King Lear: Act III, Scene ii

King Lear.         Act 3, Scene 2.             The Fool

(This text is featured in our interview with Ken Schatz)

82            This is a brave night to cool a courtesan.
83            I’ll speak a prophecy ere I go:
84            When priests are more in word than matter,
85            When brewers mar their malt with water,
86            When nobles are their tailors’ tutors,
87             No heretics burned but wenches’ suitors;
88            When every case in law is right,
89            No squire in debt, nor no poor knight,
90            When slanders do not live in tongues,
91             Nor cutpurses come not to throngs;
92            When usurers tell their gold i’th’field,
93            And bawds and whores do churches build,
94            Then shall the realm of Albion
95            Come to great confusion.
96            Then comes the time, who lives to see’t,
97            That going shall be used with feet.
98            This prophecy Merlin shall make, for I live before his time.

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