Lear's Message To Irene

William Dyce, King Lear and the Fool in the Storm (c. 1851)

Oil on canvas, size approximately 53 x 68 inches, National Gallery of Scotland, Edinburgh

King Lear

Act III. Scene II.

Another Part of the Heath. Storm still.
Enter LEAR and Fool.
Lear.  Blow, winds, and crack your cheeks! rage! blow!
You cataracts and hurricanoes, spout	4
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,	8
Strike flat the thick rotundity o’ the world!
Crack nature’s moulds, all germens spill at once
That make ingrateful man!