KING LEAR -- BACKGROUND AND ANALYSIS

The following material is based upon an audio lecture available at the web page for English 154. Although the following text material is not identical to the audio lecture, it is essentially the same information. You should have read the play prior to reading this material. The text referred to is the Signet paperback edition of the play, a book you should have open as you read this material.

Based upon internal references and external events, scholars assume King Lear was written in 1604 – 1605. Most believe it was written right around the time Shakespeare was working on Othello, since there are parallels between the way Iago tries to fool Othello and the way Edmund proposes to trick his father, Gloucester. There are also some parallels in language between Shakespeare's problematic comedy Measure for Measure, written around the same time, and certain passages in King Lear.

The play was written soon after James had been crowned king of England, as well as Scotland, in 1603. The theme of unity of the kingdom, a central point of the play, was a hot topic of political conversation in these years. Shakespeare's tragedies often reflect issues that were in the public arena at the time he wrote specific plays.

King Lear was a supposedly one of the first monarchs in prehistoric Britain. He had come down to Shakespeare's time as a figure of myth and folklore. The opening situation in the play, an aged ruler who must choose among his three daughters, is right out of Grimm's fairy tales; we know it will be the youngest who loves her father the most, just as in many fairy tales. The immediate source for the play, however, is an earlier play titled King Leir, which has the same basic situation as Shakespeare's play but is very different in story line and characters. It is as if this earlier play served simply as an inspiration for Shakespeare to write a totally different play, which has become the most powerful of all Shakespeare's works. As he did so often in his history plays, Shakespeare used Holinshed's Chronicles of England, Scotland and Ireland, a massive collection of historical fact, fantasy and folklore. He also used a poem by a contemporary poet named Stratchy, which has a number of parallels, and a more famous work of fiction, Arcadia, by the famous courtly writer Sir Philip Sidney. In addition he used bits and pieces of other works which he blended to make a unique version of the story. One of my favorite such sources was an attack on the Jesuit order of the Catholic Church by Harsnett, written in 1602, which lists various demons the Jesuits allegedly used as allies. Many of the demons' names are to be found in the mad ravings of Tom of Bedlam in the play. There are passages from most of these sources in the appendix of your Signet edition. Take a look at how Shakespeare shaped his source material to make his own powerful creation.

King Lear was a popular work during Shakespeare's lifetime, evidenced by the fact that there were two editions of the play, published in quarto form before the inclusion of the play in the First Folio in 1623. These different editions do not posed significant textual problems for the general reader.

During the intervening centuries the scene where the crazed King Lear goes out into the storm (Act III, scene 2) has become the best-known part of the play. In the late 1600's the play fell into disfavor because the powerful emotions, and the final scene of Lear's suffering was thought to be too much for theater audiences. Eventually the play was rewritten so that Lear survived his ordeal and returned to the throne. Cordelia also survived and married Edgar. This bastardization of Shakespeare's original play reigned supreme during the 18^th Century. In the 19^th Century the famous novelist Charles Dickens wrote a parody of this kind of emotional emasculation of Shakespeare when he described an adapted version of Romeo and Juliet in the novel Nicholas Nickelby. Not only do Shakespeare's famous couple survive their misunderstanding in the tomb, but so does Romeo's friend, Mercutio, who ends up marrying Romeo's cousin Benvolio, who is in actuality Benvolia, a girl who has been masquerading as a man for years.

Gradually theater people rediscovered Shakespeare's original King Lear and began to stage it again, despite the admonition of Samuel Johnson, a famous 18^th Century Shakespearean scholar, who declared that the final scene of the play was too emotionally draining for the general public to witness performed. Nevertheless, the play has been restored to its preeminent position. Many people believe it to be the best of Shakespeare's tragedies. I go even further and hold it to be the finest work of literature ever produced by humankind. It has attracted many of the finest actors in the world, often as the challenge of their careers. The great film actor Charles Laughton was performing in a stage version of the play when he died. When Sir Laurence Olivier was in declining health, he chose Lear as the final Shakespearean play he would perform on the screen. The Oregon Shakespeare Festival chose Lear to mark its momentous 50^th season. In addition to famous stage productions, the play was also the subject of an excellent film, titled The Dresser, about performing the play during the Blitz in Britain during World War II. In that film we see the relationship between a backstage functionary, a man who helps dress cast members, and the egotistical actor who has performed the part of Lear for years. The actor, simply referred to as "Sir," has been married many times, always to the young actress who plays the part of Cordelia. As the wives put on weight and Sir becomes older, he trades in his old wife for a younger, lighter one that he can carry onstage during the final scene. The film is very insightful about life, love and King Lear and is available for rental.

There are a number of film versions of the play, although they may be difficult to find in your local rental outlet. The major version available is by Lawrence Olivier, done on television, in 1982. It has a number of fine British actors and is pretty faithful to the text. A more recent television production was done with Ian Holm as Lear and was done with minimal sets. Another British version from 1969 is directed by Peter Brook of the Royal Shakespeare Company and stars Paul Scofield as Lear in an excessively dark and gloomy production. Two unusual foreign films provide us with insights about the cultures from which they came. A Russian film from the 1960's features a script by the Nobel Prize-winning novelist Boris Pasternack. It turns Lear's family tragedy into a national disaster with widespread suffering and destruction, similar to what happened to the Soviet Union in the 20^th Century. The great Japanese director Kurosawa redid Lear as a samurai drama, called Ran, with the king's daughters replaced by ambitious sons who oppose their father in magnificent battle scenes. King Lear may be one film you'll need to buy on the Internet rather than trying to find in a store.

Themes in King Lear

One of the things which make King Lear such an impressive work is that it touches on so many themes that illuminate the human condition. Here are eight themes which are explored in the play:

1.) Conflict between fathers and daughters: As children mature their relationship with their parents, especially their fathers, changes from one of loving dependency to often stormy confrontation. We can see why children may need to assert their independence, but this conflict can be tough for fathers who see themselves going from the center of the child's universe to an unwelcome reminder of the past. Lear's struggle for respect from his daughters is heightened because the two older girls are so consciously bad, while the youngest daughter, Cordelia, dares to challenge her father's wrong-headed decisions with love he cannot recognize.

2.) Conflict between fathers and sons: The same conflict that Lear faces tears apart Gloucester and his two sons. In this case the struggle is over power and is intensified because the father fears that one son is trying to get rid of him. Both Lear and Gloucester are easily manipulated because they do not know their children's hearts.

3.) The problems of giving up power: We see frequent examples of older men who have problems relinquishing power. They retire from running a business, but they continue to try and exercise control even after they have left. King Lear is a perfect example of a man who can't let go. He has been a monarch for so long he thinks his first name is "King." The play shows us how the old man suffers because he must forge a new identity through intense suffering at an age when change is most difficult for him.

