[Exit.]
LEAR.
O me, my heart, my rising heart! But down!
FOOL.
Cry to it, nuncle, as the cockney did to the eels when she put ’em i’ the paste alive; she knapped ’em o’ the coxcombs with a stick and cried ‘Down, wantons, down!’ ’Twas her brother that, in pure kindness to his horse buttered his hay.
Enter Cornwall, Regan, Gloucester and Servants.
LEAR.
Good morrow to you both.
CORNWALL.
Hail to your grace!
[Kent here set at liberty.]
REGAN.
I am glad to see your highness.
LEAR.
Regan, I think you are; I know what reason
I have to think so: if thou shouldst not be glad,
I would divorce me from thy mother’s tomb,
Sepulchring an adultress. [To Kent] O, are you free?
Some other time for that.—Beloved Regan,
Thy sister’s naught: O Regan, she hath tied
Sharp-tooth’d unkindness, like a vulture, here.
[Points to his heart.]