| ACT II SCENE III | A wood. | |
| | Enter EDGAR | |
| EDGAR | I heard myself proclaim'd; | |
| | And by the happy hollow of a tree | |
| | Escaped the hunt. No port is free; no place, | |
| | That guard, and most unusual vigilance, | 5 |
| | Does not attend my taking. Whiles I may 'scape, | |
| | I will preserve myself: and am bethought | |
| | To take the basest and most poorest shape | |
| | That ever penury, in contempt of man, | |
| | Brought near to beast: my face I'll grime with filth; | 10 |
| | Blanket my loins: elf all my hair in knots; | |
| | And with presented nakedness out-face | |
| | The winds and persecutions of the sky. | |
| | The country gives me proof and precedent | |
| | Of Bedlam beggars, who, with roaring voices, | 15 |
| | Strike in their numb'd and mortified bare arms | |
| | Pins, 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, | 20 |
| | Enforce their charity. Poor Turlygod! poor Tom! | |
| | That's something yet: Edgar I nothing am. | |
| | Exit | |
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