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.
He goes out; and the next moment, as the fourth scene opens, we find ourselves in the icy storm with Lear, Kent and the Fool, and yet in the inmost shrine of love. I am not speaking of the devotion of the others to Lear, but of Lear himself. He had consented, merely for the Fool's sake, to seek shelter in the hovel:
Come, your hovel.
Poor fool and knave, I have one part in my heart
That's sorry yet for thee.
But on the way he has broken down and has been weeping (iii. iv. 17), and now he resists Kent's efforts to persuade him to enter. He does not feel the storm:
when the mind's free
The body's delicate: the tempest in my mind
Doth from my senses take all feeling else
Save what beats there:
and the thoughts that will drive him mad are burning in his brain:
Filial ingratitude!
Is it not as this mouth should tear this hand
For lifting food to't? But I will punish home.
No, I will weep no more. In such a night
To shut me out! Pour on; I will endure.
In such a night as this! O Regan, Goneril!
Your old kind father, whose frank heart gave all,—
O, that way madness lies; let me shun that;
No more of that.
And then suddenly, as he controls himself, the blessed spirit of kindness breathes on him 'like a meadow gale of spring,' and he turns gently to Kent:
Prithee, go in thyself; seek thine own ease:
This tempest will not give me leave to ponder
On things would hurt me more. But I'll go in.
In, boy; go first. You houseless poverty—
Nay, get thee in. I'll pray, and then I'll sleep.
But his prayer is not for himself.