You are not worth the dust which the rude wind
Blows in your face.-[I fear your disposition:
That nature, which contemns its origin,
Cannot be border'd certain in itself;

She that herself will sliver and disbranch
From her material sap, perforce must wither,
And come to deadly use.

Gon. No more; the text is foolish.

Alb. Wisdom and goodness to the vile seem vile:

Filths savour but themselves. What have you

done ?

Tigers, not daughters, what have you perform'd?
A father, and a gracious aged man,
Whose reverence even the head-lugg'd bear
would lick,

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, 'T will come :

Humanity must perforce prey on itself,
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 slayer begins threats; Whilst thou, a moral fool, sitt'st still, and cry'st 'Alack! why does he so?']

O vain fool!

[Alb. Thou changed and self-cover'd thing, for shame,

Be-monster not thy feature. Were it my fitness To let these hands obey my blood,

They are apt enough to dislocate and tear

Thy flesh and bones :-Howe'er thou art a fiend, A woman's shape doth shield thee.

Gon. Marry, your manhood now!—]

Enter a Messenger.

Alb. What news?

Mess. O, my good lord, the duke of Cornwall's dead:

Slain by his servant, going to put out
The other eye of Gloster.
Alb.

Gloster's eyes!

Mess. A servant that he bred, thrill'd with
remorse,

Oppos'd against the act, bending his sword
To his great master; who, thereat enrag'd,
Flew on him, and among'st them fell'd him dead :
But not without that harmful stroke which since
Hath pluck'd him after.

Alb.
This shows you are above,
You justicers, that these our nether crimes
So speedily can venge!-but, O, poor Gloster!
Lost he his other eye?

Mess. Both, both, my lord.— This letter, madam, craves a speedy answer; "Tis from your sister.

Gon. [Aside.] One way I like this well; But being widow, and my Gloster with her, May all the building in my fancy pluck Upon my hateful life: Another way, The news is not so tart.-I'll read, and answer. [Exit. Alb. Where was his son, when they did take his eyes? Mess. Come with my lady hither.

Alb.

He is not here. Mess. No, my good lord; I met him back again.

Alb. Knows he the wickedness? Mess. Ay, my good lord; 't was he inform❜d against him;

And quit the house on purpose, that their punishment Might have the freer course.

Gloster, I live

Alb. To thank thee for the love thou show'dst the king, And to revenge thine eyes.-Come hither, friend; Tell me what more thou know'st. [Exeunt.

[*SCENE III.-The French Camp, near Dover.

Enter KENT and a Gentleman. Kent. Why the king of France is so suddenly gone back know you the reason?

Gent. Something he left imperfect in the state, which since his coming forth is thought of; which imports to the kingdom so much fear and danger, that his personal return was most required, and necessary.b

Kent. Who hath he left behind him general? Gent. The Mareschal of France, Monsieur La Far.

Kent. Did your letters pierce the queen to any demonstration of grief?

Gent. Ay, sir, she took them, read them in my presence;

And now and then an ample tear trill'd down
Her delicate cheek; it seem'd she was a queen
Over her passion; who, most rebel-like,
Sought to be king o'er her.

Kent.
O, then it mov'd her.
Gent. Not to a rage: patience and sorrow
strove

Who should express her goodliest. You have

seen

Sunshine and rain at once: her smiles and tears Were like a better day: Those happy smilets, That play'd on her ripe lip, seem'd not to know

What guests were in her eyes; which parted thence,

As pearls from diamonds dropp'd.-In brief,

sorrow

Would be a rarity most belov'd, if all
Could so become it.

Kent.
Made she no verbal question?
Gent. 'Faith, once, or twice, she heav'd the
name of 'father'

Pantingly forth, as if it press'd her heart;
Cried, 'Sisters; sisters!-shame of ladies! sis-
ters!

Kent! father! sisters! What? i' the storm? i' the night?

The whole of this scene is wanting in the folio. (See Introductory Notice.)

b This speech is printed as prose in the original. The modern editors have regulated it into hobbling metre.

