I did commend your highness' letters to them, Commanded me to follow, and attend The leisure of their answer; gave me cold looks: Fool. Winter's not gone yet, if the wild geese fly that way. Fathers, that wear rags, Do make their children blind; Shall see their children kind. Ne'er turns the key to the poor. How chance the king comes with so small a train? Fool. We'll set thee to school to an ant, to teach thee there's no labouring in the winter. All, that follow their noses, are led by their eyes, but blind men; and there's not a nose among twenty, but can smell him that's stinking. Let go thy hold, when a great wheel runs down a hill, lest it break thy neck with following it; but the great one that goes up the hill, let him draw thee after. When a wise man gives thee better counsel, give me mine again: I would have none but knaves follow it, since a fool gives it. That, sir, which serves and seeks for gain, Will pack, when it begins to rain, Re-enter LEAR, with GLOSTER. Lear. Deny to speak with me? They are sick? they are weary? They have travell'd hard to-night? Mere fetches; The images of revolt and flying off! Glo. My dear lord, You know the fiery quality of the duke; Lear. Vengeance! plague! death! confusion! Fiery! what quality? Why, Gloster, Gloster, I'd speak with the duke of Cornwall, and his wife. Glo. Well, my good lord, I have inform'd them so. Lear. Inform'd them! Dost thou understand me, man? Glo. Ay, my good lord. Lear. The king would speak with Cornwall; the dear father Would with his daughter speak, commands her service : Are they inform'd of this?My breath and blood! Fiery? the fiery duke?-Tell the hot duke, that No, but not yet :-may be, he is not well: When nature, being oppress'd, commands the mind To suffer with the body: I'll forbear; And am fallen out with my more headier will, To take the indispos'd and sickly fit For the sound man.-Death on my state! wherefore [Looking on Kent. Should he sit here? This act persuades me, That this remotion of the duke and her Is practice only. Give me my servant forth: Go, tell the duke and his wife, I'd speak with them, Now, presently: bid them come forth and hear she rapp'd 'em o'the coxcombs with a stick, and cry'd, Down, wantons, down: 'Twas her brother, that, in pure kindness to his horse, buttered his hay. Enter CORNWALL, REGAN, GLOSTER, and Servants. Lear. Good morrow to you both. [Kent is set at liberty. Reg. I am glad to see your highness. Lear. Regan, I think you are; I know what reason I have to think so if thou should'st not be glad, keg. I pray you, sir, take patience; I have hope You less know how to value her desert, Lear. Say, how is that? Leg. I cannot think, my sister in the least Would fail her obligation: If, sir, perchance, She have restrain'd the riots of your followers, "Tis on such ground, and to such wholesome end, As clears her from all blame. Lear. My curses on her! Reg. O, sir, you are old; Nature in you stands on the very verge Of her confine: you should be rul'd, and led By some discretion, that discerns your state Better than you yourself: Therefore, I pray you, That to our sister you do make return; Say, you have wrong'd her, sir. Lear. Ask her forgiveness? Do you but mark how this becomes the house: [Kneeling. That you'll vouchsafe me raiment, bed, and food. Reg. Good sir, no more; these are unsightly tricks : Return you to my sister. Lear. Never, Regan: She hath abated me of half my train; tongue, Thy tender-hefted nature shall not give Do comfort, and not burn: 'Tis not in thee Reg. Good sir, to the purpose. Trumpets within. Lear. Who put my man i'the stocks? Corn. What trumpet's that? Enter Steward. Reg. I know't, my sister's: this approves her letter, That she would soon be here.-Is your lady come? Lear. This is a slave, whose easy-borrow'd pride Dwells in the fickle grace of her he follows:Out, varlet, from my sight! Corn. What means your grace? Lear. Who stock'd my servant? Regan, I have good hope Thou didst not know of t.-Who comes here? O heavens, Enter GONERIL. If you do love old men, if your sweet sway Art not asham'd to look upon this beard?— All's not offence, that indiscretion finds, Lear. O, sides, you are too tough! Will you yet hold?