Come on, my boy. How dost, my boy? Art cold?
I am cold myself. Where is this straw, my fellow?
The art of our necessities is strange,
That can make vile things precious. Come, your hovel.
Poor fool and knave, I have one part in my heart
That's sorry yet for thee.
Fool. [sings]
He that has and a little tiny wit-
With hey, ho, the wind and the rain-
Must make content with his fortunes fit,
For the rain it raineth every day.
Lear. True, my good boy. Come, bring us to this hovel.
Exeunt [Lear and Kent].
Fool. This is a brave night to cool a courtesan. I'll speak a
prophecy ere I go:
When priests are more in word than matter;
When brewers mar their malt with water;
When nobles are their tailors' tutors,
No heretics burn'd, but wenches' suitors;
When every case in law is right,
No
squire in debt nor no poor knight;
When slanders do not live in tongues,
Nor cutpurses come not to throngs;
When usurers tell their gold i' th' field,
And bawds and whores do churches build:
Then shall the realm of Albion
Come to great confusion.
Then comes the time, who lives to see't,
That going shall be us'd with feet.
This
prophecy Merlin shall make, for I live before his time.
Exit.
Scene III.
Gloucester's Castle.
Enter Gloucester and Edmund.
Glou. Alack, alack, Edmund, I like not this
unnatural dealing! When
I desir'd their leave that I might pity him, they took from me
the use of mine own house, charg'd me on pain of perpetual
displeasure neither to speak of him,
entreat for him, nor any
way
sustain him.
Edm. Most
savage and
unnatural!
Glou. Go to; say you nothing. There is division betwixt the Dukes,
and a worse matter than that. I have received a letter this
night-'tis dangerous to be spoken-I have lock'd the letter in my
closet. These injuries the King now bears will be revenged home;
there's part of a power already footed; we must
incline to the
King. I will seek him and privily
relieve him. Go you and
maintain talk with the Duke, that my
charity be not of him
perceived. If he ask for me, I am ill and gone to bed. Though I
die fort, as no less is threat'ned me, the King my old, master
must be
relieved. There is some strange thing toward, Edmund.
Pray you be careful. Exit.
Edm. This
courtesy,
forbid thee, shall the Duke
Instantly know, and of that letter too.
This seems a fair deserving, and must draw me
That which my father loses-no less than all.
The younger rises when the old doth fall. Exit.
Scene IV.
The heath. Before a hovel.
Storm still. Enter Lear, Kent, and Fool.
Kent. Here is the place, my lord. Good my lord, enter.
The
tyranny of the open night's too rough
For nature to endure.
Lear. Let me alone.
Kent. Good my lord, enter here.
Lear. Wilt break my heart?
Kent. I had rather break mine own. Good my lord, enter.
Lear. Thou think'st 'tis much that this contentious storm
Invades us to the skin. So 'tis to thee;
But where the greater
malady is fix'd,
The
lesser is
scarce felt. Thou'dst shun a bear;
But if thy
flight lay toward the raging sea,
Thou'dst meet the bear i' th' mouth. When the mind's free,
The body's
delicate. The
tempest in my mind
Doth from my senses take all feeling else
Save what beats there. Filial ingratitude!
Is it not as this mouth should tear this hand
For lifting food to't? But I will
punish home!
No, I will weep no more. In such a night
'To shut me out! Pour on; I will endure.
In such a night as this! O Regan, Goneril!
Your old kind father, whose frank heart gave all!
O, that way
madness lies; let me shun that!
No more of that.
Kent. Good my lord, enter here.
Lear. Prithee go in thyself; seek thine own case.
This
tempest will not give me leave to ponder
On things would hurt me more. But I'll go in.
[To the Fool] In, boy; go first.-You houseless poverty-
Nay, get thee in. I'll pray, and then I'll sleep.
Exit [Fool].
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!
Enter Fool [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' th' straw?
Come forth.
Enter Edgar [disguised as a madman].
Edg. Away! the foul fiend follows me! Through the sharp
hawthornblows the cold wind. Humh! 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 and
halters in his pew, set ratsbane by his porridge, made him proud
of heart, to ride on a bay trotting horse over four-inch'd
bridges, to course his own shadow for a
traitor. Bless thy five
wits! Tom's acold. 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 still.
Lear. What, have his daughters brought him to this pass?
Couldst thou save nothing? Didst thou give 'em all?
Fool. Nay, he reserv'd a blanket, else we had been all sham'd.
Lear. Now all the plagues that in the pendulous air
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's Hill. 'Allow, 'allow, loo, loo!
Fool. This cold night will turn us all to fools and madmen.
Edg. Take heed o' th' 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 acold.
Lear. What hast thou been?
Edg. A servingman, proud in heart and mind; that curl'd my hair,
wore gloves in my cap; serv'd 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 wak'd to do it. Wine lov'd
I deeply, dice
dearly; and in woman out-paramour'd 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 brothel, thy hand
out of placket, thy pen from lender's book, and defy the foul
fiend. Still through the
hawthorn blows the cold wind; says
suum, mun, hey, no, nonny. Dolphin my boy, my boy, sessa! let
him trot by.
Storm still.
Lear. Why, thou wert better in thy grave than to answer with thy
uncover'd body this
extremity of the skies. Is man no more than
this? Consider him well. Thou ow'st the worm no silk, 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! Collie, unbutton
here.
[Tears at his clothes.]
Fool. Prithee, nuncle, be contented! 'Tis 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.
Enter Gloucester with a torch.
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 harelip; mildews the white wheat,
and hurts the poor creature of earth.
Saint Withold footed
thrice the 'old;
He met the
nightmare, and her nine fold;
Bid her alight
And her troth plight,
And aroint thee, witch, aroint thee!
Kent. How fares your Grace?
Lear. What's he?
Kent. Who's there? What is't you seek?
Glou. What are you there? Your names?
Edg. Poor Tom, that eats the swimming frog, the toad, the todpole,
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 whipp'd from tithing to tithing, and
stock-
punish'd and imprison'd; who hath had three suits to his
back, six shirts to his body, horse to ride, and weapons to
wear;
But mice and rats, and such small deer,
Have been Tom's food for seven long year.
Beware my
follower. Peace, Smulkin! peace, thou fiend!
Glou. What, hath your Grace no better company?
Edg. The
prince of darkness is a gentleman!
Modo he's call'd, and Mahu.
Glou. Our flesh and blood is grown so vile, my lord, iso
That it doth hate what gets it.
Edg. Poor Tom's acold.
Glou. Go in with me. My duty cannot suffer
T' obey in all your daughters' hard commands.