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Till you have drench'd our steeples, drown'd the cocks!
You sulphurous and thought-executing fires,

Vaunt-couriers to oak-cleaving thunder-bolts,

Singe my white head! And thou, all-shaking thunder,
Strike flat the thick rotundity o' the world!

Crack nature's moulds, all germins spill at once,

That make ingrateful man!

Fool. O nuncle, court holy-water in a dry house is better than this rain-water out o' door. Good nuncle, in, and ask thy daughter's blessing: here's a night pities neither wise men nor fools. Lear. Rumble thy bellyful! 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 will with two pernicious daughters join
Your high-engender'd battles 'gainst a head
So old and white as this. O! O! 't is foul!

Fool. He that has a house to put 's head in has a good headpiece.

The cod-piece that will house,

Before the head has any,

The head and he shall louse;

So 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. 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,
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,
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 fear.

Lear.

Let the great gods,
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 perjur'd, and thou simular of virtue
That art incestuous: caitiff, to pieces shake,
That under covert and convenient seeming
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,
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 't is rais'd, Which even but now, demanding after you,

Denied me to come in) return, and force

Their scanted courtesy.

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The art of our necessities is strange,

That can make vile things precious. Come, your hovel.

Poor fool and knave, I have one part in my heart
That's sorry yet for thee.

Fool. He that has a little tiny wit,

With heigh, ho, the wind and the rain,
Must make content with his fortunes fit;
For the rain it raineth every day.

[Sings.

Lear. True, my good boy. - Come, bring us to this hovel.

[Exeunt LEAR and KENT.

Fool. This is a brave night to cool a courtezan.

a prophecy ere I go :

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;

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;
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.

I'll speak

This prophecy Merlin shall make; for I live before his time.

SCENE III.

A Room in GLOSTER'S Castle.

Enter GLOSTER and Edmund.

[Exit.

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 their perpetual displeasure, neither to speak of him, entreat for him, nor any way sustain him.

Edm. Most savage, and unnatural!

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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 seek 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 some strange thing toward, Edmund; pray you, be careful.

Edm. This courtesy, forbid thee, shall the duke
Instantly know; and of that letter too.

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.

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,

The tyranny of the open night's too rough

For nature to endure.

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[Exit.

[Exit.

enter:

[Storm still

Wilt break my heart?

Good my lord, enter.

Lear. Thou think'st '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;

But if thy flight lay toward the roaring sea,

Thou 'dst meet the bear i' the mouth. When the mind 's free,

The body's delicate: the tempest in my mind

Doth from my senses take all feeling else,

Save what beats there. - Filial ingratitude!

Is it not as this mouth
For lifting food to 't?

should tear this hand,

But I will punish home.

No, I will weep no more. - In such a night

To shut me out!

Pour on; I will endure:

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In such a night as this! O Regan, Goneril!-
Your old kind father, whose frank heart gave all,
O! that way madness lies; let me shun that;
No more of that.

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Lear. Pr'ythee, 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.

Poor naked wretches, wheresoe'er you are,
That bide the pelting of this pitiless storm,
How shall your houseless heads, and unfed sides,
Your loop'd and window'd raggedness, defend you
From seasons such as these? O! I have ta'en
Too little care of this. Take physic, pomp;
Expose thyself to feel what wretches feel,
That thou may'st shake the superflux to them,
And show the heavens more just.

[Fool goes in.

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!

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Fool. A spirit, a spirit: he says his name 's poor Tom. Kent. What art thou that dost grumble there i' the straw? Come forth.

Enter EDGAR, disguised as a Madman.
Edg. Away! the foul fiend follows me!
Through the sharp hawthorn blows the cold wind.
Humph! go to thy cold bed, and warm thee.

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