King Lear Modern Translation: Act 2, Scene 3

Edgar had taken refuge in a wood.  He had heard himself proclaimed an outlaw and gone to the wood, escaping the hunt by hiding in a convenient hollow tree. No gates or doors were safe. There was no place that wasn’t tightly guarded, with re-inforcements, in order to capture him. While he knew that he could escape he would have to be on his guard. He intended to assume the disguise of the lowest and most wretched kind of man that poverty had ever dragged down to the level of an animal. He would smear his face with filth, wear a loincloth, allow his hair to become matted, and face the elements with nakedness. He had seen many mad beggars around the countryside, who shouted and stuck pins, wooden splinters, nails and sprigs of rosemary into their cold and numb bare arms then used that horrible spectacle to extort charity from humble farms, poor villages, sheep farms and mills. Sometimes they used lunatic curses, sometimes prayers. He imitated a crazy beggar: ‘Poor Turlygod! Poor Tom!’ he said out loud. There was at least some life for him in that. As Edgar he had nothing.

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