William Shakespeare (1564–1616). The Tragedy of King Lear.
The Harvard Classics. 1909–14. |
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| Act II |
| | | Scene III |
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[The same]
Enter EDGAR
Edg. I heard myself proclaim’d; | |
| And by the happy hollow of a tree | |
| Escap’d the hunt. No port is free; no place | |
| That guard and most unusual vigilance | 4 |
| Does not attend my taking. 1 Whiles I may scape | |
| I will preserve myself, and am bethought | |
| To take the basest and most poorest shape | |
| That ever penury, in contempt of man, | 8 |
| Brought near to beast. My face I’ll grime with filth, | |
| Blanket my loins, elf 2 all my hairs in knots, | |
| And with presented nakedness out-face | |
| The winds and persecutions of the sky. | 12 |
| The country gives me proof and precedent | |
| Of Bedlam beggars, who, with roaring voices, | |
| Strike in their numb’d and mortified arms | |
| Pins, wooden pricks, nails, sprigs of rosemary; | 16 |
| And with this horrible object, 3 from low farms, | |
| Poor pelting 4 villages, sheep-cotes, and mills, | |
| Sometimes with lunatic bans, 5 sometimes with prayers, | |
| Enforce their charity. Poor Turlygod! poor Tom! | 20 |
| That’s something yet. Edgar I nothing am. Exit. | |
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