Glo. What mean your graces?-Good my.friends, consider You are my guests; do me no foul play, friends. Reg. [Servants bind him. Hard, hard.—O filthy traitor! Glo. Unmerciful lady as you are, I am none. Corn. To this chair bind him.-Villain, thou shalt find [REGAN plucks his beard. Glo. By the kind gods, 'tis most ignobly done, To pluck me by the beard. Reg. So white, and such a traitor! Glo. Naughty lady, These hairs, which thou dost ravish from my chin, Will quicken, and accuse thee. I am your host; With robbers' hands, my hospitable favors1 You should not ruffle thus. What will you do? Corn. Come, sir, what letters had you late from France? Reg. Be simple answered, for we know the truth. Corn. And what confederacy have you with the traitors Late footed in the kingdom? Reg. To whose hands have you sent the lunatic king? Speak. Glo. I have a letter guessingly set down, Which came from one that's of a neutral heart, Corn. Reg. Cunning. Corn. Where hast thou sent the king? Glo. Reg. And false. To Dover. Wherefore To Dover? Wast thou not charged at peril- that. Glo. I am tied to the stake, and I must stand the course. day to be found, to teach an old corkie woman to writhe, tumble, curvet, and fetch her morice gambols as Martha Bressier did." 1 Favors mean the same as features. Reg. Wherefore to Dover? Glo. Because I would not see thy cruel nails Pluck out his poor old eyes; nor thy fierce sister In his anointed flesh stick boarish fangs.1 The sea, with such a storm as his bare head In hell-black night endured, would have buoyed up, If wolves had at thy gate howled that stern3 time, The winged vengeance overtake such children. Corn. See it shalt thou never.-Fellows, hold the chair; Upon these eyes of thine I'll set my foot. [GLOSTER is held down in his chair, while CORNWALL plucks out one of his sets his foot on it. eyes, and Glo. He that will think to live till he be old, Give me some help.-O cruel! O O ye gods! Reg. One side will mock another; the other too. Corn. If you see vengeance, Serv. Hold your hand, my lord But better service have I never done you, 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! 5 [Draws, and runs at him. 1 The quarto reads, "rash, boarish fangs." To rash is the old hunting term for the stroke made by a wild-boar with his fangs. 2 Starred. 3 Thus the folio. The quartos read, "that dearn time." Dearn is dreary. The reading in the text is countenanced by Chapman's version of the 24th Iliad : 4 i. e. yielded, submitted to the necessity of the occasion. 5 Villain is perhaps here used in its original sense, of one in servitude Serv. Nay, then, come on, and take the chance of anger. [Draws. They fight. CORN. is wounded. Reg. Give me thy sword.-[To another Serv.] A up peasant stand thus! [Snatches a sword, comes behind him, and stabs him. Serv. O, I am slain!-My lord, you have one eye left To see some mischief on him.-O! [Dies. Corn. Lest it see more, prevent it.-Out, vile jelly! Where is thy lustre now? [Tears out GLOSTER's other eye, and throws it on the ground. Glo. All dark and comfortless.-Where's my son Edmund ? Edmund, enkindle all the sparks of nature, 1 To quit this horrid act. Reg. Out, treacherous villain! Thou call'st on him that hates thee. It was he That made the overture of thy treason to us; Who is too good to pity thee. Glo. Then Edgar was abused.— 0 my follies! Kind gods, forgive me that, and prosper him! Reg. Go, thrust him out at gates, and let him smell His way to Dover.-How is't, my lord? you? How look Corn. I have received 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.2 1 Serv. I'll never care what wickedness I do, If this man comes to good. 2 Serv. If she live long, 1 Requite. 2 The residue of this act is not contained in the folio of 1623. And, in the end, meet the old course of death, 1 Serv. Let's follow the old earl, and get the bedlam To lead him where he would; his roguish madness 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. ACT IV. SCENE I. The Heath. Enter EDGAR. Edg. Yet better thus, and know to be contemned, Than still contemned and flattered. 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,2 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! 1 "It is better to be thus openly contemned, than to be flattered and secretly despised." 2 The next two lines and a half are not in the quartos. 3 We should never submit with resignation to death, the necessary consequence of old age. VOL. VII. 12 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. Alack, sir, you cannot see your way. Glo. I have no way, and therefore want no eyes; I stumbled when I saw. Full oft 'tis seen, Our mean secures us,1 and our mere defects Prove our commodities.—Ah, dear son Edgar, The food of thy abused father's wrath! Might I but live to see thee in my touch,2 I'd say, I had eyes again! Old Man. Edg. [Aside.] O gods! at the worst? I am worse than e'er I was. Old Man. How now? Who's there? who is't can say, I am Edg. [Aside.] And worse worst is not, 'Tis poor mad Tom. I may be yet. The So long as we can say, This is the worst.3 Glo. Is it a beggar man? Old Man. Madman and beggar too. Glo. He has some reason, else he could not beg. 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 must play the fool to sorrow, 1 Mean is here put for our moderate or mean conditions. It was sometimes the practice of the Poet's age to use the plural, when the subject spoken of related to more persons than one. To avoid the equivoque, Pope changed the reading of the old copy to "our mean secures us." 2 So in another scene, "I see it feelingly." 3 i. e. while we live. |