ACT IV. SCENE I-An open Country. Enter EDGAR. EDG. Yet better thus, and known to be contemn'd, The wretch that thou hast blown unto the worst Enter GLOSTER, led by an Old Man. My father, poorly led ?-World, world, O world! Life would not yield to age. OLD MAN. O my good lord, I have been your tenant, and your father's tenant, these fourscore years. GLO. Away, get thee away; good friend, be gone: Thy comforts can do me no good at all, Thee they may hurt. OLD MAN. You cannot see your way. GLO. I have no way, and therefore want no eyes; Our means secure us; and our mere defects OLD MAN. How now? Who's there? EDG. [Aside.] O gods! Who is 't can say, "I am at the worst ?" I am worse than e'er I was. OLD MAN. 'T is poor mad Tom. EDG. [Aside.] And worse I may be yet: The worst is not "This is the worst." So long as we can say, Is it a beggar-man ? OLD MAN. Madman and beggar too. GLO. He has some reason, else he could not beg. I' the last night's storm I such a fellow saw, Which made me think a man a worm: my son Came then into my mind; and yet my mind Was then scarce friends with him: I have heard more since : As flies to wanton boys are we to the gods; They kill us for their sport. EDG. How should this be? Bad is the trade that must play fool to sorrow, Ang'ring itself and others. [Aside.]-Bless thee, master! OLD MAN. Ay, my lord. GLO. Get thee away: If, for my sake, OLD MAN. Alack, sir, he 's mad. GLO. 'T is the times' plague, when madmen lead the blind, Do as I bid thee, or rather do thy pleasure; Above the rest, be gone. OLD MAN. I'll bring him the best 'parel that I have, Come on 't what will. [Exit. GLO. Sirrah, naked fellow. EDG. Poor Tom 's a cold.-I cannot daub it further. [Aside. GLO. Come hither, fellow. EDG. [Aside.] And yet I must.-Bless thy sweet eyes, they bleed. GLO. Know'st thou the way to Dover ? EDG. Both stile and gate, horse-way and foot-path. Poor Tom hath been scared out of his good wits: Bless thee, good man's son, from the foul fiend! Five fiends have been in poor Tom at once; of lust, as Obidicut; Hobbididence, prince of dumbness; Mahu, of stealing; Modo, of murder; Flibbertigibbet, of mopping and mowing; who since pos sesses chamber-maids and waiting-women. So, bless thee, master! GLO. Here, take this purse, you whom the heavens' plagues Have humbled to all strokes: that I am wretched, Makes thee the happier :-Heavens, deal so still! That slaves your ordinance, that will not see So distribution should undo excess, And each man have enough.-Dost thou know Dover ? GLO. There is a cliff, whose high and bending head Looks fearfully in the confined deep: Bring me but to the very brim of it, And I'll repair the misery thou dost bear With something rich about me: from that place I shall no leading need. EDG. Give me thy arm : Poor Tom shall lead thee. [Exeunt. SCENE II.—Before the Duke of Albany's Palace. Enter GONERIL and EDMUND; Steward meeting them. "The worse:" of Gloster's treachery, And of the loyal service of his son, When I inform'd him, then he call'd me sot; And told me, I had turn'd the wrong side out:- GON. Then shall you go no further. [To EDMUND. It is the cowish terror of his spirit, That dares not undertake: he'll not feel wrongs, Which tie him to an answer: Our wishes, on the way, May prove effects. Back, Edmund, to my brother; I must change names at home, and give the distaff [Giving a favour. Decline your head: this kiss, if it durst speak, EDM. Yours, in the ranks of death. GON. My most dear Gloster! [Exit EDMUND. You are not worth the dust which the rude wind Blows in your face.-I fear your disposition: Cannot be border'd certain in itself; She that herself will sliver and disbranch From her material sap, perforce must wither, 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, 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; Where's thy drum! ALB. See thyself, devil! Proper deformity seems not in the fiend So horrid as in woman. 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, GON. Marry, your manhood now ! ALB. What news? Enter a Messenger. 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, ALB. MESS. Both, both, my lord. |