4.) The difference between true loyalty and blind obedience: We meet two characters in the play who illustrate the fact that there is an enormous difference between simply obeying orders and being loyal to what one's leader stands for. Goneril's servant Oswald obeys every evil order his mistress gives him and is truly despicable. The Earl of Kent disguises himself to return and serve King Lear even though he has been banished by the ruler. Kent is loyal to the higher good that Lear has forgotten.

5.) The difference between true love and lust: Edmund the Bastard rises quickly in his climb to power over the bodies of his brother and father. Edmund almost becomes the sole ruler of England by using physical lust to win Lear's two older daughters to his cause. Ultimately that physical passion will lead to their and his destruction. Cordelia's selfless love for her father, when he least deserves it, shines by way of contrast.

6.) The difference between sanity and insanity: For much of the play we watch as King Lear loses his sanity because the injustice of his treatment and the resulting emotional stress prove too much for him. In his madness, however, we see the beginnings of a new, wiser identity. His madness is complimented by two other characters who pretend they are insane, or at least mentally impaired. The Fool plays a role where he is supposed be to a half-wit, and consequently despite the wisdom of his observations, Lear never takes him seriously. Edgar, the object of an intense manhunt, can only escape death by playing the part of a lunatic who is possessed by demons and hallucinates. Shakespeare plays with the idea of real insanity and mock madness throughout the play.

7.) The function of charity in restoring spiritual health: Several characters suffer from the most profound despair, a spiritual condition. Some of these characters are helped to recover their spirits because of simple acts of charity. Helping others becomes a form of therapy that helps bring them back from the desolation of their souls. This is one of several aspects of the play that have a profound religious resonance.

8.) The power of redemption in achieving inner peace: Both Lear and Gloucester suffer terribly, and yet both of them achieve a profound inner peace just before they die. They are able to do this because they are freed from their previous sins by the intervention of one of their children who, although wronged, redeems them. This redemption comes at a time when the suffering father least expects it. This idea of redemption, almost as if it were the miraculous intervention of a higher power, is another theme with religious resonance in the play.

Features of the Composition of King Lear

There are aspects of the way King Lear was written that make it especially effective as a drama and very provocative in its ideas. Here are five ways in which the play is unusual in its composition:

1.) Parallel Storyline: To the basic story of King Lear, Shakespeare added the account of Gloucester and his struggle with his two sons. In both stories the fathers mistake the loyalty and intention of their children. Shakespeare is able to cut back and forth between the two stories throughout the play, doubling the conflict and allowing the audience to perceive similarities between the two families.

2.) Economy of Narrative Development: At the point in his career when Shakespeare wrote this play, he was very skilled in revealing a plot. Once the qualities of a character and the situation are established, Shakespeare is able to develop a story very quickly, presenting only the highlights and allowing the audience to fill in the intermediate stages in their imaginations. For example, Edmund’s seduction of Lear’s two daughters to advance his own ambitions is presented in minimal manner, allowing more time for showing Lear’s ordeal.

3.) Extremes in Good and Evil: More than in any other play, King Lear has characters of overwhelming evil, Goneril, Regan and Edmund, and characters of transcendent good, Cordelia, Kent and Edgar. The struggle between these two extremes dominates the play, and those people caught between the extremes, such as Albany or Gloucester, are shown to be ineffectual, despite their best intentions, in stopping the evil taking place.

4.) Consciously Pagan Context for the Action: The events of King Lear’s life took place before the birth of Christ. Ordinarily Shakespeare paid little attention to historical authenticity, but in this play he emphasizes the idea that these characters exist in a pre-Christian time. Both Lear and Gloucester evoke the idea of pagan gods controlling the events of this world. One of the effects of this setting in time is that the suffering of the characters is seen in its own terms. There is no heavenly bliss awaiting the victims of the cruelty in this play. For Shakespeare’s largely traditional Christian audience, the lack of divine justice must have made the suffering all the more powerful.

5.) Dramatic Force of Reconciliation: Because both Lear and Gloucester bring terrible suffering upon themselves by their own blindness, they both sink into spiritual despair. When the children whom they have wronged return to redeem them, the resulting reconciliations are dramatic highpoints of the play, heightening the emotional response of the audience.

Act I, Scene 1

In the opening scene an elderly King Lear decides to give up his throne, dividing his kingdom among his three daughters. His two older daughters, Goneril and Regan and their husbands, welcome this decision. Lear’s youngest daughter, Cordelia, and Lear’s chief advisor, Kent, oppose the decision and try and get the king to reconsider. He refuses to change his mind, and almost all of the conflict that will shape the play begins. Five of the major characters in the play – Lear, Goneril, Regan, Cordelia and Kent – are clearly established in this scene.

Most of the scene takes play in the public arena with momentous decisions and pronouncements. Almost all the language of these vital events is in blank verse, as befits such important occurrences. And yet the scene begins with a small, private moment between two of Lear’s closest advisors, Kent and Gloucester, and Gloucester’s son, all speaking in prose. What are the purposes of this passage? What do we discern about the dynamics of the relationships among these three men? Why is it in prose? [Act I, scene 1, lines 1 – 34]

The first important purpose of this passage is to show that the decision to divide the kingdom has already been made. Lear has divided his kingdom equally among his children. At line 3 Gloucester tells us,

[I]n the division of the kingdom, it appears not which of

the dukes [Lear’s two sons-in-law] he values most, for equalities are so

weighed that curiosity in neither can make choice of

either’s moiety [share].

In other words, regardless of the king’s previously perceived partiality for Albany over Cornwall, the division of the kingdom has been so scrupulously equal that neither of the sons-in-law can quibble that the other’s share is any better. Why is this information important? Because it emphasizes that much of what follows is political theater rather than a substantive policy decision. The important stuff has already been decided when Lear asks his daughters to compete for their portions of the kingdom. They are putting on a show in public to please their father. It is also significant that neither Kent nor Gloucester raises any objections to the decision to divide the kingdom, although both will subsequently criticize Lear’s action. Look for what will change their minds about the division.

The second important purpose of this passage is to establish Gloucester relationship with his illegitimate son, Edmund. We get the first inkling that Edmund may be an embarrassment for his father in the fact that Gloucester has not introduced him to Kent. At line 8 Kent has to ask, “Is not this your son, my lord?” In the world of formal etiquette practiced by gentlemen in the Renaissance, not introducing someone in such circumstances is a serious breach or a deliberate snub. Furthermore, among the small group of the close advisors to the king, Kent would normally have known all of Gloucester’s children, unless their father had deliberately hidden one from public view, as he apparently has done in this case. In acknowledging that Edmund is his flesh and blood at line 9, Gloucester reveals why he may have been reluctant to mention his existence before: “His breeding, sir, hath been at my/ charge. I have so often blushed to acknowledge/ him that now I am brazed [hardened] to’t.” In the first sentence here Gloucester is saying that Edmund’s “breeding,” his upbringing and education, has been done at his “charge,” or expense. However, he is also saying that he has been accused, or “charged,” with having fathered, or “bred,” the boy. Clearly the accusation has caused him much embarrassment in the past, but Gloucester is now used to admitting his guilt. Ask yourself, if you were Edmund, how would this admission make you feel?

