No, truly.

EDG. Why, then, your other senses grow imperfect

By your eyes' anguish.

GLO.

So may it be, indeed:

Methinks thy voice is alter'd; and thou speak'st

In better phrase and matter than thou didst.

EDG. You're much deceiv'd; in nothing am I chang'd,

But in my garments.

GLO.

Methinks you're 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 yond 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 Of the extreme verge: for all beneath the moon

Here, friend, 's another purse; in it a jewel
Well worth a poor man's taking: fairies and gods,
Prosper it with thee! Go thou further off;

[Seems to go.

With all
my

heart.

Bid me farewell, and let me hear thee going.
EDG. Now fare you well, good sir.
GLO.
EDG. Why I do trifle thus with his despair
Is done to cure it.

O, you mighty gods!

GLO.
This world I do renounce; and, in your sights,
Shake patiently my great affliction off':

If I could bear it longer, and not fall

To quarrel with your great opposeless wills,
My snuff and loathed part of nature should

Burn itself out. If Edgar live, O, bless him!—
Now, fellow, fare thee well.

EDG.

(*) First folio, walk'd.

Gone, sir:-farewell.—

[GLOUCESTER leaps, and falls along.

(†) First folio, Pebble.

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 'd'st shiver'd like an egg: but thou dost breathe ;
Hast heavy substance; bleed'st not; speak'st; art sound!
Ten masts at each make not the altitude,

Which thou hast perpendicularly fell!

Thy life's a miracle. Speak yet again.

GLO. But have I fall'n, or no?

EDG. From the dread summit of this chalky bourn !a

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? "Twas yet some comfort,
When misery could beguile the tyrant's rage,
And frustrate his proud will.

EDG.

Give me your arm:

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 with flowers.

The safer sense will ne'er accommodate b

His master thus.

2

b

(*) First folio, enraged.

chalky bourn!] Bourn here means boundary.
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 pressmoney. That fellow handles his bow like a crow-keeper: (1) draw me a clothier's yard. (2)-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.b-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 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 every thing that 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 every thing; '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 yond simpering dame,

Whose face between her forks presages snow;
That mincesd virtue, and does shake the head
To hear of pleasure's name;—

(*) First folio, crying.

(+) First folio inserts, the.

The word "safer" in this passage has been suspected; but it is certainly right, and means sounder. The sound senses of a man would never permit him to go thus grotesquely garnished.

There's your press-money.] The allusion is probably, as Douce remarks, to the money which was paid to soldiers when they were retained in the king's service.

b brown bills.-] A "bill," the old weapon of the English infantry, was a sort of battle-axe with a long handle; and "brown bills" are occasionally mentioned by writers of Shakespeare's age; thus Marlowe, in King Edward II.

"Lo, with a band of bow-men and of pikes,

Brown bills, and targiteers."

i' the clout!] The clout was the centre mark in the target; what we now call the bull's-eye; and possibly took its name from the clout or pin by which the target was suspended. See note (c) p. 38, Vol. II.

That minces virtue,-] That affects the coy timidity of virtue.

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, consumption!-fie, fie, fie! pah, pah! Give me an ounce of civet, good apothecary, to* 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 the† letters suns, I could not see.

EDG. I would not take this from report;-a

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 yond justice rails upon yond simple thief. Hark, in thine ear: change places; and, handydandy, 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 mightst 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;

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 does pierce it.

None does offend, none,-I say, none; I'll able 'em :

(*) First folio omits, to.

(†) First folio, thy.

(1) First folio, great.

a I would not take this from report, &c.] There is some obscurity here. What is it Edgar would not take from report? He must have been aware of his father's deprivation of sight; because it is mentioned in the previous scene. We are, perhaps, to the suppose poor King exhibits the proclamation for the killing of Gloucester.

Plate sin with gold,-] A correction by Pope and Theobald; the old text having, "Place sinnes." This passage down to, "To seal the accuser's lips," inclusive, is only

in the folio.

able 'em :] Qualify them.

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 't in proof;
And when I have stol'n upon these sons-in-law,*
Then, kill, kill, kill, kill, kill, kill!b

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;

LEAR. I will die bravely, like af 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.

(*) First folio, Son in Lawes.

(+) First folio inserts, smugge. (+) First folio omits, My.

This a good block:-] "Upon the king's saying, I will preach to thee, the poet seems to have meant him to pull off his hat, and keep turning it and feeling it, in the attitude of one of the preachers of those times (whom I have seen so represented in ancient prints), till the idea of felt, which the good hat or block was made of, raises the stratagem in his brain of shoeing a troop of horse with a substance soft as that which he held and moulded between his hands. This makes him start from his preachment.” -STEEVENS.

bkill, kill! &c.] This was the ancient cry of assault in the English army. Shakespeare introduces it again in "Coriolanus," Act V. Sc. 5; when the conspirators attack Coriolanus.

c

Omitted in the folio.

Ay, and laying autumn's dust.
GENT.

Good sir,-]