The cod-piece 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.

Enter KENT.

LEAR. No, I will be the pattern of all patience;

I will say nothing.

KENT. Who's there?

FOOL. Marry, here's grace and a cod-piece: 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
The affliction, nor the fear.

LEAR.
Let the great gods,
That keep this dreadful pudder 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 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, 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
(More harder than the stones whereof 't is rais'd:
Which even but now, demanding after you,

Denied me to come in) return and force

Their scanty 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,

And 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 heigh, ho, the wind and the rain,-
Must make content with his fortunes fit,
Though the rain it raineth every day.

LEAR. True, boy.-Come, bring us to this hovel.
[Exit 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.

SCENE III.-A Room in Gloster's Castle.

Enter GLOSTER and EDMUND.

GLO. Alack, alack, Edmund, I like not this unnatural dealing: When I desired their leave that I might pity him, they took from me the use of mine own house; charged me, on pain of perpetual displeasure, neither to speak of him, entreat for him, or any way sustain him.

EDм. Most savage and unnatural !

GLO. Go to; say you nothing: There is division between the dukes; and a worse matter than that: I have received a letter this night;—'t is dangerous to be spoken ;—I have locked the letter in my closet: these injuries the king now bears will be revenged home; there is part of a power already footed: we must incline to the king. I will look him, and privily relieve him: go you, and maintain talk with the duke, that my charity be not of him perceived: If he ask for me, I am ill, and gone to bed. If I die for it, as no less is threatened me, the king my old master must be relieved. There is strange things toward, Edmund; pray you, be careful.

EDM. This courtesy, forbid thee, shall the duke Instantly know; and of that letter too :

[Exit.

This seems a fair deserving, and must draw me

That which my father loses; no less than all:

The younger rises when the old doth fall.

[Exit.

SCENE IV.—A Part of the Heath, with a Hovel.

Enter LEAR, KENT, and Fool.

KENT. Here is the place, my lord; good my lord, enter:

The tyranny of the open night's too rough

[Storm still.

Wilt break my heart?

KENT. I'd rather break mine own: Good my lord, enter.

LEAR. Thou thinkst 't is much, that this contentious

storm

Invades us to the skin: so 't is to thee;

But where the greater malady is fix'd,

The lesser is scarce felt. Thou 'dst shun a bear:

But if thy flight lay toward the roaring sea,

Thou 'dst meet the bear i' the mouth. When the mind's free

:

The body's delicate: the tempest in my mind
Doth from my senses take all feeling else,
Save what beats there.-Filial ingratitude!
Is it not as this mouth should tear this hand,
For lifting food to 't ?-But I will punish home :-
No, I will weep no more.—In such a night
To shut me out!-Pour on; I will endure :-
In such a night as this! O Regan, Goneril!—
Your old kind father, whose frank heart gave all,—
O, that way madness lies; let me shun that;
No more of that,-

ΚΕΝΤ.

Good my lord, enter here.

LEAR. Prithee, go in thyself; seek thine own ease; This tempest will not give me leave to ponder

On things would hurt me more.—But I'll go in :

In, boy; go first.-[To the Fool.] You houseless poverty,— Nay, get thee in. I'll pray, and then I'll sleep.—

[Fool goes in.

Poor naked wretches, wheresoe'er you are,
That bide the pelting of this pitiless storm,
How shall your houseless heads, and unfed sides,
Your loop'd and window'd raggedness, defend you
From seasons such as these? O, I have ta'en
Too little care of this! Take physic, pomp;
Expose thyself to feel what wretches feel;
That thou mayst shake the superflux to them,
And show the heavens more just.

Poor

EDG. [Within.] Fathom and half, fathom and half! [The Fool runs out from the hovel.

Tom!

FOOL. Come not in here, nuncle, here's a spirit. Help me, help me!

KENT. Give me thy hand. Who's there?

FOOL. A spirit, a spirit; he says his name 's KENT. What art thou that dost grumble ther Come forth.

Enter EDGAR, disguised as a madman.

EDG. Away! the foul fiend follows me !-Through the sharp hawthorn blow the winds.-Humph! go to thy bed and warm thee.

LEAR. Didst thou give all to thy daughters?

And art thou come to this?

EDG. Who gives anything to poor Tom? whom the foul fiend hath led through fire and through flame, through ford and whirlpool, o'er bog and quagmire; that hath laid knives under his pillow, and halters in his pew; set ratsbane by his porridge; made him proud of heart, to ride on a bay trottinghorse over four-inched bridges, to course his own shadow for a traitor :-Bless thy five wits! Tom's a-cold.—O, do de, do de, do de.-Bless thee from whirlwinds, star-blasting, and taking! Do poor Tom some charity, whom the foul fiend vexes: There could I have him now,-and there,—and there again, and there. [Storm continues.

LEAR. Have his daughters brought him to this pass ?Couldst thou save nothing? Wouldst thou give them all? FOOL. Nay, he reserved a blanket, else we had been all shamed.

LEAR. Now, all the plagues that in the pendulous air Hang fated o'er men's faults, light on thy daughters! KENT. He hath no daughters, sir.

LEAR. Death, traitor! nothing could have subdued nature To such a lowness, but his unkind daughters.—

Is it the fashion that discarded fathers

Should have thus little mercy on their flesh?
Judicious punishment! 't was this flesh begot
Those pelican daughters.

EDG. Pillicock sat on pillicock-hill ;

Halloo, halloo, loo, loo!

FOOL. This cold night will turn us all to fools and madmen. EDG. Take heed o' the foul fiend: Obey thy parents; keep thy word's justice; swear not; commit not with man's