Edgar
Fathom and half, fathom and half! Poor Tom!
Fool
Come not in here, nuncle, here’s a spirit. Help me, help me!
Kent
Give me thy hand. Who’s there?
Fool
A spirit, a spirit: he says his name’s poor Tom.
Kent
What art thou that dost grumble there i’th’straw? Come forth.
Edgar
Away! The foul fiend follows me! Through the sharp hawthorn blow the winds. Hum! Go to thy bed and warm thee.
Wicked devil. People who behaved ‘madly’ in Shakespeare's time were often thought to be possessed by devils.
Lear
Did’st thou give all to thy daughters? And art thou come to this?
Edgar
Who gives anything to poor Tom? Whom the foul fiend hath led through fire and through flame through ford and whirlpool, o’er bog and quagmire, that hath laid knives under his pillow, and halters in his pew, set ratsbane by his porridge, made him 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.
What might Edgar be thinking when he comes face to face with the King? Why do you think he makes this long speech and how effective is it?
The devil has tempted me to damn my soul to hell through committing suicide with knives or by hanging myself, even when I’m in church.
Lear
Has his daughters brought him to this pass?
Couldst thou save nothing? Wouldst thou give ’em all?
Fool
Nay, he reserved a blanket, else we had been all shamed.
In better times, The Fool made speeches that made perceptive points through roundabout imagery. What do you think of his briefer comments in this scene?
Lear
Now, all the plagues that in the pendulous air
Hang fated o’er men’s faults light on thy daughters!
I call on all the diseases that hang heavy in the air to punish men when they do wrong, to fall on your daughters!
Kent
He hath no daughters, sir.
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.
Pelicans were thought to feed their young by pecking holes in their breast and giving them their blood. Why do you think Lear uses this image? Why is Lear so convinced that ‘Poor Tom’ must also have such daughters?
Edgar
Pillicock sat on Pillicock-hill: alow, alow, loo, loo!
Fool
This cold night will turn us all to fools and madmen.