Page 1896 - Shakespeare - Vol. 3

Let me wipe it first; it smells of mortality.

GLOUCESTER
O ruin’d piece of Nature! This great world
Shall so wear out to naught. Dost thou know me?

LEAR
I remember thine eyes well enough. Dost thou squiny at me?
No, do thy worst, blind Cupid; I’ll not love. [135]

Read thou this challenge; mark but the penning of it.

GLOUCESTER
Were all thy letters suns, I could not see.

EDGAR
(aside) I would not take this from report; it is,
And my heart breaks at it.

LEAR
Read. [140]

GLOUCESTER
What! with the case of eyes?

LEAR

O, ho! are you there with me? No eyes in your head, nor no money in your
purse? Your eyes are in a heavy case, your purse in a light: yet you see how
this world goes. [145]

GLOUCESTER
I see it feelingly.

LEAR
What! art mad? A man may see how this world goes with no eyes. Look with
thine ears: see how yond justice rails upon yond simple thief. Hark, in thine

ear: change places, and, handy-dandy, which is the justice, which is [150] the
thief? Thou hast seen a farmer’s dog bark at a beggar?