Page 1843 - Shakespeare - Vol. 3

LEAR

O! reason not the need; our basest beggars
Are in the poorest thing superfluous:
Allow not nature more than nature needs,

Man’s life is cheap as beast’s. Thou art a lady; [265]
If only to go warm were gorgeous,
Why, nature needs not what thou gorgeous wear’st,
Which scarcely keeps thee warm. But, for true need, −
You Heavens, give me that patience, patience I need! −

You see me here, you Gods, a poor old man, [270]
As full of grief as age; wretched in both!
If it be you that stirs these daughters’ hearts

Against their father, fool me not so much
To bear it tamely; touch me with noble anger,
And let not women’s weapons, water-drops, [275]
Stain my man’s cheeks! No, you unnatural hags,
I will have such revenges on you both

That all the world shall-I will do such things,
What they are, yet I know not, but they shall be
The terrors of the earth. You think I’ll weep; [280]

No, I’ll not weep;
I have full cause of weeping, but this heart
(Storm heard at a distance.)
Shall break into a hundred thousand flaws
Or ere I’ll weep. O Fool! I shall go mad.

(Exeunt Lear, Gloucester, Gentleman, and Fool.)

CORNWALL
Let us withdraw, ’twill be a storm. [285]

REGAN
This house is little: the old man and ’s people
Cannot be well bestow’d.

GONERIL
’Tis his own blame; hath put himself from rest,

And must needs taste his folly.