Poor pelting villages, sheep-cotes, and mills,
Sometime with lunatic bans, sometime with prayers,
Enforce their charity. Poor Turlygood! poor Tom! 20
That's something yet: Edgar I nothing am. Exit.
Scene Four
[Before Gloucester's Castle. Kent in the Stocks]
Enter Lear, Fool, and Gentleman.
Lear. 'Tis strange that they should so depart from home,
And not send back my messenger.
Gent. As I learn'd,
The night before there was no purpose in them
Of this remove.
Kent. Hail to thee, noble master! 4
Lear. Ha!
Mak'st thou this shame thy pastime?
Kent. No, my lord.
Fool. Ha, ha! he wears cruel garters. Horses
are tied by the head, dogs and bears by the neck,
monkeys by the loins, and men by the legs:
when a man is over-lusty at legs, then he wears
wooden nether-stocks.
Lear. What's he that hath so much thy place mistook 12
To set thee here?
Kent. It is both he and she,
Your son and daughter.
Lear. No.
Kent. Yes. 16
18 pelting: contemptible
19 bans: curses
20 Turlygood; cf. n.
7 cruel: pun on crewel, i.e., worsted
11 nether-stocks: stocks was an old word for stockings