When Kent doesn’t understand exactly what Gloucester is saying, he says at line 12, “I cannot conceive you, sir.” This gives Gloucester a chance to make a tasteless pun on “conceive,” or “become pregnant.”

Sir, this young fellow’s mother could,

whereupon she grew round-wombed, and had

indeed, sir, a son for her cradle ere she had a

husband for her bed. Do you smell a fault?

Gloucester treats the fact that he got a woman pregnant and is responsible for an illegitimate son as a joke. Notice that in the passage above he does not mention his own actions; it’s all the fault of the woman. Once again ask yourself, how would Edmund feel about this description of his conception?

Kent is a true gentleman, and at line 17 he quickly denies that there is any “fault” attached to either Edmund’s mother, Gloucester or Edmund himself: “I cannot wish the fault undone, the issue of it/ being so proper.” In other words, Edmund is such a good-looking kid that it makes up for any irregularity in his birth. That is how a gentleman should behave, putting at ease all with whom he dealt, regardless of their social status. And as an illegitimate child, even though his father is a powerful nobleman, Edmund is at a distinct disadvantage in this situation.

Gloucester may be embarrassed by Edmund, but he continues to treat his conception as a joke. At line 19 he explains in more detail:

But I have a son, sir, by order of law,

some year elder than this, who yet is no dearer

in my account; though this knave came some-

thing saucily to the world before he was sent for,

yet was his mother fair, there was good sport at his

making, and the whoreson must be acknowledged.

Do you know this noble gentleman, Edmund?

Gloucester now reveals he has another son, a legitimate son (“by order of law”), who is a year older than Edmund. Gloucester assures us that he loves his sons equally, but as he goes on to describe Edmund’s conception, he calls his son “knave,” a term which one used with inferiors, regardless of how much affection you felt for them. More telling, he also calls Edmund a “whoreson” who must be “acknowledged,” literally the “son of a whore” whose existence is painful to his father. However, Gloucester assures Kent, all the trouble was worth it because Edmund’s mother was attractive and the act of creating a child was “good sport.” Gloucester is a snickering old lecher, laughing about his past conquests and the proof of his virility. If you were Edmund, how would you feel about the way your father describes you and your mother, especially to a stranger?

At line 33 we learn how Gloucester has dealt with this embarrassment and why Kent has never met Edmund before. Gloucester had sent his son into some kind of exile, away from the court and his father’s life, for nine years. Psychologists would quickly add that these are a child’s formative years. We can imagine how excited Edmund must feel, to be allowed to return to his father and brother. Now Gloucester drops another bombshell: he intends to send his son away again. Modern productions often show Edmund hearing of his father’s plans for the first time here and being appalled. Although Shakespeare never draws a direct connection between Gloucester’s abusive treatment and Edmund’s subsequent evil, we can understand why Edmund might be disposed to ignore his obligations to dear old dad later in the play. For the time being Edmund is apparently obedient and eager to please, as we see in his exchange with Kent between lines 27 and 32 where the young man says, “I shall study deserving.” (There is a rather ominous note to this sentence which, on the surface, just means Edmund will try to make himself worthy of others’ approval; however, given the enormous evil he commits throughout the play, his “deserving” becomes rather ironic.)

With the entrance of King Lear and the rest of the court, the scene now becomes very public, and the language changes accordingly to verse to mark that these are serious events unfolding. King Lear will explain that he is stepping down as monarch and dividing his kingdom among his three daughters. In his statements and actions throughout this next sequence, does King Lear strike you as someone who is tired and eager to give up power? [Act I, sc. 1, lines 35 – 189]

This entire scene is played out on a public stage; that is, King Lear is speaking to the entire court and through it to the country. It is the equivalent of a presidential news conference. We know this because the trumpets announce the king’s official entrance, and he is surrounded by his daughters, their husbands and his attendants. We also know these are public pronouncements because Lear uses the royal “we,” as at line 38 and elsewhere throughout the passage. When a king referred to himself as “we,” he was speaking both as an individual and as the embodiment of the nation.

At line 40 King Lear states his purposes in stepping down as the ruler and dividing his kingdom:”To shake all cares and business from our age, / Conferring them on younger strengths, while we/ Unburthened [unburdened] crawl toward death.” This makes it sound as if Lear were decrepit with age and ready to die. But Lear’s actions and words throughout this scene contradict the image of a tired, old man. He exudes authority, and much of what he speaks is in the form of commands: “Attend the lords of France and Burgundy, Gloucester” [line 35]; “Give me the map there” [line 37]; “To thine and Albany’s issue/ Be this perpetual” [line 68]. King Lear says he is ready to give up power, but he is incapable of doing so. In fact, his inability to relinquish his authority is one of the causes of the tragedy. If he were to shuffle off meekly to the old folks home, there would not be any conflict in the play.

Underlying Lear’s decision to step down and divide his kingdom into three parts are two assumptions. In the opening lines Kent had referred to a possible rivalry between Lear’s sons-in-law, Albany and Cornwall. And now at line 46 Lear says that “future strife/ May be prevented now.” Clearly breaking a united kingdom into three, to include a portion for Cordelia and her future husband, is meant to avoid conflict. It will have the opposite effect. The second assumption on Lear’s part is that he is such a mighty monarch, no one person could replace him; it will take three people.

Lear’s sense of his own power is also behind his command that his daughters tell him, in public, how much they love him. He enjoys making them perform tricks which flatter his ego before he rewards them. His actions also suggest a parent who needs to be reassured of his children’s affection toward him, almost as if his giving up power might endanger the bond of love between them. At line 53 Lear asks, “Which of you shall we say doth love us most/ That we our largest bounty may extend/ Where nature doth with merit challenge.” However, we know that he has already divided the kingdom, so what he asks of his three daughters is not a competition, but to enact a piece of political theater. Whatever motivates Lear, we are about to discover how poorly he understands himself and his own children.

Lear’s two eldest daughters play the game and tell him what he wants to hear. Goneril loves him “Dearer than eyesight, space and liberty;/ Beyond what can be valued, rich or rare” [58-59]. The middle daughter, Regan, outdoes her sister and says, at line 74,

I profess

Myself an enemy to all other joys

Which the most precious square of sense professes,

And find I am alone felicitate [happy]

In your dear Highness’ love.

