea,

Or swell the curled waters 'bove the main,

The lion and the belly-pinched wolf
Keep their fur dry, unbonneted he runs,
And bids what will take all.

Kent.
But who is with him?
Gent. None but the fool, who labours to outjest
His heart-struck injuries.
Kent.

Sir, I do know you,

Catch in their fury, and make nothing of:

Commend a dear thing to you There is division, Although as yet the face of it be cover'd

in folio.

With mutual cunning, 'twixt Albany and Cornwall;1
Who have (as who have not, that their great stars
Thron'd and set high?) servants, who seem no less,
Which are to France the spies and spectators
Intelligent of our state; what hath been seen,
Either in snuffs and packings of the dukes,
Or the hard rein which both of them have borne
Against the old kind king; or something deeper,
Whereof, perchance, these are but flourishings:
But, true it is, from France there comes a power
Into this scatter'd kingdom; who already,
Wise in our negligence, have secret feet
In some of our best ports, and are at point
To show their open banner.-Now to you:
If on my credit you dare build so far

To make you. зpeed to Dover, you shall find
Some that will thank you, making just report
Of how unnatural and bemadding sorrow
The king hath cause to plain.

I am a gentleman of blood and breeding,
And from some knowledge and assurance offer
This office to you.

Gent. I will talk farther with you.
Kent.

No, do not.
For confirmation that I am much more
Than my out wall, open this purse, and take
What it contains. If you shall see Cordelia,
(As fear not but you shall) show her this ring,
And she will tell you who that" fellow is
That yet you do not know. [Thunder.] Fie on this storm!
I will go seek the king.

Gent. Give me your hand. Have you no more to say? Kent. Few words, but, to effect, more than all yet; That, when we have found the king, in which your pain That way, I'll this, he that first lights on him, Holla the other.

[Exeunt severally. SCENE II-Another Part of the Heath. Storm

continues.

Enter LEAR and Fool.

Lear.Blow, winds, and crack your cheeks! rage! blow! You cataracts and hurricanoes spout, Till you have drench'd our steeples, drown'd the cocks! You sulphurous and thought-executing fires, Vaunt-couriers to oak-cleaving thunder-bolts, Singe my white head! And thou, all-shaking thunder, Strike flat the thick rotundity o' the world: Crack nature's moulds, all germins spill at once, That make ingrateful man!

Fool. O nuncle, court holy-water' in a dry house is better than this rain-water out o' door. Good nuncle, in, and ask thy daughter's blessing: here's a night pities neither wise men nor fools.

[Thunder.

Lear. Rumble thy bellyfull! Spit, fire! spout, rain! Nor rain, wind, thunder, fire, are my daughters: I tax not you, you elements, with unkindness; I never gave you kingdom, call'd you children, You owe me no subscription: then, let fall Your horrible pleasure; here I stand, your slave, A poor, infirm, weak, and despis'd old man. But yet I call you servile ministers, That will with two pernicious daughters join' Your high-engender'd battles 'gainst a head So old and white as this. O! O! 't is foul! Fool. He that has a house to put 's head in has a good head-piece.

1 This and the seven following lines, are not in quartos. The rest of the speech is not in folio. 5 your in quartos. Cotgrave's Dict. 8 have in quartos. join'd: in quartos. folio; thundering: in quartos. 14 The quartos insert: man. speech not in quartos.

Fool. Marry, here's grace, and a cod-piece; that's a wise man, and a fool.

Kent. Alas, sir! are you here? Things that love night, Love not such nights as these; the wrathful skies Gallow the very wanderers of the dark,

And make them keep their caves. Since I was man Such sheets of fire, such bursts of horrid thunder, Such groans of roaring wind and rain, I never Remember to have heard: man's nature cannot carry Th' affliction, nor the fear.12

Lear. Let the great gods, That keep this dreadful pother13 o'er our heads, Find out their enemies now. Tremble, thou wretch, That hast within thee undivulged crimes, Unwhipp'd of justice: hide thee, thou bloody hand; Thou perjure, and thou simuler1 of virtue That art incestuous: caitiff, to pieces shake, That under covert and convenient seeming Hast practis'd on man's life: close pent-up guilts, Rive your concealing continents,13 and cry These dreadful summoners grace.-I am a man, More sinn'd against, than sinning.

Kent.

Alack bare-headed.

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 hard' than is the stone whereof 't is rais'd,
Which even but now, demanding after you,
Denied me to come in) return, and force
Their scanted courtesy.
Lear.

