King Lear and the Art of Fathoming

Abstract

he second of King Lear ’s three great storm scenes opens with Kent, disguised as Caius, repeatedly urging the king to enter a hovel located offt stage. After batting away Kent’s first three pleas, Lear responds to the fourth with a speech that begins in refusal, moves grudgingly into assent, turns sideways toward the Fool, and concludes as an apostrophe (introduced as a prayer) on the impoverished. Here it is as printed in the 1623 Folio: