Encyclopedia Dramatica:Today's featured quotation/January 27, 2008

From Encyclopedia Dramatica

EDGAR Away! the foul fiend follows me! Through the sharp hawthorn blows the cold wind. Hum! go to thy cold bed, and warm thee.

KING LEAR Hast thou given all to thy two daughters? And art thou come to this?

EDGAR Who gives any thing to poor Tom? whom the foul fiend hath led through fire and through flame, and through ford and whirlipool e'er bog and quagmire; that hath laid knives under his pillow, and halters in his pew; set ratsbane by his porridge; made film proud of heart, to ride on a bay trotting-horse over four-inched bridges, to course his own shadow for a traitor. Bless thy five wits! Tom's a-cold,--O, do de, do de, do de. Bless thee from whirlwinds, star-blasting, and taking! Do poor Tom some charity, whom the foul fiend vexes: there could I have him now,--and there,--and there again, and there.

Storm still

KING LEAR What, have his daughters brought him to this pass? Couldst thou save nothing? Didst thou give them all?

Fool Nay, he reserved a blanket, else we had been all shamed.

KING LEAR Now, all the plagues that in the pendulous air Hang fated o'er men's faults light on thy daughters!

KENT He hath no daughters, sir.

KING LEAR Death, traitor! nothing could have subdued nature To such a lowness but his unkind daughters. Is it the fashion, that discarded fathers Should have thus little mercy on their flesh? Judicious punishment! 'twas this flesh begot Those pelican daughters.

EDGAR Pillicock sat on Pillicock-hill: Halloo, halloo, loo, loo!

Fool This cold night will turn us all to fools and madmen.

EDGAR Take heed o' the foul fiend: obey thy parents; keep thy word justly; swear not; commit not with man's sworn spouse; set not thy sweet heart on proud array. Tom's a-cold.

KING LEAR What hast thou been?

EDGAR A serving-man, proud in heart and mind; that curled my hair; wore gloves in my cap; served the lust of my mistress' heart, and did the act of darkness with her; swore as many oaths as I spake words, and broke them in the sweet face of heaven: one that slept in the contriving of lust, and waked to do it: wine loved I deeply, dice dearly: and in woman out-paramoured the Turk: false of heart, light of ear, bloody of hand; hog in sloth, fox in stealth, wolf in greediness, dog in madness, lion in prey. Let not the creaking of shoes nor the rustling of silks betray thy poor heart to woman: keep thy foot out of brothels, thy hand out of plackets, thy pen from lenders' books, and defy the foul fiend. Still through the hawthorn blows the cold wind: Says suum, mun, ha, no, nonny. Dolphin my boy, my boy, sessa! let him trot by.

Shakespeare, King Lear, Act 3. Scene IV.