In, boy; go first.-[To the Fool.] You houseless
poverty,-
Nay, get thee in. I'll pray, and then I'll sleep.—
[Fool goes in.
Poor naked wretches, wheresoe'er you are,
That bide the pelting of this pitiless storm,
How shall your houseless heads and unfed sides,
Your loop'd and window'd raggedness, defend you
From seasons such as these? O, I have ta'en
Too little care of this! Take physic, pomp ;
Expose thyself to feel what wretches feel,
That thou mayst shake the superflux to them,
And show the heavens more just.

EDG. [Within.] Fathom and half, fathom and
half! poor Tom!

[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.

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,*

Hum! 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 anything to poor Tom? whom the foul fiend hath led through fire and through flame, through ford+ and whirlpool, o'er bog and quagmire; that hath laid knives under his pillow,(1) 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 again, and there.

[Storm continues. LEAR. What, have his daughters brought him

to this pass

?

(*) First folio, blow the windes.

(4) First folio, Sword. (1) First folio, Ha's his Daughters.

ago to thy cold bed, and warm thee.] The commentators, with admirable unanimity, persist in declaring this line to be a ridicule on one in "The Spanish Trajedy," Act II.

"What outcries pluck me from my naked bed!"

But to an audience of Shakespeare's age there was nothing risible in either line. The phrase to go to a cold bed meant only to go cold to bed; to rise from a naked bed signified to get up naked

Hang fated o'er men's faults, light on thy daughters!

KENT. He hath no daughters, sir.

LEAR. Death, traitor! nothing could have subdu'd nature

To such a lowness, but his unkind daughters.—
Is it the fashion, that discarded fathers
Should have thus little mercy on their flesh?
Judicious punishment! 'twas this flesh begot
Those pelican daughters.

EDG. Pillicock sat on Pillicock-hill ;

Halloo, halloo, loo, loo! 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; wore gloves in my cap,(2) served the lust of my mistress' 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 woman: 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, mun, ha no nonny.

Dolphin my boy, my boy, sessa; let him trot by. [Storm 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,

from bed, and to say one lay on a sick bed (a form of expression far from uncommon even now)'implied merely that he was lying sick a bed. It is to be observed that the folio, probably by accident, as it gives the line correctly in "The Taming of the Shrew," omits the word "cold."

b Hast thou given all to thy two daughters?] So the quarto; the folio reads, "Did'st thou give all to thy daughters?" - taking!] See note (b), p. 80.

the beast no hide, the sheep no wool, the cat no perfume. Ha! here's three on 's 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.[Tearing off his clothes.

FOOL. Pr'ythee, nuncle, be contented; 't 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 on's body cold.-Look, here comes a walking fire.

a

EDG. This is the foul fiend* Flibbertigibbet: " he 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;

He met the night-mare, and her nine-fold;
Bid her alight,

And her troth plight,

And, aroint thee, witch, aroint thee! KENT. How fares your grace?

Enter GLOUCESTER, with a torch.

seek?

LEAR. What's he? KENT. Who's there? What is't you 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 his 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 tything to tything, 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.a Beware my follower.-Peace, Smulkin; peace,

thou fiend!

GLO. What, hath your grace no better company? EDG. The prince of darkness is a gentleman; Modo he's call'd, and Mahu.(3)

GLO. Our flesh and blood, my lord, is grown so vile,

That it doth hate what gets it.

(*) First folio omits fiend.

(f) First folio, walkes at. (1) First folio omits, had. Flibbertigibbet:] See quotation from Harsnet, in the Illustrative Comments to this Act.

b the web and the pin.-] The cataract. One of the meanings to Cataratta in Florio's Dictionary is, "A dimnesse of sight occasioned by humores hardned in the eies called a Cataract or a pin and a web."

e Saint Withold footed thrice the wold;] The old copies have Swithold for "Saint Withoid," and old at the end of the line

EDG. Poor Tom's a-cold.

GLO. Go in with me; my duty cannot suffer To obey in all your daughters' hard commands: Though their injunction be to bar my doors, And let this tyrannous night take hold upon you, Yet have I ventur'd to come seek you out, And bring you where both fire and food is ready.

LEAR. First let me talk with this philosopher.What is the cause of thunder?

KENT. Good my lord, take his offer; go into the house.

LEAR. I'll talk a word with this same learned Theban.

What is your study?

EDG. How to prevent the fiend, and to kill vermin.

LEAR. Let me ask you one word in private. KENT. Impórtune him once more to go, my lord,

His wits begin to unsettle.
GLO.

Canst thou blame him? His daughters seek his death:-ah, that good Kent!

