Reg. Lord Edmund spake not with your lord at

home?

Stew. No, madam.

Reg. What might import my sister's letter to him? Stew. I know not, lady.

Reg. 'Faith, he is posted hence on serious matter. It was great ignorance, Gloster's eyes being out, To let him live; where he arrives, he moves All hearts against us. Edmund, I think, is gone, In pity of his misery, to despatch

His nighted life; moreover, to descry

The strength o'the enemy.

Stew. I must needs after him, madam, with my letter.

Reg. Our troops set forth to-morrow; stay with us; The ways are dangerous.

Stew.

I may not, madam; My lady charged my duty in this business.

Reg. Why should she write to Edmund? Might

not you

Transport her purposes by word? Belike, Something I know not what.-I'll love thee much, Let me unseal the letter.

Stew. Madam, I had rather

Reg. I know your lady does not love her husband; I am sure of that; and, at her late being here, She gave strange œiliads,' and most speaking looks To noble Edmund. I know you are of her bosom. Stew. I, madam?

Reg. I speak in understanding; you are, I know it; Therefore, I do advise you, take this note.2

My lord is dead; Edmund and I have talked;
And more convenient is he for my hand,
Than for your lady's;—you may gather more.3
If you do find him, pray you, give him this;

1 Eillade (Fr.), a cast or significant glance of the eye.

2 That is, observe what I am saying.

3 You may infer more than I have directly told you.

4 Perhaps a ring, or some token, is given to the steward by Regan to be conveyed to Edmund.

And when your mistress hears thus much from you, I pray, desire her call her wisdom to her.

So, fare you well.

If you do chance to hear of that blind traitor,
Preferment falls on him that cuts him off.

Stew. 'Would I could meet him, madam! I would

Enter GLOSTER and EDGAR, dressed like a Peasant.

Glo. When shall we come to the top of that same

hill?

Edg. You do climb up it now; look, how we labor. Glo. Methinks the ground is even.

Edg.

Hark, do you hear the sea?

Glo.

No, truly.2

Horrible steep.

Edg. Why, then your other senses grow imperfect By your eyes' anguish.

So may

Glo. it be, indeed. Methinks thy voice is altered; and thou speak'st In better phrase, and matter, than thou didst. Edg. You are much deceived; in nothing am I changed

But in my garments.

Glo.

Methinks you are better spoken. Edg. Come on, sir; here's the place; stand still. -How fearful

1 This scene, and the stratagem by which Gloster is cured of his desperation, are wholly borrowed from Sidney's Arcadia, book ii.

2 Something to complete the measure seems wanting in this or the foregoing hemistich. The quartos read, as one line:

"Horrible steep: hark, do you hear the sea?"

3 Edgar alters his voice in order to pass afterwards for a malignant spirit.

And dizzy 'tis, to cast one's eyes so low!

The crows, and choughs, that wing the midway air,
Show scarce so gross as beetles. Half way down
Hangs one that gathers samphire; dreadful trade!
Methinks he seems no bigger than his head.
The fishermen, that walk upon the beach,
Appear like mice; and yon' tall, anchoring bark,
Diminished to her cock; her cock, a buoy
Almost too small for sight. The murmuring surge,
That on the unnumbered idle pebbles chafes,
Cannot be heard so high. I'll look no more;
Lest my brain turn, and the deficient sight
Topple down headlong.

Glo.

2

Set me where you stand. hand. You are now within a

Edg. Give me your hand.

-foot

Of the extreme verge; for all beneath the moon

Would I not leap upright.

Glo.

Let go my hand.

Here, friend, is another purse; in it a jewel

Well worth a poor man's taking. Fairies, and gods,
Prosper it with thee! Go thou further off;
Bid me farewell, and let me hear thee going.
Edg. Now fare you well, good sir.

[Seems to go.
Glo.
With all my heart.
Edg. Why I do trifle thus with his despair,
Is done to cure it.

O, you mighty gods!

Glo.
This world I do renounce; and, in your sights,
Shake patiently my great affliction off.

