Alas, sir, are you here? Things that love night
Love not such nights as these. The wrathful skies
Gallow the very wanderers of the dark
And make them keep their caves. Since I was man,
Such sheets of fire, such bursts of horrid thunder,
Such groans of roaring wind and rain I never
Remember to have heard. Man’s nature cannot carry
Th’ affliction nor the fear.
– William Shakespeare
King Lear, Act 3, Scene 2. Kent’s descriptions of the storm bring it vividly to life and spell out its dangers. He says that even nocturnal creatures would avoid this night that Lear and the Fool are standing around in. The angry skies frighten even the bats and confine them to their caves. Kent has never seen such a wrathful storm with its sheets of lightning and terrible wind and rain. It is too terrifying for human nature to bear, he adds.