Act III, 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!

You sulphurous and thought-executing fires,

Vaunt couriers to oak-cleaving thunderbolts,

Singe my white head! And thou, all-shaking thunder,

Strike flat the thick rotundity o' the world!

Crack nature's moulds, all germens 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 daughters

blessing: here's a night pities nether 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! 'tis foul!

Fool.:

He that has a house to put 's head in has a good head-piece.

The codpiece 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.

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 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

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 man 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, bareheaded!

Gracious my lord, hard by here is a hovel;

Some friendship will it lend you 'gainst the tempest:

Repose you there, whilst I to this hard house,—

More harder than the stones whereof 'tis rais'd;

Which even but now, demanding after you,

Denied me to come in,—return, and force

Their scanted courtesy.

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.

Lear.:

True, boy.—Come, bring us to this hovel.

[Exeunt 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 us'd with feet.

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

[Exit.]