Enter Goneril.
LEAR.
How now, daughter? What makes that frontlet on? Methinks you are too much of late i’ the frown.
FOOL.
Thou wast a pretty fellow when thou hadst no need to care for her frowning. Now thou art an O without a figure: I am better than thou art now. I am a fool, thou art nothing. [To Goneril.] Yes, forsooth, I will hold my tongue. So your face bids me, though you say nothing. Mum, mum,
He that keeps nor crust nor crum,
Weary of all, shall want some.
[Pointing to Lear.] That’s a shealed peascod.
GONERIL.
Not only, sir, this your all-licens’d fool,
But other of your insolent retinue
Do hourly carp and quarrel; breaking forth
In rank and not-to-be-endured riots. Sir,
I had thought, by making this well known unto you,
To have found a safe redress; but now grow fearful,
By what yourself too late have spoke and done,
That you protect this course, and put it on
By your allowance; which if you should, the fault
Would not scape censure, nor the redresses sleep,
Which, in the tender of a wholesome weal,
Might in their working do you that offence
Which else were shame, that then necessity
Will call discreet proceeding.
FOOL.
For you know, nuncle,
The hedge-sparrow fed the cuckoo so long
That it’s had it head bit off by it young.
So out went the candle, and we were left darkling.
LEAR.
Are you our daughter?
GONERIL.
Come, sir,
I would you would make use of that good wisdom,
Whereof I know you are fraught; and put away
These dispositions, which of late transform you
From what you rightly are.
FOOL.
May not an ass know when the cart draws the horse? Whoop, Jug! I love thee!
LEAR.
Doth any here know me? This is not Lear;
Doth Lear walk thus? speak thus? Where are his eyes?
Either his notion weakens, his discernings
Are lethargied. Ha! waking? ’Tis not so!
Who is it that can tell me who I am?
FOOL.
Lear’s shadow.