Monsieur La Far-so the original copies. In some editions we have Monsieur le Fer. Shakspere has a similar name in Henry the Fifth.

d Better day.-This is the modern reading; the original is better way. Tieck translates the passage, were like a spring day. In the French translation of Letourneur, we have, "Vous avez vu le soleil au milieu de la pluie: son sourire et ses pleurs offraient l'image d'un jour plus doux encore."

e Smilets.--This beautiful diminutive is found in the original; and we know not why it should not hold its place in the text.

SCENE IV.-The same. A Tent.
Enter CORDELIA, Physician, and Soldiers.
Cor. Alack, 't is he; why, he was met even now
As mad as the vex'd sea: singing aloud;
Crown'd with rank fumiter, and furrow weeds,
With hardocks, hemlock, nettles, cuckoo-flowers.
Darnel, and all the idle weeds that grow
In our sustaining corn.-A ceatury send forth;
Search every acre in the high-grown field,
And bring him to our eye. What can man's
wisdom
[Exit an Officer.

In the restoring his bereaved sense?
He that helps him, take all my outward worth.

• Dear cause-important business. So in Romeo and Juliet-dear employment."

Reg. What might import my sister's letter to him?

Stew. I know not, lady.

Reg. 'Faith, he is posted hence on serious matter.

It was great ignorance, Gloster's eyes being out,
To let him live; where he arrives he moves
All hearts against us; Edmund, I think, is gone,
In pity of his misery, to despatch
His nighted life; moreover, to descry
The strength o' the enemy.

Stew. I must needs after him, madam, with my letter.

Rey. Our troops set forth to-morrow; stay with us; The ways are dangerous.

Distress-so the quartos; the folio has desires.

But in my garments.

Glo.
Methinks, you are better spoken.
Edg. Come on, sir; here's the place!—stand
still. How fearful

And dizzy 't is, to cast one 's eyes so low !?
The crows, and choughs, that wing the midway
air,

Show scarce so gross as beetles: Half way down Hangs one that gathers samphire; dreadful trade !3

Methinks he seems no bigger than his head:
The fishermen, that walk upon the beach,
Appear like mice; and yon' tall anchoring bark,
Diminish'd to her cock;" her cock, a buoy
Almost too small for sight: the murmuring surge,
That on the uunumber'd idle pebbles chafes,
Cannot be heard so high:-I'll look no more;
Lest my brain turn, and the deficient sight
Topple down headlong.

Glo.
Set me where you stand.
Edg. Give me your hand: you are now within
a foot

Of the extreme verge: for all beneath the moon
Would I not leap upright.

Glo. Let go my hand. Here, friend, is another purse; in it, a jewel Well worth a poor man's taking: Fairies, and

The cock-boat-The "anchoring bark" has a small boat towing, and, as the brk was diminished to a cock, the cock was a buoy "almost too small for sight."

b Gone, sir. This was formerly printed, gone, sir? as if Edgar asked Gloster if he had gone; whereas Gloster has previously told him, "go thou farther off;" and, when Gloster again speaks to him, he says, gone, sir.

thought,

By this had thought been past.--Alive or dead? Ho, you sir! friend!-Hear you, sir ?—speak! Thus might he pass indeed :- Yet he revives: What are you, sir?

Glo.

Away, and let me die. Edg. Hadst thou been aught but gossamer,* feathers, air,

So many fathom down precipitating, Thou hadst shivered like an egg: but thou dost breathe;

Hast heavy substance; bleed'st not; speak'st; art sound.

Ten masts at each make not the altitude
Which thou hast perpendicularly fell;
Thy life's a miracle: Speak yet again.

Glo. But have I fallen, or no?

Edg. From the dread summit of this chalky bournb

Look up a-height;—the shrill-gorg'd lark so far Cannot be seen or heard: do but look up.

Glo. Alack, I have no eyes.

Is wretchedness depriv'd that benefit,

To end itself by death? 'T was yet some comfort, When misery could beguile the tyrant's rage, And frustrate his proud will.

