Enter Lear and Fool.
Lear. Blow, winds, and crack your cheeks! rage! blow![3579]
You cataracts and hurricanoes, spout[3580][3581]
Till you have drench'd our steeples, drown'd the cocks![3580][3582]
You sulphurous and thought-executing fires,[3580][3583]
Vaunt-couriers to oak-cleaving thunderbolts,[3580][3584] 5
Singe my white head! And thou, all-shaking thunder,[3580][3585]
Smite flat the thick rotundity o' the world![3580][3586]
Crack nature's moulds, all germins spill at once[3580][3587]
That make ingrateful man![3580][3588]
Fool. O nuncle, court holy-water in a dry house is[3589] 10
better than this rain-water out o' door. Good nuncle, in,[3589][3590]
and ask thy daughters' blessing: here's a night pities neither[3589][3591]
wise man nor fool.[3589][3592]
Lear. Rumble thy bellyful! Spit, fire! spout, rain![3593]
Nor rain, wind, thunder, fire, are my daughters: 15
I tax not you, you elements, with unkindness;[3594]
I never gave you kingdom, call'd you children,[3595]
You owe me no subscription: then let fall[3596][3597]
Your horrible pleasure; here I stand, your slave,[3596][3598]
A poor, infirm, weak and despised old man:[3596] 20
But yet I call you servile ministers,[3596]
That have with two pernicious daughters join'd[3596][3599]
Your high-engender'd battles 'gainst a head[3596][3600]
So old and white as this. O! O! 'tis foul![3596][3601]
Fool. He that has a house to put's head in has a good[3602] 25
head-piece.
The cod-piece that will house[3603]
Before the head has any,[3603]
The head and he shall louse;[3603]
So beggars marry many.[3603] 30
The man that makes his toe[3603][3604]
What he his heart should make[3603][3605]
Shall of a corn cry woe,[3603][3606]
And turn his sleep to wake.[3603]
For there was never yet fair woman but she made mouths[3607] 35
in a glass.
Lear. No, I will be the pattern of all patience;[3608]
I will say nothing.
Enter Kent.
Kent. Who's there?