Act IIScene III
The open Country
Enter Edgar.
Edgar
I heard myself proclaim’d,And by the happy hollow of a treeEscap’d the hunt. No port is free, no placeThat guard and most unusual vigilanceDoes not attend my taking. While I may scapeI will preserve myself: and am bethoughtTo take the basest and most poorest shapeThat ever penury in contempt of man,Brought near to beast: my face I’ll grime with filth,Blanket my loins; elf all my hair in knots,And with presented nakedness outfaceThe winds and persecutions of the sky.The country gives me proof and precedentOf Bedlam beggars, who, with roaring voices,Strike in their numb’d and mortified bare armsPins, wooden pricks, nails, sprigs of rosemary;And with this horrible object, from low farms,Poor pelting villages, sheep-cotes, and mills,Sometime with lunatic bans, sometime with prayers,Enforce their charity. Poor Turlygod! poor Tom,That’s something yet: Edgar I nothing am.
Exit.