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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, consumption;-Fye, fye, fye! pah; pah! Give me an ounce of civet; good apothecary, sweeten a 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. Read.

GLO. 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.

GLO. I see it feelingly.

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 is the justice, which is the thief? Thou hast seen a farmer's dog bark at a beggar?

GLO. Ay, sir.

LEAR. And the creature run from the cur? There thou might'st behold the great image of authority: a dog 's obeyed in office.

Thou rascal beadle, hold thy bloody hand:

Why dost thou lash that whore? Strip thine own back;

Thou hotly lust'st to use her in that kind

For which thou whipp'st her. The usurer hangs the cozener.
Through tatter'd clothes small vices do appear;

C

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 offend, 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

a The quartos, to sweeten.

So the folio: the quartos

"Were all the letters suns, I could not see one."

• Plate-the old copies read place. The correction, which is ingenious and valuable, was made by Pope.

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 ".

a!

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.

GENT.

Good sir,-"]

LEAR. I will die bravely, like a smugd 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,

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 felt. Lord Herbert, in his Life of Henry VIII.,' describes a joust at which Henry was present in France, where horses shod with felt were brought into a marble hall.

Kill was the ancient word of onset in the English army.

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EDG.

will?

I thank you, sir; that 's all.
GENT. Though that the queen on special cause is here,
Her army is mov'd on.

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GLO. You ever gentle gods, take my breath from me;
Let not my worser spirit tempt me again

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GLO. Now, good sir, what are you?

EDG. A most poor man, made tame to fortune's blows;

Who, by the art of known and feeling sorrows,

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[Exit Gent.

STEW.

GLO.

A proclaim'd prize! Most happy!
That eyeless head of thine was first fram'd flesh
To raise my fortunes.-Thou old unhappy traitor,
Briefly thyself remember:-The sword is out
That must destroy thee.

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Put strength enough to it.

STEW.

Dar'st thou support a publish'd traitor? Hence;
Lest that the infection of his fortune take

Like hold on thee. Let go his arm.

EDG. Chill not let go, zur, without vurther 'casion.

STEW. Let go, slave, or thou diest.

EDG. Good gentleman, go your gait, and let poor volk pass. And ch'ud ha'

a To fortune's blows-the quarto, by.

TRAGEDIES.-VOL. I.

K K

been zwagger'd out of my life, 't would not ha' been zo long as 't is by a vortnight. Nay, come not near th' old man; keep out, che vor' ye, or ise try whether your costard or my ballow a be the harder: Ch'ill be plain with you.

STEW. Out, dunghill!

EDG. Ch'ill pick your teeth, zir: Come; no matter vor your foins.

[They fight; and EDGAR knocks him down.

STEW. Slave, thou hast slain me:-Villain, take my purse;

If ever thou wilt thrive, bury my body;

And give the letters, which thou find'st about me,

To Edmund earl of Gloster; seek him out

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EDG. Sit you down, father; rest you.

Let's see these pockets: the letters that he speaks of
May be my friends. He is dead; I am only sorry

He had no other death's-man.-Let us see:

Leave, gentle wax; and, manners, blame us not:
To know our enemies' minds, we 'd rip their hearts;
Their papers, is more lawful.

[Dies.

[Reads.] "Let our reciprocal vows be remembered. You have many opportunities to cut him off; if your will want not, time and place will be fruitfully offered. There is nothing done, if he return the conqueror; then am I the prisoner, and his bed my gaol; from the loathed warmth whereof deliver me, and supply the place for your labour.

"Your (wife, so I would say) affectionate servants,

O undistinguish'd space of woman's will!

A plot upon her virtuous husband's life;

"GONERIL."

And the exchange, my brother!-Here, in the sands,
Thee I'll rake up, the post unsanctified

Of murtherous lechers; and, in the mature time,
With this ungracious paper strike the sight

Of the death-practis'd duke: For him 't is well,
That of thy death and business I can tell.

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[Exit EDGAR, dragging out the body. vile sense,

Provincial Glossary,' gives ballow as the north

a Ballow-the quartos, bat. Grose, in his
country word for pole. Edgar is speaking the Somersetshire dialect.
English-so the folio; the quartos, British.

We print this subscription as in the folio. It is ordinarily given thus:-
"Your wife (so I would say), and your

affectionate servant."

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SCENE VII.-A Tent in the French Camp. LEAR on a Bed, asleep;
Physician, Gentlemen, and others, attending.

Enter CORDELIA and KENT.

COR. O thou good Kent, how shall I live and work,

To match thy goodness? My life will be too short,
And every measure fail me.

KENT. To be acknowledg'd, madam, is o'er-paid.

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COR. Then be it so, my good lord.-How does the king? [To the Physician.

PHYS. Madam, sleeps still.

COR. O you kind gods,

Cure this great breach in his abused nature!
The untun'd and jarring senses, O, wind up,
Of this child-changed father!

PHYS.

So please your majesty,
That we may wake the king? he hath slept long.
COR. Be govern'd by your knowledge, and proceed

I' the sway of your own will. Is he array'd?
GENT. Ay, madam; in the heaviness of sleep,
We put fresh garments on him.

PHYS. Be by, good madam, when we do awake him;

I doubt not of his temperance.

[COR.

Very well.

a Suited-clothed.

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