LEAR.
To have a thousand with red burning spits
Come hissing in upon ’em.
EDGAR.
The foul fiend bites my back.
FOOL.
He’s mad that trusts in the tameness of a wolf, a horse’s health, a boy’s love, or a whore’s oath.
LEAR.
It shall be done; I will arraign them straight.
[To Edgar.] Come, sit thou here, most learned justicer;
[To the Fool.] Thou, sapient sir, sit here. Now, you she-foxes!—
EDGAR.
Look, where he stands and glares! Want’st thou eyes at trial, madam?
Come o’er the bourn, Bessy, to me.
FOOL.
Her boat hath a leak,
And she must not speak
Why she dares not come over to thee.
EDGAR.
The foul fiend haunts poor Tom in the voice of a nightingale. Hoppedance cries in Tom’s belly for two white herring. Croak not, black angel; I have no food for thee.
KENT.
How do you, sir? Stand you not so amaz’d;
Will you lie down and rest upon the cushions?
LEAR.
I’ll see their trial first. Bring in their evidence.
[To Edgar.] Thou, robed man of justice, take thy place.
[To the Fool.] And thou, his yokefellow of equity,
Bench by his side. [To Kent.] You are o’ the commission,
Sit you too.
EDGAR.
Let us deal justly.
Sleepest or wakest thou, jolly shepherd?
Thy sheep be in the corn;
And for one blast of thy minikin mouth
Thy sheep shall take no harm.
Purr! the cat is grey.