Cool’d by the same wind as their subjects are,
And blister’d by the self-same burning sun.
O happiest are the common folk who toil
Afield by day, eat scanty fare, and sleep
Anight unvex’d by cares of state or plots
Of traitorous nobles envious of a crown.
Fool. What do I say of kings? Marry, I say they were best to watch well their daughters and their kingdoms; it needs no fool to say so much as that. Prithee, art thou a king of the same mould as these thou beholdest here in this place?
King Henry. At scarce nine months was I anointed king.
Fool. Truly, thou serv’st a tender apprenticeship to thy business and I marvel the less at thy present having. [To Lear] Good nuncle, here’s yet another king out at the elbows, one, belike, that shook his rattle as ’t were a sceptre, and wore his porringer on ’s head where his crown should have been.
Lear [to King Henry] And thou, too, wert a king?