SCENE II.

Another part of the heath. Storm still.

Enter LEAR and Fool.

Lear. Blow, winds, and crack your cheeks! rage! blow! You cataracts and hurricanoes, spout

Till you have drench'd our steeples, drown'd the cocks!
You sulphurous and thought-executing fires,
Vaunt-couriers to oak-cleaving thunderbolts,

Singe my white head! And thou, all-shaking thunder,
Smite flat the thick rotundity o'the world!

Crack nature's moulds, all germens spill at once,
That make ingrateful man!

9

Fool. O nuncle, court holy-water in a dry house is better than this rain-water out o' door. Good nuncle, in, and ask thy daughters' blessing: here's a night pities neither wise man nor fool.

Lear. Rumble thy bellyful! Spit, fire! spout, rain!
Nor rain, wind, thunder, fire, are my daughters:
I tax not you, you elements, with unkindness;
I never gave you kingdom, call'd you children,
You owe me no subscription: then let fall
Your horrible pleasure; here I stand, your slave,
A poor, infirm, weak and despised old man:
But yet I call you servile ministers,

That have with two pernicious daughters join'd
Your high-engender'd battles 'gainst a head

So old and white as this. O! O! 'tis foul!

20

Fool. He that has a house to put's head in has a good head-piece.

The man that makes his toe

What he his heart should make

Shall of a corn cry woe,

And turn his sleep to wake.

30

For there was never yet fair woman but she made mouths

in a glass.

Lear. No, I will be the pattern of all patience; I will say nothing.

Enter KENT.

Kent. Who's there?

Fool. Marry, here's a wise man and a fool.

Kent. Alas, sir, are you here? things that love night
Love not such nights as these; the wrathful skies
Gallow the very wanderers of the dark,

And make them keep their caves: since I was man,
Such sheets of fire, such bursts of horrid thunder,
Such groans of roaring wind and rain, I never
Remember to have heard: man's nature cannot carry
The affliction nor the fear.

Lear.

Let the great gods,

That keep this dreadful pother o'er our heads,
Find out their enemies now. Tremble, thou wretch,
That hast within thee undivulged crimes,

Unwhipp'd of justice: hide thee, thou bloody hand;
Thou perjured, and thou simular man of virtue
That art incestuous: caitiff, to pieces shake,
That under covert and convenient seeming
Hast practised on man's life: close pent-up guilts,
Rive your concealing continents and cry
These dreadful summoners grace. I am a man
More sinn'd against than sinning.

Kent.

Alack, bare-headed!

Gracious my lord, hard by here is a hovel;
Some friendship will it lend you 'gainst the tempest:
Repose you there; while I to this hard house-
More harder than the stones whereof 'tis raised;
Which even but now, demanding after you,
Denied me to come in-return, and force
Their scanted courtesy.

Lear.

My wits begin to turn.

Come on, my boy: how dost, my boy? art cold?

40

50

60

I am cold myself. Where is this straw, my fellow?
The art of our necessities is strange,

That can make vile things precious. Come, your hove!.
Poor fool and knave, I have one part in my heart
That's sorry yet for thee.

Fool. [Singing] He that has and a little tiny wit, —
With hey, ho, the wind and the rain,―
Must make content with his fortunes fit,
For the rain it raineth every day.

Lear.

hovel.

70

True, my good boy. Come, bring us to this

[Exeunt Lear and Kent.

Fool. I'll speak a prophecy ere I go:

When priests are more in word than matter;
When brewers mar their malt with water;
When nobles are their tailors' tutors;
No heretics burn'd, but wenches' suitors;
When every case in law is right;
No squire in debt, nor no poor knight;
When slanders do not live in tongues;
Nor cutpurses come not to throngs;
Then shall the realm of Albion

Come to great confusion:

Then comes the time, who lives to see 't,
That going shall be used with feet.

80

This prophecy Merlin shall make; for I live before his

time.

[Exit.

SCENE III. Gloucester's castle.

Enter GLOUCESTER and EDMUND.

Glou. Alack, alack, Edmund, I like not this unnatural dealing. When I desired their leave that I might pity him, they took from me the use of mine own house; charged

me, on pain of their perpetual displeasure, neither to speak of him, entreat for him, nor any way sustain him. Edm. Most savage and unnatural!

6

Glou. Go to; say you nothing. There's a division betwixt the dukes; and a worse matter than that: I have received a letter this night; 'tis dangerous to be spoken; I have locked the letter in my closet: these injuries the king now bears will be revenged home; there's part of a power already footed: we must incline to the king. I will seek him, and privily relieve him: go you and maintain talk with the duke, that my charity be not of him perceived if he ask for me, I am ill and gone to bed. Though I die for it, as no less is threatened me, the king my old master must be relieved. There is some strange thing toward, Edmund; pray you, be careful.

Edm. This courtesy, forbid thee, shall the duke
Instantly know; and of that letter too:
This seems a fair deserving, and must draw me
That which my father loses; no less than all:
The younger rises when the old doth fall.

SCENE IV. The heath. Before a hovel.

Enter LEAR, KENT, and Fool.

[Exit.

20

[Exit.

Kent. Here is the place, my lord; good my lord, enter: The tyranny of the open night's too rough

Lear. Thou think'st 'tis much that this contentious

storm

Invades us to the skin: so 'tis to thee;

But where the greater malady is fix'd,

The lesser is scarce felt. Thou 'ldst shun a bear;

But if thy flight lay toward the raging sea,

IO

Thou 'ldst meet the bear i' the mouth. When the mind's

free,

The body's delicate: the tempest in my mind
Doth from my senses take all feeling else
Save what beats there. Filial ingratitude!

Is it not as this mouth should tear this hand

For lifting food to 't? But I will punish home.
No, I will weep no more.
In such a night

To shut me out! Pour on; I will endure.

In such a night as this! O Regan, Goneril!

Your old kind father, whose frank heart gave you all,—
O, that way madness lies; let me shun that;
No more of that.

Kent.

Good my lord, enter here.

Lear. Prithee, go in thyself; seek thine own ease:
This tempest will not give me leave to ponder
On things would hurt me more. But I'll go in.

[To the Fool] In, boy; go first. You houseless poverty,—
Nay, get thee in. I'll pray, and then I'll sleep.

20

[Fool goes in.

Poor naked wretches, wheresoe'er you are,
That bide the pelting of this pitiless storm,
How shall your houseless heads and unfed sides,
Your loop'd and window'd raggedness, defend you
From seasons such as these? O, I have ta'en
Too little care of this! Take physic, pomp;
Expose thyself to feel what wretches feel,
That thou mayst shake the superflux to them
And show the heavens more just.

30

Edg. [Within] Fathom and half, fathom and half! Poor Tom! [The Fool runs out from the hovel. Fool. Come not in here, nuncle, here's a spirit. Help me, help me!

Kent. Give me thy hand. Who's there?

40