Act 4, Scene 1

The heath.

[Enter Edgar.]
Edgar
2156 Yet better thus, and known to be contemn'd,
2157 Than still contemn'd and flatter'd. To be worst,
2158 The lowest and most dejected thing of fortune,
2159 Stands still in esperance, lives not in fear:
2160 The lamentable change is from the best;
2161 The worst returns to laughter. Welcome, then,
2162 Thou unsubstantial air that I embrace!
2163 The wretch that thou hast blown unto the worst
2164 Owes nothing to thy blasts.—But who comes here?
[Enter Gloster, led by an Old Man.]
Edgar
2165 My father, poorly led?—World, world, O world!
2166 But that thy strange mutations make us hate thee,
2167 Life would not yield to age.
Old Man
2168 O my good lord,
2169 I have been your tenant, and your father's tenant,
2170 These fourscore years.
Gloucester
2171 Away, get thee away; good friend, be gone:
2172 Thy comforts can do me no good at all;
2173 Thee they may hurt.
Old Man
2174 You cannot see your way.
Gloucester
2175 I have no way, and therefore want no eyes;
2176 I stumbled when I saw: full oft 'tis seen
2177 Our means secure us, and our mere defects
2178 Prove our commodities.—O dear son Edgar,
2179 The food of thy abused father's wrath!
2180 Might I but live to see thee in my touch,
2181 I'd say I had eyes again!
Old Man
2182 How now! Who's there?
[Aside.]
Edgar
2183 O gods! Who is't can say 'I am at the worst'?
2184 I am worse than e'er I was.
Old Man
2185 'Tis poor mad Tom.
[Aside.]
Edgar
2186 And worse I may be yet. The worst is not
2187 So long as we can say 'This is the worst.'
Old Man
2188 Fellow, where goest?
Gloucester
2189 Is it a beggar-man?
Old Man
2190 Madman and beggar too.
Gloucester
2191 He has some reason, else he could not beg.
2192 I' the last night's storm I such a fellow saw;
2193 Which made me think a man a worm: my son
2194 Came then into my mind, and yet my mind
2195 Was then scarce friends with him: I have heard more since.
2196 As flies to wanton boys are we to the gods,—
2197 They kill us for their sport.
[Aside.]
Edgar
2198 How should this be?—
2199 Bad is the trade that must play fool to sorrow,
2200 Angering itself and others.—Bless thee, master!
Gloucester
2201 Is that the naked fellow?
Old Man
2202 Ay, my lord.
Gloucester
2203 Then pr'ythee get thee gone: if for my sake
2204 Thou wilt o'ertake us, hence a mile or twain,
2205 I' the way toward Dover, do it for ancient love;
2206 And bring some covering for this naked soul,
2207 Which I'll entreat to lead me.
Old Man
2208 Alack, sir, he is mad.
Gloucester
2209 'Tis the time's plague when madmen lead the blind.
2210 Do as I bid thee, or rather do thy pleasure;
2211 Above the rest, be gone.
Old Man
2212 I'll bring him the best 'parel that I have,
2213 Come on't what will.
[Exit.]
Gloucester
2214 Sirrah naked fellow,—
Edgar
2215 Poor Tom's a-cold.
[Aside.]
Edgar
2216 I cannot daub it further.
Gloucester
2217 Come hither, fellow.
[Aside.]
Edgar
2218 And yet I must.—Bless thy sweet eyes, they bleed.
Gloucester
2219 Know'st thou the way to Dover?
Edgar
2220 Both stile and gate, horseway and footpath. Poor Tom hath been
2221 scared out of his good wits:—bless thee, good man's son, from
2222 the foul fiend! Five fiends have been in poor Tom at once; of
2223 lust, as Obidicut; Hobbididence, prince of dumbness; Mahu, of
2224 stealing; Modo, of murder; Flibbertigibbet, of mopping and
2225 mowing,—who since possesses chambermaids and waiting women. So,
2226 bless thee, master!
Gloucester
2227 Here, take this purse, thou whom the heavens' plagues
2228 Have humbled to all strokes: that I am wretched
2229 Makes thee the happier;—heavens, deal so still!
2230 Let the superfluous and lust-dieted man,
2231 That slaves your ordinance, that will not see
2232 Because he does not feel, feel your power quickly;
2233 So distribution should undo excess,
2234 And each man have enough.—Dost thou know Dover?
Edgar
2235 Ay, master.
Gloucester
2236 There is a cliff, whose high and bending head
2237 Looks fearfully in the confined deep:
2238 Bring me but to the very brim of it,
2239 And I'll repair the misery thou dost bear
2240 With something rich about me: from that place
2241 I shall no leading need.
Edgar
2242 Give me thy arm:
2243 Poor Tom shall lead thee.
[Exeunt.]

