SCENE IV. — Before GLOSTER's Castle; KENT in the stocks.

Enter LEAR, the Fool, and a Gentleman.

Lear. 'Tis strange that they should so depart from home, And not send back my messenger.

Fool. Ha, ha! he wears cruel1 garters. Horses are tied by the head, dogs and bears by the neck, monkeys by the loins, and men by the legs: when a man's over-lusty at legs, then he wears wooden nether-stocks.2

Lear. What's he that hath so much thy place mistook To set thee here?

They could not, would not do't; 'tis worse than murder,

1 A quibble between cruel and crewel; the latter being worsted.
2 Nether-stocks is the old word for what we call stockings.

To do upon respect 3 such violent outrage :
Resolve me, with all modest haste, which way
Thou mightst deserve, or they impose, this usage,
Coming from us.

Kent.

My lord, when at their home
I did commend your Highness' letters to them,
Ere I was risen from the place that show'd
My duty kneeling, came there a reeking post,
Stew'd in his haste, half breathless, panting forth
From Goneril his mistress' salutations;
Deliver'd letters, spite of intermission,5

Which presently they read: on whose contents,
They summon'd up their meiny,6 straight took horse;
Commanded me to follow, and attend

The leisure of their answer; gave me cold looks:
And, meeting here the other messenger,

Whose welcome, I perceived, had poison'd mine,
(Being the very fellow which of late

Display'd so saucily against your Highness,)

Having more man than wit about me,

drew :

7

He raised the house with loud and coward cries.

Your son and daughter found this trespass worth

The shame which here it suffers.

Fool. Winter's not gone yet, if the wild-geese fly that way.8

8 The meaning probably is, to do deliberately, or upon consideration. See page 20, note 42; also, vol. x. page 79, note 22.

4 "Resolve me" is inform me or assure me. A frequent usage.

5 That is, in spite of the interruption or delay naturally consequent upon what Kent was himself doing. In other words, the "reeking post" did not heed Kent's action at all, nor allow himself to be delayed by it. Intermission occurs both in The Merchant and in Macbeth for pause or delay, which is nearly its meaning here.

6 "On reading the contents of which" is the meaning.— Meiny is from a French word meaning household, or retinue.

7 The pronoun I is understood here from the fourth line above.
8" If such is their behaviour, the King's troubles are not over yet."

Fathers that wear rags

Do make their children blind;
But fathers that bear bags

Shall see their children kind.

Fortune, that arrant whore,

Ne'er turns the key to th' poor.

But, for all this, thou shalt have as many dolours for thy daughters as thou canst tell in a year.

Lear. O, how this mother 10 swells up toward my heart! Hysterica passio, down, thou climbing sorrow,

Thy element's below!- Where is this daughter?

Kent. With the earl, sir, here within.

Lear. Follow me not; stay here.

[Exit.

Gent. Made you no more offence but what you speak of? Kent. None.

How chance the King comes with so small a train?

Fool. An thou hadst been set i' the stocks for that question, thou hadst well deserved it.

Kent. Why, Fool?

Fool. We'll set thee to school to an ant, to teach thee there's no labouring i' the Winter.11 All that follow their noses are led by their eyes but blind men; and there's not a nose among twenty but can smell him that's stinking.12

Let

9 A quibble between dolours and dollars.—Tell, in the next line, is count, and refers to dollars. See vol. vii. page 39, note 3.

10 Lear affects to pass off the swelling of his heart, ready to burst with grief and indignation, for the disease called the mother, or hysterica passio, which, in the Poet's time, was not thought peculiar to women.

11 Referring to Proverbs, vi. 6–8: "Go to the ant, thou sluggard; consider her ways, and be wise: which having no guide, overseer, or ruler, provideth her meat in the Summer, and gathereth her food in the harvest." And the application is, "If you had learned of the ant, you would have known that the King's train are too shrewd to be making hay in cloudy weather, or to think of providing their meat when the Winter of adversity has set in.

12 All but blind men are led by their eyes, though they follow their noses; and these, seeing the King's forlorn condition, have forsaken him; while

go thy hold when a great wheel runs down a hill, lest it break thy neck with following it; but the great one that goes up the hill, let him draw thee after. When a wise man gives thee better counsel, give me mine again: I would have none but knaves follow it, since a Fool gives it.

That sir which serves and seeks for gain,

And follows but for form,

Will pack when it begins to rain,

And leave thee in the storm.
But I will tarry; the Fool will stay,
And let the wise man fly :

The knave turns fool that runs away,
The Fool no knave, perdy.13

Kent. Where learn'd you this, Fool?

Fool. Not i' the stocks, fool.

Re-enter LEAR, with GLOSTER.

Lear. Deny to speak with me? They're sick? they're

weary ?

They've travell'd hard to-night? Mere fetches;

The images of revolt and flying-off.

Fetch me a better answer.

Glos.

My dear lord,

You know the fiery quality of the duke;

14

even of the blind, who have nothing but their noses to guide them, there is not one in twenty but can smell him who, being "muddy in Fortune's mood, smells somewhat strong of her displeasure." It is to be noted that the Fool does not know Kent, and therefore cannot conceive the motive of his action; so here, in characteristic fashion, he is satirizing Kent's adherence to the King, as showing him to be without either sight or smell; that is, as having no sense at all.

13 Here the Fool may be using the trick of suggesting a thing by saying its opposite. Or perhaps he is playing upon the two senses of knave, one of which is servant. This would infer who the real fools in the world are, Coleridge says a knave is a fool with a circumbendibus."

14 Fetch was often used for device, pretext, or stratagem.

How unremovable and fix'd he is

In his own course.

Lear. Vengeance! plague! death! confusion !
Fiery? what quality? Why, Gloster, Gloster,

I'd speak wi' th' Duke of Cornwall and his wife.
Glos. Well, my good lord, I have inform'd them so.
Lear. Inform'd them! Dost thou understand me, man?
Glos. Ay, my good lord.

Lear. The King would speak with Cornwall; the dear

father

Would with his daughter speak; commands her service : 15
Are they inform'd of this? My breath and blood!
Fiery? the fiery duke? Tell the hot duke that-
No, but not yet; may be he is not well:
Infirmity doth still neglect all office

Whereto our health is bound; we're not ourselves
When nature, being oppress'd, commands the mind
To suffer with the body. I'll forbear;

And am fall'n out with my more headier will,
To take 16 the indisposed and sickly fit
For the sound man.

Should he sit here?
That this remotion 17

[Looking on KENT.

Death on my state! wherefore
This act persuades me
of the duke and her

Is practice only. Give me my servant forth.

Go tell the duke and's wife I'd speak with them,

15 Lear is here asserting something of the regal authority which he has abdicated; and his meaning depends somewhat on an emphasizing of the words King, commands, and service.

16 The infinitive to take is here used gerundively, or like the Latin gerund, and so is equivalent to in taking. See vol. vi. page 181, note 7.- Here the Poet follows a well-known Latin idiom, using the comparative more headier, in the sense of too heady, that is, too headlong.

17 Remotion for removal; referring to Cornwall and Regan's action in departing from home.