Passages from King Lear

A man stands in the worst weather he can imagine and asks for worse.

Blow, winds, and crack your cheeks! rage! blow!You cataracts and hurricanoes, spoutTill 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!

The first time a king thinks about people he has never had to see.

Prithee, go in thyself: seek thine own ease:This tempest will not give me leave to ponderOn things would hurt me more. But I’ll go in.To the Fool. In, boy; go first. You houseless poverty—Nay, get thee in. I’ll pray, and then I’ll sleep. Fool goes in.Poor naked wretches, whereso’er you are,That bide the pelting of this pitiless storm,How shall your houseless heads and unfed sides,Your loop’d and window’d raggedness, defend youFrom seasons such as these? O, I have ta’enToo little care of this! Take physic, pomp;Expose thyself to feel what wretches feel,That thou mayst shake the superflux to them,And show the heavens more just.

Two people decide that a locked room is enough, if they are in it together.

No, no, no, no! Come, let’s away to prison:We two alone will sing like birds i’ the cage:When thou dost ask me blessing, I’ll kneel down,And ask of thee forgiveness: so we’ll live,And pray, and sing, and tell old tales, and laughAt gilded butterflies, and hear poor roguesTalk of court news; and we’ll talk with them too,Who loses and who wins; who’s in, who’s out;And take upon’s the mystery of things,As if we were God’s spies: and we’ll wear out,In a wall’d prison, packs and sects of great ones,That ebb and flow by the moon.

The argument that a person needs more than what keeps them alive.

O, reason not the need: our basest beggarsAre in the poorest thing superfluous:Allow not nature more than nature needs,Man’s life’s as cheap as beast’s: thou art a lady;If only to go warm were gorgeous,Why, nature needs not what thou gorgeous wear’st,Which scarcely keeps thee warm. But, for true need—You heavens, give me that patience, patience I need!You see me here, you gods, a poor old man,As full of grief as age; wretched in both!

What is left of a man when you take away everything he was given.

Why, thou wert better in thy grave than to answer with thy uncovered body this extremity of the skies. Is man no more than this? Consider him well. Thou owest the worm no silk, the beast no hide, the sheep no wool, the cat no perfume. Ha! here’s three on ’s are sophisticated! Thou art the thing itself: unaccommodated man is no more but such a poor bare, forked animal as thou art. Off, off, you lendings! come unbutton here.

How the world shrinks when you look at it from a great height.

Come on, sir; here’s the place: stand still. How fearfulAnd dizzy ’tis, to cast one’s eyes so low!The crows and choughs that wing the midway airShow scarce so gross as beetles: half way downHangs one that gathers samphire, dreadful trade!Methinks he seems no bigger than his head:The fishermen, that walk upon the beach,Appear like mice; and yond tall anchoring bark,Diminish’d to her cock; her cock, a buoyAlmost too small for sight: the murmuring surge,That on the unnumber’d idle pebbles chafes,Cannot be heard so high. I’ll look no more;Lest my brain turn, and the deficient sightTopple down headlong.

Why punishment falls hardest on the people with the least to hide it.

Thou rascal beadle, hold thy bloody hand!Why dost thou lash that whore? Strip thine own back;Thou hotly lust’st to use her in that kindFor which thou whipp’st her. The usurer hangs the cozener.Through tatter’d clothes small vices do appear;Robes and furr’d gowns hide all. Plate sin with gold,And the strong lance of justice hurtless breaks:Arm it in rags, a pygmy’s straw does pierce it.None does offend, none, I say, none; I’ll able ’em:Take that of me, my friend, who have the powerTo seal the accuser’s lips. Get thee glass eyes;And like a scurvy politician, seemTo see the things thou dost not.

A man examines his own body and finds no reason to obey custom.

Thou, nature, art my goddess; to thy lawMy services are bound. Wherefore should IStand in the plague of custom, and permitThe curiosity of nations to deprive me,For that I am some twelve or fourteen moon-shinesLag of a brother? Why bastard? wherefore base?When my dimensions are as well compact,My mind as generous, and my shape as true,As honest madam’s issue? Why brand they usWith base? with baseness? bastardy? base, base?

What a man notices about himself when the cold sets in.

My wits begin to turn.Come on, my boy: how dost, my boy? art cold?I am cold myself. Where is this straw, my fellow?The art of our necessities is strange,That can make vile things precious. Come, your hovel.Poor fool and knave, I have one part in my heartThat’s sorry yet for thee.

To be punished for truth, for lies, and for silence alike.

I marvel what kin thou and thy daughters are: they’ll have me whipped for speaking true, thou’lt have me whipped for lying; and sometimes I am whipped for holding my peace. I had rather be any kind o’ thing than a fool: and yet I would not be thee, nuncle; thou hast pared thy wit o’ both sides, and left nothing i’ the middle: here comes one o’ the parings.