Another part of the Heath.
 Storm still.
 Enter LEAR and FOOL.

Lear	Blow, winds, and crack your cheeks! Rage, blow!
	You cataracts and hurricanoes, spout
	Till you have drenched our steeples, drowned the cocks!
	You sulph'rous and thought-executing fires,
	Vaunt couriers of oak-cleaving thunderbolts,
	Singe my white head! And thou, all-shaking thunder,
	Strike flat the thick rotundity o'th'world,
	Crack nature's moulds, all germens spill at once
	That makes ingrateful man!

Fool	O Nuncle, court holy water in a dry house is better than 
	this rain-water out o'door. Good Nuncle, in; ask thy 
	daughters' blessing; here's a night pities neither wise men 
	nor fools.

Lear	Rumble thy bellyful! Spit, fire; spout, rain!
	Nor rain, wind, thunder, fire, are my daughters.
	I tax you not, you elements, with unkindness.
	I never gave you kingdom, called you children;
	You owe me no subscription. Then let fall
	Your horrible pleasure; here I stand, your slave,
	A poor, infirm, weak, and despised old man;
	But yet I call you servile ministers,
	That will with two pernicious daughters join
	Your high-engendered battles 'gainst a head
	So old and white as this. O, ho, 'tis foul!

Fool	He that has a house to put's head in has a good head-piece.

	[Sings.]	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, disguised.

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 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 pudder o'er our heads
	Find out their enemies now. Tremble, thou wretch,
	That hast within thee undivulgd crimes
	Unwhipped of justice. Hide thee, thou bloody hand,
	Thou perjured, and thou simular of virtue
	That art incestuous; caitiff, to pieces shake,
	That under covert and convenient seeming
	Has practised on man's life. Close pent-up guilts,
	Rive your concealing continents, and cry
	These dreadful summoners grace. I am a man
	More sinned 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 while I to this hard house-
	More harder than the stones whereof 'tis raised,
	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,
	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	[Sings.]	He that has and a little tiny wit,
				With hey, 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.
												[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 burned 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'th'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 used with feet.
	This prophecy Merlin shall make; for I live before his 
	time.
												[Exit.
