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. Kent. No, do not. For confirmation that I am much more 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. [Exeunt severally. SCENE II. Another Part of the Heath. Storm continues. Lear. Blow, wind, and crack your cheeks! rage! blow! You cataracts, and hurricanoes, spout cocks! You sulphurous and thought-executing fires, Vaunt-couriers to oak-cleaving thunderbolts, Singe my white head! 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, Nor rain, wind, thunder, fire, are my daughters; 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, carry The affliction, nor the fear. Let the great gods, 1 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 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 hard than is the stone whereof 'tis rais'd; 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? 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, Must make content with his fortunes fit; Lear. True, my good boy. Come, bring us to this hovel. 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; No hereticks burn'd, but wenches' suitors: When every case in law is right; When usurers tell their gold i' the field; Then shall the realm of Albion Come to great confusion. Then comes the time, who lives to see't, That going shall be us'd with feet. 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 For nature to endure. Lear. [Storm still. Let me alone. Kent. Good my lord, enter here. Lear. 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; mind's free, The body's delicate: the tempest in my mind all, O, that way madness lies; let me shun that; 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, |