Lear.
Deny to speak with me? They're sick? They're weary?
They have travell'd all the night? Mere fetches,
The images of revolt and flying off.
Bring me a better answer—

Glo.
My dear Lord,
You know the fiery quality of the Duke,
How unremovable, and fixt he is
In his own course.

Lear.
Vengeance! plague! death! confusion!—
Fiery? what fiery quality? Why, Glo'ster,
I'd speak with th' Duke of Cornwall, and his wife.

Glo.
Well, my good Lord, I have inform'd them so.

Lear.
Inform'd them? Dost thou understand me, man?

Glo.
Ay, my good Lord?

Lear.
The King would speak with Cornwall. The dear father
Wou'd with his daughter speak, commands her service;
Are they inform'd of this?—My breath and blood!—
Fiery? The fiery duke? Tell the hot Duke, that— [Glocester offers to go.
No, but not yet. May be, he is not well;
Infirmity doth still neglect all office,
Whereto our health is bound; we're not ourselves,

When Nature, being opprest, commands the mind
To suffer with the body. I'll forbear;
And am fall'n out with my more headier will,
To take the indispos'd and sickly fit
For the sound man. Death on my state! But wherefore [Looking on Kent.
Should he sit here? This Act persuades me,
That this remotion of the Duke and her
* ^noteIs practice only. Give me my servant forth.
Go, tell the Duke and's wife, I'd speak with them.
Now! presently! Bid them come forth and hear me,
Or at their chamber-door I'll beat the drum,
'Till it cry, sleep to death.

Glo.
I would have all well betwixt you. [Exit.

Lear.
Oh me, my heart, my rising heart! but down.

Fool.

Cry to it, nuncle, as the cockney did to ^{1 note}the Eels, when she put them i'th' Pasty alive; she rapt 'em o'th' coxcombs with a stick, and cry'd, down wantons, down. 'Twas her brother, that in pure kindness to his horse butter'd his hay.