King Lear by William Shakespeare
Act 3 - Scene 2
Another part of the heath. Storm still.
Lear : Blow, winds, and crack your cheeks! rage! blow!
[p]You cataracts and
hurricanoes, spout
[p]Till you have drench'd our steeples, drown'd the
cocks!
[p]You sulph'rous and thought-executing
fires,
[p]Vaunt-couriers to oak-cleaving thunderbolts,
[p]Singe my
white head! And thou, all-shaking thunder,
[p]Strike flat the thick
rotundity o' th' world,
[p]Crack Nature's moulds, all germains spill
at once,
[p]That makes ingrateful man!
Fool : O nuncle, court holy water in a dry house is better than this
[p]rain
water out o' door. Good nuncle, in, and ask thy daughters
[p]blessing!
Here's a night pities nether wise men nor fools.
Lear : Rumble thy bellyful! Spit, fire! spout, rain!
[p]Nor rain, wind,
thunder, fire are my daughters.
[p]I tax not you, you elements, with
unkindness.
[p]I never gave you kingdom, call'd you children,
[p]You
owe me no subscription. Then let fall
[p]Your horrible pleasure. Here
I stand your slave,
[p]A poor, infirm, weak, and despis'd old
man.
[p]But yet I call you servile ministers,
[p]That will with two
pernicious daughters join
[p]Your high-engender'd battles 'gainst a
head
[p]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.
[p]
The codpiece that will house
[p] Before the head has any,
[p]
The head and he shall louse:
[p] So beggars marry many.
[p]
The man that makes his toe
[p] What he his heart should make
[p]
Shall of a corn cry woe,
[p] And turn his sleep to
wake.
[p]For there was never yet fair woman but she made mouths in
a
[p]glass.
Lear : No, I will be the pattern of all patience;
[p]I will say nothing.
Earl of Kent : Who's there?
Fool : Marry, here's grace and a codpiece; that's a wise man and a
[p]fool.
Earl of Kent : Alas, sir, are you here? Things that love night
[p]Love not such
nights as these. The wrathful skies
[p]Gallow the very wanderers of
the dark
[p]And make them keep their caves. Since I was man,
[p]Such
sheets of fire, such bursts of horrid thunder,
[p]Such groans of
roaring wind and rain, I never
[p]Remember to have heard. Man's nature
cannot carry
[p]Th' affliction nor the fear.
Lear : Let the great gods,
[p]That keep this dreadful pudder o'er our
heads,
[p]Find out their enemies now. Tremble, thou wretch,
[p]That
hast within thee undivulged crimes
[p]Unwhipp'd of justice. Hide thee,
thou bloody hand;
[p]Thou perjur'd, and thou simular man of
virtue
[p]That art incestuous. Caitiff, in pieces shake
[p]That under
covert and convenient seeming
[p]Hast practis'd on man's life. Close
pent-up guilts,
[p]Rive your concealing continents, and cry
[p]These
dreadful summoners grace. I am a man
[p]More sinn'd against than
sinning.
Earl of Kent : Alack, bareheaded?
[p]Gracious my lord, hard by here is a
hovel;
[p]Some friendship will it lend you 'gainst the
tempest.
[p]Repose you there, whilst I to this hard house
[p](More
harder than the stones whereof 'tis rais'd,
[p]Which even but now,
demanding after you,
[p]Denied me to come in) return, and
force
[p]Their scanted courtesy.
Lear : My wits begin to turn.
[p]Come on, my boy. How dost, my boy? Art
cold?
[p]I am cold myself. Where is this straw, my fellow?
[p]The art
of our necessities is strange,
[p]That can make vile things precious.
Come, your hovel.
[p]Poor fool and knave, I have one part in my
heart
[p]That's sorry yet for thee.
Fool : [sings]
[p] He that has and a little tiny wit-
[p] With hey,
ho, the wind and the rain-
[p] Must make content with his fortunes
fit,
[p] For the rain it raineth every day.
Lear : True, my good boy. Come, bring us to this hovel.
Fool : This is a brave night to cool a courtesan. I'll speak a
[p]prophecy
ere I go:
[p] When priests are more in word than matter;
[p]
When brewers mar their malt with water;
[p] When nobles are their
tailors' tutors,
[p] No heretics burn'd, but wenches' suitors;
[p]
When every case in law is right,
[p] No squire in debt nor no
poor knight;
[p] When slanders do not live in tongues,
[p] Nor
cutpurses come not to throngs;
[p] When usurers tell their gold i'
th' field,
[p] And bawds and whores do churches build:
[p]
Then shall the realm of Albion
[p] Come to great confusion.
[p]
Then comes the time, who lives to see't,
[p] That going shall be
us'd with feet.
[p]This prophecy Merlin shall make, for I live before
his time. Exit.
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Next: Act 3 - Scene 3
