King Lear, William Shakespeare [good book recommendations TXT] 📗

my man’s cheeks! No, you unnatural hags,
I will have such revenges on you both,
That all the world shall⁠—I will do such things⁠—
What they are, yet I know not: but they shall be
The terrors of the earth. You think I’ll weep
No, I’ll not weep:
I have full cause of weeping; but this heart
Shall break into a hundred thousand flaws,
Or ere I’ll weep. O fool, I shall go mad! Exeunt King Lear, Gloucester, Kent, and Fool. Storm and tempest. Cornwall Let us withdraw; ’twill be a storm. Regan

This house is little: the old man and his people
Cannot be well bestow’d.

Goneril

’Tis his own blame; hath put himself from rest,
And must needs taste his folly.

Regan

For his particular, I’ll receive him gladly,
But not one follower.

Goneril

So am I purposed.
Where is my lord of Gloucester?

Cornwall Follow’d the old man forth: he is return’d. Re-enter Gloucester. Gloucester The king is in high rage. Cornwall Whither is he going? Gloucester He calls to horse; but will I know not whither. Cornwall ’Tis best to give him way; he leads himself. Goneril My lord, entreat him by no means to stay. Gloucester

Alack, the night comes on, and the bleak winds
Do sorely ruffle; for many miles a bout
There’s scarce a bush.

Regan

O, sir, to wilful men,
The injuries that they themselves procure
Must be their schoolmasters. Shut up your doors:
He is attended with a desperate train;
And what they may incense him to, being apt
To have his ear abused, wisdom bids fear.

Cornwall

Shut up your doors, my lord; ’tis a wild night:
My Regan counsels well; come out o’ the storm. Exeunt.

Act III Scene I

A heath.

Storm still. Enter Kent and a Gentleman, meeting. Kent Who’s there, besides foul weather? Gentleman One minded like the weather, most unquietly. Kent I know you. Where’s the king? Gentleman

Contending with the fretful element:
Bids the winds blow the earth into the sea,
Or swell the curled water ’bove the main,
That things might change or cease; tears his white hair,
Which the impetuous blasts, with eyeless rage,
Catch in their fury, and make nothing of;
Strives in his little world of man to out-scorn
The to-and-fro-conflicting wind and rain.
This night, wherein the cub-drawn bear would couch,
The lion and the belly-pinched wolf
Keep their fur dry, unbonneted he runs,
And bids what will take all.

Kent But who is with him? Gentleman

None but the fool; who labours to out-jest
His heart-struck injuries.

Kent

Sir, I do know you;
And dare, upon the warrant of my note,
Commend a dear thing to you. There is division,
Although as yet the face of it be cover’d
With mutual cunning, ’twixt Albany and Cornwall;
Who have⁠—as who have not, that their great stars
Throned and set high?⁠—servants, who seem no less,
Which are to France the spies and speculations
Intelligent of our state; what hath been seen,
Either in snuffs and packings of the dukes,
Or the hard rein which both of them have borne
Against the old kind king; or something deeper,
Whereof perchance these are but furnishings;
But, true it is, from France there comes a power
Into this scatter’d kingdom; who already,
Wise in our negligence, have secret feet
In some of our best ports, and are at point
To show their open banner. Now to you:
If on my credit you dare build so far
To make your speed to Dover, you shall find
Some that will thank you, making just report
Of how unnatural and bemadding sorrow
The king hath cause to plain.
I am a gentleman of blood and breeding;
And, from some knowledge and assurance, offer
This office to you.

Gentleman I will talk further with you. Kent

No, do not.
For confirmation that I am much more
Than my out-wall, open this purse, and take
What it contains. If you shall see Cordelia⁠—
As fear not but you shall⁠—show her this ring;
And she will tell you who your fellow is
That yet you do not know. Fie on this storm!
I will go seek the king.

Gentleman Give me your hand: have you no more to say? Kent

Few words, but, to effect, more than all yet;
That, when we have found the king⁠—in which your pain
That way, I’ll this⁠—he that first lights on him
Holla the other. Exeunt severally.

Scene II

Another part of the heath. Storm still.

Enter King Lear and Fool. King Lear

Blow, winds, and crack your cheeks! rage! blow!
You cataracts and hurricanoes, spout
Till you have drench’d our steeples, drown’d the cocks!
You sulphurous and thought-executing fires,
Vaunt-couriers to oak-cleaving thunderbolts,
Singe my white head! And thou, all-shaking thunder,
Smite flat the thick rotundity o’ the world!
Crack nature’s moulds, an germens spill at once,
That make ingrateful man!

Fool O nuncle, court holy-water in a dry house is better than this rain-water out o’ door. Good nuncle, in, and ask thy daughters’ blessing: here’s a night pities neither wise man nor fool. King 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 fall
Your horrible pleasure: here I stand, your slave,
A poor, infirm, weak, and despised old man:
But yet I call you servile ministers,
That have with two pernicious daughters join’d
Your high engender’d battles ’gainst a head
So old and white as this. O! O! ’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.

King Lear

No, I will be the pattern of all patience;
I will say nothing.

Enter Kent. Kent Who’s there? Fool Marry, here’s grace and a cod-piece; that’s a wise man and a fool. Kent

Alas, sir, are you here? things that love night
Love not such nights as these; the wrathful skies
Gallow 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