To take the basest and most poorest shape

That ever penury in contempt of man

Brought near to beast. My face I’ll grime with filth,

Blanket my loins, elf all my hairs in knots,

And with presented nakedness outface

The winds and persecutions of the sky.

The country gives me proof and precedent

Of Bedlam beggars who with roaring voices

Strike in their numbed and mortified arms

Pins, wooden pricks, nails, sprigs of rosemary,

And with this horrible object from low farms,

Poor pelting villages, sheep-cotes and mills

Sometime with lunatic bans, sometime with prayers

Enforce their charity. ‘Poor Tuelygod, Poor Tom.’

That’s something yet. Edgar I nothing am.

Exit

Enter King Lear, his Fool, and ⌈the First⌉ Gentleman

LEAR

’Tis strange that they should so depart from home

And not send back my messenger.

⌈FIRST⌉ GENTLEMAN

As I learned,

The night before there was no purpose in them

Of this remove.

KENT (waking)

Hail to thee, noble master.

LEAR

Ha! Mak’st thou this shame thy pastime?

KENT No, my lord.

FOOL Ha, ha, he wears cruel garters! Horses are tied by the heads, dogs and bears by th’ neck, monkeys by th’ loins, and men by th’ legs. When a man’s overlusty at legs, then he wears wooden nether-stocks.

LEAR (to Kent)

What’s he that hath so much thy place mistook To set thee here?

KENT It is both he and she:

Your son and daughter.

LEAR By Jupiter, I swear no.

KENT

By Juno, I swear ay.

LEAR They durst not do’t,

They could not, would not do’t. ’Tis worse than

murder,

To do upon respect such violent outrage.

Resolve me with all modest haste which way

Thou mightst deserve or they impose this usage,

Coming from us.

KENT My lord, when at their home

I did commend your highness’ letters to them,

Ere I was risen from the place that showed

My duty kneeling, came there a reeking post

Stewed in his haste, half breathless, painting forth

From Goneril, his mistress, salutations,

Delivered letters spite of intermission,

Which presently they read, on whose contents 210

They summoned up their meiny, straight took horse,

Commanded me to follow and attend

The leisure of their answer, gave me cold looks;

And meeting here the other messenger,

Whose welcome I perceived had poisoned mine—

Being the very fellow which of late

Displayed so saucily against your highness—

Having more man than wit about me, drew.

He raised the house with loud and coward cries.

Your son and daughter found this trespass worth

The shame which here it suffers.

FOOL Winter’s not gone yet if the wild geese fly that way.

⌈Sings⌉ Fathers that wear rags

Do make their children blind,

But fathers that bear bags

Shall see their children kind.

Fortune, that arrant whore,

Ne’er turns the key to th’ poor.

But for all this thou shalt have as many dolours for

thy daughters as thou canst tell in a year.

LEAR

O, how this mother swells up toward my heart!

Histerica passio down, thou climbing sorrow;

Thy element’s below.—Where is this daughter?

KENT

With the Earl, sir, here within.

LEAR

Follow me not; stay here.

Exit

⌈FIRST⌉ GENTLEMAN (to Kent)

Made you no more offence but what you speak of?

KENT None.

How chance the King comes with so small a number?

FOOL An thou hadst been set i’th’ stocks for that question, thou’dst well deserved it.

KENT Why, Fool?

FOOL We’ll set thee to school to an ant, to teach thee there’s no labouring i’th’ 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; but the great one that goes upward, 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.

⌈Sings⌉

That sir which serves and seeks for gain

And follows but for form,

Will pack when it begin to rain,

And leave thee in the storm.

But I will tarry, the fool will stay,

And let the wise man fly.

The knave turns fool that runs away,

The fool no knave, pardie.

KENT Where learned you this, Fool?

FOOL Not i’th’ stocks, fool.

Enter King Lear and the Duke of Gloucester

LEAR

Deny to speak with me? They are sick, they are weary,

They have travelled all the night?—mere fetches,

The images of revolt and flying off.

Fetch me a better answer.

GLOUCESTER

My dear lord,

You know the fiery quality of the Duke,

How unremovable and fixed he is

In his own course.

LEAR

Vengeance, plague, death, confusion!

‘Fiery’? What ‘quality’? Why, Gloucester, Gloucester,

I’d speak with the Duke of Cornwall and his wife.

GLOUCESTER

Well, my good lord, I have informed them so.

LEAR

‘Informed them’? Dost thou understand me, man?

GLOUCESTER Ay, my good lord.

LEAR

The King would speak with Cornwall; the dear father

Would with his daughter speak, commands, tends

service.

Are they ‘informed’ of this? My breath and blood—

‘Fiery’? The ‘fiery’ Duke—tell the hot Duke that—

No, but not yet. Maybe he is not well.

Infirmity doth still neglect all office