Stew. What dost thou know me for?

Kent. A knave, a rascal, an eater of broken meats; a base, proud, shallow, beggarly, three-suited, hundredpound, filthy worsted-stocking knave; a lily-livered, action-taking knave; a whoreson, glass-gazing, superserviceable, finical rogue; one-trunk-inheriting slave ; one that wouldst be a bawd, in way of good-service, and art nothing but the composition of a knave, beggar, coward, pander, and the son and heir of a mongrel bitch; one whom I will beat into clamorous whining, if thou deniest the least syllable of thy addition.1

Stew. Why, what a monstrous fellow art thou, thus to rail on one that is neither known of thee, nor knows thee!

Kent. What a brazen-faced varlet art thou, to deny thou knowest me! Is it two days ago, since I tripped up thy heels, and beat thee, before the king? Draw, you rogue; for, though it be night, the moon shines; I'll make a sop o' the moonshine of you. Draw, you whoreson cullionly barber-monger,3 draw.

2

4

[Drawing his sword. Stew. Away; I have nothing to do with thee. Kent. Draw, you rascal! you come with letters against the king; and take vanity the puppet's part, against the royalty of her father. Draw, you rogue, or I'll so carbonado your shanks.-Draw, you rascal; come your ways.

Stew. Help, ho! murder! help!

Kent. Strike, you slave; stand, rogue, stand; you neat slave, strike.

Stew. Help, ho! murder! murder!

1 i. e. thy titles.

2 Probably alluding to some dish so called.

[Beating him.

3 Barber-monger may mean dealer with the lower tradesmen.

4 Alluding to the moralities or allegorical shows, in which Vanity,

Iniquity, and other vices, were personified.

5 You finical rascal, you assemblage of foppery and poverty.

Enter EDMUND, CORNWALL, REGAN, GLOSTER, and

Servants.

Edm. How now? what's the matter? Part.
Kent. With you goodman boy, if you please; come,
I'll flesh you; come on, young master.

Glo. Weapons! arms! What's the matter here?
Corn. Keep peace, upon your lives;

He dies, that strikes again. What is the matter?
Reg. The messengers from our sister and the king.
Corn. What is your difference? speak.

Stew. I am scarce in breath, my lord.

Kent. No marvel, you have so bestirred your valor. You cowardly rascal, nature disclaims in1 thee; a tailor made thee.

Corn. Thou art a strange fellow; a tailor make a man?

Kent. Ay, a tailor, sir; a stone-cutter, or a painter, could not have made him so ill, though they had been but two hours at the trade.

Corn. Speak yet, how grew your quarrel?

Stew. This ancient ruffian, sir, whose life I have spared,

At suit of his gray beard,

Kent. Thou whoreson zed! thou unnecessary letter! My lord, if you will give me leave, I will tread this unbolted3 villain into mortar, and daub the wall of a jakes with him.-Spare my gray beard, you wagtail?

Corn. Peace, sirrah!

You beastly knave, know you no reverence?
Kent. Yes, sir; but anger has a privilege.
Corn. Why art thou angry?

1 To disclaim in, for to disclaim simply, was the phraseology of the Poet's age. See Gifford's Ben Jonson, vol. iii. p. 264.

2 Zed is here used as a term of contempt, because it is the last letter in the English alphabet. Baret omits it in his Alvearie, affirming it to be rather a syllable than a letter. And Mulcaster says, "Z is much harder amongst us, and seldom seen. S is become its lieutenant-general." 3 Coarse villain. Unbolted mortar is mortar made of unsifted lime; and therefore to break the lumps, it is necessary to tread it by men in wooden shoes.

Kent. That such a slave as this should wear a

sword,

Who wears no honesty. Such smiling rogues as these,
Like rats, oft bite the holy cords atwain

Which are too intrinse1 t' unloose; smooth every passion
That in the natures of their lords rebels;
Bring oil to fire, snow to their colder moods;
Renege,2 affirm, and turn their halcyon3 beaks
With every gale and vary of their masters,
As knowing nought, like dogs, but following.—
A plague upon your epileptic visage !
Smile you my speeches, as I were a fool?
Goose, if I had you upon Sarum-plain,
I'd drive ye cackling home to Camelot.*
Corn. What, art thou mad, old fellow?
Glo.

Say that.

How fell

you out?

