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- $Unique_ID{SSP01358}
- $Title{King Lear: Act II, Scene III}
- $Author{Shakespeare, William}
- $Subject{}
- $Log{Dramatis Personae*01350.txt}
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- Portions copyright (c) CMC ReSearch, Inc., 1989
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- The Complete Works of William Shakespeare
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- KING LEAR
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- ACT II
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- SCENE III: A wood.
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- {Enter EDGAR.}
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- EDGAR: I heard myself proclaim'd;
- And by the happy hollow of a tree
- Escaped the hunt. No port is free; no place,
- That guard, and most unusual vigilance,
- Does not attend my taking. Whiles I may 'scape,
- I will preserve myself: and am bethought
- To take the basest and most poorest shape
- That ever penury, in contempt of man,
- Brought near to beast: my face I'll grime with filth;
- Blanket my loins: elf all my hair in knots; 10
- And with presented nakedness out-face
- The winds and persecutions of the sky.
- The country gives me proof and precedent
- Of Bedlam beggars, who, with roaring voices,
- Strike in their numb'd and mortified bare arms
- Pins, wooden pricks, nails, sprigs of rosemary;
- And with this horrible object, from low farms,
- Poor pelting villages, sheep-cotes, and mills,
- Sometime with lunatic bans, sometime with prayers,
- Enforce their charity. Poor Turlygod! poor Tom! 20
- That's something yet: Edgar I nothing am.
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- [Exit.]
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