Their scanted courtesy.

LEAR My wit begins to turn.

(To Fool) 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,

That can make vile things precious. Come, your

hovel.—

Poor fool and knave, I have one part of my heart

That sorrows yet for thee.

FOOL ⌈sings⌉

He that has a little tiny wit,

With heigh-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. (To Kent) Come, bring us to this hovel. Exeunt

Sc. 10 Enter the Duke of Gloucester and Edmund the bastard, with lights

GLOUCESTER

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 their displeasure neither to speak of him,

Entreat for him, nor any way sustain him.

EDMUND Most savage and unnatural!

GLOUCESTER Go to, say you nothing. There’s a division betwixt the Dukes, and a worse matter than that. I have received a letter this night—‘tis dangerous to be spoken—I have locked the letter in my closet. These injuries the King now bears will be revenged home. There’s part of a power already landed. We must incline to the King. I will seek 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. Though I die for’t—as no less is threatened me—the King my old master must be relieved. There is some strange thing toward. Edmund, pray you be careful. Exit

EDMUND

This courtesy, forbid thee, shall the Duke

Instantly know, and of that letter too.

This seems a fair deserving, and must draw me

That which my father loses: no less than all.

The younger rises when the old do fall. Exit

Sc. 11 Storm. Enter King Lear, the Earl of Kent disguised, and Lear’s Fool

KENT

Here is the place, my lord. Good my lord, enter.

The tyranny of the open night’s too rough

For nature to endure.

LEAR Let me alone.

KENT

Good my lord, enter here.

LEAR Wilt break my heart?

KENT

I had rather break mine own. Good my lord, enter.

LEAR

Thou think‘st ’tis much that this contentious storm

Invades us to the skin. So ‘tis to thee;

But where the greater malady is fixed,

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’th’ mouth. When the mind’s

free,

The body’s delicate. This 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 sure.

No, I will weep no more.—

In such a night as this! O Regan, Gonoril,

Your old kind father, whose frank heart gave you all—

O, that way madness lies. Let me shun that.

No more of that.

KENT Good my lord, enter.

LEAR

Prithee, go in thyself. Seek thy own ease.

This tempest will not give me leave to ponder

On things would hurt me more; but I’ll go in.

⌈Exit Fool⌉

Poor naked wretches, wheresoe‘er you are,

That bide the pelting of this pitiless night,

How shall your houseless heads and unfed sides,

Your looped and windowed 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.

Enter Lear’s Fool

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. He says his name’s Poor Tom.

KENT

What art thou that dost grumble there in the straw?

Come forth.

⌈Enter Edgar as a Bedlam beggar⌉

EDGAR Away, the foul fiend follows me. Through the sharp hawthorn blows the cold wind. Go to thy cold bed and warm thee.

LEAR

Hast thou given all to thy two daughters,

And art thou come to this?

EDGAR Who gives anything to Poor Tom, whom the foul fiend hath led through fire and through ford and whirlypool, o’er bog and quagmire; that has laid knives under his pillow and halters in his pew, set ratsbane by his potage, made him proud of heart to ride on a bay trotting-horse over four-inched bridges, to course his own shadow for a traitor. Bless thy five wits, Tom’s a-cold! 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.

LEAR

What, has his daughters brought him to this pass?

(To Edgar) Couldst thou save nothing? Didst thou give

them all?

FOOL Nay, he reserved a blanket, else we had been all shamed.

LEAR (to Edgar)

Now all the plagues that in the pendulous air

Hang fated o’er men’s faults fall 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.

(To Edgar) Is it the fashion that discarded fathers

Should have thus little mercy on their flesh?

Judicious punishment: ’twas this flesh begot

Those pelican daughters.

EDGAR Pillicock sat on pillicock’s hill; a lo, lo, lo.

FOOL This cold night will turn us all to fools and madmen.

EDGAR Take heed o’th’ foul fiend; obey thy parents; keep thy word justly; swear not; commit not with man’s sworn spouse: set not thy sweet heart on proud array. Tom’s a-cold.