Crack Nature's moulds, all germens spill at once,2 Fool. O nuncle, court holy-water3 in a dry house is better than this rain-water out o' door. Good nuncle, in, and ask thy daughter's blessing: here's a night pities neither wise. men nor fools. pitiful Lear. Rumble thy bellyful! Spit, fire! spout, rain! Fool. He that has a house to put's head in has a good head-piece. The man that makes his toe What he his heart should make Shall of a corn cry woe,5 And turn his sleep to wake. 2 There is a parallel passage in The Winter's Tale: "Let Nature crush the sides o' the Earth together, and mar the seeds within." " 3 Court holy-water is fair words and flattering speeches. So Chillingworth, in one of his sermons: 'Can any man think so unworthily of our Saviour, as to esteem these words of His for no better than compliment? for nothing but court holy-water?" 4 Are under no oath or obligation of service of kindness to me. Referring to the binding force of one's signature. See page 70, note 6. 5 A covert allusion to the King, who has set his children above himself, and now they are trampling on him. Making the heart and the toe change For there was never yet fair woman but she made mouths in a glass. Lear. No, I will be the pattern of all patience; I will say nothing. Enter KENT. Kent. Alas, sir! are you here? things that love night And make them keep their caves. Since I was man, Remember to have heard: man's nature cannot carry Lear. Let the great gods, That keep this dreadful pother o'er our heads, Find out their enemies now. Tremble, thou wretch, Unwhipp'd of justice: hide thee, thou bloody hand; Hast practised on man's life: close pent-up guilts, places with each other is the Fool's characteristic figure for such an inversion of things as Lear has made in setting his daughters above himself. 6 To gallow is to frighten, to terrify. The word is not met with elsewhere, I think, though the form gally is said to be used in the West of England. Affliction for infliction; the two being then equivalent. Man's nature cannot endure the inuiction, nor even the fear of it. So in the PrayerBook: Defend us from all dangers and mischiefs, and from the fear of them." 44 8 Simular for simulator. A simulator is one who puts on the show of what he is not, as a dissimulator puts off the show of what he is. Rive your concealing continents, and cry These dreadful summoners grace.10 I am a man Kent. Alack, bare-headed! Gracious my lord, hard by here is a hovel; Some friendship will it lend you 'gainst the tempest : (More harder than the stones whereof 'tis raised; Denied me to come in) return, and force Their scanted courtesy. Lear. My wits begin to turn. Come on, my boy: how dost, my boy? art cold? I'm cold myself. Where is this straw, my fellow? The art of our necessities is strange, 11 That can make vile things precious. Come, your hovel. Poor Fool and knave, I've one part in my heart That's sorry yet for thee. Fool. [Sings.] He that has and 12 a little tiny wit,— Must make content with his fortunes fit, Though the rain it raineth every day. Lear. True, my good boy. - Come, bring us to this hovel. [Exeunt LEAR and KENT. 9 Continent for that which contains or encloses. So in Antony and Cleopatra: "Heart, once be stronger than thy continent." 10 Summoners are officers that summon offenders for trial or punishment. To cry grace is to beg for mercy or pardon. Lear is regarding the raging elements as the agents or representatives of the gods, calling criminals to judgment. 11 An allusion to alchemy, which was supposed to have the power of transmuting vile metals into precious, as lead into gold. 12 In old ballads, and is sometimes, as here, apparently redundant, but adds a slight force to the expression, like even. Fool. This is a brave night. I'll speak a prophecy ere I go : When priests are more in word than matter; No squire in debt, nor no poor knight; Come to great confusion: Then comes the time, who lives to see't, This prophecy Merlin shall make; 15 for I live before his time. SCENE III. A Room in GLOSTER'S Castle. Enter GLOSTER and EDMUND. [Exit. Glos. Alack, alack, Edmund, I like not this unnatural dealing. When I desired their leave that I might pity him, they took from me the use of mine own house; charged me, on pain of their perpetual displeasure, neither to speak of him, entreat for him, nor any way sustain him. Edm. Most savage, and unnatural ! 13 Cut-purses were the same as what we call pickpockets: 14 To tell, again, in the old sense of to count. See page 115, note 10. 15 Merlin was a famous prophet in the Druidical mythology of ancient Britain, who did divers wonderful things "by his deep science and Helldreaded might." Some of his marvels are sung in The Faerie Queene, iii. 2, 18-21. Part of his prophecy, which the Fool here anticipates, is given in Puttenham's Art of Poetry, 1589. Glos. Go to; say you nothing. There is division between the Dukes; and a worse matter than that: I have received a letter this night; - 'tis dangerous to be spoken.; - I have lock'd the letter in my closet: these injuries the King now bears will be revenged home; there is part of a power already footed: we must incline to the King. I will seek him, and privily relieve him go you, and maintain talk with the Duke, that my charity be not of him perceived: if he ask for me, I am ill, and gone to bed. Though I die for it, as no less is threaten'd me, the King my old master must be relieved. There is some strange thing toward,2 Edmund; pray you, be careful. Edm. This courtesy, forbid thee !3 shall the Duke This seems a fair deserving, and must draw me [Exit. no less than all : [Exit. The younger rises when the old doth fall. SCENE IV. The Heath, near a Hovel. Storm continues. Enter LEAR, KENT, and the FOOL.1 Kent. Here is the place, my lord; good my lord, enter: The tyranny of the open night's too rough " For nature to endure. 1 Here, as often, home has the adverbial sense of thoroughly, to the utmost. 2 Toward, again, for at hand or forthcoming. See page 96, note 2. 3 "Forbid thee I take to mean "A curse upon thee," or like our phrase, 'Confound you." So in Macbeth, i. 3, we have "He shall live a man forbid"; that is, shall live under a curse or an interdict; pursued by an evil fate. Mr. Crosby, however, takes forbid in the sense merely of forbidden, and as agreeing with courtesy. In this case, the reference of course would be to the aid and comfort which Gloster resolves to give the old King, notwithstanding the threats of Cornwall and Regan. It may be so: but does not this make the sense too tame? 1 O, what a world's convention of agonies is here! All external nature |