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. Alack, sir, you cannot see your way. Glo. I have no way, and therefore want no eyes ; I stumbled when I saw. Full oft 'tis seen, Our mean secures us,' and our mere defects Prove our commodities.-Ah, dear son Edgar, The food of thy abused father's wrath! Might I but live to see thee in my touch,2 I'd say, I had eyes again!

Old Man.
Edg. [Aside.] O gods!
at the worst?

I am worse than e'er I was.

Old Man.

How now? Who's there? who is't can say, I am

'Tis poor mad Tom.

Edg. [Aside.] And worse I worst is not,

may be yet. The

So long as we can say, This is the worst.3
Old Man. Fellow, where goest?

Glo.

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.

since;

I have heard more

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 must play the fool to sorrow,

1 Mean is here put for our moderate or mean conditions. It was sometimes the practice of the Poet's age to use the plural, when the subject spoken of related to more persons than one. To avoid the equivoque, Pope changed the reading of the old copy to "our mean secures us." 2 So in another scene, "I see it feelingly."

3 i. e. while we live.

Angering itself and others. [Aside.]-Bless thee,

master!

Glo. Is that the naked fellow?

Old Man.

Ay, my lord.

Glo. Then, 'pr'ythee, get thee gone. If, for my sake, Thou wilt o'ertake us, hence a mile or twain, I'the way to Dover, do it for ancient love; And bring some covering for this naked soul, Whom I'll entreat to lead me.

Old Man.

Alack, sir, he's mad.

Glo. 'Tis the time's 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.

Glo. Sirrah, naked fellow!

[Exit.

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 the good man from the foul fiend! Five fiends1 have been in poor Tom at once; of lust, as Obidicut; Hobbididance, prince of dumbness; Mahu, of stealing; Modo, of murder; and Flibbertigibbet, of mopping and mowing; who since possesses chambermaids and waiting-women. So, bless thee, master!

Glo. Here, take this purse, thou whom the Heaven's plagues

Have humbled to all strokes; that I am wretched,

1 "The devil in Ma. Mainy confessed his name to be Modu, and that he had besides himself seven other spirits, and all of them captaines, and of great fame. Then Edmundes, (the exorcist,) began againe with great earnestness, and all the company cried out, &c. so as both that wicked prince Modu and his company might be cast out."— Harsnet, p. 163. This passage will account for "five fiends having been in poor Tom at once."

Makes thee the happier.-Heavens, deal so still!
Let the superfluous, and lust-dieted man,
That slaves your ordinance,' that will not see
Because he doth not feel, feel your power quickly;
So distribution should undo excess,

And each man have enough.-Dost thou know Dover?
Edg. Ay, master.

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.

I shall no leading need.

Edg.

Poor Tom shall lead thee.

From that place

Give me thy arm;

[Exeunt.

SCENE II. Before the Duke of Albany's Palace:

Enter GONERIL and EDMUND; Steward meeting them.

Gon. Welcome, my lord; I marvel, our mild husband Not met us on the way.-Now, where's your master? Stew. Madam, within; but never man so changed. I told him of the army that was landed;

He smiled at it. I told him you were coming;
His answer was, The worse: of Gloster's treachery,
And of the loyal service of his son,

When I informed him, then he called me sot,
And told me I had turned the wrong side out.-

What most he should dislike, seems pleasant to him;
What like, offensive.

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,

1 To slave an ordinance is to treat it as a slave, to make it subject to us, instead of acting in obedience to it. The quartos read, “That stands your ordinance," which may be right, says Malone, and means withstands or abides.

2 In is here put for on, as in other places of these plays.

May prove effects. Back, Edmund, to my brother; Hasten his musters, and conduct his powers;

I must change arms at home, and give the distaff
Into my husband's hands. This trusty servant
Shall pass between us: ere long you are like to hear,
If you dare venture in your own behalf,

A mistress's command. Wear this; spare speech;

[Giving a favor.
Decline your head: this kiss, if it durst speak,
Would stretch thy spirits up into the air;-
Conceive, and fare thee well.

Edm. Yours in the ranks of death.
Gon.

My most dear Gloster! [Exit EDMUND.

O, the difference of man, and man!
To thee a woman's services are due;
My fool usurps my bed.1

Stew.

Madam, here comes my lord. [Exit Steward.

Enter ALBANY.

Gon. I have been worth the whistle.2

Alb.

O Goneril!

You are not worth the dust which the rude wind

Blows in your face-I fear your disposition.3
That nature, which contemns its origin,
Cannot be bordered certain in itself;

She that herself will sliver and disbranch

From her material sap, perforce must wither,
And come to deadly use.5

1 Quarto A. reads "my foot usurp my body; Quarto B., "my foot usurps my head;" Quarto C., "a fool usurps my bed." The folio reads, "my fool usurps my body."

2 Goneril's meaning seems to be, "There was a time when you would have thought me worth the calling to you."

3 These words, and the lines following, to monsters of the deep, are not in the folio. They are necessary to explain the reasons of the detestation which Albany here expresses to his wife.

4 "She who breaks the bonds of filial duty, and becomes wholly alienated from her father, must wither and perish, like a branch separated from that trunk or body which "supplied it with sap." There is a peculiar propriety in the use of the word material; materia (Lat.) signifying the trunk or body of the trec.

5 Alluding to the use that witches and enchanters are said to make of withered branches in their charms.

Gon. No more; the text is foolish.

Alb. Wisdom and goodness to the vile seem vile;
Filths savor but themselves. What have you done?
Tigers, not daughters, what have you performed?
A father, and a gracious aged man,

Whose reverence the head-lugged bear would lick,'
Most barbarous, most degenerate! have you madded.
Could my good brother suffer you to do it!
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,
"Twill come,

Humanity must perforce prey on itself,

Like monsters of the deep.

Gon.

Milk-livered man!

That bear'st a cheek for blows, a head for wrongs;
Who hast not in thy brows an eye discerning
Thine honor from thy suffering; that not know'st,2
Fools do those villains pity, who are punished

Ere they have done their mischief.3 Where's thy drum?
France spreads his banners in our noiseless land;
With plumed helm thy slayer begins threats;
Whilst thou, a moral fool, sitt'st still, and cry'st,
Alack! why does he so?

Alb.
See thyself, devil!
Proper deformity seems not in the fiend
So horrid, as in woman.

Gon.

O vain fool!

Alb. Thou changed and self-covered' thing, for shame, Be-monster not thy feature. Were it my fitness

1 This line is not in the folio.

2 The rest of this speech is also omitted in the folio.

3 "Goneril means to say that none but fools would be excited to commiserate those who are prevented from executing their malicious designs, and punished for their evil intention." Malone doubts whether Goneril alludes to her father; but surely there cannot be a doubt that she does, and to the pity for his sufferings expressed by Albany, whom she means indirectly to call a fool for expressing it.

4 The meaning appears to be," thou that hast hid the woman under the fiend; thou that hast disguised nature, by wickedness."

5 It has been already observed that feature was often used for form or person in general.