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 codpiece, 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
† ^noteGallow 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. Man's nature cannot carry
Th' affliction, nor the force.

Lear.
Let the great gods,
That keep this dreadful thund'ring 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;

^{b note}

Thou perjur'd, and thou simular man 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.
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 courtesie.

Lear.
My wits begin to turn.
Come on my boy. How dost my boy? art cold?
I'm cold my self. 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've one thing in my heart
That's sorry yet for thee.
Fool.
He that has and a little tynie wit,
With heigh ho, the wind and the rain,
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. [Ex.

† ^noteFool.
'Tis a brave night to cool a curtezan.
I'll speak a prophecy or ere I go;

When priests are more in words than matter,
When brewers marr their malt with water;
When nobles are their tailors tutors;
No hereticks burn'd, but wenches suitors;
When every case in law is right,
No Squire in debt, nor no poor Knight;
When slanders do not live in tongues,
And cut-purses come not to throngs;
When usurers tell their gold i'th' field,
And bawds and whores do churches build:
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 do live before his time. [Ex.

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