King Lear
| ACT IV SCENE I | The heath. | |
| [Enter EDGAR] | ||
| EDGAR | Yet better thus, and known to be contemn’d, | |
| Than still contemn’d and flatter’d. 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; | 5 | |
| The worst returns to laughter. Welcome, then, | ||
| 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 GLOUCESTER, led by an Old Man] | ||
| My father, poorly led? World, world, O world! | 10 | |
| But that thy strange mutations make us hate thee, | ||
| Lie would not yield to age. | ||
| Old Man | O, my good lord, I have been your tenant, and | |
| your father’s tenant, these fourscore years. | ||
| GLOUCESTER | Away, get thee away; good friend, be gone: | 15 |
| Thy comforts can do me no good at all; | ||
| Thee they may hurt. | ||
| Old Man | Alack, sir, you cannot see your way. | |
| GLOUCESTER | I have no way, and therefore want no eyes; | |
| I stumbled when I saw: full oft ’tis seen, | 20 | |
| Our means secure us, and our mere defects | ||
| Prove our commodities. O dear son Edgar, | ||
| The food of thy abused father’s wrath! | ||
| Might I but live to see thee in my touch, | ||
| I’ld say I had eyes again! | 25 | |
| Old Man | How now! Who’s there? | |
| EDGAR | [Aside] O gods! Who is’t can say ‘I am at | |
| the worst’? | ||
| I am worse than e’er I was. | ||
| Old Man | ‘Tis poor mad Tom. | 30 |
| EDGAR | [Aside] And worse I may be yet: the worst is not | |
| So long as we can say ‘This is the worst.’ | ||
| Old Man | Fellow, where goest? | |
| GLOUCESTER | Is it a beggar-man? | |
| Old Man | Madman and beggar too. | 35 |
| GLOUCESTER | 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 | 40 | |
| more since. | ||
| As flies to wanton boys, are we to the gods. | ||
| They kill us for their sport. | ||
| EDGAR | [Aside] How should this be? | |
| Bad is the trade that must play fool to sorrow, | 45 | |
| Angering itself and others.–Bless thee, master! | ||
| GLOUCESTER | Is that the naked fellow? | |
| Old Man | Ay, my lord. | |
| GLOUCESTER | Then, prithee, get thee gone: if, for my sake, | |
| Thou wilt o’ertake us, hence a mile or twain, | 50 | |
| I’ the way toward Dover, do it for ancient love; | ||
| And bring some covering for this naked soul, | ||
| Who I’ll entreat to lead me. | ||
| Old Man | Alack, sir, he is mad. | |
| GLOUCESTER | ‘Tis the times’ plague, when madmen lead the blind. | 55 |
| 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] | ||
| GLOUCESTER | Sirrah, naked fellow,– | 60 |
| EDGAR | Poor Tom’s a-cold. | |
| [Aside] | ||
| I cannot daub it further. | ||
| GLOUCESTER | Come hither, fellow. | |
| EDGAR | [Aside] And yet I must.–Bless thy sweet eyes, they bleed. | |
| GLOUCESTER | Know’st thou the way to Dover? | 65 |
| EDGAR | 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 | 70 | |
| stealing; Modo, of murder; Flibbertigibbet, of | ||
| mopping and mowing, who since possesses chambermaids | ||
| and waiting-women. So, bless thee, master! | ||
| GLOUCESTER | Here, take this purse, thou whom the heavens’ plagues | |
| Have humbled to all strokes: that I am wretched | 75 | |
| 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, | 80 | |
| And each man have enough. Dost thou know Dover? | ||
| EDGAR | Ay, master. | |
| GLOUCESTER | There is a cliff, whose high and bending head | |
| Looks fearfully in the confined deep: | ||
| Bring me but to the very brim of it, | 85 | |
| And I’ll repair the misery thou dost bear | ||
| With something rich about me: from that place | ||
| I shall no leading need. | ||
| EDGAR | Give me thy arm: | |
| Poor Tom shall lead thee. | 90 | |
| [Exeunt] | ||
King Lear, Act 4, Scene 2