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Notes

TLN 2156syntax grammar
“better thus, and known to be contemn'd”
'Contemn'd' means scorned or despised. Edgar opens with a compressed, paradoxical argument: it is better to be openly scorned (as a naked madman on the heath) and know it, than to be secretly despised while being flattered at court. He reasons that the lowest possible condition is the safest, because you have nothing left to lose and no further to fall — 'the worst returns to laughter,' meaning that from rock-bottom the only change is improvement.
TLN 2175rhetorical device
“I have no way, and therefore want no eyes”
Gloucester turns the Old Man's pity upside down in a bitter paradox: because he has no destination — no purpose, no path in life — he has no need of eyes to find his way. He then extends the paradox: 'I stumbled when I saw' — when he had eyesight he made his worst errors of judgment (he was deceived by Edmund and cruelly misjudged Edgar). Physical blindness, he suggests, may be less dangerous than the blindness of the sighted man who refuses to see truly. The wordplay on 'way' (road / purpose) and 'see' (physical sight / moral insight) is the scene's governing theme.
TLN 2196rhetorical device
“As flies to wanton boys are we to the gods,— / They kill us for their sport.”
Gloucester's simile compares human beings to flies and the gods to bored, cruel boys who pull off insects' wings for entertainment. 'Wanton' here means reckless and thoughtlessly cruel, not lascivious. The image is one of the most quoted in Shakespeare: it states that the gods are not just indifferent to human suffering but actively, casually inflict it — as a pastime. Gloucester reaches this conclusion just after the storm and his blinding, when he has seen all the order he believed in destroyed.
historical King Leir and legendary Britain
TLN 2209rhetorical device
“'Tis the time's plague when madmen lead the blind.”
Gloucester's remark is a general aphorism ('the time's plague' = the sickness of this particular age), but its application here is painfully specific: he, the blind man, is about to ask the apparently mad Poor Tom to lead him. What sounds like a lament about the disordered state of the world is simultaneously an accurate description of what is happening on stage. The audience also knows Edgar is neither truly mad nor a stranger but Gloucester's own disguised son, so the 'madman' guiding the blind man is in fact the sanest, most loving guide he has.
TLN 2222historical topical
“Five fiends have been in poor Tom at once; of lust, as Obidicut; Hobbididence, prince of dumbness; Mahu, of stealing; Modo, of murder; Flibbertigibbet, of mopping and mowing”
Edgar, in his Poor Tom disguise, rattles off a list of demonic names: Obidicut, Hobbididence, Mahu, Modo, and Flibbertigibbet. Shakespeare borrowed these names directly from a 1603 pamphlet by Samuel Harsnett, A Declaration of Egregious Popish Impostures, which exposed a series of staged Catholic exorcisms as frauds. The names were those of 'demons' supposedly cast out of servants in fake possession performances. 'Mopping and mowing' means making grimaces and distorted faces.
historical Harsnett's Declaration and Poor Tom's devils
TLN 2230archaic vocab
“superfluous and lust-dieted man, / That slaves your ordinance”
Gloucester prays that the gods will bring suffering to the 'superfluous and lust-dieted man' — one who has more than he needs ('superfluous') and whose appetites ('lust') are over-indulged ('dieted' here means fed, not starved). This man 'slaves your ordinance' means he makes a slave of the gods' law, treating divine order as his servant rather than his master. Gloucester means Goneril and Regan. His prayer — that the comfortable be made to feel — leads to his call for redistribution: 'So distribution should undo excess, / And each man have enough.'
TLN 2236stage direction note
“There is a cliff, whose high and bending head / Looks fearfully in the confined deep”
Gloucester names his destination and his intention without saying it plainly: the famous white chalk cliffs of Dover, on England's south coast, rising straight out of the sea. He asks to be led to 'the very brim of it,' promising Edgar ('sirrah naked fellow') a reward of something 'rich about me' — and then says 'from that place / I shall no leading need.' He intends to throw himself off the cliff. 'Confined deep' is the sea compressed between the cliffs and France; 'bending' describes the overhang of the chalk face. Edgar now understands what his father plans.
historical Dover and the cliff