The London Times
London, England — Monday, December 21, 1135 — Act Two ______________________________________________________________________________________ ____
A bitter reunion “Persuade me to the murder of your lordship; But that I told him, the revenging gods 'Gainst parricides did all their thunders bend; Spoke, with how manifold and strong a bond The child was bound to the father; sir, in fine, Seeing how loathly opposite I stood To his unnatural purpose, in fell motion, With his prepared sword, he charges home My unprovided body, lanced mine arm: But when he saw my best alarum'd spirits, Bold in the quarrel's right, roused to the encounter, Or whether gasted by the noise I made, Full suddenly he fled,” Edmond said.
Kent plays dress up “A knave; a rascal; an eater of broken meats; a base, proud, shallow, beggarly, threesuited, hundredpound, filthy, worstedstocking knave; a lilylivered, actiontaking knave, a whoreson, glassgazing, superserviceable finical rogue; onetrunkinheriting slave; one that wouldst be a bawd, in way of good service, and art nothing but the composition of a knave, beggar, coward, pandar, and the son and heir of a mongrel bitch: one whom I will beat into clamorous whining, if thou deniest the least syllable of thy addition,” Kent said.
Lear speaks to Kent disguised as a beggar with Gloucester onlooking as he is bound in stocks. “This is some fellow, Who, having been praised for bluntness, doth affect A saucy roughness, and constrains the garb Quite from his nature: he cannot flatter, he, An honest mind and plain, he must speak truth! An they will take it, so; if not, he's plain. These kind of knaves I know, which in this plainness Harbour more craft and more corrupter ends Than twenty silly ducking observants That stretch their duties nicely,” Cornwall said.