Page 1892 - Shakespeare - Vol. 3

GLOUCESTER

(kneeling) O you mighty Gods!
This world I do renounce, and in your sights [35]
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
Burn itself out. If Edgar live, O, bless him! [40]
Now, fellow, fare thee well.

EDGAR

Gone, sir: farewell.
(Gloucester throws himself forward and falls.)
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? [45]
Ho, you sir! friend! Hear you, sir! speak!
Thus might he pass indeed; yet he revives.

What are you, sir?

GLOUCESTER

Away, and let me die.

EDGAR
Hadst thou been aught but gossamer, feathers, air,
So many fathom down precipitating, [50]
Thou’dst shiver’d like an egg; but thou dost breathe,

Hast heavy substance, bleed’st not, speak’st, art sound.
Ten masts at each make not the altitude
Which thou hast perpendicularly fell;
Thy life’s a miracle. Speak yet again. [55]

GLOUCESTER
But have I fall’n or no?

EDGAR

From the dread summit of this chalky bourn.