-How came my man i'the stocks? Corn. I set him there, sir: but his own dis◄ orders Deserved much less advancement. u? Reg. I pray you, father, being weak, seem so, If, till the expiration of your month, You will return and sojourn with my sister, Dismissing half your train, come then to me; With such a number: What, must I come to you I am now from home, and out of that provision, | But kept a reservation to be follow'd With five-and-twenty, Regan? said you so? Our youngest born, I could as well be brought [Looking on the Steward. Gon. At your choice, sir. I will not trouble thee, my child; farewell: Or, rather, a disease that's in my flesh, Lear. Those wicked creatures yet do look When others are more wicked; not being the -I'll go with Gon. Hear me, my lord; What need you five-and-twenty, ten, or five, Reg. What need one? Leur. O, reason not the need: our basest Are in the poorest thing superfluous: Which scarcely keeps thee warm.-But, for true Mend, when thou canst; be better, at thy lei-You heavens, give me that patience, patience I. sure; I can be patient; I can stay with Regan, I, and my hundred knights. Reg. Not altogether so, sir; I look'd not for you yet, nor am provided For your fit welcome: Give ear, sir, to my sis- For those that mingle reason with your passion, Lear. Is this well spoken now? Reg. I dare avouch it, sir: What, fifty followers ? Is it not well? what should you need of more? Yea, or so many? sith that both charge and danger Speak 'gainst so great a number? How, in one Should many people, under two commands, need! You see me here, you gods, a poor old man, The terrors of the earth. You think, I'll weep; I have full cause of weeping; but this heart [Exeunt Lear, Gloster, Kent, and Fool. Reg. This house Gon. 'Tis his own blame; he hath put Gon. So am I purpos'd. Re-enter GLOSTER. Corn. Follow'd the old man forth :-he is re turn'd. SCENE I.-A heath. A storm is heard, with thunder and lightning. Enter KENT, and a Gentleman, meeting. Kent. Who's here, beside foul weather? Gent. One minded like the weather, most unquietly. Kent. I know you; where's the king? Gent. Contending with the fretful element: Bids the wind blow the earth into the sea, Or swell the curved waters 'bove the main, That things might change, or cease; tears his white hair; Which the impetuous blasts, with eyeless rage, The lion and the belly-pinched wolf Kent. But who is with him? Gent. None but the fool; who labours to outjest His heart-struck injuries. Kent. Sir, I do know you; And dare, upon the warrant of my art, Commend a dear thing to you. There is division, Although as yet the face of it be cover'd Into this scatter'd kingdom; who already, I am a gentleman of blood and breeding; Gent. I will talk farther with you. Kent. No, do not. For confirmation that I am much more And she will tell you who your fellow is, Gent. Give me your hand: Have you no more to say? Kent. Few words, but, to effect, more than all yet; That when we have found the king, (in which your pain That way; I'll this ;) he, that first lights on him, [Exeunt severally. Holla the other. With mutual cunning, 'twixt Albany and Corn- SCENE II.—Another part of the heath. Storm wall; Who have (as who have not, that their great continues. Enter LEAR and Fool Lear. Blow, wind, 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 thunder-bolts, 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 daughter's blessing; here's a night pities neither wise men nor fools. Lear. Rumble thy belly-full! Spit, fire! spout, rain! Nor rain, wind, thunder, fire, are my daughters: The cod-piece that will house, 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. 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 The 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 Rive your concealing continents, and cry 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, 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, hovel. Poor fool and knave, I have one part in my heart That's sorry yet for thee. Fool. He that has a little tiny wit, Withheigh, ho, the wind and the rain,Must make content with his fortunes fit; For the rain it raineth every day. Lear. True, my good boy.-Come, bring us to this hovel. [Exeunt Lear and Kent. Fool. This is a brave night to cool a courte zan. I'll speak a prophecy ere I go: When priests are more in word than matter; Come to great confusion. Then comes the time, who lives to see't, |