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Quote 10 Why then let fall Your horrible pleasure. Here I stand your slave, A poor, infirm, weak and despised old man. (III.ii) Meaning- Lear addresses these words to the storm that rages about him on the heath, toward the end of a speech in which he tries to command the wind and rain to do his bidding. Even in these lines, when Lear admits his powerlessness for the first time, he gives the storm an order: “let fall/Your horrible pleasure.” Nevertheless, Lear’s admission of powerlessness is an important moment: it shows he has begun to acquire true self-knowledge. So terrible is this self-knowledge that in his next scene, Lear will be mad. Because Lear is a (former) king, self-knowledge also helps him to understand the true nature of power. Significantly, in these lines Lear sees himself as a “slave” and “poor.”