LEAR.
Ha! Goneril with a white beard! They flattered me like a dog; and told me I had white hairs in my beard ere the black ones were there. To say ‘ay’ and ‘no’ to everything I said ‘ay’ and ‘no’ to was no good divinity. When the rain came to wet me once, and the wind to make me chatter; when the thunder would not peace at my bidding; there I found ’em, there I smelt ’em out. Go to, they are not men o’ their words: they told me I was everything; ’tis a lie, I am not ague-proof.
GLOUCESTER.
The trick of that voice I do well remember:
Is’t not the King?
LEAR.
Ay, every inch a king.
When I do stare, see how the subject quakes.
I pardon that man’s life. What was thy cause?
Adultery? Thou shalt not die: die for adultery! No:
The wren goes to’t, and the small gilded fly
Does lecher in my sight. Let copulation thrive;
For Gloucester’s bastard son was kinder to his father
Than my daughters got ’tween the lawful sheets.
To’t, luxury, pell-mell! for I lack soldiers.
Behold yond simp’ring dame,
Whose face between her forks presages snow;
That minces virtue, and does shake the head
To hear of pleasure’s name.
The fitchew nor the soiled horse goes to’t with a more riotous appetite. Down from the waist they are centaurs, though women all above. But to the girdle do the gods inherit, beneath is all the fiend’s; there’s hell, there’s darkness, there is the sulphurous pit; burning, scalding, stench, consumption. Fie, fie, fie! pah, pah! Give me an ounce of civet, good apothecary, to sweeten my imagination. There’s money for thee.
GLOUCESTER.
O, let me kiss that hand!
LEAR.
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.
Read thou this challenge; mark but the penning of it.
GLOUCESTER.
Were all the letters suns, I could not see one.
EDGAR.
I would not take this from report,
It is, and my heart breaks at it.
LEAR.
Read.