Reg. Wherefore to Dover?

Glo. Because I would not see thy cruel nails Pluck out his poor old eyes; nor thy fierce sister In his anointed flesh stick boarish fangs.1

The sea, with such a storm as his bare head

In hell-black night endured, would have buoyed up,
And quenched the stelled fires; yet, poor old heart,
He holp the heavens to rain.

If wolves had at thy gate howled that stern3 time,
Thou shouldst have said, Good porter, turn the key;
All cruels else subscribed. But I shall see

The winged vengeance overtake such children.

Corn. See it shalt thou never.-Fellows, hold the chair;

Upon these eyes of thine I'll set my foot.

[GLOSTER is held down in his chair, while CORNWALL plucks out one of his

sets his foot on it.

eyes, and

Glo. He that will think to live till he be old, Give me some help. O cruel! O ye gods! Reg. One side will mock another; the other too. Corn. If you see vengeance,

Hold hand, my

your

Serv.
I have served you ever since I was a child;
But better service have I never done you,
Than now to bid you hold.

Reg. How now, you dog?

Serv. If you did wear a beard upon your chin, I'd shake it on this quarrel; what do you mean? Corn. My villain ! 5

lord.

[Draws, and runs at him.

1 The quarto reads, "rash, boarish fangs." To rash is the old hunting term for the stroke made by a wild-boar with his fangs.

2 Starred.

3 Thus the folio. The quartos read, "that dearn time." Dearn is dreary. The reading in the text is countenanced by Chapman's version of the 24th Iliad :

4 i. e. yielded, submitted to the necessity of the occasion.

5 Villain is perhaps here used in its original sense, of one in servitude.

Serv. Nay, then, come on, and take the chance of

anger.

[Draws. They fight. CORN. is wounded. Reg. Give me thy sword.-[To another Serv.] A peasant stand up thus!

[Snatches a sword, comes behind him, and stabs him.

Serv. O, I am slain!-My lord, you have one eye

left

To see some mischief on him.-O!

[Dies. Corn. Lest it see more, prevent it.-Out, vile jelly! Where is thy lustre now?

[Tears out GLOSTER's other eye, and throws it on the ground.

Glo. All dark and comfortless.-Where's my son

Edmund ?

Edmund, enkindle all the sparks of nature,

To quit1 this horrid act.

Reg.

Out, treacherous villain!

Thou call'st on him that hates thee.

It was he

That made the overture of thy treason to us;

Who is too good to pity thee.

Glo.

Then Edgar was abused.—

O my follies!

Kind gods, forgive me that, and prosper him!

Reg. Go, thrust him out at gates, and let him smell His way to Dover.-How is't, my lord? How look you?

Corn. I have received a hurt.-Follow me, lady. Turn out that eyeless villain ;-throw this slave Upon the dunghill.-Regan, I bleed apace; Untimely comes this hurt. Give me your arm. [Exit CORNWALL, led by REGAN ;-Servants unbind GLOSTER, and lead him out.2

1 Serv. I'll never care what wickedness I do, If this man comes to good.

2 Serv.

If she live long,

1 Requite.

2 The residue of this act is not contained in the folio of 1623.

And, in the end, meet the old course of death,
Women will all turn monsters.

1 Serv. Let's follow the old earl, and get the bedlam

To lead him where he would; his roguish madness
Allows itself to any thing.

2 Serv. Go thou; I'll fetch some flax, and whites

Edg. Yet better thus, and know to be contemned, Than still contemned and flattered.1 To be worst, The lowest, and most dejected thing of fortune, Stands still in esperance, lives not in fear. The lamentable change is from the best; The worst returns to laughter. Welcome, then,2 Thou unsubstantial air, that I embrace!

The wretch, that thou hast blown unto the worst, Owes nothing to thy blasts.-But who comes here?—

Enter GLOSTER, led by an Old Man.

My father, poorly led ?-World, world, O world!
But that thy strange mutations make us hate thee,
Life would not yield to age.

1 "It is better to be thus openly contemned, than to be flattered and secretly despised."

2 The next two lines and a half are not in the quartos.

3 We should never submit with resignation to death, the necessary consequence of old 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. 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,1 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 may

worst is not,

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.

[Exit. Edg. Poor Tom's a-cold.—I cannot daub it further.

Glo. Sirrah, naked fellow!

[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."