Lear.  Now, I pr’ythee, daughter, do not make me mad;
     I will not trouble thee, my child; farewell: 
     We’ll no more meet, no more see one another:—­
     But yet thou art my flesh, my blood, my daughter;
     Or, rather, a disease that’s in my flesh,
     Which I must needs call mine:  thou art a bile,
     A plague-sore, an embossed carbuncle,
     In my corrupted blood.  But I’ll not chide thee: 
     Let shame come when it will, I do not call it: 
     I did not bid the thunder-bearer shoot,
     Nor tell tales of thee to high-judging Jove: 
     Mend when thou canst; be better, at thy leisure: 
     I can be patient; I can stay with Regan,
     I, and my hundred knights.

   Regan.  Not altogether so, sir;
     I look’d not for you yet, nor am provided
     For your fit welcome:  Give ear, sir, to my sister;
     For those that mingle reason with your passion
     Must be content to think you old, and so—­
     But she knows what she does.

   Lear.  Is this well spoken now?

   Regan.  I dare avouch it, sir:  What, fifty followers? 
     Is it not well?  What should you need of more? 
     Yea, or so many?  Sith that both charge and danger
     Speak ’gainst so great a number?  How, in one house,
     Should many people, under two commands,
     Hold amity?  Tis hard; almost impossible.

   Gonerill.  Why might you not, my lord, receive attendance
     From those that she calls servants, or from mine?

   Regan.  Why not, my lord?  If then they chanc’d to slack you,
     We would control them:  if you will come to me
     (For now I spy a danger) I entreat you
     To bring but five-and-twenty; to no more
     Will I give place, or notice.

   Lear.  I gave you all—­

   Regan.  And in good time you gave it.

Lear.  Made you my guardians, my depositaries;
But kept a reservation to be follow’d
With such a number:  what, must I come to you
With five-and-twenty, Regan! said you so?

Regan.  And speak it again, my lord; no more with me.

Lear.  Those wicked creatures yet do look well-favour’d,
When others are more wicked; not being the worst,
Stands in some rank of praise:—­I’ll go with thee;
[To Gonerill.]
Thy fifty yet doth double five-and-twenty,
And thou art twice her love.

Gonerill.  Hear me, my lord;
What need you five-and-twenty, ten, or five,
To follow in a house, where twice so many
Have a command to tend you?

Regan.  What need one?

   Lear.  O, reason not the need:  our basest beggars
     Are in the poorest thing superfluous: 
     Allow not nature more than nature needs,
     Man’s life is cheap as beast’s:  thou art a lady;
     If only to go warm were gorgeous,
     Why, nature needs not what thou gorgeous wear’st;