He said it would be thus,-poor banish'd man!— Thou say'st the king grows mad; I'll tell thee, friend,

I am almost mad myself: I had a son,
Now outlaw'd from my blood; he sought my life,
But lately, very late: I lov'd him, friend,
No father his son dearer true to tell thee,

[Storm continues. The grief hath craz'd my wits.-What a night's this!

I do beseech your grace,

LEAR.

O, cry you mercy, sir.— Noble philosopher, your company.

EDG. Tom's a-cold.

GLO.
No words, no words: hush.
EDG. Child Rowland to the dark tower came,
His word was still,-Fie, foh, and fum,
I smell the blood of a British man. (4)

[Exeunt.

SCENE V.-A Room in Gloucester's Castle.

Enter CORNWALL and EDMUND.

CORN. I will have my revenge, ere I depart his house.

EDM. How, my lord, I may be censured, that nature thus gives way to loyalty, something fears me to think of.

CORN. I now perceive, it was not altogether your brother's evil disposition made him seek his death; but a provoking merit, set a-work by a reproveable badness in himself.

EDM. How malicious is my fortune, that I must repent to be just! This is the letter he spoke of, which approves him an intelligent party to the advantages of France. O heavens! that this treason were not, or not I the detector!

CORN. Go with me to the duchess. EDM. If the matter of this paper be certain, you have mighty business in hand.

CORN. True, or false, it hath made thee earl of Gloster. Seek out where thy father is, that he may be ready for our apprehension.

EDM. [Aside.] If I find him comforting the king, it will stuff his suspicion more fully.—I will perséver in my course of loyalty, though the conflict be sore between that and blood. my CORN. I will lay trust upon thee; and thou shalt find a dearer father in my love. [Exeunt.

a Frateretto calls me;] See the quotation from Harsnet, in the Illustrative Comments to this Act.

b Pray, innocent,-] The term "innocent," though at first given only to idiots, came in time to be applied to professed fools. c FooL. No; he's a yeoman, &c.] This speech is not in the quartos.

d The foul fiend bites my back.] This, with the whole of what follows, down to, and inclusive of

"False justicer, why hast thou let her 'scape?"

is omitted in the folio.

FOOL. No, he's a yeoman that has a gentleman to his son; for he's a mad yeoman, that sees his son a gentleman before him. [spits LEAR. To have a thousand with red burning Come hissing in upon 'em :

EDG. The foul fiend bites my back.d

FOOL. He's mad, that trusts in the tameness of a wolf, a horse's health, a boy's love, or a whore's oath.

LEAR. It shall be done; I will arraign them straight.

Come, sit thou here, most learned justicer;

[TO EDGAR. Thou, sapient sir, sit here. [To the Fool.]-Now, you she-foxes!

EDG. Look, where he stands and glares!Wantest thou eyes at trial, madam?

Come o'er the bourn,† Bessy, to me :—

• Wantest thou eyes at trial, madam ?] Seward, plausibly enough, would read, "Wanton'st thou eyes,' &c.

Thy sheep shall take no harm.] As "the foul fiend haunts poor Tom in the voice of a nightingale," the representative of Edgar was surely intended by Shakespeare to sing these fragments of old ballads, and not tamely recite them after the manner of the modern stage.

Be thy mouth or black or white,
Tooth that poisons if it bite;
Mastiff, grey-hound, mongrel grim,
Hound or spaniel, brach or lym;a
Or bobtail tike,* or trundle tail,—
Tom will make them† weep and wail:
For, with throwing thus my head,
Dogs leap the hatch, and all are fled.

Do de, de de. Sessa! Come, march to wakes and fairs and market towns. Poor Tom, thy horn is dry.

LEAR. Then let them anatomise Regan; see

what breeds about her heart.-Is there any cause in nature, that makes these hard hearts?-[To EDGAR.] You, sir, I entertain for one of my hundred; only I do not like the fashion of your garments: you will say they are Persian; but let them be changed.

KENT. Now, good my lord, lie here and rest

awhile.

LEAR. Make no noise, make no noise; draw the curtains. So, so: we'll go to supper i' the morning.

FOOL. And I'll go to bed at noon.

Re-enter GLOUCESTER.

GLO. Come hither, friend: where is the king my master?

KENT. Here, sir; but trouble him not,-his wits are gone.

GLO. Good friend, I pr'ythee take him in thy

arms;

b Sessa!] This word, in the old text sese, occurs in a previous scene, and is met with also in the Induction to "The Taming of the Shrew." Johnson explains it to be "an interjection enforcing cessation of any action, like be quiet, have done."