REGAN

O sir, to wilful men

The injuries that they themselves procure

Must be their schoolmasters. Shut up your doors.

He is attended with a desperate train,

And what they may incense him to, being apt

To have his ear abused, wisdom bids fear.

CORNWALL

Shut up your doors, my lord. ‘Tis a wild night.

My Regan counsels well. Come out o’th’ storm. Exeunt

3.1 Storm still. Enter the Earl of Kent disguised and ⌈the First⌉ Gentleman, severally

KENT

Who’s there, besides foul weather?

⌈FIRST⌉ GENTLEMAN

One minded like the weather,

Most unquietly.

KENT

I know you. Where’s the King?

⌈FIRST⌉ GENTLEMAN

Contending with the fretful elements;

Bids the wind blow the earth into the sea

Or swell the curled waters ’bove the main,

That things might change or cease.

KENT

But who is with him?

⌈FIRST⌉ GENTLEMAN

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 note

Commend a dear thing to you. There is division,

Although as yet the face of it is covered

With mutual cunning, ’twixt Albany and Cornwall,

Who have—as who have not that their great stars

Throned and set high—servants, who seem no less,

Which are to France the spies and speculations

Intelligent of our state. What hath been seen,

Either in snuffs and packings of the Dukes,

Or the hard rein which both of them hath borne

Against the old kind King; or something deeper,

Whereof perchance these are but furnishings—

⌈FIRST⌉ GENTLEMAN

I will talk further with you.

KENT

No, do not.

For confirmation that I am much more

Than my out-wall, open this purse, and take

What it contains. If you shall see Cordelia—

As fear not but you shall—show her this ring

And she will tell you who that fellow is

That yet you do not know. Fie on this storm!

I will go seek the King.

⌈FIRST⌉ GENTLEMAN

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

Holla the other.

Exeunt severally

3.2 Storm still. Enter King Lear and his 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 not you, 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 codpiece 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 the Earl of 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 (to Lear)

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 pother o’er our heads,

Find out their enemies now. Tremble, thou wretch

That hast within thee undivulgèd 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.