The Tragedie of King Lear
Page: 52

clout, i'th' clout: Hewgh. Giue the word

Edg. Sweet Mariorum

Lear. Passe

Glou. I know that voice

Lear. Ha! Gonerill with a white beard? They flatter'd
me like a Dogge, and told mee I had the white hayres in
my Beard, ere the blacke ones were there. To say I, and
no, to euery thing that I said: I, and no too, was no good
Diuinity. When the raine came to wet me once, and the
winde to make me chatter: when the Thunder would not
peace at my bidding, there I found 'em, there I smelt 'em
out. Go too, they are not men o'their words; they told
me, I was euery thing: 'Tis a Lye, I am not Agu-proofe

Glou. The tricke of that voyce, I do well remember:
Is't not the King?
Lear. I, euery inch a King.
When I do stare, see how the Subiect quakes.
I pardon that mans life. What was thy cause?
Adultery? thou shalt not dye: dye for Adultery?
No, the Wren goes too't, and the small gilded Fly
Do's letcher in my sight. Let Copulation thriue:
For Glousters bastard Son was kinder to his Father,
Then my Daughters got 'tweene the lawfull sheets.
Too't Luxury pell-mell, for I lacke Souldiers.
Behold yond simpring Dame, whose face betweene her
Forkes presages Snow; that minces Vertue, & do's shake
the head to heare of pleasures name. The Fitchew, nor
the soyled Horse goes too't with a more riotous appetite:
Downe from the waste they are Centaures, though
Women all aboue: but to the Girdle do the Gods inherit,
beneath is all the Fiends. There's hell, there's darkenes,
there is the sulphurous pit; burning, scalding, stench,
consumption: Fye, fie, fie; pah, pah: Giue me an Ounce
of Ciuet; good Apothecary sweeten my immagination:
There's money for thee

Glou. O let me kisse that hand

Lear. Let me wipe it first,
It smelles of Mortality

Glou. O ruin'd peece of Nature, this great world
Shall so weare out to naught.
Do'st thou know me?
Lear. I remember thine eyes well enough: dost thou
squiny at me? No, doe thy worst blinde Cupid, Ile not
loue. Reade thou this challenge, marke but the penning
of it

Glou. Were all thy Letters Sunnes, I could not see