Whistling to the air, which but for vacancy

Had gone to gaze on Cleopatra too

And made a gap in nature.

Instead of accumulating further instances of these very modern and individual (and sometimes far-fetched) personifications, it is of more interest to see how Shakespeare used Nature, not only as background and colouring, but to act a part of her own in the play, so producing the grandest of all personifications.

At the beginning of Act III. in King Lear, Kent asks:

Who's there beside foul weather?

Gentleman: One minded like the weather, most unquietly.

Kent: Where's the King?

Gent: Contending with the fretful elements.

Bids the wind blow the earth into the sea,