My wits begin to turn.Come on, my boy. How dost, my boy' Art cold? I am cold myself.-Where is this straw my fellow? The art of our necessities is strange,

That can make vile things precious. Come, your hove.... Poor fool and knave, I have one part in my heart That's sorry yet for thee.

Fool. He that has a little tiny wit,

[Sing

With heigh, ho, the wind and the rain,Must make content with his fortunes fit; For the rain it raineth every day.

hovel.

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.

SCENE III-A Room in GLOSTER'S Castle.

Enter GLOSTER 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 some strange thing toward, Edmund: pray you, be careful. [Exit.

Edm. This courtesy, forbid thee, shall the duke
Instantly know; and of that letter too.
This seems a fair deserving, and must draw me
That which my father loses; no less than all:
The younger rises, when the old doth fall.

[Exit.

The body's delicate: the tempest in my mind
Doth from my senses take all feeling else,
Save what beats there.-Filial ingratitude!
Is it not as this mouth should tear this hand,
For lifting food to 't?-But I will punish home,—
No, I will weep no more.-In such a night
To shut me out!-Pour on-I will endure:*-
In such a night as this! O Regan! Goneril!
Your old kind father, whose frank heart gave all.'—
O! that way madness lies; let me shun that;
No more of that.

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 may'st 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 Come forth. [straw?

Enter EDGAR, disguised as a Madman. Edg. Away! the foul fiend follows me !— "Through the sharp hawthorn blows the cold wind.”Humph! go to thy cold' bed, and warm thee.

Lear. Hast thou given all to thy two daughters? And art thou come to this?

Edg. Who gives any thing to poor Tom? whom the foul fiend hath led through fire and through flame, through swamp and whirlpool, over bog and quagmire; and hath laid knives under his pillow, 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 taking1. Do poor Tom some charity, whom the foul fiend vexes.-There could I have him now,-and there, -and there,-and there again, and there.

[Strikes." Storm continues. Lear. What have his daughters brought him to this pass?

Couldst thou save nothing? Didst thou give them all? Fool. Nay, he reserved a blanket, else we had been all shamed.

Lear. Now, all the plagues, that in the pendulous air Hang fated o'er men's faults, light on thy daughters! Kent. He hath no daughters, sir.

Lear. Death, traitor! nothing could have subdued

nature

To such a lowness, but his unkind daughters.—
Is it the fashion, that discarded fathers
Should have thus little mercy of their flesh?
Judicious punishment! 't was 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; do justice; swear not; commit not with man's sworn spouse; set not thy sweet heart on proud array. Tom's a-cold.

This line is 89 Not in folio. 10 ford in 14 There is a nursery thyme

Lear. What hast thou been?

Edg. A serving1-man, proud in heart and mind; that curled my hair, wore gloves in my cap, served the lust of my mistress's 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 still continues. Lear. Why, thou wert 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, 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 his clothes. Fool. Pr'ythee, nuncle, be contented; 't is a naughty night to swim in -Now, a little fire in a wide field were like an old lecher's heart; a small spark, all the rest on 's body cold.-Look! here comes a walking fire. Edg. This is the foul fiend Flibbertigibbet: he begins at curfew, and walks till the first cock; he gives the web and 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 GLOSTER, 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 wear,

But mice, and rats, and such small deer, Have been Tom's food for seven long year. Beware my follower.-Peace, Smulkin! peace, thou fiend!

Glo. What! hath your grace no better company? Edg. The prince of darkness is a gentleman;

Modo he 's call'd, and Mahu.1o

Glo. Our flesh and blood, my lord, is grown so vile, That it doth hate what gets it.

Edg. Poor Tom's a-cold.

Glo. Go in with me. My duty cannot suffer

To obey in all your daughters' hard commands:

6 Water-newt.

Though their injunction be to bar my doors,
And let this tyrannous night take hold upon you,
Yet I have 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.

[They talk apart." Kent. Importune him once more to go, my lord, His wits begin t' 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 lately, very late: I lov'd him, friend, No father his son dearer: true to tell thee, The grief hath craz'd my wits. What a night's this! [Storm continues. I do beseech your grace,— Lear.

O! cry you mercy, sir.Noble philosopher, your company. Edg. Tom's a-cold.

Edg.

No words, no words:

"Child Rowland to the dark tower came,
His word was still,-Fie, foh, and furn,
I smell the blood of a British man." [Exeunt.
SCENE V.-A Room in GLOSTER'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 reprovable badness, in himself.

Edm. How malicious is my fortune, that I must repent to be just! This is the letter which 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.