Page:King Lear (1917) Yale.djvu/69

King Lear, II. iv

Would with his daughter speak, commands her service:

Are they inform'd of this? My breath and blood!

Fiery! the fiery duke! Tell the hot duke that—

No, but not yet; may be he is not well:

Infirmity doth still neglect all office

Whereto our health is bound; we are not ourselves

When nature, being oppress'd, commands the mind

To suffer with the body. I'll forbear;

And am fall'n out with my more headier will,

To take the indispos'd and sickly fit

For the sound man. Death on my state! [Looking on Kent.] Wherefore

Should he sit here? This act persuades me

That this remotion of the duke and her

Is practice only. Give me my servant forth.

Go, tell the duke and 's wife I'd speak with them,

Now, presently: bid them come forth and hear me,

Or at their chamber-door I'll beat the drum

Till it cry sleep to death.

Glo. I would have all well betwixt you.

Lear. O, me! my heart, my rising heart! but, down!

Fool. Cry to it, nuncle, as the cockney did to

the eels when she put 'em i' the paste alive; she

knapped 'em o' the coxcombs with a stick, and

cried, 'Down, wantons, down!' 'Twas her

brother that, in pure kindness to his horse,

buttered his hay.

Lear. Good morrow to you both.

Corn. Hail to your Grace.

Kent here set at liberty.

 107 office: duty

111 more headier: too headstrong

115 remotion: removal

120 cry sleep to death: murder sleep

123 cockney: cook

125 knapped: rapped (pronounce the k)

