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Shakespeare plays LEAR on stage


A view of the stage, with a sign telling us that we are on a heath during a storm; lighted candles indicate that it is night.  Shakespeare is centre-stage, performing as Lear dressed in ragged clothing.  He looks angry as he reaches up to the skies.   A jester, Lear’s faithful companion, dances in excitement at the sight

[Enter Lear and Fool]

LEAR Blow winds and crack your cheeks. Rage, blow
You cataracts and hurricanes, spout
Till you have drenched our steeples, drowned the cocks.
You sulphurous and thought-executing fires,
Forerunners of oak-cleaving thunderbolts,
Singe my white head! And thou all-shaking thunder,
Strike flat the thick rotundity of the world,
Crack Nature's moulds, all seedlings spill at once
That make ingrateful man.

King Lear, Act 3 Scene 1


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