Thou must not stay behind.

GLO.

[To the Fool. Come, come, away. [Exeunt KENT, GLOUCESTER, and Fool, bearing off the KING.

EDG. When we our betters see bearing our woes,
We scarcely think our miseries our foes.
Who alone suffers, suffers most i'the mind;
Leaving free things, and happy shows behind:
But then the mind much sufferance doth o'erskip,
When grief hath mates, and bearing fellowship.
How light and portable my pain seems now,
When that which makes me bend, makes the
king bow;

He childed, as I father'd!-Tom, away!
Mark the high noises; and thyself bewray,
When false opinion, whose wrong thought defiles
thee,

In thy just proof, repeals and reconciles thee. What will hap more to-night, safe 'scape the king!

you are going, to a most festinate preparation : we are bound to the like. Our posts shall be swift and intelligent betwixt us. Farewell, dear sister:-farewell, my lord of Gloster.

Enter OSWALD.

How now! Where's the king?

Osw. My lord of Gloster hath convey'd him
hence:

Some five or six and thirty of his knights,
Hot questrists after him, met him at gate;
Who, with some other of the lords dependants,
Are gone with him toward Dover; where they boast
To have well-armed friends.
CORN.

Get horses for your mistress.
[Erit OSWALD.
GON. Farewell, sweet lord, and sister.
CORN. Edmund, farewell.

[Exeunt GONERIL and EDMUND.
Go, seek the traitor Gloster,
Pinion him like a thief, bring him before us.
[Exeunt other Servants.
Though well we may not pass upon his life
Without the form of justice, yet our power
Shall do a courtesy to our wrath, which men
May blame, but not control. Who's there? The

traitor?

You are my guests: do me no foul play, friends.
CORN. Bind him, I say. [Servants bind him.
REG.
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 favours You should not ruffle thus. What will you do? CORN. Come, sir, what letters had you late from France? [truth.

REG. Be simple-answer'd, for we know the CORN. And what confederacy have you with the traitors

Late footed in the kingdom?

GLO. I am tied to the stake, and I must stand
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.
The sea, with such a storm as his bare head
In hell-black night endur'd, would have buoy'd up,
And quench'd the stelled fires :

Yet, poor old heart, he holp the heavens to rain.
If wolves had at thy gate howl'd that stern time,
Thou shouldst have said, Good porter, turn the key;
All cruels else subscrib'd: -but I shall see
The winged vengeance overtake such children.
CORN. See 't shalt thou never!-Fellows, hold
the chair.-

Upon these eyes of thine I'll set my foot.

GLO. He that will think to live till he be old, Give me some help!-O cruel!-O you gods! REG. One side will mock another; the other too. CORN. If you see vengeance,—

1 SERV. Hold your hand, my lord! I have serv'd you ever since I was a child; But better service have I never done you, Than now to bid you hold.

REG.

1 SERV. If you did wear a I'd shake it on this quarrel. CORN. My villain!

(*) Old text, you have.

How now, you deg! beard upon your chin, What do you mean? [Draws.

(4) First folio cmits, first.

(1) Old text. subscribe.

REG.

Out, treacherous villain ! Thou call'st on him that hates thee: it was he That made the overture of thy treasons to us; Who is too good to pity thee.

GLO. O my follies! Then Edgar was abus'd.-Kind gods, forgive me that, and prosper him! REG. Go, thrust him out at gates, and let him smell [look you?

His way to Dover.-How is 't, my lord? How CORN. I have receiv'd 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 GLOUCESTER, and lead him out. a 2 SERV. I'll never care what wickedness I do, If this man come to good. 3 SERV. If she live long, And, in the end, meet the old course of death, Women will all turn monsters.

[Bedlam

2 SERV. Let's follow the old earl, and get the To lead him where he would: his roguish madness Allows itself to any thing.

3 SERV. Go thou; I'll fetch some flax, and whites of eggs

To apply to's bleeding face. him!

Now, heaven help [Exeunt severally.

and lead him out.] In the folio the scene conc'udes here.

EDG. Yet better thus, and known to be contemn'd,

Than still contemn'd and flatter'd. 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,"
Thou unsubstantial air that I embrace!

The wretch that thou hast blown unto the worst, Owes nothing to thy blasts.-But who comes here?

Welcome then,-] These words and the three lines which follow are omitted in the quartos.

Enter GLOUCESTER, led by an old man.

My father, poorly led ?-World, world, O world! But that thy strange mutations make us hate thee, Life would not yield to age.

