Kent. How fares your grace? Enter GLOSTER, with a torch. Lear. What's he? Kent. Who's there? What is 't you seek? Glos. What are you there? Your names? Edg. Poor Tom; that eats the swimming frog, the toad, the tadpole, the wall-newt, and the water; 1 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 whipped from tithing to tithing, and stocked, punished, and imprisoned; who hath had three suits to his back, six shirts to his body, horse to ride, and weapon to wear 'But mice, and rats, and such small deer, 3 2 Beware my follower :-peace, Smolkin; 3 peace, thou fiend! Glos. What, hath your grace no better company? Edg. The prince of darkness is a gentleman; Modo he's call'd, and Mahu.4 Glos. Our flesh and blood, my lord, is grown so vile, 1 i. e. the water-newt. 2 A tithing is a division of a county. 3 Name of a spirit. 4 The chief devil. |