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  • Title: King Lear (Quarto 2, 1619)
  • Editor: Pervez Rizvi
  • 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: Pervez Rizvi
    Not Peer Reviewed

    King Lear (Quarto 2, 1619)

    The History of King Lear.
    Fox in stealth, Wolfe in greedinesse, Dog in madnesse, Lyon in
    prey, let not the creeking of shooes, nor the ruslings of silkes
    1875betray 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 colde
    winde, hay no on ny, Dolphin my boy, my boy, cease let him trot
    1880by.
    Lear. Why thou wert better in thy graue, then to answer with
    thy vncouered body this extremity of the skies; is man no more
    but this? consider him well, thou owest the worme no silke, the
    beast no hide, the sheep no wooll, the cat no perfume, he'rs three
    1885ones are sophisticated, thou art the thing it selfe, vnaccomoda-
    ted man is no more but such a poore bare forked Animal as thou
    art, off, off you leadings, come on be true.
    Foole. Prithee Nunckle be content, this is a naughty night to
    swim in, now a little fire in a wilde field, were like an old lechers
    heart, a small sparke, all the rest in body colde, looke here comes
    a walking fire.
    1890Enter Glocester.
    1895Edg. This is the foule fiend Sirberdegibit, he begins at curfue,
    and walks till the first cocke, he gins the web, the pinqueuer the
    eye, and makes the hart lip, mildewes the white wheate, & hurts
    the poore creature of earth, swithald footed thrice the olde anel-
    thu night Moore and her nine fold bid her, O light and her troth
    plight and arint thee, with arint thee.
    Kent. How fares your Grace?
    1905Lear. What's he?
    Kent. Whose there? what ist you seeke?
    Glost. What are you there? your names.
    Edg. Poore Tom, that eates the swimming frog, the toade, the
    toade pold, the wall-wort, and the water, that in the fruite of his
    1910heart, when the foule fiend rages,
    Eates cowdung for sallets, swallowes the old rat, and the ditch-
    dog, drinkes the greene mantle of the standing poole, who is
    whipt from tything to tything, and stock-punisht and impriso-
    ned, who hath had three sutes to his backe, fixe shirts to his bo-
    dy, horse to ride, and weapon to weare.
    But
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