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. You cannot see your way.
GLO. I have no way, and therefore want no eyes;
I stumbled when I saw. Full oft 't is seen,

'Tis poor mad Tom.

EDG. [Aside.] And yet I must.-Bless thy sweet eyes, they bleed.

GLO. Know'st thou the way to Dover?

EDG. Both stile and gate, horse-way and footpath. Poor Tom hath been scared out of his good wits bless thee, good man's son, from the foul fiend-five fiends have been in poor Tom at once; of lust, as Obidicut; Hobbididance, prince of dumbness; Mahu, of stealing; Modo, of murder; and Flibbertigibbet, of mopping and

C

worst is not,

So long as we can say, This is the worst.

OLD MAN. Fellow, where goest?
GLO.
Is it a beggar-man?
OLD MAN. Madman and beggar too.
GLO. He has some reason, else he could not beg.
I' the last night's storm I such a fellow saw;
Which made me think a man a worm: my son
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. [Aside.] How should this be?—
Bad is the trade that must play Fool to sorrow,
Ang'ring itself and others.-Bless thee, master!
GLO. Is that the naked fellow?

This was an old stumbling-block to the critics Some have altered it to." Our mean secures us," &c., that is, our middle state keeps us in safely: others would read,-"Our meanness secures us: Johnson proposed,-" Our means seduce us; or Our maims secure us: and Mr. Collier's annotator reads, " Our wants secure us." All this controversy arose apparently from misapprehension of the sense in which the word "secure" is to be understood. To secure now means only to protect, to keep safely; but in old language it very commonly signified also, to render us

and waiting-women. So, bless thee, master!

GLO. Here, take this purse, thou whom the heavens' plagues

Have humbled to all strokes: that I am wretched,
Makes thee the happier :-heavens, deal so still !
Let the superfluous, and lust-dieted man,
That slaves your ordinance, that will not see
Because he doth not feel, feel your power quickly;
So distribution should undo excess,
[Dover?

And each man have enough.-Dost thou know
EDG. Ay, master.

[head

GLO. There is a cliff, whose high and bending Looks fearfully in the confined deep:

Bring me but to the very brim of it,

And I'll repair the misery thou dost bear,

With something rich about me: from that place
I shall no leading need.
EDG.
Give me thy arm;
Poor Tom shall lead thee.

[Exeunt.

careless, over-confident, unguarded, and this appears to be its meaning here. Thus, in Sir T. More's "Life of Edward V." :— "Oh the uncertain confidence and shortsighted knowledge of man! When this lord was most afraid, he was most secure; and when he was secure, danger was over his head." Again, in Judges viii. 11:-" And Gideon went up by the way of them that dwelt in tents on the east of Nobah and Jogbehah, and smote the host, for the host was secure."

b Then, pr'ythee, get thee gone:] So the quartos; the folio reads, "Get thee away," &c.

cfive fiends, &c.] The remainder of the speech is not given in the folio.

When I inform'd him, then he call'd me sot,
And told me I had turn'd the wrong side out :—
What most he should dislike, seems pleasant to
him ;

What like, offensive.

GON. [To EDMUND.] Then shall you go no further.

It is the cowish terror of his spirit,

That dares not undertake: he'll not feel wrongs, Which tie him to an answer. Our wishes on the

way

May prove effects. Back, Edmund, to my brother;
Hasten his musters and conduct his powers:
I must change arms at home, and give the distaff
Into my husband's hands. This trusty servant
Shall pass between us: ere long you are like to
hear,

If you dare venture in your own behalf,
A mistress's command. Wear this; spare speech;
[Giving a favour.
Decline your head: this kiss, if it durst speak,
Would stretch thy spirits up into the air;-
Conceive, and fare thee well.

EDM. Yours in the ranks of death.
GON.

My most dear Gloster! [Exit EDMUND.

Most barbarous, most degenerate-have you madded.

Could my good brother suffer you to do it?
A man, a prince, by him so benefited!

If that the heavens do not their visible spirits
Send quickly down to tame these* vile offences,
"Twill come, humanity must perforce prey on
'tself,

Like monsters of the deep.

GON. Milk-liver'd man! That bear'st a cheek for blows, a head for wrongs; Who hast not in thy brows an eye discerning Thine honour from thy suffering; that not know'st,

Fools do those villains pity who are punish'd Ere they have done their mischief. Where's thy drum?

France spreads his banners in our noiseless land; With plumed helm thy state begins to threat; d Whiles thou, a moral fool, sitt'st still, and criest, Alack! why does he so?

ALB.

See thyself, devil! Proper deformity seems not in the fiend So horrid as in woman. GON.

O vain fool!®