Page 1830 - Shakespeare - Vol. 3

EDGAR

I heard myself proclaim’d;
And by the happy hollow of a tree
Escap’d the hunt. No port is free; no place,

That guard, and most unusual vigilance,
Does not attend my taking. Whiles I may ’scape, [5]
I will preserve myself; and am bethought
To take the basest and most poorest shape
That ever penury, in contempt of man,

Brought near to beast; my face I’ll grime with filth,
Blanket my loins, elf all my hairs in knots, [10]
And with presented nakedness outface

The winds and persecutions of the sky.
The country gives me proof and precedent
Of Bedlam beggars, who, with roaring voices,
Strike in their numb’d and mortified bare arms [15]
Pins, wooden pricks, nails, sprigs of rosemary;

And with this horrible object, from low farms,
Poor pelting villages, sheep-cotes, and mills,
Sometime with lunatic bans, sometime with prayers,

Enforce their charity. Poor Turlygod! poor Tom! [20]
That’s something yet: Edgar I nothing am.
(Exit.)

Scene IV IT

(Before Gloucester’s Castle. Kent in the Stocks.)

Enter Lear, Fool, and Gentleman.

LEAR
’Tis strange that they should so depart from home,
And not send back my messenger.

GENTLEMAN
As I learn’d,
The night before there was no purpose in them