(As fear not but you shall,) show her this ring; And she will tell you who that fellow is That yet you do not know. Fye on this storm! I will go seek the king. 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, Holla the other. [Exeunt severally. SCENE II.-Another Part of the Heath. Storm continues. 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! Vaunt couriers of oak-cleaving thunder-bolts, Crack nature's moulds, all germens spill at once, FOOL. O nuncle, court holy-water in a dry house is better than this rain-water out o' door. Good nuncle, in; ask thy daughters' blessing; here's a night pities neither wise men nor fools. LEAR. Rumble thy bellyfull! Spit, fire! spout, rain ! FOOL. He that has a house to put his head in, has a good head-piece. The cod-piece that will house, The head and he shall louse :- What he his heart should make, 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 And make them keep their caves: since I was man, Remember to have heard: man's nature cannot carry 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, Unwhipp'd of justice: Hide thee, thou bloody hand; That art incestuous: Caitiff, to pieces shake, Hast practis'd on man's life!-Close pent-up guilts, Rive your concealing continents, and cry These dreadful summoners grace.—I am a man 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 't is rais'd: Which even but now, demanding after you, Denied me to come in) return and force Their scanty courtesy. LEAR. Come on, my boy: I am cold myself. My wits begin to turn.— How dost, my boy? Art cold? Where is this straw, my fellow? The art of our necessities is strange, And can make vile things precious. Come, your hovel; FOOL. [Singing.] He that has and a little tiny wit, With heigh, ho, the wind and the rain,— LEAR. True, boy.-Come, bring us to this hovel. When priests are more in word than matter; No squire in debt, nor no poor knight; 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 perpetual displeasure, neither to speak of him, entreat for him, or 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;—'t is 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 look 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 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. [Exit. 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. [Storm still. Wilt break my heart? KENT. I'd rather break mine own: Good my lord, enter. LEAR. Thou thinkst 't is much, that this contentious storm Invades us to the skin: so 't is to thee; But where the greater malady is fix'd, The lesser is scarce felt. Thou 'dst shun a bear: free When the mind's The body's delicate: the tempest in my mind KENT. 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. 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, Too little care of this! Take physic, pomp; Expose thyself to feel what wretches feel; EDG. [Within.] Fathom and half, fathom and half! Poor Tom! [The Fool runs out from the hovel. FOOL. Come not in here, nuncle, here's a spirit. Help me, help me! KENT. Give me thy hand. Who's there? |