The Tragedy of King Lear

by William Shakespeare

LEAR.
What canst tell, boy?

FOOL.
She’ll taste as like this as a crab does to a crab. Thou canst tell why one’s nose stands i’the middle on’s face?

LEAR.
No.

FOOL.
Why, to keep one’s eyes of either side’s nose, that what a man cannot smell out, he may spy into.

LEAR.
I did her wrong.

FOOL.
Canst tell how an oyster makes his shell?

LEAR.
No.

FOOL.
Nor I neither; but I can tell why a snail has a house.

LEAR.
Why?

FOOL.
Why, to put’s head in; not to give it away to his daughters, and leave his horns without a case.