My lady charged my duty in this business.

Reg. Why should she write to Edmund? Might not you

Transport her purposes by word? Belike,

20

Something I know not what: I'll love thee much,

Let me unseal the letter.

Osw.

Madam, I had rather

Reg. I know your lady does not love her husband;
I am sure of that: and at her late being here
She gave strange œillades and most speaking
looks

To noble Edmund. I know you are of her
bosom.

Osw. I, madam?

Reg. I speak in understanding: you are, I know 't:
Therefore I do advise you, take this note:

My lord is dead; Edmund and I have talk'd; 30
And more convenient is he for my hand

If

you

Than for your lady's: you may gather more.
do find him, pray you, give him this;
And when your mistress hears thus much from
you,

I pray, desire her call her wisdom to her.

So, fare you well.

If you do chance to hear of that blind traitor,
Preferment falls on him that cuts him off.

25. "œillades"; it cannot be decided whether Shakespeare wrote the French word or some anglicized form of it.-C. H. H.

32. "gather"; you may infer more than I have directly told you.— H. N. H.

33. "give him this"; perhaps a ring, or some token.-H. N. H.

Osw. Would I could meet him, madam! I should

Glou. When shall we come to the top of that same hill?

Edg. You do climb up it now: look, how we labor. Glou. Methinks the ground is even.

Edg.

Hark, do you hear the sea?

Glou.

Horrible steep.

No, truly.

Edg. Why then your other senses grow imperfect By your eyes' anguish.

Glou.

So may it be indeed: Methinks thy voice is alter'd and thou speak'st In better phrase and matter than thou didst. Edg. You're much deceived: in nothing am I changed

But in my garments.

Glou.

Methinks you 're better spoken.

Edg. Come on, sir; here's the place: stand still.X How fearful

And dizzy 'tis to cast one's eyes so low!

11

The crows and choughs that wing the midway air

Show scarce so gross as beetles: half way down
Hangs one that gathers samphire, dreadful
trade!

Methinks he seems no bigger than his head:
The fishermen that walk upon the beach
Appear like mice; and yond tall anchoring bark
Diminish'd to her cock; her cock, a buoy
Almost too small for sight: the murmuring

surge

That on the unnumber'd idle pebbles chafes
Cannot be heard so high. I'll look no more,
Lest my brain turn and the deficient sight
Topple down headlong.

XGlou.

20

Set me where you stand. Edg. Give me your hand: you are-now within a

foot

Of the extreme verge: for all beneath the moon
Would I not leap upright.

Glou.

Let go my hand. Here, friend, 's another purse; in it a jewel Well worth a poor man's taking: fairies and

gods

15. "samphire"; in Shakespeare's time the cliffs of Dover, as the neighboring parts of the coast are still, were celebrated for the production of this article. It is thus spoken of in Smith's History of Waterford, 1774: "Samphire grows in great plenty on most of the seacliffs in this country. It is terrible to see how people gather it, hanging by a rope several fathom from the top of the impending rocks, as it were in the air." It was made into a pickle and eaten as a relish; which, we are told, is still done in some parts of England.-H. N. H.

The current Elizabethan spellings were "sampire" (so Ff., Q. 1, Q. 2), "sampier."-C. H. H.

Prosper it with thee! Go thou further off; 30
Bid me farewell, and let me hear thee going.-
Edg. Now fare you well, good sir.

Glou.
With all my heart.
Edg. Why I do trifle thus with his despair
Is done to cure it.

Glou. [Kneeling] O you mighty gods!
This world I do renounce, and in your sights
Shake patiently my great affliction off:
If I could bear it longer and not fall

To quarrel with your great opposeless wills,
My snuff and loathed part of nature should
Burn itself out. If Edgar live, O bless him!
Now, fellow, fare thee well. [He falls forward.
Edg.
Gone, sir: farewell. 417
And yet I know not how conceit may rob

The treasury of life, when life itself

4177

Yields to the theft: had he been where he
thought,

By this had thought been past. Alive or dead?
Ho, you sir! friend! Hear you, sir! speak!
Thus might he pass indeed: yet he revives.
What are you, sir?

Glou.

Away, and let me die.

Edg. Hadst thou been aught but gossamer, feath

ers, air,

41. "Gone, sir"; that is, "I am gone, sir." As commonly printed, the stage-direction, “He leaps, and falls along," comes in before Edgar speaks, and then he is made to ask a question, whether Gloster is gone, thus: "Gone, sir? farewell."-H. N. H.

44. "yields to the theft"; that is, when life is willing to be destroyed.-H. N. H.

49. "gossamer"; "The substance called gossamer is formed of the collected webs of flying spiders, and during calm weather in autumn

50

So many fathom down precipitating,
Thou'dst shiver'd like an egg: but thou dost
breathe;

Hast heavy substance; bleed'st not; speak'st;
art sound.

Ten masts at each make not the altitude Which thou hast perpendicularly fell: Thy life's a miracle. Speak yet again. Glou. But have I fall'n, or no?

Edg. From the dread summit of this chalky bourn. Look up a-height; the shrill-gorged lark so far Cannot be seen or heard: do but look

Glou. Alack, I have no eyes.

up.

Is wretchedness deprived that benefit,

60

To end itself by death? 'Twas yet some com-
fort,

When misery could beguile the tyrant's rage
And frustrate his proud will.

Edg.

Up: so.

stand.

Give me your arm

How is 't? Feel you your legs? You

Glou. Too well, too well.

sometimes fall in amazing quantities" (Holt White). Some think it the down of plants; others the vapor arising from boggy or marshy ground in warm weather. The etymon of this word, which has puzzled the lexicographers, is said to be summer goose or summer gauze, hence "gauze o'the summer," its well known name in the north.-H. N. H.

53. "ten masts at each"; so read all the old copies, probably meaning, drawn out in length, or added one to another. Pope changed "at each" to attacht; Johnson proposes on end; Steevens would read at reach. The old reading, however, has been vindicated by going to the original of each, which is from the Anglo-Saxon eacan, to add, to augment, or lengthen. Eke, sometimes spelled eche is from the same source.-H. N. H.