GLOUCESTER:
There is a cliff whose high and bending head
Looks fearfully in the confined deep:
Bring me but to the very brim of it,
And I'll repair the misery thou dost bear
With something rich about me: from that place
I shall no leading need.-- King Lear, Act 4, Scene 1
Googling this phrase brings up an article from the UK newspaper "The Independent", written in 1993 on the occasion of Shakespeare's 429th birthday, which synopsizes the scene as follows:
Poor Tom, Gloucester's estranged son Edgar in disguise, leads his father part-way up the 'horrible steep', and convinces him that he stands on the brink ('The fishermen that walk upon the beach / Appear like mice'). Renouncing the world, and begging forgiveness from his son, the blind man throws himself forward to certain death. But Edgar has deceived him: Gloucester falls only on the grass. Returning in the guise of a local peasant, Edgar persuades his father that he has plummeted the height of 10 masts ('Thy life's a miracle'). The mental ordeal purges the old man of his despair. His imaginary fall restores us to solid ground.
And so it is.
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