Upon these eyes of thine I'll set my foot.

Glo. He that will think to live till he be old Give me some help: O cruel! O ye gods! Reg. One side will mock another; the other too. Corn. If you see vengeance, Serv. Hold your hand, my lord; 1 have serv'd you ever since I was a child; But better service have I never done you Than now to bid you hold.

Reg. How now, you dog? Serv. If you did wear a beard upon your chin, I'd shake it on this quarrel: What do you mean? Corn. My villain! [Draws and runs at him. Serv. Nay, then come on, and take the chance of

anger.

[Draws. They fight. CORNWALL is wounded. Reg. Give me thy sword.-[To another Servant.] A peasant stand up thus!

[Snatches a sword, comes behind, and stabs him. Serv. O, I am slain!-My lord, you have one eye left To see some mischief on him:-0! [Dies. Corn. Lest it see more, prevent it :-Out, vile jelly! Where is thy lustre now?

Glo. All dark and comfortless.-Where's my son Edmund ?

That made the overture of thy treasons to us; Who is too good to pity thee.

Glo.

O my follies!

Then Edgar was abus'd.—
Kind gods, forgive me that, and prosper him!

Reg. Go, thrust him out at gates, and let him smell His way to Dover.-How 'st, my lord? How look you?

Corn. I have receiv'd a hurt :-Follow me, lady.Turn out that eyeless villain ;-throw this slave Upon the dunghill.-Regan, I bleed apace: Untimely comes this hurt: Give me your arm. [Exit CORNWALL, led by REGAN;-Servants unbind GLOSTER, and lead him out.

1 Serv. I'll never care what wickedness I do, If this man come to good. If she live long,

2 Serv.

And, in the end, meet the old course of death,
Women will all turn monsters.

1 Serv. Let's follow the old earl, and get the Bedlam To lead him where he would; his roguish madness Allows itself to anything.

2 Serv. Go thou; I'll fetch some flax, and whites of eggs,

To apply to his bleeding face. Now, heaven help him! [Exeunt severally.

Edg. Yet better thus, and known to be contemn'd,
Than still contemn'd and flatter'd. To be worst,
The lowest and most dejected thing of fortune,
Stands still in esperance, lives not in fear :
The lamentable change is from the best;
The worst returns to laughter. Welcome, then,
Thou unsubstantial air that I embrace!
The wretch that thou hast blown unto the worst
Owes nothing to thy blasts.-But who comes here?
Enter GLOSTER, led by an Old Man.

My father, poorly led? World, world, O world!
But that thy strange mutations make us hate thee,
Life would not yield to age.

Old Man. O my good lord, I have been your tenant, and your father's tenant, these fourscore years.

Glo. Away, get thee away; good friend, be gone; Thy comforts can do me no good at all, Thee they may hurt.

Old Man. You cannot see your way.

a

Glo. I have no way, and therefore want no eyes; I stumbled when I saw Full oft 't is seen Our means secure us; and our mere defects Prove our commodities. O, dear son Edgar, The food of thy abused father's wrath! Might I but live to see thee in my touch, I had eyes again!

I'd say,
Old Man.

How now? Who's there?

Edg. [Aside.] O gods! who is 't can say, "I am at

the worst?"

I am worse than e'er I was.

"Our means secure us. We believe that means is here used only in the common sense of resources, powers, capacities. The means, such as we possess, are our securities, and further, our mere defects prove advantages.

"T is poor mad Tom.

Edg. [Aside.] And worse I may be yet: The worst

is not

So long as we can say, "This is the worst."
Old Man. Fellow, where goest?
Glo.
Is it a beggar-man?
Old Man. Madman and beggar too.
Glo. He has some reason, else he could not beg.
I' the last night's storm I such a fellow saw,
Which made me think a man a worm; my son
Came then into my mind: and yet my mind
Was then scarce friends with him: I have heard more
since:

As flies to wanton boys are we to the gods;
They kill us for their sport.

Edg.

How should this be? Bad is the trade that must play fool to sorrow, Ang'ring itself and others. [Aside.]-Bless thee,

master!

Edg. [Aside.] And yet I must.-Bless thy sweet eyes, they bleed.

Glo. Know'st thou the way to Dover? Edg. Both stile and gate, horse-way and footpath. Poor Tom hath been scared out of his good wits: Bless thee, good man's son, from the foul fiend! Five fiends have been in poor Tom at once; of lust, as Obidient; Hobbididence, prince of dumbness; Mahu, of stealing; Modo, of murder; Flibbertigibbet, of mopping and mowing; who since possesses chamber-maids and waiting-women. So, bless thee, master!

