Page:King Lear (1917) Yale.djvu/115

King Lear, IV. vi

Cannot be heard so high. I'll look no more,

Lest my brain turn, and the deficient sight

Topple down headlong.

Glo. Set me where you stand.

Edg. Give me your hand; you are now within a foot

Of the extreme verge: for all beneath the moon

Would I not leap upright.

Glo. Let go my hand.

Here, friend, 's another purse; in it a jewel

Well worth a poor man's taking: fairies and gods

Prosper it with thee! Go thou further off;

Bid me farewell, and let me hear thee going.

Edg. Now fare you well, good sir.

Glo. With all my heart.

Edg. Why I do trifle thus with his despair

Is done to cure it.

Glo. O you mighty gods!

This world I do renounce, and, in your sights,

Shake patiently my great affliction off;

If I could bear it longer, and not fall

To quarrel with your great opposeless wills,

My snuff and loathed part of nature should

Burn itself out. If Edgar live, O, bless him!

Now, fellow, fare thee well.

Edg. Gone, sir: farewell.

[Aside.] And yet I know not how conceit may rob

The treasury of life when life itself

Yields to the theft; had he been where he thought

By this had thought been past. Alive or dead?

[To Gloucester.] Ho, you sir! friend! Hear you, sir? speak!

Thus might he pass indeed; yet he revives.

 24 deficient sight: sight failing

39 opposeless: invincible

40 snuff; cf. n.

43 conceit: imagination

