My dear lord, You know the fiery quality of the Duke

Gloucester
My dear lord,
You know the fiery quality of the Duke,
How unremovable and fixed he is
In his own course.
King Lear
Vengeance, plague, death, confusion!
—Fiery? What —quality? Why Gloucester, Gloucester,
I'd speak with the Duke of Cornwall and his wife.
Gloucester
Well, my good lord, I have informed them so.
King Lear
—Informed them? Dost thou understand me, man?
Gloucester
Ay, my good lord.
King Lear
The King would speak with Cornwall. The dear father
Would with his daughter speak, commands, tends service.
Are they —informed of this? My breath and blood!
—Fiery? The —fiery duke? Tell the hot duke that—
No, but not yet. Maybe he is not well.
Infirmity doth still neglect all office
Whereto our health is bound. We are not ourselves
When nature, being oppressed, commands the mind
To suffer with the body. I'll forbear,
And am fallen out with my more headier will,
To take the indisposed and sickly fit
For the sound man.
Noticing Kent again.
Death on my state! Wherefore
Should he sit here? This act persuades me
That this remotion of the Duke and her
Is practice only. Give me my servant forth.
Go tell the Duke and ‘s wife I'd speak with them.
Now, presently, bid them come forth and hear me,
Or at their chamber door I'll beat the drum
Till it cry sleep to death.
Gloucester
I would have all well betwixt you.
He exits.
King Lear
O me, my heart, my rising heart! But down!
Fool
Cry to it, nuncle, as the cockney did to the eels
when she put 'em i' th' paste alive. She knapped
'em o' th' coxcombs with a stick and cried —Down,
wantons, down! ‘Twas her brother that in pure
kindness to his horse buttered his hay.