At each. So all the old editions. Ten masts at each may signify each placed at the end of the other. Some think, however, that there is a slight typographical error, and that we should read ten masts at reach. We can find no example of a similar use of at each; and yet the phrase conveys the meaning.

b Bourn. In a previous passage, "Come o'er the bourn, Bessy, to me," bourn signifies a river; and so in the Fairy Queen,' (Book 11., Canto vI., Stanza 10)—

"My little boat can safely pass this perilous bourne." In Milton's 'Comus' we have

"And every bosky bourn from side to side." Here, as Warton well explains the word, bourn is a winding, deep, and narrow valley, with a rivulet at the bottom. Such a spot is a bourn because it is a boundary-a natural division; and this is the sense in which a river is called a bourn. The "chalky bourn" in the passage before us is, in the same way, the chalky boundary of England towards France.

c Enridged. This is the reading of the quartos. The folio enraged. Enridged is the more poetical word, and Shakspere has the idea in his Venus and Adonis,

"Till the wild waves will have him seen no more,
Whose ridges with the meeting clouds contend."

It was some fiend: Therefore, thou happy father, Think that the clearest gods, who make them honours

Of men's impossibilities, have preserv'd thee.

Glo. I do remember now: henceforth I'll bear Affliction, till it do cry out itself,

Enough, enough, and die. That thing you speak of,

I took it for a man; often 't would say,
The fiend, the fiend: ' he led me to that place.
Edg. Bear free and patient thoughts.-But
who comes here?

Enter LEAR, fantastically dressed up with
flowers.

The safer sense will ne'er accommodate
His master thus.

Lear. No, they cannot touch me for coining; *

I am the king himself.

Edg. O thou side-piercing sight!

Lear. Nature's above art in that respect.-There's your press-money. That fellow handles his bow like a crow-keeper: draw me a clothier's yard. —Look, look, a mouse! Peace, peace;— this piece of toasted cheese will do 't.--There's my gauntlet; I'll prove it on a giant.-Bring up the brown bills. O, well flown, bird!-i' the clout, i' the clout: hewgh!-Give the word. Edg. Sweet marjoram.

Lear. Pass.

Glo. I know that voice.

Lear. Ha! Goneril!-with a white beard!They flatter'd me like a dog; and told me I had the white hairs in my beard, ere the black ones were there. To say ay, and no, to everything I said.-Ay and no too was no good divinity. When the rain came to wet me once, and the wind to make me chatter; when the thunder would not peace at my bidding; there I found them, there I smelt them out. Go to, they are

For coining.-So the quartos.-The folio crying. Tieck, to our surprise, considers the reading of the folio right. If we follow the course of Lear's thoughts we shall see that he fancies himself a king at the head of his army. It is his prerogative to coin money-"they cannot touch me for coining." Now levies are brought to him-"There's your press-money.

"

b The crow-keeper was the rustic who kept crows from corn-one unpractised in the proper use of the bow. Ascham, in his Toxophilus,' thus describes one who "handles his bow like a crow-keeper:" "Another cowereth down, and layeth out his buttocks as though he should hoot at crows."

e Draw me a clothier's yard—'raw like a famous English archer, the archer of Chevy Chase :

"An arrow of a cloth yd long

Up to the head drew he."

not men o' their words: they told me I was everything; 't is a lie; I am not ague-proof. Glo. The trick of that voice I do well remember

Is 't not the king?

Lear.

Ay, every inch a king: When I do stare, see, how the subject quakes. I pardon that man's life: What was thy cause?Adultery ?

Thou shalt not die: Die for adultery! No:
The wren goes to 't, and the small gilded fly
Does lecher in my sight.

Let copulation thrive, for Gloster's bastard son
Was kinder to his father, than my daughters
Got 'tween the lawful sheets.

To 't, luxury, pell-mell, for I lack soldiers.-
Behold yon 'simpering dame,

Whose face between her forks presageth snow;
That minces virtue, and does shake the head
To hear of pleasure's name;

The fitchew, nor the soiled horse, goes to 't With a more riotous appetite." Down from the waist they are centaurs, though women all above: but to the girdle do the gods inherit, beneath is all the fiends'; there's hell, there's darkness, there is the sulphurous pit, burning, scalding, stench, consumption;-Fye, fye, fye! pah; pah! Give me an ounce of civet; good apothecary, sweeten my imagination: there's money for thee.

Glo. O let me kiss that hand!

Lear. Let me wipe it first; it smells of mor

a These words, beginning, behold yon' simpering dame, are printed as prose in the folio. The previous lines of Lear's speech are metrically arranged. In the quarto the whole speech is given as prose.

b The quarios, to sweeten.

e So the folio-the quartos

"Were all the letters suns, I could not see one."