| ACT II SCENE III | A wood. | |
| [Enter EDGAR] |
| 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, | 5 |
| 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 | 15 |
| 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. |
| [Exit] |
King Lear Overview