KENT
Here is the place, my lord; good my lord, enter:
The tyranny of the open night’s too rough
For nature to endure.
LEAR
Let me alone.
KENT
Good my lord, enter here.
LEAR
Wilt break my heart?
KENT
I had rather break mine own. Good my lord, enter.
LEAR
think’st much that this contentious storm
Invades us to the skin: so to ,
But where the greater malady is fix’d,
The lesser is scarce felt. Thou’dst shun a bear;
But if flight lay toward the raging sea,
Thou’dst meet the bear i’ the mouth. When the mind’s free,
The body’s delicate: the tempest in my mind
from my senses take all feeling else
Save what beats there. Filial ingratitude!
Is it not as this mouth should tear this hand
For lifting food to’t? But I will punish home;
No, I will weep no more. In such a night
To shut me out! Pour on; I will endure:
In such a night as this! O Regan, Goneril!
Your old kind father, whose frank heart gave all,
O, that way madness lies; let me shun that;
No more of that.
KENT
Good my lord, enter here.
LEAR
go in thyself; seek own ease:
This tempest will not give me leave to ponder
On things would hurt me more. But I’ll go in.
In, boy; go first. You houseless poverty,
Nay, get in. I’ll pray, and then I’ll sleep.
LEAR
Poor naked wretches, wheresoe’er you are,
That bide the pelting of this pitiless storm,
How shall your houseless heads and unfed sides,
Your loop’d and window’d raggedness, defend you
From seasons such as these? O, I have ta’en
Too little care of this! Take physic, pomp;
Expose thyself to feel what wretches feel,
That mayst shake the superflux to them
And show the heavens more just.
EDGAR
Fathom and half, fathom and half! Poor Tom!
FOOL
Come not in here, nuncle, here’s a spirit.
Help me, help me!
KENT
Give me hand. Who’s there?
FOOL
A spirit, a spirit: he says his name’s poor Tom.
KENT
What art that grumble there i’ the straw?
Come forth.
EDGAR
Away! the foul fiend follows me! Through the sharp hawthorn blows the cold wind. Humh! go to cold bed, and warm .
LEAR
give all to two daughters?
And art come to this?
EDGAR
Who gives anything to poor Tom? Whom the foul fiend led through fire and through flame, through ford and whirlpool, bog and quagmire; that laid knives under his pillow and halters in his pew, set ratsbane by his porridge; made him proud of heart, to ride on a bay trotting horse over four-inched bridges, to course his own shadow for a traitor. Bless five wits! Tom’s a-cold. O, do, de, do, de, do, de. Bless from whirlwinds, star-blasting, and taking! Do poor Tom some charity, whom the foul fiend vexes. There could I have him now, and there,—and there again, and there.
LEAR
What, have his daughters brought him to this pass?
save nothing? give ’em all?
FOOL
Nay, he reserv’d a blanket, else we had been all shamed.
LEAR
Now all the plagues that in the pendulous air
Hang fated men’s faults light on daughters!
KENT
He no daughters, sir.
LEAR
Death, traitor! nothing could have subdu’d nature
To such a lowness but his unkind daughters.
Is it the fashion that discarded fathers
Should have thus little mercy on their flesh?
Judicious punishment! this flesh begot
Those pelican daughters.
EDGAR
Pillicock sat on Pillicock hill,
Alow, alow, loo loo!
FOOL
This cold night will turn us all to fools and madmen.
EDGAR
Take heed o’ th’ foul fiend: obey parents; keep word justly; swear not; commit not with man’s sworn spouse; set not sweet-heart on proud array. Tom’s a-cold.
LEAR
What been?
EDGAR
A serving-man, proud in heart and mind; that curled my hair; wore gloves in my cap; served the lust of my mistress’ heart, and did the act of darkness with her; swore as many oaths as I spake words, and broke them in the sweet face of heaven. One that slept in the contriving of lust, and waked to do it. Wine loved I deeply, dice dearly; and in woman out-paramour’d the Turk. False of heart, light of ear, bloody of hand; hog in sloth, fox in stealth, wolf in greediness, dog in madness, lion in prey. Let not the creaking of shoes nor the rustling of silks betray poor heart to woman. Keep foot out of brothels, hand out of plackets, pen from lender’s book, and defy the foul fiend. Still through the hawthorn blows the cold wind: says suum, mun, nonny. Dolphin my boy, boy, sessa! let him trot by.
