Enter Gloucester, led by an Old Man.
But who comes here? My father, poorly led?
World, world, O world!
But that thy strange mutations make us hate thee,
Life would not yield to age.
OLD MAN.
O my good lord, I have been your tenant, and your father’s tenant these fourscore years.
GLOUCESTER.
Away, get thee away; good friend, be gone.
Thy comforts can do me no good at all;
Thee they may hurt.
OLD MAN.
You cannot see your way.
GLOUCESTER.
I have no way, and therefore want no eyes;
I stumbled when I saw. Full oft ’tis seen
Our means secure us, and our mere defects
Prove our commodities. O dear son Edgar,
The food of thy abused father’s wrath!
Might I but live to see thee in my touch,
I’d say I had eyes again!
OLD MAN.
How now! Who’s there?
EDGAR.
[Aside.] O gods! Who is’t can say ‘I am at the worst’?
I am worse than e’er I was.
OLD MAN.
’Tis poor mad Tom.
EDGAR.
[Aside.] And worse I may be yet. The worst is not
So long as we can say ‘This is the worst.’