If I could bear it longer, and not fall
To quarrel with your great, opposeless wills,
My snuff, and loathed part of nature, should

1 "Samphire grows in great plenty on most of the sea-cliffs in this country: it is terrible to see how people gather it, hanging by a rope several fathom from the top of the impending rocks, as it were in the air."-Smith's History of Waterford, p. 315, edit. 1774.-Dover cliff was particularly resorted to for this plant. It is still eaten as a pickle in those parts of England bordering on the southern coast.

2 i. e. her cock-boat. Hence the term cockswain.

Burn itself out.

If Edgar live, O, bless him!—

Now, fellow, fare thee well.

Edg.

[He leaps, and falls along.
Gone, sir? farewell.-

And yet I know not how conceit may rob
The treasury of life, when life itself

Yields to the theft. Had he been where he thought,
By this, had thought been past.-Alive, or dead?
Ho, you sir! friend!-Hear you, sir?-Speak!
Thus might he pass indeed.2-Yet he revives.
What are you, sir?

Glo.

Away, and let me die.

Edg. Hadst thou been aught but gossamer, feathers, air,

So many fathom down precipitating,

Thou hadst shivered like an egg: but thou dost

breathe;

Hast heavy substance; bleed'st not; speak'st; art sound.

Ten masts at each3 make not the altitude,
Which thou hast perpendicularly fell;
Thy life's a miracle. Speak yet again.

Glo. But have I fallen, or no?

Edg. From the dread summit of this chalky bourn.* Look up a-height;-the shrill-gorged lark so far Cannot be seen or heard: do but look up.

Glo. Alack, I have no eyes.—

Is wretchedness deprived that benefit,

To end itself by death? 'Twas yet some comfort,
When misery could beguile the tyrant's rage,
And frustrate his proud will.

Edg.

Give me your arm;

Up.-So-how is't? Feel you your legs? You stand.

1 That is, "when life is willing to be destroyed."

2 "Thus might he die in reality."

"Eche, exp.

3 i. e. drawn out, at length, or each added to the other. draw out, ab Anglo-Saxon elcan, elcian, Diferre, vel a verb. to eak." Skinner, Etymolog. Skinner is right in his last derivation; it is from the Anglo-Saxon eacan, to add. Pope changed this to attacht; Johnson would read on end; Steevens proposes at reach.

4 i. e. this chalky boundary of England.

Glo. Too well, too well.

Edg.

This is above all strangeness. Upon the crown o' the cliff, what thing was that Which parted from you?

Glo.

A poor, unfortunate beggar. Edg. As I stood here below, methought his eyes Were two full moons; he had a thousand noses, Horns welked,' and waved like the enridged sea; It was some fiend. Therefore, thou happy father, Think that the clearest gods, who make them honors Of men's impossibilities,3 have preserved thee.

2

Glo. I do remember now; henceforth I'll bear Affliction, till it do cry out itself,

Enough, enough, and die. That thing you speak of, I took it for a man; often 'twould say,

The fiend, the fiend: he led me to that place.

Edg. Bear free and patient thoughts. But who comes here?

Enter LEAR, fantastically dressed up with flowers. The safer sense 5 will ne'er accommodate

His master thus.

Lear. No, they cannot touch me for coining; I am the king himself.

Edg. O thou side-piercing sight!

Lear. Nature's above art in that respect. There's your press-money. That fellow handles his bow like

1 Welked is marked with protuberances. This and whelk are probably only different forms of the same word. The welk is a small shell-fish, so called, perhaps, because its shell is marked with convolved protuberant ridges.

2 That is, the purest.

3 By men's impossibilities perhaps is meant what men call impossibilities.

4" Bear free and patient thoughts." Free here means pure, as in other places of these plays.

5 "The safer sense (says Mr. Blakeway), seems to me to mean the eyesight, which, says Edgar, will never more serve the unfortunate Lear so well as those which Gloster has remaining will serve him, who is now returned to a right mind.

6 It is evident, from the whole of this speech, that Lear fancied himself in a battle. For the meaning of press-money, see the first scene of Hamlet.