READ STUDY GUIDE: Act III, scenes i–iii |
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Act III, Scene ii:
Another part of the heath. Storm continues.
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.] |
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