LEAR. No, I will be the pattern of all patience;

I will say nothing.

Enter KENT.

KENT. Who's there?

35

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.

That keep this dreadful pother o'er our heads,
Find out their enemies now.

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Let the great gods,

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Tremble, thou wretch,

That hast within thee undivulged crimes,

Unwhipp'd of justice: hide thee, thou bloody hand;
Thou perjured, and thou simular of virtue

That art incestuous: caitiff, to pieces shake,
That under covert and convenient seeming

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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 sinned 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.

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60

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,

And can make vile things precious. Come, your hovel.

heart

Poor fool and knave, I have one part in my

That's sorry yet for thee.

FOOL. He that has and a little tiny wit

With heigh, ho, the wind and the rain

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[Singing.

70

Must make content with his fortunes fit,
Though the rain it raineth every day.

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

FOOL. I'll speak a prophecy ere I go.
This is a brave night,

[Exeunt LEAR and KENT.

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When priests are more in word than matter;
When brewers mar their malt with water;

This prophecy Merlin shall make; for I live before his time.

SCENE III. A room in GLOUCESTER'S castle.

Enter GLOUCESTER and EDMUND.

[Exit.

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 perpetual displeasure, 'neither to speak of him, entreat for him, nor any way sustain him.

EDM. Most savage and unnatural!

5

GLO. Go to; say you nothing. There's a 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 10 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. Though I die for it, as no less is 15 threatened me, the king my old master must be relieved. There is some strange things toward, Edmund; pray you, be careful.

EDM. This courtesy, forbid thee, shall the duke Instantly know; and of that letter too:

[Exit.

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.

20

[Exit.

SCENE IV. A part of the heath, with a hovel. Storm

continues.

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

But where the greater malady is fixed.

The lesser is scarce felt. Thou'dst shun a bear,

But if thy flight lay toward the roaring sea

10

Thou'dst 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 all,-
O, that way madness lies; let me shun that;
No more of that.

KENT.

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20

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.

[To the Fool.] In, boy; go first.

But I'll go in :

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You houseless poverty,

[Fool goes in.

Nay, get thee in. I'll pray, and then I'll sleep.

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.

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35

EDG. [Within.] Fathom and half, fathom and half!

Poor

Tom!

[The Fool runs out from the hovel.