These girls love their Daddy! They are flattering him, of course. One of Lear’s major character flaws is that he mistakes their flattery for sincere expressions of affection. He will pay a terrible price for this fault.

I spoke earlier of Lear’s sense of power. We certainly can see that in the way he bestows the portions of his kingdom. At line 65, pointing to the map, he gives Goneril her third:

Of all these bounds, even from this line to this,

With shadowy forests, and with champains [plains] riched,

With plenteous rivers, and wide-skirted meads [meadows],

We make thee lady. To thine and Albany’s issues [descendents]

Be this perpetual [for all time].

King Lear sounds like a powerful god dispensing pieces of his own creation. It’s this quality which gives us a sense of how accustomed he is to wielding power.

Lear clearly loves his youngest daughter, Cordelia, the best of his children. At line 125 he tells us, “I loved her most, and thought to set my rest/ On her kind nursery [care-giving].” I am hardly an expert on parenting skills (although my two children survived my missteps), but I do know that it is not a good idea to let your kids perceive that you favor one over another. At line 85 Lear makes the connection between Cordelia’s dowry, what she will receive as a settlement for marriage, and her prospects for a good marriage with either the Duke of Burgundy or the King of France. He offers her an opportunity “to draw/ A third more opulent than your sisters.” Since we’ve already been told that the divisions of the kingdom were precisely even, Lear may just mean that he will give Cordelia the choicest land. Or it may just be a verbal gesture. In any event there is a lot riding on Cordelia’s answer to Lear’s request.

Of all the characters in this scene, Lear’s youngest daughter, Cordelia, is the only one who speaks directly to the audience in two asides, mini-soliloquies, at lines 64 and 78. These private moments help us identify with her character. The revelations show us the struggle which Cordelia faces in whether or not to “play along” with her father’s political charade of publicly declaring her love. At line 64 she shares with us her strategy of non-participation, “Love, and be silent.” At line 79 she once again assures us that she does love her father: “I’m sure my love’s/ More ponderous [weighty, substantial] than my tongue.” So we know before the confrontation with her father what Cordelia’s real feelings are for Lear.

What is Cordelia’s objection to “playing along” with Lear? It may be a natural reluctance to displaying her emotions in public or flattering her father. It could be Cordelia foresees the problems which will occur if her father tries to give up his power. It might be that she knows it is a mistake for him to trust her older sisters with power and especially with helping care for him. After all, Cordelia may have a better sense of her sisters’ real feelings toward their father than Lear does. Finally, Cordelia, like Kent and Gloucester, may have sensed that it would be a mistake to divide the kingdom.

Cordelia’s response at line 89 is stark in its simplicity: “Nothing, my lord.” At first, Lear doesn’t understand, “Nothing?” and she reiterates her answer, prompting her father to warn her at line 92, “Nothing will come of nothing. Speak again.” Think about the exercise of power in this exchange: “I don’t like what you said so change your words.” Ironically, Lear is terribly wrong when he says, “Nothing will come from nothing.” He means Cordelia won’t receive anything with that answer. However, all the ensuing suffering and tragic wisdom flow from this word “nothing.” “Nothing” and plays on this idea “Nothing will come from nothing” are repeated throughout the play, forming a motif. The frequent repetitions will remind us of this dramatic beginning and will allow us to measure how much has come from this initial “nothing.”

King Lear mistakenly measures love and believes he can equate a person’s love with the words she speaks. Cordelia at line 93 tries to explain her answer: “Unhappy that I am [unfortunately], I cannot heave/ My heart into my mouth. I love your majesty/ According to my bond [obligation of child to parent], no more nor less.” This explanation does not satisfy Lear, but he tries to give his beloved daughter a second chance at line 96: “How, how, Cordelia? Mend your speech a little,/ Lest you mar your fortune.” Be careful what you say so you don’t ruin your chance at getting some of the kingdom.

At line 97 Cordelia offers at least one explanation for her answer – a direct challenge to her sisters’ veracity:

Good, my lord

You have begot me, bred me, loved me. I

Return those duties back as are right fit,

Obey you, love you, and most honor you.

Why have my sisters husbands if they say

They love you all? Haply [perhaps], when I shall wed,

That lord whose hand must take my plight shall carry

Half my love with him, half my care and duty.

Sure I shall never marry like my sisters,

To love my father all.

We see here that Cordelia does acknowledge her love for her father and the rational basis for that love as a reciprocity for what he has provided her. However, she questions her sisters’ extravagant declarations of love, “more than eyesight.” How could they have husbands since they claim to love their father so totally? Cordelia reserves the right to share her love between her father and any future husband. You can see that her questioning here is designed to challenge her sisters’ truthfulness. Lear’s response is not to re-examine what Goneril and Regan told him but to see Cordelia’s answer as a denial of him. “But goes thy heart with this?” That is, do you really mean this? When Cordelia confirms it, he asks at line 108, “So young, and so untender?[so cruel]” to which she says, “So young, my lord, and true.” Cordelia sees herself as being the only person at the court willing to tell her father the truth. It is not the only time in the play that we see the courage of Lear’s youngest daughter.

Lear told us earlier that he loved Cordelia best of all his girls, but he now irrevocably severs his relationship with her. He has known her all her life, and yet now, after only 18 lines, he shuts the door on her. At line 110 he tells her, the court and us

Let it be so [your being true], thy truth then be thy dower [inheritance]!

For, by the sacred radiance of the sun,

The mysteries of Hecate [goddess of the underworld] and the night,

By all the operation of the orbs [stars and planets]

From whom we do exist and cease to be,

Here I disclaim all my paternal care,

Propinquity and property of blood [family relationship],

And as a stranger from my heart and me

Hold thee from this for ever.

There is about Lear’s behavior a kind of emotional immaturity. Those of us who are used to dealing with the frustrations of ordinary life know that you can’t simply end the basic relationship between father and child over few words. Only a child would sulk and announce, “I’ll never talk to you again.” The rest of us have learned the hard way that you have to compromise in this world. But Lear has had absolute power all his life, and in some ways he has never had to grow up emotionally. And like anyone with absolute power, King Lear makes the break absolute, “for ever.” The other thing to notice here is that Lear calls upon the higher powers which he believes control his world: the forces controlling the sun, the moon and the stars. Why is this important? Because it reminds us that the context of this play is pagan, before the Christian era. And why is that important? Because Shakespeare’s audience believed in a traditional Christianity where suffering of pagans would not result in salvation after death. The terrible things which happen in this play do not have any relief in a benevolent Christian afterlife, which makes the suffering even more poignant. There will be many reminders of this pagan context throughout the play.

To show how absolute his determination is to cut Cordelia out of his life, Lear adds a rather odd comparison at line 118:

The barbarous Scythian [a tribe considered savages],

Or he that makes his generation messes

To gorge his appetite, shall to my bosom

Be as well neighbored, pitied, and relieved,

As thou my sometime [former] daughter.

