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  • Title: King Lear (Quarto 1, 1608)
  • Editor: Michael Best
  • Textual editors: James D. Mardock, Eric Rasmussen
  • Coordinating editor: Michael Best

    • ISBN: 978-1-55058-463-9

    Copyright Michael Best. This text may be freely used for educational, non-profit purposes; for all other uses contact the Editor.
    Author: William Shakespeare
    Editor: Michael Best
    Not Peer Reviewed

    King Lear (Quarto 1, 1608)

    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.
    1860Fdg. 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, Woolfe in greedines,, Dog in madnes, Lyon
    in pray, let not the creeking of shooes, 1875nor the ruslngs 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, caese
    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-
    odated
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