LEAR
Why, wert better in grave than to answer with uncovered body this extremity of the skies. Is man no more than this? Consider him well. owest the worm no silk, the beast no hide, the sheep no wool, the cat no perfume. Ha! here’s three on’s are sophisticated! art the thing itself: unaccommodated man is no more but such a poor, bare, forked animal as art. Off, off, you lendings! Come, unbutton here.
FOOL
, nuncle, be contented; a naughty night to swim in. Now a little fire in a wild field were like an old lecher’s heart, a small spark, all the rest on’s body cold. Look, here comes a walking fire.
EDGAR
This is the foul fiend Flibbertigibbet: he begins at curfew, and walks till the first cock; he gives the web and the pin, squints the eye, and makes the harelip; mildews the white wheat, and hurts the poor creature of earth.
Swithold footed thrice the old;
He met the nightmare, and her nine-fold;
Bid her alight and her troth plight,
And aroint , witch, aroint !
KENT
How fares your grace?
LEAR
What’s he?
KENT
Who’s there? What is’t you seek?
GLOUCESTER
What are you there? Your names?
EDGAR
Poor Tom; that eats the swimming frog, the toad, the todpole, the wall-newt and the water; that in the fury of his heart, when the foul fiend rages, eats cow-dung for sallets; swallows the old rat and the ditch-dog; drinks the green mantle of the standing pool; who is whipped from tithing to tithing, and stocked, punished, and imprisoned; who had three suits to his back, six shirts to his body,
Horse to ride, and weapon to wear.
But mice and rats and such small deer,
Have been Tom’s food for seven long year.
Beware my follower. Peace, Smulkin; peace, fiend!
GLOUCESTER
What, your grace no better company?
EDGAR
The prince of darkness is a gentleman:
Modo he’s call’d, and Mahu.
GLOUCESTER
Our flesh and blood, my lord, is grown so vile
That it hate what gets it.
EDGAR
Poor Tom’s a-cold.
GLOUCESTER
Go in with me: my duty cannot suffer
T’obey in all your daughters’ hard commands;
Though their injunction be to bar my doors,
And let this tyrannous night take hold upon you,
Yet have I ventur’d to come seek you out,
And bring you where both fire and food is ready.
LEAR
First let me talk with this philosopher.
What is the cause of thunder?
KENT
Good my lord, take his offer; go into the house.
LEAR
I’ll talk a word with this same learned Theban.
What is your study?
EDGAR
How to prevent the fiend and to kill vermin.
LEAR
Let me ask you one word in private.
KENT
Importune him once more to go, my lord;
His wits begin t’unsettle.
GLOUCESTER
Canst blame him?
His daughters seek his death. Ah, that good Kent!
He said it would be thus, poor banish’d man!
sayest the King grows mad; I’ll tell , friend,
I am almost mad myself. I had a son,
Now outlaw’d from my blood; he sought my life
But lately, very late: I lov’d him, friend,
No father his son dearer: true to tell ,
GLOUCESTER
The grief craz’d my wits. What a night’s this!
I do beseech your grace.
LEAR
O, cry you mercy, sir.
Noble philosopher, your company.
EDGAR
Tom’s a-cold.
GLOUCESTER
In, fellow, there, into the hovel; keep warm.
LEAR
Come, let’s in all.
KENT
This way, my lord.
LEAR
With him;
I will keep still with my philosopher.
KENT
Good my lord, soothe him; let him take the fellow.
GLOUCESTER
Take him you on.
KENT
, come on; go along with us.
LEAR
Come, good Athenian.
GLOUCESTER
No words, no words, hush.
EDGAR
Child Rowland to the dark tower came,
His word was still—Fie, foh, and fum,
I smell the blood of a British man.