The Scythians were a people in what is now Russia who had a reputation of being uncivilized. The second comparison is just strange – the savages who supposedly devour their own “generation,” referring to either children or parents. Cannibalizing your close relatives is just wrong, and it gives us an idea of how angry Lear is, if he would rather welcome such a person than his own daughter.

At line 122 the Earl of Kent interjects to try and change Lear’s mind. The king warns him: “Come not between the Dragon [one of the symbols of a powerful English king] and his wrath./ I loved her most, and thought to set my rest [retirement years]/ On her kind nursery.” So Lear confirms that he favored Cordelia over her sisters and shows how hurt he is by what he sees as her rejection. After ordering her out of his sight, he asserts that royal power we saw earlier, at line 128 ordering that the King of France be called forth. He orders his sons-in-law, Albany and Cornwall, to divide up Cordelia’s portion of the kingdom. He says now of Cordelia’s position. “Let pride, which she calls plainness [honesty], marry her.” So for him his daughter did what she did because she was too proud to declare her love for her father. Furthermore, we see how Lear uses the possibility of marriage as a reward or punishment.

Lear now sets forth the conditions of his stepping down: he will give up all the power of the throne, in exchange for his daughter and her husbands housing him and 100 of his closest friends every other month. He will keep his title and honors, but he will give up to his wives’ husbands “The sway [rule],/ Revenue [ability to tax], execution of the rest [ability to pass and enforce laws],/ Beloved sons, be yours.” To symbolize this new arrangement he orders Albany and Cornwall to divide a crown between them. Now the people in Shakespeare’s audience had been raised to regard national unity as a paramount value. They would react to this idea of breaking the crown as a slap in the face. It would be as if a character in a contemporary drama cut up an American flag to show the division of the country. We fought the Civil War over this issue, and we would realize in an instant that national division is wrong.

Counting his brief interruption at line 122, Kent will try seven times to stop Lear’s actions. At line 142 he tries to be polite and respectful as he reaffirms his love and honor for Lear as “my king….my father….my master….my great patron.” But before he can state his objection, Lear warns him at line 145, “The bow is bent and drawn; make from the shaft,” as if Lear were an English long bow about to be unloosed with fatal consequences. Kent invites Lear shoot away, even if the arrow pierces his heart.

At line 147 Kent tries the direct approach:

Be Kent unmannerly

When Lear is mad. What wouldst thou do, old man?

Think’st thou that duty shall have dread to speak

When power to flattery bows? To plainness honor’s bound

When majesty falls to folly. Reserve thy state [authority],

And in thy best consideration check

This hideous rashness. Answer my life my judgment,

Thy youngest daughter does not love thee least,

Nor are those empty-hearted whose low sounds

Reverb no hollowness.

Kent really does risk his life here by trying break through Lear’s stubborn insistence on his course of action. Kent addresses the king in the plainest terms possible, to the point of being insulting or, as he says at line 147 “unmannerly” in the face of Lear’s madness. At line 148 he calls the king “old man,” a forceful reminder of why Lear needs to re-examine his actions. He excuses his opposition as “duty” [149] in the face of “power” bowing to “flattery” [150]. So Kent implies that Lear as an old man has been deceived by the flattering lies of his older daughters. He explains his tough language, his “plainness” [150], as the result of his “honor” [150] responding when Lear’s “majesty falls to folly” [151]. Kent now urges Lear not to give up power: “Reserve thy state” [151] and to revoke his unthinking rejection of Cordelia, “This hideous rashness” [152]. At line 152 he stakes his life on his judgment that Cordelia is true and that her mild answer to Lear’s request, her “low sounds” [155], do not mean her love is “hollow” [156] or insincere.

Rather than realizing the wisdom of Kent’s observations, Lear warns him at line 156 he has gone too far: “Kent, on thy life, no more!” Kent responds, “My life I never held but as a pawn/ To wage against thine enemies, nor fear to lose it,/ Thy safety being motive” [the reason for my action]. Again we see how Kent is willing to risk his life in service to his master, even if it means he must oppose the mistake that master is now making. This is true loyalty. Lear tries to remove this irritation of Kent’s truthfulness by ordering him “Out of my sight” at line 159. This denial has probably worked for Lear throughout his life, but Kent will not be denied and urges the king “See better, Lear, and let me still [always] remain/ The true blank [bull’s eye of a target] of thine eye.”

At line 162 Lear begins a curse evoking the Roman god Apollo, the god of truth and wisdom. Now it is Kent’s turn to interrupt Lear, the sixth time he has tried to get Lear to change his mind. At line 163 he tells the king, “Thou swear’st thy gods in vain,” because Lear’s angry curse will not deter Kent and because Apollo is hardly the god Lear should be evoking in this instance when his own actions are neither truthful nor wise. Unable to order Kent into silence, Lear flies into an irrational rage and preparing to pull his sword on his oldest advisor and probably his best friend, the old man shouts, “O vassal! Miscreant!” [164]. These two insults are based upon denying Kent’s true social status as an earl. In effect Lear tries to silence his critic calling him a low class servant. It would be entirely inappropriate for the crown head of a country to kill a member of his court in anger. It would bring dishonor on the throne, and Lear’s sons-in-law move to restrain him. At line 165 Kent raises his seventh and final objection:

Kill thy physician, and the fee bestow

Upon the foul disease. Revoke thy gift [of Cordelia’s portion of the kingdom],

Or, whilst I can vent clamor from my throat,

I’ll tell thee thou dost evil.

By threatening to kill him, Kent says, Lear is trying to stop the only person who is attempting to heal him of his disease. The loyal advisor promises to continue to tell Lear he is committing an evil act as long as he is alive.

When his daughter disappointed him, King Lear gave her 18 lines to change her mind. With Kent, whom he has probably known a lot longer than his daughter, he gives 45 lines to change his message. Now, at line 167 he lowers the boom on Kent:

Hear me, recreant!

On thy allegiance, hear me!

That thou hast sought to make us break our vows,

Which we durst never yet, and with strained [excessive] pride

To come betwixt our sentence [decree] and our power [authority],

Which nor our nature nor our place [position] can bear,

Our potency made good, take thy reward.

Lear now gives Kent five days to make provision and then banishes him from the kingdom upon pain of death. To illustrate how serious he is in this judgment, at line 180, he swears by “Jupiter,” the king of the Roman gods, and adds, “This shall not be revoked.”

