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I am now from home, and out of that provision

Which shall be needful for your entertainment.

Lear. Return to her, and fifty men dismiss'd?

No, rather I abjure all roofs, and choose

To be a comrade with the wolf and owl—

To wage against the enmity o' the air,

Necessity's sharp pinch!—Return with her!

Why, the hot-blooded France, that dowerless took

Our youngest born, I could as well be brought

To knee his throne, and squire-like pension beg

To keep base life afoot.—Return with her!

Persuade me rather to be slave and sumpter

To this detested groom. [Looking on the Steward.]

Gonerill. At your choice, sir.

Lear. Now, I pr'ythee, daughter, do not make me mad;

I will not trouble thee, my child; farewell:

We'll no more meet, no more see one another:—

But yet thou art my flesh, my blood, my daughter;

Or, rather, a disease that's in my flesh,

Which I must needs call mine: thou art a bile,

A plague-sore, an embossed carbuncle,

In my corrupted blood. But I'll not chide thee:

Let shame come when it will, I do not call it:

I did not bid the thunder-bearer shoot,

Nor tell tales of thee to high-judging Jove:

Mend when thou canst; be better, at thy leisure:

I can be patient; I can stay with Regan,

I, and my hundred knights.

Regan. Not altogether so, sir;

I look'd not for you yet, nor am provided

For your fit welcome: Give ear, sir, to my sister;

For those that mingle reason with your passion

Must be content to think you old, and so—

But she knows what she does.

Lear. Is this well spoken now?

Regan. I dare avouch it, sir: What, fifty followers?

Is it not well? What should you need of more?

Yea, or so many? Sith that both charge and danger

Speak 'gainst so great a number? How, in one house,

Should many people, under two commands,

Hold amity? Tis hard; almost impossible.

Gonerill. Why might you not, my lord, receive attendance

From those that she calls servants, or from mine?

Regan. Why not, my lord? If then they chanc'd to slack you,

We would control them: if you will come to me

(For now I spy a danger) I entreat you

To bring but five-and-twenty; to no more

Will I give place, or notice.

Lear. I gave you all—

Regan. And in good time you gave it.

Lear. Made you my guardians, my depositaries;

But kept a reservation to be follow'd

With such a number: what, must I come to you

With five-and-twenty, Regan! said you so?

Regan. And speak it again, my lord; no more with me.

Lear. Those wicked creatures yet do look well-favour'd,

When others are more wicked; not being the worst,

Stands in some rank of praise:—I'll go with thee;

[To Gonerill.]

Thy fifty yet doth double five-and-twenty,

And thou art twice her love.

Gonerill. Hear me, my lord;

What need you five-and-twenty, ten, or five,

To follow in a house, where twice so many

Have a command to tend you?

Regan. What need one?

Lear. O, reason not the need: our basest beggars

Are in the poorest thing superfluous:

Allow not nature more than nature needs,

Man's life is cheap as beast's: thou art a lady;

If only to go warm were gorgeous,

Why, nature needs not what thou gorgeous wear'st;

Which scarcely keeps thee warm.—But, for true need—

You heavens, give me that patience which I need!

You see me here, you gods; a poor old man,

As full of grief as age; wretched in both!

If it be you that stir these daughters' hearts

Against their father, fool me not so much

To bear it tamely; touch me with noble anger!

O, let no woman's weapons, water-drops,

Stain my man's cheeks!—No, you unnatural hags,

I will have such revenges on you both,

That all the world shall—I will do such things—

What they are, yet I know not; but they shall be

The terrors of the earth. You think, I'll weep:

No, I'll not weep:—

I have full cause of weeping; but this heart

Shall break into a hundred thousand flaws,

Or e'er I'll weep:—O, fool, I shall go mad!

[Exeunt Lear, Gloucester, Kent, and Fool.]

If there is anything in any author like this yearning of the heart, these throes of tenderness, this profound expression of all