Excerpt from King Lear - anthology.

Excerpt from King Lear - anthology. Storms have often featured in art and literature as a symbol of the torment of the human soul, and one of the most famous examples is the tempest that rages through much of King Lear. Lear, rejected by two of his daughters, Goneril and Regan, and through his own misunderstanding estranged from Cordelia, the third and youngest, is shocked and angered by the treatment he has received and the ingratitude of his children. Although his Fool and the loyal Earl of Kent stand by him, Lear feels alienated from the society he once ruled, and at odds with the values that society now seems to hold, as represented by the behavior of Goneril and Regan, who have turned him out of doors. The natural bonds of family have thus been broken, and to Lear it is as if the whole of Nature has been thrown into disorder. In this distressed state he seems to feel that he is at war with the world itself, and in Act 3, Scene ii, as he cries out his defiant challenges to the elements, his pain is almost tangible. King Lear Act 3, Scene ii Storm still. Enter Lear and the 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 sulphurous and thought-executing fires, Vaunt-curriers of oak-cleaving thunderbolts, Singe my white head! And thou all-shaking thunder, Strike flat the thick rotundity o'the 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: 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 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 cod-piece--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 wanderes 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 undivulgéd 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, bare-headed? 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 heigh-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 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 burned but wenches' suitors-- Then shall the realm of Albion Come to great confusion. 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'the field, And bawds and whores do churches build-- 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