King Lear

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,
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
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
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 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.
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.
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—
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:
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 used with feet.
This prophecy Merlin shall make; for I live before his time. Exit.

Scene III

Gloucester’s castle.

	Enter Gloucester and Edmund.
Gloucester	Alack, alack, Edmund, I like not this unnatural dealing. When I desire 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.
Edmund	Most savage and unnatural!
Gloucester	Go to; say you nothing. There’s a division betwixt the dukes; and a worse matter than that: I have received a letter this night; ’tis dangerous to be spoken; I have locked the letter in my closet: these injuries the king now bears will be revenged home; there’s 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. Though 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. Exit.
Edmund	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. Exit.

Scene IV

The heath. Before a hovel.

	Enter King 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.
King Lear	Let me alone.
Kent	Good my lord, enter here.
King Lear	Wilt break my heart?
Kent	I had rather break mine own. Good my lord, enter.
King Lear	Thou think’st ’tis much that this contentious storm Invades us to the skin: so ’tis to thee; But where the greater malady is fix’d, The lesser is scarce felt. Thou’ldst shun a bear; But if thy flight lay toward the raging sea, Thou’ldst 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 should tear this hand For lifting food to’t? But I will punish home: No, I will weep no more. In such a night To shut me out! Pour on; I will endure. 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.
Kent	Good my lord, enter here.
King 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. To the Fool. In, boy; go first. You houseless poverty⁠— Nay, get thee in. I’ll pray, and then I’ll sleep. Fool goes in. Poor naked wretches, whereso’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 mayst shake the superflux to them, And show the heavens more just.
Edgar	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?
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 mad man.
Edgar	Away! the foul fiend follows me! Through the sharp hawthorn blows the cold wind. Hum! go to thy cold bed, and warm thee.
King Lear	Hast thou given all to thy two daughters? And art thou come to this?
Edgar	Who gives any thing