To understand the power of Lear’s command here, you must know that everyone in the kingdom had to pledge loyalty to the king. However, members of the inner circle, the court and most powerful nobles, took an additional, personal oath to the king as their “liege lord,” an oath called “allegiance..” (You can see the root of the word here.) To violate that oath meant that you were a double traitor for breaking your loyalty oath and your allegiance. So when Lear orders Kent to shut up, he does so by evoking a very powerful control. He accuses Kent of two crimes very serious to Lear: 1.) trying to make the king change a vow or decree, something he claims he has never done in his life. That’s fascinating – a man who has lived for 80+ years and has never once changed his mind! 2.) attempting to interfere with Lear’s exercise of power, which the king says neither his position as monarch nor his nature as a leader can tolerate. Furthermore, Kent’s actions are based upon his own “strained pride,” the same sin that Lear said was responsible for his daughter’s behavior. Kent accepts the order of banishment without further argument, telling Lear at line 182, “Sith [Since] thus thou wilt appear,/ Freedom lives hence, and banishment is here.” So Lear’s stubborn adherence to his course of action has reversed the normal values of society. Kent wishes Cordelia well, telling her at line 185, “That justly think’st, and hath most rightly said.” He rather sarcastically hopes for Goneril and Regan “That good effects may spring from words of love.” In other words, the older sisters have said all the “right” things, but it remains to be seen if their actions will mirror their words. Finally, in the last series of rhymed couplets with which Kent bids the court farewell, he declares at line 188, “Thus Kent, O Princes, bids you all adieu./ He’ll shape his old course in a country new.” Kent promises not to change his behavior but to continue to speak in a plain, direct manner and act in a moral fashion, just in a new location. We’ll see how he goes about achieving this change.

In the final sequence in this initial scene, notice how Lear publicly humiliates his daughter Cordelia, using her marriage prospects to punish her. He will consciously evoke the idea of “nothing” in the course of his cruelty. How do you account for the actions of the King of France in this scene? Finally, notice how at the end the older sisters reveal their true feelings for dear old Dad. [Act I, scene 1, lines 190 – 311]

Marriages, especially among members of royal families, could involve lengthy negotiations over what each party would bring to the union. Cordelia’s two suitors, the Duke of Burgundy and the King of France, have undoubtedly been in discussions about what her dowry or marriage settlement would be. So when King Lear asks Burgundy at line 193, “What in the least/ Will you require in present [immediate] dower,” the duke, who has missed all the previous action, thinks he is still in contract negotiations. He answers that he’ll take what Lear previously offered, a third of the kingdom, and that he’s sure the king will offer no less. This gives the angry father a chance to declare at line 198:

When she was dear [precious] to us, we did hold her so;

But now her price is fallen. Sir, there she stands.

If aught within that little seeming substance,

Or all of it, with our displeasure pieced [added],

And nothing more, may fitly like [please] your Grace.

She’s there, and she is yours.

Lear gets his revenge upon his disobedient daughter. He says, in effect, “She has no use to me. If you want her, take her,” as if she were a discarded piece of furniture. He even gets to throw “nothing” back in her face. For a royal princess this was the height of public humiliation. Small wonder that Burgundy passes on the offer!

Lear tells the King of France at line 210 that he will not insult him by making the same offer, but France wants to know what Cordelia, who was Lear’s favorite, could have done to lose her father’s approval. “Sure her offense/ Must be of such unnatural degree/ That monsters it [220],” i.e., a monstrous crime against nature. He is not prepared to believe Cordelia capable of such a sin. At line 228 Cordelia pleads with her father

That you make known

It is no vicious blot, murder, or foulness,

No unchaste action or dishonored step,

That hath deprived me of your grace and favor;

But even for want [lack[ of that for which I am richer,

A still-soliciting [always begging] eye, and such a tongue

That I am glad I have not, though not to have it

Hath lost me in your liking.

There is no back-down in Cordelia. She is defiant that she was truthful and was a better person for it. But we still detect a note of sorrow in the last two lines here. Lear’s response at line 235 is that of the angry parent confronted with a rebellious teenager throughout history: “Better thou/ Hadst not been born than not t’ have pleased me better.” Most parents may feel this way at times, but they smart if they don’t say it. It’s too extreme!

France dismisses Cordelia’s supposedly monstrous sin, and he gallantly offers Burgundy a second chance to claim her. But Burgundy is still back in the contract negotiations mode and at line 244 asks Lear to give his previous best offer and he’ll take Cordelia off his hands. At line 247 Lear gets a second chance to taunt his daughter: “Nothing. I have sworn. I am firm.” Cordelia adds that she wouldn’t want to marry Burgundy anyway. Now the King of France makes his move at line 252: “Fairest Cordelia, that art most rich being poor,/ Most choice forsaken, and most loved despised,/ Thee and thy virtues here I seize upon.” In this declaration of love we see those oxymorons, the self-contradictory phrases that Romeo was so fond of. It is precisely because Cordelia has lost everything that France finds her lovable. At line 267 Lear angrily tells France to take her “Without our grace, our love, our benison [blessing].” He vows he will never see Cordelia again.

Cordelia bids her evil sisters farewell, telling them she knows what they really are like: “[I] am most loath to call/ Your faults as they are named [271].” Nevertheless, she hopes they will love and care for their father. Regan and Goneril respond by telling her she’s lucky France took her without a dowry and not to lecture them. Cordelia gets the last word in the exchange at line 282: “Time shall unfold what plighted [covered] cunning hides, /Who covers faults, at last shame them derides.” Those who hide their evils will have them finally exposed and suffer shame. A foreshadowing of what is to come!

Now in the last 25 lines of the scene Shakespeare changes direction. Alone, Goneril and Regan drop the pretense and tell us exactly what they think of their father, and it isn’t pretty. The language changes. Throughout the scene from the appearance of Lear back at line 35 the language of the court has been in verse. In the sequence where France takes Cordelia and she says farewell to her sisters the verse has included occasional rhymed couplets. Now that they can reveal their true nature, the evil sisters speak in prose, as if to emphasize that their previous utterances were phony. The girls see their father and his actions with a clarity no one else has shown to this point. At line 290 Goneril says of him

You see how full of changes his age is. The

observation we have made of it hath not been little.

He always loved our sister most, and with what

poor judgment he hath cast her off appears

too grossly.

The implication here is that the girls have discussed their father’s shortcomings a lot: “the observation we have made of it hath not been little.” So while they were telling Lear how much they loved him, they really thought he was a foolish old man. Given the fact that they both got more of the kingdom than they had expected, they might show a little gratitude here, but they’re too nasty. Goneril adds her insight at line 295: “’Tis the infirmity of his age; yet he hath ever but slenderly known himself.” This is very revealing! Lear has always acted foolishly because he has not really understood himself. No other character in the play provides this kind of analysis, and Shakespeare gives this information to the character who can hurt Lear the most with it. Goneril agrees at line 297: “The best and soundest of his time [his life] hath been/ but rash.” Regan cites the banishment of Kent as an example of this unthinking behavior. Remember that Kent had been banished for daring to suggest that Cordelia keep her third of the kingdom, but Regan ignores that in her haste to fault her father. At line 307 Goneril warns, “if our father carry authority with such disposition/ as he bears [possesses now], this last surrender of his will/ but offend us.” She’s saying that Lear’s behavior in giving up the crown and turning power over to them is an example of his mental faults and promises that they will have trouble with him. Once again, it would be nice if these daughters would express some appreciation for what they have gotten as a result of their father’s failings. The exchange ends with Regan saying that they need to think about a course of action, while the older, take-charge girl, Goneril, disagrees and declares at line 311, “We must do something, and i’ th’ heat [right now].” She will proceed to act quickly.

