In some of our best ports, and are at point I am a gentleman of blood and breeding; Gent. I will talk further with you. That yet you do not know. Fye on this storm! I will go seek the king. Gent. Give me your hand: Have you no more to say? Kent. Few words, but, to effect, more than all yet; That, when we have found the king (in which your pain That way; I'll this); he that first lights on him, Holloa the other. SCENE II. [Exeunt severally. Another Part of the Heath. Storm continues. Enter LEAR and Fool. Lear. Blow, wind, 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 bead! And thou, all-shaking thunder, Strike flat the thick rotundity o' the world! Crack nature's moulds, all germens spill at once, That make ingrateful man! 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 daughter's blessing! Here's a night pities neither wise men nor fools. Lear. Rumble thy bellyful! Spit, fire! spout, rain! Nor rain, wind, thunder, fire, are my daughters; That have with two pernicious daughters join'd The cod-piece that will house, What he his heart should make Shall of a corn cry woe, And turn his sleep to wake. -for there was never yet fair woman, but she made mouths in a glass. Enter KENT. Lear. No, I will be the pattern of all patience, I will say nothing. Kent. Who's there? Fool. Marry, here's grace, and a cod-piece; that'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 perjur'd, and thou simular man of virtue Rive your concealing continents, and cry 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, Lear. My wits begin to turn,Come on, my boy: How dost, my boy? Art cold? 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 hovel, Poor fool and knave, I have one part in my heart That's sorry yet for thee. Fool. He that has a little tiny wit, With a heigh, ho, the wind and the rain,- For the rain it raineth every day. Lear. True, my good boy.-Come, bring us to this hovel. [Exeunt LEAR and KENT. Fool. This is a brave night to cool a courtesan. -I'll speak a prophecy ere I go: When priests are more in word than matter; When every case in law is right; Come to great confusion. Then comes the time, who lives to see't, This prophecy Merlin shall make; for I live before his time. [Exit. SCENE III. A Room in Gloster's Castle. Enter GLOSTER and EDMUND. Glo. 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! Glo. Go to; say you nothing: There is division between 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 is 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. If 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. [Exit. 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. A Part of the Heath, with a Hovel. Enter LEAR, KENT, and Fool. Kent. Here is the place, my lord; good my lord, enter: The tyranny of the open night's too rough Lear. [Storm still. Let me alone. Kent. Good my lord, enter here. Wilt break my heart? Kent. I'd rather break mine own: Good my lord, enter. Lear. Thou think'st 'tis much, that this contentious storm Invades us to the skin so 'tis to thee; The body's delicate: the tempest in my mind all, O, that way madness lies; let me shun that; No more of that, Kent. Good, my lord, enter here. Lear. 'Pr'ythee, 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: In, boy; go first.-[To the Fool.] You houseless poverty, Nay, get thee in. I'll pray, and then I'll sleep.[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, |