Page 1895 - Shakespeare - Vol. 3

smelt ’em out. Go to, they are not men o’their words: they told me I was
every thing; ’tis a lie, I am not ague-proof.

GLOUCESTER
The trick of that voice I do well remember: [105]
Is’t not the King?

LEAR
Ay, every inch a king:

When I do stare, see how the subject quakes.
I pardon that man’s life. What was thy cause?
Adultery?
Thou shalt not die; die for adultery! No: [110]

The wren goes to’t, and the small gilded fly
Does lecher in my sight.
Let copulation thrive; for Gloucester’s bastard son
Was kinder to his father than my daughters

Got ’tween the lawful sheets. To’t, Luxury, pell-mell! [115]
For I lack soldiers. Behold yond simp’ring dame,
Whose face between her forks presages snow;
That minces virtue, and does shake the head

To hear of pleasure’s name;
The fitchew nor the soiled horse goes to’t [120]
With a more riotous appetite.
Down from the waist they are Centaurs,

Though women all above:
But to the girdle to the Gods inherit,
Beneath is all the fiend’s: there’s hell, there’s darkness, [125]
There is the sulphurous pit - burning, scalding,

Stench, consumption; fie, fie, fie! pah, pah!
Give me an ounce of civet, good apothecary,
To sweeten my imagination.
There’s money for thee.

GLOUCESTER
O! let me kiss that hand. [130]

LEAR