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King Lear : Act 3, Scene 2

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           Enter KING LEAR and Fool.

      KING LEAR
  1   Blow, winds, and crack your cheeks! rage! blow!
  2   You cataracts and hurricanoes, spout
  3   Till you have drench'd our steeples, drown'd the cocks!
  4   You sulphurous and thought-executing fires,
  5   Vaunt-couriers to oak-cleaving thunderbolts,
  6   Singe my white head! And thou, all-shaking thunder,
  7   Smite flat the thick rotundity o' the world!
  8   Crack nature's moulds, all germens spill at once,
  9   That make ingrateful man!

      Fool
 10   O nuncle, court holy-water in a dry house is better than
 11   this rain-water out o' door. Good nuncle, in, and ask thy
 12   daughters' blessing: here's a night pities neither wise man
 13   nor fool.

      KING LEAR
 14   Rumble thy bellyful! Spit, fire! spout, rain!
 15   Nor rain, wind, thunder, fire, are my daughters:
 16   I tax not you, you elements, with unkindness;
 17   I never gave you kingdom, call'd you children,
 18   You owe me no subscription: then let fall
 19   Your horrible pleasure: here I stand, your slave,
 20   A poor, infirm, weak, and despised old man:
 21   But yet I call you servile ministers,
 22   That have with two pernicious daughters join'd
 23   Your high engender'd battles 'gainst a head
 24   So old and white as this. O! O! 'tis foul!

      Fool
 25   He that has a house to put's head in has a good
 26   head-piece.
 27                  The cod-piece that will house
 28                     Before the head has any,
 29                  The head and he shall louse;
 30                     So beggars marry many.
 31                  The man that makes his toe
 32                     What he his heart should make
 33                  Shall of a corn cry woe,
 34                     And turn his sleep to wake.
 35   For there was never yet fair woman but she made
 36   mouths in a glass.

           Enter KENT [disguised as Caius].

      KING LEAR
 37   No, I will be the pattern of all patience;
 38   I will say nothing.

      KENT
 39   Who's there?

      Fool
 40   Marry, here's grace and a cod-piece—that's a wise
 41   man and a fool.

      KENT
 42   Alas, sir, are you here? things that love night
 43   Love not such nights as these; the wrathful skies
 44   Gallow the very wanderers of the dark,
 45   And make them keep their caves: since I was man,
 46   Such sheets of fire, such bursts of horrid thunder,
 47   Such groans of roaring wind and rain, I never
 48   Remember to have heard: man's nature cannot carry
 49   The affliction nor the fear.

      KING LEAR
 49                                               Let the great gods,
 50   That keep this dreadful pother o'er our heads,
 51   Find out their enemies now. Tremble, thou wretch,
 52   That hast within thee undivulged crimes,
 53   Unwhipp'd of justice: hide thee, thou bloody hand;
 54   Thou perjured, and thou simular of virtue
 55   That art incestuous! Caitiff, to pieces shake,
 56   That under covert and convenient seeming
 57   Hast practised on man's life! Close pent-up guilts,
 58   Rive your concealing continents, and cry
 59   These dreadful summoners grace. I am a man
 60   More sinn'd against than sinning.

      KENT
 60                                                           Alack, bare-headed!
 61   Gracious my lord, hard by here is a hovel;
 62   Some friendship will it lend you 'gainst the tempest:
 63   Repose you there; while I to this hard house—
 64   More harder than the stones whereof 'tis raised;
 65   Which even but now, demanding after you,
 66   Denied me to come in—return, and force
 67   Their scanted courtesy.

      KING LEAR
 67                                           My wits begin to turn.
 68   Come on, my boy: how dost, my boy? art cold?
 69   I am cold myself. Where is this straw, my fellow?
 70   The art of our necessities is strange,
 71   That can make vile things precious. Come, your hovel.
 72   Poor fool and knave, I have one part in my heart
 73   That's sorry yet for thee.

      Fool  [Singing]
 74             He that has and a little tiny wit—
 75                With hey, ho, the wind and the rain,—
 76             Must make content with his fortunes fit,
 77                For the rain it raineth every day.

      KING LEAR
 78   True, my good boy. Come, bring us to this hovel.

           Exit [KING LEAR with KENT].

      Fool
 79   This is a brave night to cool a courtezan.
 80   I'll speak a prophecy ere I go:
 81      When priests are more in word than matter;
 82      When brewers mar their malt with water;
 83      When nobles are their tailors' tutors;
 84      No heretics burn'd, but wenches' suitors;
 85      Then shall the realm of Albion
 86      Come to great confusion:
 87      When every case in law is right;
 88      No squire in debt, nor no poor knight;
 89      When slanders do not live in tongues;
 90      Nor cutpurses come not to throngs;
 91      When usurers tell their gold i' the field;
 92      And bawds and whores do churches build;
 93      Then comes the time, who lives to see't,
 94      That going shall be used with feet.
 95   This prophecy Merlin shall make; for I live before
 96   his time.

           Exit.