Glo. Here, take this purse, you whom the heaven's
plagues

Have humbled to all strokes: that I am wretched,
Makes thee the happier :-Heavens, deal so still!
Let the superfluous and lust-dieted man,
That slaves your ordinance, that will not see
Because he does not feel, feel your power quickly;
So distribution should undo excess,

And each man have enough.-Dost thou know Dover?
Edg. Ay, master.

Glo. There is a cliff, whose high and bending head Looks fearfully in the confined deep: Bring me but to the very brim of it, And I'll repair the misery thou dost bear With something rich about me: from that place I shall no leading need. Edg.

Give me thy arm. Poor Tom shall lead thee.

[Exeunt. SCENE II.-Before the Duke of Albany's Palace. Enter GONERIL, and EDMUND; Steward meeting them. Gon. Welcome, my lord: I marvel, our mild husband

Not met us on the way :-Now, where's your master?
Stew. Madam, within; but never man so chang'd:
I told him of the army that was landed;
He smil'd at it: I told him, you were coming;
His answer was, "The worse:" of Gloster's treachery,
And of the loyal service of his son,
When I inform'd him, then he call'd me sot;
And told me, I had turn'd the wrong side out :---
What most he should dislike seems pleasant to him;
What like, offensive.

Gon. Then shall you go no further. [To EDMUND. It is the cowish terror of his spirit,

That dares not undertake: he'll not feel wrongs,
Which tie him to an answer: Our wishes, on the way,
May prove effects. Back, Edmund, to my brother;
Hasten his musters, and conduct his powers:

I must change names at home, and give the distaff
Into my husband's hands. This trusty servant
Shall pass between us: ere long you are like to hear,
If you dare venture in your own behalf,
A mistress's command. Wear this; spare speech;
[Giving a favour.
Decline your head: this kiss, if it durst speak,
Would stretch thy spirits up into the air ;-
Conceive, and fare thee well.

Edm. Yours in the ranks of death.
Gon. My most dear Gloster!

[Exit EDMUND

O, the difference of man and man!
To thee a woman's services are due;
My fool usurps my body.
Stew.

Madam, here comes my lord. [Exit Stew.
Enter ALBANY.

Gon. I have been worth the whistle.
Alb.
O Goneril!
You are not worth the dust which the rude wind
Blows in your face.-I fear your disposition:
That nature, which contemns its origin,
Cannot be border'd certair in itself;

She that herself will sliver and disbranch From her material sap, perforce must wither, And come to deadly use.

Gon. No more; the text is foolish.

Alb. Wisdom and goodness to the vile seem vile:
Filths savour but themselves. What have you done 9
Tigers, not daughters, what have you perform`d?
A father, and a gracious aged man,
Whose reverence even the head-lugg'd bear would
lick,

Most barbarous, most degenerate! have you madded.
Could my good brother suffer you to do it?
A man, a prince, by him so benefited?
If that the heavens do not their visible spirits
Send quickly down to tame these vile offences,
"T will come:

Humanity must perforce prey on itself,
Like monsters of the deep.

Gon.

Milk-liver'd man! That bear'st a cheek for blows, a head for wrongs; Who hast not in thy brows an eye discerning Thine honour from thy suffering; that not know'st, Fools do those villains pity, who are punish'd Ere they have done their mischief. Where's thy drum France spreads his banners in our noiseless land: With plumed helm thy slayer begins threats: Whilst thou, a moral fool, sitt st still, and cry'st "Alack! why does he so?"

Alb.

See thyself, devil! Proper deformity seems not in the fiend So horrid as in woman.

O vain fool!

Gon. Alb. Thou changed and self-cover'd thing, for shame, Be-monster not thy feature. Were it my fitness To let these hands obey my blood, They are apt enough to dislocate and tear Thy flesh and bones :-Howe'er thou art a fiend, A woman's shape doth shield thee. Gon. Marry, your manhood now!— Enter a Messenger.

Mess. A servant that he bred, thrill'd with remorse, Oppos'd against the act, bending his sword

To his great master; who, thereat enrag`d,
Flew on him, and amongst them fell'd him dead:
But not without that harmful stroke which since
Hath pluck'd him after.

Alb.
This shows you are above,
You justicers, that these our nether crimes
So speedily can venge!-but, O, poor Gloster!
Lost he his other eye?

Mess.

Both, both, my lord.This letter, madam, craves a speedy answer; T is from your sister.

Gon. [Aside.] One way I like this well;
But being widow, and my Gloster with her,
May all the building in my fancy pluck
Upon my hateful life: Another way,
The news is not so tart.-I'll read, and answer. [Er
Alb. Where was his son, when they did take his eyes!
Mess. Come with my lady hither.

Alb.
He is not here.
Mess. No, my good lord; I met him back again.
Alb. Knows he the wickedness?

Mess. Ay, my good lord: 't was he inform'd against

SCENE III.-The French Camp, near Dover.
Enter KENT and a Gentleman.

