William Shakespeare (1564–1616). The Tragedy of Hamlet Prince of Denmark.
The Harvard Classics. 1909–14.

Scene II

Act III

[The same.] Storm still
Enter LEAR and Fool

Lear.Blow, winds, and crack your cheeks! Rage! Blow!You cataracts and hurricanoes, spoutTill you have drench’d our steeples, drown’d the cocks!You sulphurous 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’ 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, call’d you children;You owe me no subscription. Then let fallYour horrible pleasure. Here I stand, your slave,A poor, infirm, weak, and despis’d old man;But yet I call you servile ministers,That will with two pernicious daughters joinYour high engender’d battles ’gainst a headSo old and white as this. Oh! Oh! ’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 foolKent.Alas, sir, are you here? Things that love nightLove not such nights as these; the wrathful skiesGallow 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 neverRemember to have heard. Man’s nature cannot carryThe 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 of virtueThat art incestuous! Caitiff, to pieces shake,That under covert and convenient seemingHas practis’d on man’s life! Close pent-up guilts,Rive your concealing continents, and cryThese dreadful summoners grace. I am a manMore sinn’d 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 rais’d;Which even but now, demanding after you,Deni’d me to come in—return, and forceTheir 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 heartThat’s sorry yet for thee.Fool.[Singing.]“He that has and 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, boy. Come, bring us to this hovel.Exeunt [LEAR and KENT].Fool.This is a brave night to cool a courtezan.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’ the 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.

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