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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 undivulged crimes

Unwhipp'd of justice. Hide thee, thou bloody hand;

Thou perjur'd, and thou simular man of virtue

That art incestuous. Caitiff, in 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, bareheaded?

Gracious my lord, hard by here is a hovel;

Some friendship will it lend you 'gainst the tempest.

Repose you there, whilst I to this hard house

(More harder than the stones whereof 'tis rais'd,

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,

That 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,

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 courtesan. 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' 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 us'd with feet.

This prophecy Merlin shall make, for I live before his time.

Exit.

Scene III. Gloucester's Castle.

Enter Gloucester and Edmund.

Glou. Alack, alack, Edmund, I like not this unnatural dealing!

When

I desir'd their leave that I might pity him, they took from me

the use of mine own house, charg'd me on pain of perpetual

displeasure neither to speak of him, entreat for him, nor any way sustain him.

Edm. Most savage and unnatural!

Glou. Go to; say you nothing. There is division betwixt the Dukes,

and a worse matter than that. I have received a letter this

night- 'tis dangerous to be spoken- I have lock'd the letter in

my closet. These injuries the King now bears will be revenged

home; there's part of a power already footed; 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 threat'ned me, the King my old master

must be relieved. There is some strange thing toward,

Edmund.

Pray you be careful. Exit.

Edm. 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 doth fall. Exit.

Scene IV. The heath. Before a hovel.

Storm still. 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

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 fix'd,

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

But if thy flight lay toward the raging sea,

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

The body's