Lear.
Low winds, and crack your cheeks; rage, blow!
You cataracts, and hurricanoes, spout
Till you have drench'd our steeples, drown'd the cocks!
You sulph'rous and thought-executing fires,
Vaunt-couriers of oak cleaving thunder-bolts,
Singe my white head. And thou all shaking thunder,
Strike flat the thick rotundity o'th'world;
Crack nature's mould, all germins spill at once
That make ingrateful man.

Kent.
Not all my best intreaties can persuade him
Into some needful shelter, or to 'bide
This poor slight cov'ring on his aged head,
Expos'd to this wild war of earth and heav'n. [Thunder.

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;
You owe me no subscription. Then let fall
Your horrible pleasure;—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 joyn'd

Your high-engender'd battles, 'gainst a head
So old and white as this. Oh! oh! 'tis foul.

Kent.
Hard by, sir, is a hovel that will lend
Some shelter from this tempest.

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

Kent.
Alas, Sir! things that love night,
Love not such nights as these: the wrathful Skies
Gallow the very wand'rers 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.

Lear.
Let the great gods,
That keep this dreadful pudder 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 perjure, and thou simular of virtue,
That art incestuous: caitiff, shake to pieces,
That under covert and convenient seeming,
Hast practis'd on man's life:—Close pent-up guilts,
Rive your concealing continents, and ask
These dreadful summoners grace.—I am a man,
More sinn'd against, than sinning.

Kent.
Good sir, to the hovel!

Lear.
My wits begin to turn.
Come on, my boy. How dost, my boy? art cold?
I'm cold myself. Where is the straw, my fellow?
The art of our necessities is strange,
That can make vile things precious. Come, your hovel;
Poor knave, I've one part in my heart,
That's sorry yet for thee. [Exeunt.

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