Act I, Scene 2

We now move to the parallel plotline involving the family of Gloucester and his two sons. Just as Lear has children who plot against him, the earl of Gloucester has a conniving child. And just as Lear mistakenly banishes the people who truly love him, so Gloucester will condemn the wrong person. In this scene we are shown the evil design right at the beginning. What rationale does Edmund offer for his actions? How compelling is this justification? What is it that Edmund proposes to do at this point?

[Act I, 2, lines 1 – 22]

We met Edmund back at the beginning of the first scene where we saw his father referring to him in an insulting manner: ‘knave,” “whoreson,” etc. Illegitimate children were often called “natural,” so it is appropriate that Edmund begins by pledging his services to the goddess Nature. King Lear will also evoke “Nature” later in the play, but these are two very different conceptions of a higher power. Under Lear’s “Nature,” a kind of benevolent power which operates the world, children do what their parents want. Edmund’s “Nature” is a rough force which seeks to overturn civilization and order. Edmund goes on to explain how his “Nature” helps him deny any man-made status which society would seek to impose on him because of his birth. At line 2 he asks a rhetorical question:

Wherefore [why] should I

Stand in the plague of custom [allow social taboos], and permit

The curiosity of nations [the condemnation of fastidious people] to deprive me,

For that [because] I am some twelve or fourteen moonshines

Lag of a brother?

In other words, why should I be treated with less respect just because some people might object to the condition of my birth or the fact that I am not my father’s oldest son? Remember that inheritance went to the oldest son at this time, so Edmund as the younger, illegitimate son can expect little or nothing from his father. The thing that really rankles Edmund is his status as a bastard, which he equates with the social term “base” or lower class. Notice how many times in these 22 lines Edmund uses those two terms or variations of the words.

Edmund will ask two more extended rhetorical questions (questions that really require no answer but are only asked to illustrate the speaker’s point). First at line 6

Why bastard? Wherefore base?

When my dimensions are as well compact,

My mind as generous, and my shape as true,

As honest madam’s issue?

Why should I be branded as inferior when I am physically and psychological equal to any child born to an honest, married woman? We might have to grant Edmund a point here. There is no inherent reason why he should be treated as less worthy because of the circumstances of his birth, over which he had no control. He asks the second rhetorical question, and in the process demonstrates at line 9 how obsessed he is with those two terms which he connects in his mind:

Why brand they us

With base? With baseness? Bastardy? Base? Base?

Who, in the lusty stealth of nature, take

More composition [fuller mixture] and fierce quality [energy]

Than doth, within a dull, stale, tired bed,

Go to th’ creating a whole tribe of fops [foolish dandies]

Got [begot] ‘tween asleep and wake?

In the previous speech Edmund argued that bastards had a right to be treated equally. Now he argues in a wonderfully imaginative passage that, given the circumstances of their conceptions, illegitimate children are actually superior to the legitimate offspring of married couples. He evokes the heightened passion of the illicit affair which leads to the creation of a bastard, the enhanced “composition” and “fierce quality.” He contrasts that with the process of conceiving children within a marriage, which he reduces to the image of “a dull, stale, tired bed” shared by a couple who now have conventional sex without even being fully awake – “Got ‘tween asleep and wake” – and as a consequence produce lots of children – “a whole tribe” -- of no particular distinction – “fops.”

Up to this point you could say that Edmund is making a pretty good case for himself. We have seen his father emotionally and socially abuse him; we have seen him rejected and about to be sent away again. He has argued persuasively that he should at least be treated equally, if not regarded as superior to other sons. Now, however, the bastard son of Gloucester makes a big leap at line 15:

Well then,

Legitimate Edgar, I must have your land.

Our father’s love is to the bastard Edmund

As to th’ legitimate. Fine word, “legitimate.”

Well, my legitimate, if this letter speed [work],

And my invention [plan] thrive, Edmund the base

Shall top th’ legitimate. I grow, I prosper;

Now, gods, stand up for bastards.

If he has been treated unfairly, Edmund figures he is justified in doing what he has to in order to win. Most of Shakespeare’s villains have similar excuses for their evil: somebody mistreated them, and so they are justified in doing what they want. Just as he was fixated on the words “base” and “bastard” before, now Edmund locks on the word “legitimate.” How many times does he use that word? He is delighted at the prospect of defeating his brother in a contest poor Edgar doesn’t even know is happening. Notice that Shakespeare is careful to have Edmund assure us that his father loves both his sons equally. When the villain tells us there is no favoritism, we tend to accept that as an accurate assessment. Nevertheless, Edmund ends his speech with the battle cry of the Bastards Liberation Movement: “Now, gods, stand up for bastards!”

In this next sequence how does the language change from the first 22 lines of the scene? Why? Watch how Gloucester is successfully deceived because

1. no one suspects Edmund of duplicity;

2. Edmund uses psychological manipulation on Gloucester and later Edgar;

3. Gloucester seems predisposed for some reason to fear betrayal by Edgar.

[Act I, 2, lines 23 – 127]

Edmund makes his opening declaration in verse to let us know this is a serious statement. After Gloucester’s opening lines the rest of the scene, the deception, is in prose to set it apart and remind us Edmund is not being truthful.

Gloucester enters at line 23 cataloguing all the faults of Lear’s behavior in the opening scene:

Kent banished thus? and France in choler parted?

And the King gone tonight? prescribed his pow’r?

Confined to exhibition? All this done

Upon the gad? [on the spur of the moment]

We have six rhetorical questions here designed to show us that Gloucester doubts the wisdom of King Lear’s earlier decisions. He thinks it was a mistake to banish Kent. Relations with the King of France are now strained. Lear has walked away from his responsibility as the monarch – “prescribed his power” – without adequate transition or preparation – “tonight.” He has made himself the figurehead rather than the actual ruler. And he has done all of this without careful thought or consultation. Gloucester can see what Lear did wrong, although you notice that he was careful not to tell Lear. He can see other people’s faults, but he will proceed to make many of the same mistakes himself. It begins when he notices Edmund quickly trying to hide a letter as he comes in at line 26.

