Notes on Act III. scene vi

impatience: rage, unable to endure more

Frateretto: a demon

yeoman: property owner below the rank of gentleman (the fool's next line suggests that the yeoman has indulged his son, to raise him to higher status than himself)

thousand: an army carrying torches

arraign: bring his daughters to trial

straight: immediately

justicer: in his madness Lear thinks the fool is a judge, and Poor Tom a wise man

he: Lear? or one of the demons?

eyes: witnesses?

Come ... to me: popular song

leak: suggesting she's in her period

nightingale: the fool's singing

Hoppedance: another demon

yoke-fellow of equity: partner in justice

minikin: shrill, possibly referring to his pipe with which he calls the sheep.

gray: devils took the shape of gray cats

joint-stool: a stage prop that Lear thinks is his daughter

store: stuff

Corruption: bribery

'scape: in Lawrence Olivier's version, he mistakes Regan for a chicken who flies away.

five wits: common sense, imagination, fantasy, estimation, memory

mar my counterfeiting: ruin my disguise as a madman

Avaunt: away!

brach: bitch

lym: bloodhound

wakes: funerals

horn: madmen usually carried horns for begging; Edgar implies that he tires of his role and cannot maintain it much longer.

anatomize: dissect

Persian: exotic (speaking ironically of Tom's rags)

curtains: supposedly on his bed

noon: the fool's last line, he is not seen again (no explanation given)

litter: stretcher

provision: means of providing for safety

balm'd: soothed

stand in hard cure: will be hard to cure

our woes: woes similar to ours

free: carefree

o'er skip: it's easier to overlook our own suffering when we see that we do not suffer alone.

portable: bearable

childed as I father'd: he suffers from his children as I do my father.

Mark the high noises: take heed of the rumors of strife between those in power?

bewray: reveal yourself

repeals: when I am proved innocent of these false charges and reconcile with my father

What will hap: whatever happens

Lurk: hide