Doth from my senses take all feeling else, No more of that. Kent. Good my lord, enter here. Nay, get thee in. I'll pray, and then I'll sleep.- Edg. [Within.] Fathom and half, fathom and half! [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. 1 This line is omitted in the quartos. 2 This and the next line are only in the folio. 3 Looped and windowed is full of holes and apertures. 4 This speech of Edgar's is omitted in the quartos.-He gives the sign used by those who are sounding the depth at sea. 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.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 ford and whirlpool, over bog and quagmire, that 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 taking! 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. [Storm continues. Lear. What, have his daughters brought him to this 2 pass? Couldst thou save nothing? Did'st thou give them all? Fool. Nay, he reserved a blanket, else we had been all ashamed. 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.- 1 It has been before observed, that the wits seem to have been reckoned five by analogy to the five senses. 2 To take is to blast, or strike with malignant influence. Should have thus little mercy on their flesh? Edg. Pillicock2 sat on pillicock's-hill ;— 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;3 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 women. 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, 5 1 The young pelican is fabled to suck the mother's blood. The allusions to this fable are very numerous in old writers. 2 It should be observed, that Killico is one of the devils mentioned in Harsnet's Declaration of Popish Impostures. The inquisitive reader may find a further explanation of this word in Minsheu's Dictionary, art. 9299; and Chalmers's Works of Sir David Lindsay, Glossary, v. pillok. 3 Then Ma. Mainy, by the instigation of the first of the seven, [spirits,] began to set his hands unto his side, curled his hair, and used such gestures as Ma. Edmunds [the exorcist] presently affirmed that that spirit was Pride." Harsnet's Declaration, &c. 1603. Before each sin was cast out, Mainy, by gestures, acted that particular sin-curling his hair, to show pride, &c. &c. 4 It was anciently the custom to wear gloves in the hat on three distinct occasions, viz. as the favor of a mistress, the memorial of a friend, and as a mark to be challenged by an enemy. 5 Credulous of evil, ready to receive malicious reports. mun, ha no nonny, dolphin my boy, my boy, sessa: let him trot by.1 [Storm still 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, the beast no hide, the sheep no wool, the cat no perfume.-Ha! here's three of us 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.2 [Tearing off his clothes. Fool. 'Pr'ythee, nuncle, be contented; this 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 of his body cold.-Look, here comes a walking fire. 3 4 Edg. This is the foul fiend Flibbertigibbet; he 1 "Dolphin my boy, my boy, It seemeth not that such a foe This is a stanza from a very old ballad, written on some battle fought in France; during which the king (unwilling to put the suspected valor of his son, the dauphin, to the trial), as different champions cross the field, always discovers some objection to his attacking each of them, and repeats the two first lines as every fresh personage is introduced; and at last assists in propping up a dead body against a tree for him to try his manhood upon. Steevens had this account from an old gentleman, who was only able to report part of the ballad. In Jonson's Bartholomew Fair, Cokes cries out, "God's my life! He shall be dauphin, my boy!" Hey nonny nonny" is merely the burden of another ballad. 2 The words unbutton here are only in the folio. The quartos read, Come on, be true. 3 Naughty signifies bad, unfit, improper. This epithet was formerly employed on serious occasions. 4 The name of this fiend, though so grotesque, was not invented by Shakspeare, but by those who wished to impose upon their hearers the belief of his actual existence; this, and most of the fiends mentioned by Edgar, being to be found in bishop Harsnet's book, among those which the Jesuits, about the time of the Spanish invasion, pretended to cast out, for the purpose of making converts. The principal scene of this farce was laid in the family of Mr. Edmund Peckham, a Catholic. Harsnet published his account of the detection of the imposture, by order of the privy council. "Frateretto, Fliberdigibet, Hoberdidance, Tocobatto, were four devils of the round or morrice. These four had forty assistants under them, as themselves doe confesse. Flebergibbe is 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; 2 He met the night-mare, and her nine-fold, And her troth plight, And, Aroint thee, witch, aroint thee!3 Kent. How fares your grace? Enter GLOSTER, with a torch. Lear. What's he? 4 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 the 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 tithing to tithing, 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.5 used by Latimer for a sycophant; and Cotgrave explains Coquette by a Flebergibet or Titifill.” It was an old tradition that spirits were relieved from the confinement in which they were held during the day, at the time of curfew, that is, at the close of the day, and were permitted to wander at large till the first cock-crowing. Hence, in The Tempest, they are said to "rejoice to hear the solemn curfew." 1 The pin and web is a disease of the eyes resembling the cataract in an imperfect stage. 2 About St. Withold we have no certainty. This adventure is not found in the common legends of St. Vitalis, whoin Mr. Tyrwhitt thought was meant. 3 See Macbeth. 4 i. e. and the water-newt. 5 In the metrical Romance of Sir Bevis, who was confined seven years in a dungeon, it is said that "Rattes and mice, and such smal dere, Was his meat that seven yere." |