| ACT III SCENE II | Another part of the heath. Storm still. | |
| [Enter KING LEAR and Fool] |
| KING 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 thought-executing fires, |
| Vaunt-couriers to oak-cleaving thunderbolts, | 5 |
| Singe my white head! And thou, all-shaking thunder, |
| Smite flat the thick rotundity o' the world! |
| Crack nature's moulds, an germens spill at once, |
| That make ingrateful man! |
| Fool | O nuncle, court holy-water in a dry | 10 |
| 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 man nor fool. |
| KING LEAR | Rumble thy bellyful! Spit, fire! spout, rain! |
| Nor rain, wind, thunder, fire, are my daughters: | 15 |
| 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 despised old man: | 20 |
| 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! 'tis foul! |
| Fool | He that has a house to put's head in has a good | 25 |
| head-piece. |
| The cod-piece that will house |
| Before the head has any, |
| The head and he shall louse; |
| So beggars marry many. | 30 |
| 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 | 35 |
| mouths in a glass. |
| KING LEAR | No, I will be the pattern of all patience; |
| I will say nothing. |
| [Enter KENT] |
| KENT | Who's there? |
| Fool | Marry, here's grace and a cod-piece; that's a wise | 40 |
| 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, | 45 |
| 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. |
| KING LEAR | Let the great gods, | 50 |
| That keep this dreadful pother 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; |
| Thou perjured, and thou simular man of virtue | 55 |
| That art incestuous: caitiff, to pieces shake, |
| That under covert and convenient seeming |
| Hast practised on man's life: close pent-up guilts, |
| Rive your concealing continents, and cry |
| These dreadful summoners grace. I am a man | 60 |
| 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-- | 65 |
| 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. |
| KING LEAR | My wits begin to turn. | 70 |
| 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. | 75 |
| Poor fool and knave, I have one part in my heart |
| That's sorry yet for thee. |
| Fool | [Singing] |
| He that has and a little tiny wit-- |
| With hey, ho, the wind and the rain,-- | 80 |
| Must make content with his fortunes fit, |
| For the rain it raineth every day. |
| KING LEAR | True, my good boy. Come, bring us to this hovel. |
| [Exeunt KING LEAR and KENT] |
| Fool | This is a brave night to cool a courtezan. |
| I'll speak a prophecy ere I go: | 85 |
| When priests are more in word than matter; |
| When brewers mar their malt with water; |
| When nobles are their tailors' tutors; |
| No heretics burn'd, but wenches' suitors; |
| When every case in law is right; | 90 |
| No squire in debt, nor no poor knight; |
| When slanders do not live in tongues; |
| Nor cutpurses come not to throngs; |
| When usurers tell their gold i' the field; |
| And bawds and whores do churches build; | 95 |
| Then shall the realm of Albion |
| Come to great confusion: |
| Then comes the time, who lives to see't, |
| That going shall be used with feet. |
| This prophecy Merlin shall make; for I live before his time. | 100 |
| [Exit] |
King Lear Overview