Kent. Why the king of France is so suddenly gone back know you the reason?

Gent. Something he left imperfect in the state, which since his coming forth is thought of; which imports to the kingdom so much fear and danger, that his personal return was most required, and necessary.

Kent. Who hath he left behind him general? Gent. The Mareschal of France, Monsieur Le Far. Kent. Did your letters pierce the queen to any demonstration of grief?

Gent. Ay, sir, she took them, read them in my pre

SCENE IV.-The same. A Tent.

Enter CORDELIA, Physician, and Soldiers.
Cor. Alack, 't is he; why he was met even now
As mad as the vex'd sea: singing aloud;
Crown'd with rank fumiter, and furrow weeds,
With harlocks, hemlock, nettles, cuckoo-flowers,
Darnel, and all the idle weeds that grow
In our sustaining corn.-A century send forth;
Search every acre in the high-grown field,
And bring him to our eye. What can man's wisdom
[Exit an Officer

In the restoring his bereaved sense?
He that helps him, take all my outward worth.
Phy. There is means, madam:
Our foster-nurse of nature is repose,
The which he lacks; that to provoke in him,
Are many simples operative, whose power
Will close the eye of anguish.
All bless'd secrets,

Cor.
All you unpublish'd virtues of the earth,
Spring with my tears! be aidant, and remediate,
In the good man's distress!-Seek, seek for him;
Lest his ungovern'd rage dissolve the life
That wants the means to lead it.

Reg. Lord Edmund spake not with your lord at home? Stew. No, madam.

Reg. What might import my sister's letter to him?
Stew. I know not, lady.

Reg. 'Faith, he is posted hence on serious matter.
It was great ignorance, Gloster's eyes being out,
To let him live; where he arrives he moves
All hearts against us; Edmund, I think, is gone,
In pity of his misery, to despatch

His nighted life; moreover, to descry

The strength o' the enemy.

Stew. I must needs after him, mauam, with my

letter.

If Edgar live, O, bless him!—

Stew. I, madam?

Burn itself out.

Than for your lady's :-You may gather more.

If you do find him, pray you, give him this;

And when your mistress hears thus much from you I pray, desire her call her wisdom to her.

So fare you well.

If you do chance to hear of that blind traitor,
Preferment falls on him that cuts him off.

Stew. 'Would I could meet him, madam! I would show

But in my garments.

Glo.

Methinks, you are better spoken. Edg. Come on, sir; here's the place!-stand still.— How fearful

And dizzy 't is, to cast one's eyes so low!
The crows, and choughs, that wing the midway air,
Show scarce so gross as beetles: Half way down
Hangs one that gathers samphire; dreadful trade!
Methinks he seems no bigger than his head :
The fishermen, that walk upon the beach,
Appear like mice: and yon' tall anchoring bark,
Diminish'd to her cock; her cock, a buoy
Almost too small for sight: the murmuring surge,
That on the unnumber'd idle pebbles chafes,
Cannot be heard so high :-I'll look no more;
Lest my brain turn, and the deficient sight
Topple down headlong.

Glo.

Set me where you stand. Edg. Give me your hand: you are now within a

foot

Edg.

Farewell.

Gone, sir. [GLOSTER leaps, and fails along. And yet I know not how conceit may rob The treasury of life, when life itself Yields to the theft: Had he been where he thought, By this had thought been past.-Alive or dead? Ho, you sir! friend!-Hear you, sir ?-speak! Thus might he pass indeed :-Yet he revives: What are you, sir?

Glo.

Away, and let me die. Edg. Hadst thou been aught but gossamer, feathers,

air,

So many fathom down precipitating,

Thou hadst shiver'd like an egg: but thou dost breathe;
Hast heavy substance; bleed'st not; speak st; art sound.
Ten masts at each b make not the altitude
Which thou hast perpendicularly fell;
Thy life's a miracle: Speak yet again.

Glo. But have I fallen, or no?

Edg. From the dread summit of this chalky bourn:* Look up a-height;-the shrill-gorg'd lark so far Cannot be seen or heard: do but look up.

Glo. Alack, I have no eyes.

Is wretchedness depriv'd that benefit,

To end itself by death? "T was yet some comfort,
When misery could beguile the tyrant's rage,
And frustrate his proud will.
Edg.

Give me your aim:
Up-so;-How is 't? Feel you your legs? You

stand.

Glo. Too well, too well. Edg.

This is above all strangeness: Upon the crown o' the cliff, what thing was that Which parted from you?

Glo.

A poor unfortunate beggar. 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 impossibilities, have preserv'd thee.

