FOOL.
Not i' the stocks, fool.
[Re-enter Lear, with Gloucester.]
LEAR.
Deny to speak with me? They are sick? they are weary?
They have travell'd all the night? Mere fetches;
The images of revolt and flying off.
Fetch me a better answer.
GLOUCESTER.
My dear lord,
You know the fiery quality of the duke;
How unremovable and fix'd he is
In his own course.
LEAR.
Vengeance! plague! death! confusion! —
Fiery? What quality? why, Gloucester, Gloucester,
I'd speak with the Duke of Cornwall and his wife.
GLOUCESTER.
Well, my good lord, I have inform'd them so.
LEAR.
Inform'd them! Dost thou understand me, man?
GLOUCESTER.
Ay, my good lord.
LEAR.
The King would speak with Cornwall; the dear father
Would 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 —
No, but not yet: may be he is not well:
Infirmity doth still neglect all office
Whereto our health is bound: we are not ourselves
When nature, being oppress'd, commands the mind
To suffer with the body: I'll forbear;
And am fallen out with my more headier will,
To take the indispos'd and sickly fit
For the sound man. — Death on my state! Wherefore
[Looking on Kent.]
Should he sit here? This act persuades me
That this remotion of the duke and her
Is 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.'
