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King Lear (Quarto 1, 1608)

Author: William Shakespeare
Editor: Michael Best
Not Peer Reviewed
The Historie of King Lear.
the foule fiend vexes, there could I haue him now, and there, and
and there againe.
Lear. What, his daughters brought him to this passe,
1845Couldst thou saue nothing, didst thou giue them all?
Foole. Nay he reseru'd a blanket, else we had beene all sham'd.
Lear. Now all the plagues that in the pendulous ayre
Hang fated ore mens faults, fall on thy daughters.
1850Kent. He hath no daughters sir.
Lear. Death traytor, nothing could haue subdued nature
To such a lownes, but his vnkind daughters,
Is it the fashion that discarded fathers,
Should haue thus little mercy on their flesh,
1855Iudicious punishment twas this flesh
Begot those Pelicane daughters.
Edg. Pilicock sate on pelicocks hill, a lo lo lo.
Foole. This cold night will turne vs all to fooles & madmen.
1860Edg. Take heede at'h foule fiend, obay thy parents, keep thy
words iustly, sweare not, commit not with mans sworne spouse,
set not thy sweet heart on proud array, Toms a cold,
Lear. What hast thou beene?
1865Edg. A Seruingman, proud in heart and mind, that curld my
haire, wore gloues in my cap, serued the lust of my mistris heart,
and did the act of darkenes with her, swore as many oaths as I
spake words, and broke them in the sweet face of heauen, one
that slept in the 1870contriuing of lust, and wakt to doe it, wine lo-
ued I deeply, dice deerely, and in woman out paromord the
Turke, false of heart, light of eare, bloudie of hand, Hog in sloth,
Fox in stealth, VVoolfe in greedines,, Dog in madnes, Lyon
in pray, let not the creeking of shooes, 1875nor the russngs of silkes
betray thy poore heart to women, keepe thy foote out of bro-
thell, thy hand out of placket, thy pen from lenders booke,
and defie the foule fiend, still through the hathorne blowes the
cold wind, hay no on ny, Dolphin my boy, my boy, ceaese
1880let him trot by.
Lear. Why thou wert better in thy graue, then to answere
with thy vncouered bodie this extremitie of the skies, is man no
more, but this cõsider him well, thou owest the worme no silke,
the beast no hide, the sheepe no 1885wooll, the cat no perfume, her's
three ons are sophisticated, thou art the thing it selfe, vnaccom-
G2
odated