painter, could not have made him so ill, though they had been but two hours at the trade.* CORN. Speak yet, how grew your quarrel? Osw. This ancient ruffian, sir, whose life I have spar'd, At suit of his grey beard,— KENT. Thou whoreson zed! thou unnecessary letter!--My lord, if you will give me leave, I will tread this unbolted villain into mortar, and daub the wall of a jakes with him.-Spare my grey beard, you wagtail?" Peace, sirrah! CORN. ? KENT. That such a slave as this should wear a sword, [these, Who wears no honesty. Such smiling rogues as passion That in the natures of their lords rebels; CORN. Why dost thou call him knave? What's Than twenty silly ducking 6bservants, That stretch their duties nicely. KENT. Sir, in good sooth,* in sincere verity, Under the allowance of your grand + aspéct, Whose influence, like the wreath of radiant fire On flickering Phoebus' front, CORN. What mean'st by this? KENT. To go out of my dialect, which you discommend so much. I know, sir, I am no flatterer: he that beguiled you in a plain accent, was a plain knave; which, for my part, I will not be, though I should win your displeasure to entreat me to 't. CORN. What was the offence you gave him? It pleas'd the king his master very late, KENT. None of these rogues and cowards, CORN. Fetch forth the stocks, ho! You stubborn ancient knave, you reverend braggart, We'll teach you— KENT. Sir, I am too old to learn: Call not your stocks for me: I serve the king; On whose employment I was sent to you: You shall do small respect, show too bold malice Against the grace and person of my master, Stocking his messenger. CORN. noon! Fetch forth the stocks!As I have life and honour, there shall he sit till [night too. REG. Till noon! till night, my lord; and all KENT. Why, madam, if I were your father's dog, You should not use me so. REG. Sir, being his knave, I will. CORN. This is a fellow of the self-same colour Our sister speaks of.-Come, bring away the stocks. [Stocks brought in. GLO. Let me beseech your grace not to do so: His fault is much, and the good king his master Will check him for't: your purpos'd low correction Is such, as basest and contemned'st** wretches, For pilferings and most common trespasses (*) First folio omits, good. a For following her affairs,-Put in his legs.-] A line not found in the folio. b Thou out of heaven's benediction com'st This "common saw" we meet with in Heywood's "Dialogues on Proverbs," "In your running from him to me, ye runne Out of God's blessing into the warme sunne." It is found also in Howell's collection of English Proverbs in his Dictionary, 1660, and there explained,-"He goes out of God's blessing to the warm sun, viz. from good to worse." The application, we must suppose, is to Lear's quitting one daughter only to meet more inhospitable treatment from another. A good man's fortune may grow out at heels: GLO. [Aside.] The duke's to blame in this; mon saw, Thou out of heaven's benediction com'st Approach, thou beacon to this under globe, Peruse this letter!-Nothing almost sees miracles, All weary and o'er I know 'tis from Cordelia; Who hath most fortunately been inform'd Some editors have gone so far as to degrade this passage altogether from the text: Steevens and others conjecture it to be made up from fragments of Cordelia's letter. We agree with Malone that it forms no part of that letter, but are opposed to his notion that "two half lines have been lost between the words state and seeking." The slight change of" she'll" for shall,-the ordinary reading being, "and shall find time," &c.-appears to remove much of the difficulty; that occasioned by the corrupt words, "enormous state-seeking," will some day probably find an equally facile remedy. EDG. I heard myself proclaim'd; Does not attend my taking. Whiles I may scape, Blanket my loins; elf all my hair* in knots ;* That's something yet;-Edgar I nothing am. [Exit. My lord, when at their home From Goneril, his mistress, salutations; horse; Commanded me to follow, and attend The leisure of their answer; gave me cold looks: FOOL. We'll set thee to school to an ant, to teach thee there's no labouring i' the winter. All that follow their noses are led by their eyes but blind men; and there's not a nose among twenty but can smell him that's stinking. Let go thy hold when a great wheel runs down a hill, lest it break thy neck with following it: ‡ but the great one that goes up the hill,§ let him draw thee after. When a wise man gives thee better counsel, give me mine again: I would have none but knaves follow it, since a fool gives it. That sir which serves and seeks for gain, And leave thee in the storm. KENT. Where learned you this, fool? Re-enter LEAR, with GLOUCESTer. LEAR. Deny to speak with me? They are sick? they are weary? They have travell'd all the night? fetches; The images of revolt and flying off. Fetch me a better answer. GLO. My dear lord, You know the fiery quality of the duke; How unremoveable and fix'd he is In his own course. Mere LEAR. Vengeance! plague! death! confusion!Fiery? what quality? Why, Gloster, Gloster, I'd speak with the duke of Cornwall and his wife. GLO. Well, my good lord, I have inform'd them so.d LEAR. Inform'd them! Dost thou understand me, man? GLO. Ay, my good lord. LEAR. The king would speak with Cornwall; the dear father Would with his daughter speak, commands her service: † Are they inform'd of this?-My breath and blood! Fiery ? the fiery duke ?-Tell the hot duke, that— No, but not yet-may be, he is not well: Infirmity doth still neglect all office, Whereto our health is bound; we are not ourselves, When nature, being oppress'd, commands the mind To suffer with the body: I'll forbear; (+) First folio, commands, tends, service. d Well, my good lord, &c.] This speech and Lear's rejoinder are found only in the folio. e Is practice only.] Practice, it need hardly be repeated, meant artifice, conspiracy, &c. f Till it cry sleep to death.] Till the clamour of the drum destroys or is the death of sleep. The line is usually given, however, "Till it cry, Sleep to death!" that is, till it cry out, awake no more, and this very possibly was the poet's idea. a-the cockney-] "Cockney," of old, bore more than one signification; as employed by Chaucer, in "The Reve's Tale," verse 4205, "And when this jape is told another day, it plainly means an effeminate spoony. In Dekker's "Newes from Hell," &c. 1602,-""Tis not their fault, but our mothers', our cockering mothers, who for their labour made us to be called knapp'd 'em o'the coxcombs with a stick, and cried, Down, wantons, down: 't was her brother, that, in pure kindness to his horse, buttered his hay. cockneys," it has the same import. According to Percy, whose authority is the following couplet from the ancient ballad called "The Turnament of Tottenham," "At that feast were they served in rich array; Every five and five had a cokenay," it meant a cook or scullion; and that, perhaps, is the sense of the word in the present place. |