Page:William Hazlitt - Characters of Shakespear's Plays (1817).djvu/198

168 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?