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 5 notethought-executing fires,
Vaunt-couriers6 note
to oak-cleaving thunder-bolts,
Singe my white head! And thou all-shaking thunder,
7 noteStrike flat the thick rotundity o' the world!
8 note
Crack nature's moulds; all germens spill at once9 note
,
That make ingrateful man!
-- 455 --
Fool.
O nuncle, court holy-water1 note 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 men nor fools.
Lear.
Rumble thy belly full! 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,
2 noteYou owe me no subscription; why then let fall
Your horrible pleasure; 3 note
here I stand, your slave,
A poor, infirm, weak, and despis'd 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! 4 note'tis foul!
Fool.
He that has a house to put's head in, has a
good head-piece.
-- 456 --
The cod-piece that will house,
Before the head has any:
The head and he shall louse;—
5 noteSo beggars marry many.
The man that makes his toe
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.
6 note
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-piece7 note;
that's a wise man, and a fool.
Kent.
Alas sir, 8 noteare you here? things that love night,
Love not such nights as these; the wrathful skies
9 note
Gallow the very wanderers of the dark,
And make them keep their caves: Since I was man,
-- 457 --
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 1 notefear.
Lear.
Let the great gods,
That keep 2 note
this dreadful pother o'er our heads,
Find out their enemies now. Tremble, thou wretch,
That hast within thee undivulged crimes,
Unwhipt of justice: Hide thee, thou bloody hand;
Thou perjur'd, and 3 note
thou simular man of virtue
That art incestuous: Caitiff, to pieces shake,
4 noteThat under covert and convenient seeming
Hast practis'd on man's life!—Close pent-up guilts,
Rive your 5 note
concealing continents, 6 note
and cry
-- 458 --
These dreadful summoners grace.—I am a man7 note
,
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,
Deny'd 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 8 note
one part in my heart
That's sorry yet for thee.
Fool.
9 note
He that has a little tiny wit,—
With heigh, ho, the wind and the rain—
-- 459 --
Must make content with his fortunes fit;
For the rain it raineth every day.
Lear.
True, my good boy.—Come, bring us to
this hovel.
[Exit.
Fool.
This is a brave night to cool a courtezan.
1 note
I'll speak a prophecy ere I go:
-- 460 --
When priests are more in word than matter;
When brewers mar their malt with water;
2 noteWhen nobles are their tailors' tutors;
3 noteNo heretics burn'd, but wenches' suitors:
Then comes the time, who lives to see't,
That going shall be us'd with feet.—
When every case in law is right;
No squire in debt, nor no poor knight;
When slanders do not live in tongues;
Nor cut-purses come not to throngs;
When usurers tell their gold i' the field;
And bawds, and whores, do churches build;—
Then shall the realm of Albion
Come to great confusion.
-- 461 --
4 note
This prophecy Merlin shall make; for I live before
his time.
[Exit.
Samuel Johnson [1778], The plays of William Shakspeare. In ten volumes. With the corrections and illustrations of various commentators; to which are added notes by Samuel Johnson and George Steevens. The second edition, Revised and Augmented (Printed for C. Bathurst [and] W. Strahan [etc.], London) [word count] [S10901].