Glo. 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 't would 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

a Gone, sir. This is ordinarily printed, gone, sir? as if Edvar asked Gloster if he had gone; whereas Gloster has previously told him, "go thou further off;" and when Gloster again speaks to him, he says, gone, sir.

b Ten masts at each may signify each placed at the end of the other. Some think, however, that there is a slight typogerphical error, and that we should read ten masts at reach. We can find no example of a similar use of at each; and yet the phrase conveys the meaning.

• Bourn. In a previous passage, "Come o'er the boura. Bessy, to me," bourn signifies a river. The "cha ky bora in the passage before us is the chalky boundary of England to wards France.

For coining. If we follow the course of Lear's thoughts we shall see that he fancies himself a king at the head of his army. It is his prerogative to coin money- they cannot touch me tot coining.' New levies are brought to him—“There's your press-money."

crow-keeper: draw me a clothier's yard.b-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.

Glo. I know that voice.

Lear. Ha! Goneril!-with a white beard!-They flatter'd me like a dog; and told me I had the white nairs 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 them, there I smelt them out. Go to, they are not men o' their words: they told me I was everything; 't is a lie; I am not ague-proof.

Glo. 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, pell-mell, for I lack soldiers.—
Behold yon' simpering dame,

Whose face between her forks presageth 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 fiends'; there 's hell, there's darkness, there is the sulphurous pit, burning, scalding, stench, cousumption:-Fye, fye, fye! pah; pah! Give me an ounce of civet; good apothecary, sweeten my imagination : there's money for thee.

Glo. O let me kiss that hand!

Lear. Let me wipe it first; it smells of mortality. Glo. O ruin'd piece of nature! This great world Shall so wear out to nought.-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.

Glo. Were all thy letters suns, I could not see. Edg. I would not take this from report;—it is, And my heart breaks at it.

Lear. What, art mad? A man may see how this world goes, with no eyes. Look with thine ears: see how yon' justice rails upon yon' simple thief. Hark, in thine ear: Change places; and, handy-dandy, which

The crow-keeper was the rustic who kept crows from cornone unpractised in the proper use of the bow.

Daw me a clothier`s`yard-draw like a famous English archer, the archer of Chevy Chase:

"An arrow of a cloth yard long

Up to the head drew he."

• The bruton bills-bills for billmen, the infantry.

Through tatter'd clothes small vices do appear;
Robes and furr'd gowns hide all. Plate sin with gold,
And the strong lance of justice hurtless breaks;
Arm it in rags, a pigmy's straw doth pierce it.
None does oflend, none, I say, none; I'll able 'em :
Take that of me, my friend, who have the power
To seal the accuser's lips. Get thee glass eyes;
And, like a scurvy politician, seem

To see the things thou dost not.-Now, now, now, now:
Pull off my boots :-harder, harder; so.

Edg. O, matter and impertinency mix'd! Reason in madness!

Lear. If thou wilt weep my fortunes, take my eyes. I know thee well enough; thy name is Gloster; Thou must be patient; we came crying hither. Thou know'st, the first time that we smell the air, We wawl, and cry:-I will preach to thee; mark. Glo. Alack, alack the day!

Lear. When we are born, we cry, that we are come To this great stage of fools;This a good block!—a It were a delicate stratagem, to shoe

A troop of horse with felt: I'll put it in proof;
And when I have stolen upon these sons-in-law,
Then, kill, kill, kill, kill, kill, kill.

Enter a Gentleman, with Attendants.
Gent. O, here he is; lay hand upon him.-Sir,
Your most dear daughter-

Lear. No rescue? What, a prisoner? I am even The natural fool of fortune.-Use me well; You shall have ransom. Let me have surgeons, I am cut to the brains.

Gent.

You shall have anything. Lear. No seconds? all myself? Why, this would make a man, a man of salt, To use his eyes for garden water-pots, Ay, and for laying autumn's dust.

Good sir,

Gent.
Lear. I will die bravely, like a smug bridegroom;
What?

I will be jovial; come, come; I am a king,
My masters, know you that?

Gent. You are a royal one, and we obey you. Lear. Then there's life in 't. Come, an you get it, you shall get it by running. Sa, sa, sa, sa.

[Exit running; Attendants follow. Gent. A sight most pitiful in the meanest wretch; Past speaking of in a king!--Thou hast a daughter, Who redeems nature from the general curse Which twain have brought her to.

Edg. Hail, gentle sir.

Gent. Sir, speed you: What's your will Edg. Do you hear aught, sir, of a battle toward? Gent. Most sure, and vulgar: every one hears that, Which can distinguish sound. Edg.

How near's the other army?

But, by your favour,

a This a good block! Steevens conjectures that, when Lear says, "I will preach to thee," and begins his sermon. "When we are born, we cry," he takes his hat in his hand, and, turning it round, dislikes the fashion or shape of it, which was then called the block. He then starts off, by association with the hat, to the delicate stratagem of shoeing a troop of horse with feit. Kill was the ancient word of onset in the English army.