Alack, ’tis he: Why, he was met even now
As mad as the vexed sea, singing aloud,
Crown’d with rank fumiter and furrow-weeds,
With bur-docks, hemlock, nettles, cuckoo-flowers,
Darnel, and all the idle weeds that grow
In our sustaining corn.
– William Shakespeare
King Lear, Act 4, Scene 4. In her first appearance since Act 1, Scene 1, Cordelia comments on the condition of her father. She has seen Lear hiding in fields of tall crops and and gives a description of him dressed in a crown made up of flowers and poisonous and stinging weeds from nature. He is singing out loud and as mad as the angry sea (simile from nature). Cordelia asks that a search party of soldiers be sent to search the fields for him and bringing him to her.