Kent. No contraries hold more antipathy, Than I and such a knave.

Corn. Why dost thou call him knave? What's his offence?

Kent. His countenance likes me not.5

Corn. No more, perchance, does mine, or his, or hers.

Kent. Sir, 'tis my occupation to be plain;

I have seen better faces in my time,

Than stands on any shoulder that I see
Before me at this instant.

Corn.

This is some fellow,

Who, having been praised for bluntness, doth affect

1 The quartos read, to intrench; the folio, t' intrince. Perhaps intrinse, for so it should be written, was put by Shakspeare for intrinsicate, which he has used in Antony and Cleopatra. The word too in the text is substituted for to by Mr. Singer.

2 To renege is to deny.

3 The bird called the kingfisher, which, when dried and hung up by a thread, is supposed to turn his bill to the point from whence the wind blows.

4 In Somersetshire, near Camelot, are many large moors, where are bred great quantities of geese.

5 i. e. pleases me not.

A saucy roughness; and constrains the garb,
Quite from his nature.1

He cannot flatter, he !-
An honest mind and plain,—he must speak truth.
An they will take it, so; if not, he's plain.

These kind of knaves I know, which in this plainness Harbor more craft, and more corrupter ends,

2

Than twenty silly ducking observants,

That stretch their duties nicely.

Kent. Sir, in good sooth, in sincere verity, Under the allowance of your grand aspect, Whose influence, like the wreath of radiant fire On flickering 3 Phoebus' front,

Corn.

What mean'st by this? Kent. To go out of out of my dialect, which you discommend so much. I know, sir, I am no flatterer. He that beguiled you, in a plain accent, was a plain knave; which, for my part, I will not be, though I should win your displeasure to entreat me to it.1

Corn. What was the offence you gave him?

Stew.

I never gave him any. It pleased the king, his master, very late,

To strike at me, upon his misconstruction;
When he, conjunct, and flattering his displeasure,
Tripped me behind; being down, insulted, railed,
And put upon him such a deal of man,

That worthied him, got praises of the king
For him attempting who was self-subdued ;
And, in the fleshment 5 of this dread exploit,
Drew on me here again.

1 "Forces his outside, or his appearance, to something totally different from his natural disposition."

2 Silly, or rather sely, is simple or rustic. Nicely here is with scrupu lous nicety, punctilious observance.

3 This expressive word is now only applied to the motion and scintillation of flame. Dr. Johnson says, that it means to flutter, which is certainly one of its oldest meanings, it being used in that sense by Chaucer. 4 "Though I should win you, displeased as you now are, to like me so well as to entreat me to be a knave."

5 A young soldier is said to flesh his sword the first time he draws blood with it. Fleshment, therefore, is here metaphorically applied to the first act of service, which Kent, in his new capacity, had performed for his

master.

Kent.

None of these rogues, and cowards,

But Ajax is their fool.1

Corn.

Fetch forth the stocks, ho!

You stubborn, ancient knave, you reverend braggart,

We'll teach you—

Kent.
Sir, I am too old to learn;
Call not your stocks for me. I serve the king;
On whose employment I was sent to you.
You shall do small respect, show too bold malice
Against the grace and person of my master,
Stocking his messenger.

Corn.

Fetch forth the stocks;

As I've life and honor, there shall he sit till noon.
Reg. Till noon! till night, my lord; and all night

too.

Kent. Why, madam, if I were your father's dog, You should not use me so.

Reg.

Sir, being his knave, I will. [Stocks brought out.

Corn. This is a fellow of the self-same color Our sister speaks of.-Come, bring away the stocks. Glo. Let me beseech your grace not to do so. [His fault is much, and the good king his master Will check him for't: your purposed low correction Is such, as basest and contemned'st wretches

For pilferings and most common trespasses,

2

Are punished with ;] the king his master needs must take it ill,

That he, so slightly valued in his messenger,

Should have him thus restrained.

Corn.

I'll answer that.

Reg. My sister may receive it much more worse, To have her gentleman abused, assaulted.

[KENT is put in the stocks.

Come, my good lord; away.

[Exeunt REGAN and CORNWALL.

Glo. I am sorry for thee, friend; 'tis the duke's

pleasure,

1 i. e. Ajax is a fool to them.

2 The sentence in brackets is not in the first folio.