I will preserve myself, and am bethought

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 hair with knots,

And with presented nakedness outface

The wind and persecution of the sky.

The country gives me proof and precedent

Of Bedlam beggars who with roaring voices

Strike in their numbed and mortified bare 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 a Knight

LEAR

’Tis strange that they should so depart from home

And not send back my messenger.

KNIGHT As I learned,

The night before there was no purpose

Of his remove.

KENT (waking) Hail to thee, noble master.

LEAR

How! Mak’st thou this shame thy pastime?

FOOL Ha, ha, look, 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 over-lusty 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 No.

KENT Yes.

LEAR No, I say.

KENT

I say yea.

LEAR No, no, they would not.

KENT Yes, they have.

LEAR

By Jupiter, I swear no. They durst not do‘t,

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

To do upon respect such violent outrage.

Resolve me with all modest haste which way

Thou mayst deserve or they propose 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, panting forth

From Gonoril, his mistress, salutations,

Delivered letters spite of intermission,

Which presently they read, on whose contents

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 that 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

This shame which here it suffers.

LEAR

O, how this mother swells up toward my heart!

Histerica passio, down, thou climbing sorrow;

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

KENT

With the Earl, sir, within.

LEAR Follow me not; stay there.

Exit

KNIGHT (to Kent)

Made you no more offence than what you speak of?

KENT

No. How chance the King comes with so small a train?

FOOL An thou hadst been set in the stocks for that question, thou hadst well deserved it.

KENT Why, fool?

FOOL We’ll set thee to school to an ant, to teach thee there’s no labouring in the winter. All that follow their noses are led by their eyes but blind men, and there’s not a nose among a hundred 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 it; but the great one that goes up the hill, 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 that serves 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 learnt you this, fool?

FOOL Not in the stocks.

Enter King Lear and the Duke of Gloucester

LEAR

Deny to speak with me? They’re sick, they’re weary?

They travelled hard tonight?—mere insolence,

Ay, 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, death, plague, confusion! What ‘fiery quality’? Why, Gloucester, Gloucester, I’d Speak with the Duke of Cornwall and his wife.

GLOUCESTER Ay, my good lord.

LEAR

The King would speak with Cornwall; the dear father

Would with his daughter speak, commands, tends

service.

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

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

Infirmity doth still neglect all office

Whereto our health is bound. We are not ourselves

When nature, being oppressed, commands the mind

To suffer with the body. I’ll forbear,

And am fallen out with my more headier will,

To take the indisposed and sickly fit

For the sound man.—Death on my state,

Wherefore should he sit here? This act persuades me

That this remotion of the Duke and her

Is practice only. Give me my servant forth.