As full of grief as years; wretched in both; That all the world fhall-I will do fuch things- BLOW LOW winds, and crack your cheeks; rage, blow! You cataracts, and hurricanoes, spout 'Till you have drench'd our fteeples, drown'd the cocks! You You fulph'rous and thought-executing fires, Singe my white head! And thou, all-shaking thunder, Strike flat the thick rotundity o'th' world; Kent. Not all my best entreaties can perfuade him Into fome needful fhelter, or to 'bide This poor flight cov'ring on his aged head, [Thunder. Lear. Rumble thy belly full, fpit fire, fpout rain; Nor rain, wind, thunder, fire, are my daughters: I tax not you, you elements, with unkindness; I never gave you kingdom, call'd you children; You owe me no fubfcription. Then let fall Your horrible pleasure ;-here I ftand your flave; A poor, infirm, weak, and defpis'd old man! But yet I call you fervile minifters, That have with two pernicious daughters join'd Your high-engender'd battles, 'gainst a head So old and white as this. Oh! oh! 'tis foul. Kent. Hard by, Sir, is a hovel that will lend Some fhelter from this tempeft. Lear. No, I will be the pattern of all patience: I will fay nothing. Kent. Kent. Alas, Sir! things that love night, Love not fuch nights as thefe : the wrathful skies Gallow the very wand'rers of the dark, And make them keep their caves: fince 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. Lear. Let the great gods, That keep this dreadful pother o'er our heads, Kent. Good Sir, to the hovel! Lear. My wits begin to turn. Come on, my boy. How doft, my boy? art cold? I'm cold myself. Where is the ftraw, my fellow? The art of our neceffities is ftrange, That can make vile things precious. Come, your hovel! Alack! Enter Glocester and Edmund. Gloc. Alack, alack, Edmund, I like not this unnatural dealing; when I defired their leave that I might pity him, they took from me the use of mine own house; charg'd me on pain of perpetual difpleasure, neither to speak of him, entreat for him, or any way fuftain him. Edm. Moft favage and unnatural! Gloc. Go to; fay you nothing. There is divifion between the dukes, and a worse matter than that I have receiv'd a letter this night, 'tis dangerous to be spoken! (I have lock'd the letter in my closet:) thefe 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 for him, and privily relieve him; go you, and maintain talk with the duke, that my charity be not of him perceiv'd. If he ask for me, I am ill, and gone to bed; if I die for it, as no less is threaten'd me, the king my old master must be relieved. There are ftrange things toward, Edmund; pray you be careful. [Exit. Edm. Edm. This courtesy, forbid thee, fhall the duke Instantly know, and of that letter too. This seems a fair deserving, and must draw me Scene changes to a part of the heath with a hovel. Enter Lear and Kent. Kent. Here is the place, my lord; good my lord, The enter; tyranny o'th' 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'd rather break mine own; good my lord, enter. Lear. Thou think'ft 'tis much, that this conten tious ftorm Invades us to the fkin; fo 'tis to thee; But where the greater malady is fix'd, The leffer is scarce felt. The tempest in my mind For |