Kent. Who's there?
Fool. Marry, here's grace and a cod-piece;
that's a wise man and a fool. 41
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, 44
And make them keep their caves. Since I was man
Such sheets of fire, such bursts of horrid thunder,
Such groans of roaring wind and rain, I never
Remember to have heard; man's nature cannot carry 48
The affliction nor the fear.
Lear. Let the great gods,
That keep this dreadful pother o'er our heads,
Find out their enemies now. Tremble, thou wretch,
That hast within thee undivulged crimes, 52
Unwhipp'd of justice; hide thee, thou bloody hand;
Thou perjur'd, and thou simular of virtue
That art incestuous; caitiff, to pieces shake,
That under covert and convenient seeming 56
Hast practis'd on man's life; close pent-up guilts
Rive your concealing continents, and cry
These dreadful summoners grace. I am a man
More sinn'd against than sinning.
Kent. Alack! bare-headed!
Gracious my lord, hard by here is a hovel; 61
Some friendship will it lend you 'gainst the tempest;
Repose you there while I to this hard house,—
More harder than the stone whereof 'tis rais'd,—
Which even but now, demanding after you, 65
Denied me to come in, return and force
Their scanted courtesy.
44 Gallow: terrify
50 pother: disturbance
54 simular: simulator
58 Rive: split
continents: covers
59 grace: mercy