Now Edmund’s manipulation of his father will consist of creating an illusion of something going on which he will try and hide unsuccessfully from his father. The more Edmund denies this illusion, the more Gloucester believes it must be true. The manipulation takes place in 10 steps. In the first three steps (27 – 32) Edmund denies that he has a letter and then tries to deny that it contains anything. Notice the reappearance of the “nothing” motif at line 32:

Gloucester: What paper were you reading?

Edmund: Nothing, my lord.

Gloucester: No? What needed then that terrible dispatch [hasty hiding]

of it into your pocket? The quality of nothing

hath not such need to hide itself. Let’s see!

Come, if it be nothing, I shall not need spectacles [to read it].

Gloucester here even does a paraphrase of Lear’s famous line “Nothing shall come of nothing.” Edmund accomplishes his first manipulation in getting his father to “force” him to give up the letter.

Steps 4. 5. and 6 consist of Edmund preconditioning his father to see something terrible in the letter. At line 39 he declares, “I find it [the letter] is not fit/ for your o’erlooking.”

Yes, that should deter Gloucester from reading the letter. At line 42 he pretends that he is conflicted about whether to give up the letter, blaming his dilemma on the contents. Then at line 46, as he reluctantly gives up the letter, he rather plaintively says, “I hope, for my brother’s justification, he wrote this but as an essay [test] or taste of my virtue.” With supporters like Edmund, Edgar is one lucky guy!

The letter at line 48 is a masterpiece of manipulating Gloucester’s insecurities:

This policy and reverence of

age makes the world bitter to the best of our

times; keeps our fortunes from us till our oldness

cannot relish [enjoy] them. I begin to find an idle and

fond [foolish] bondage in the oppression of aged tyranny,

who sways [rules] , not as it hath power, but as it is suffered [tolerated].

Come to me, that of this I may speak more.

If our father would sleep till I waked him, you

should enjoy half his revenue [wealth] for ever, and live

the beloved of your brother, EDGAR

The letter says that young men ruin their youth because they must defer to their aged parents. They are denied access to the money they will inherit when they could enjoy it most. Furthermore, parents exercise too much control over their children, simply because the children allow themselves to be ruled. The letter ends with that sinister note, “If our father should sleep till I waked him…” and promises a share of the inheritance that Edmund would not normally expect to see. It works on Gloucester who immediately sees a conspiracy out to get him. He wonders if Edgar could be capable of such feelings and asks Edmund for more details, such as how it was delivered. Something in the letter stirs a fear in Gloucester that it might truly reflect his son’s feelings.

In the next three steps of the manipulation Edmund will feed his father’s paranoia. First, at line 64 he tells his father the letter was thrown in the window, mysteriously, as if part of a conspiracy. Then at 66 Gloucester asks if the “character,” or handwriting, is Edgar’s. Edmund’s “defense” of his brother at line 68 is designed to make him appear more guilty: “If the matter were good, my lord, I durst/ swear it were his; but in respect of that, I would/fain think it were not.” Surely Edgar couldn’t have written this! When Gloucester declares that it is Edgar’s handwriting, Edmund “defends” his brother one more time at line 72: “It is his hand, my lord; but I hope his heart is/not in the contents.”

The final step in this process of manipulation comes when Gloucester asks if Edgar had ever mentioned any of this hostility before. Edmund stoutly defends his brother at line 76:

Never, my lord. But I have heard him

oft maintain it to be fit that, sons at perfect [mature] age,

and fathers declined, the fathers should be as a ward

to the son, and the son manage his revenue.

Now this invented story of Edgar’s thoughts on managing an aged parent’s money is intangible hearsay and only indirectly related to the ideas in the letter. Nevertheless, Gloucester seizes upon it as “proof” of Edgar’s guilt. Once again it is apparent that Gloucester is predisposed to fear the worst in his son. Furthermore, his suspicions indicate a lack of communication between Gloucester and Edgar. It is no surprise then that Edmund, at lines 85 – 95, offers to determine for his father the extent of Edgar’s complicity. He will tell who is speaking the truth. To do this he proposes to arrange for his father to eavesdrop on the two of them so he can hear with his own ears if Edgar is guilty. Gloucester now turns over to Edmund the entire means of control . At line 105 he directs, “seek him out; wind me into him [gain his confidence for me], I pray you; frame the/ business after your own wisdom. I would unstate [bankrupt]/ myself to be in a due resolution.” So Gloucester here urges one son to use trickery and deceit on the other to uncover the truth.

Throughout human history when people have suffered setbacks, they look for possible reasons outside themselves, some higher power which has led to their personal disaster. At line 112 Gloucester does this:

These late eclipses in the sun and moon

portend no good to us. Though the wisdom of

Nature can reason it thus and thus, yet Nature

finds itself scourged by the sequent effects [punished by consequences]. Love

cools, friendship falls off, brothers divide. In

cities, mutinies, in countries, discord; in palaces,

treasons; and the bond cracked ‘twixt son and

father. This villain of mine comes under the

prediction, there’s son against father; the King falls

from bias of nature, there’s father against child.

We have seen the best of our time. Machinations,

hollowness, treachery, and all ruinous disorders

follow us disquietly to our graves. Find out this

villain, Edmund; it shall lose thee nothing. Do it

carefully. And the noble and true-hearted Kent

banished; his offense, honesty. ‘Tis strange.

There is something poignant in Gloucester’s efforts to find some supernatural reason why his son has betrayed him. It must be some planetary force which leads to general collapse. It’s not just his family. All of society is in trouble. Notice that his son has done him wrong, but King Lear has done his child wrong. He realizes Kent has been accused falsely but not Edgar. I believe all people, regardless of when they have lived, have echoed Gloucester’s belief that they have seen the best of their times; it’s all downhill from this point on.

Gloucester’s efforts to find some reason in the stars is a particularly medieval belief, even though millions still consult their astrological charts everyday. In the next sequence after Gloucester has left, Edmund gives us a very modern explanation for what just happened. What does he say explains human behavior? How is he able to manipulate his brother? [Act I, 2, lines 128 – 198]

Beginning at line 128 Edmund mocks his father’s beliefs:

This is the excellent foppery of the world,

that when we are sick in fortune, often the surfeits

of our own behavior, we make guilty of our disasters

the sun, the moon, and stars; as if we were

villains on necessity; fools by heavenly compulsion;

knaves, thieves, and treachers by spherical

predominance; drunkards, liars, and adulterers by

an enforced obedience of planetary influence; and

all that we are evil in, by a divine thrusting on.

An admirable evasion of whoremaster man, to

lay his goatish disposition on the charge of a

star. My father compounded with my mother

under the Dragon’s Tail [a constellation], and my nativity was

under Ursa Major [the Great Bear constellation], so that it follows I am rough

and lecherous. Fut! I should have been that I

am, had the maidenliest star in the firmament twinkled

on my bastardizing.

Edmund does not believe in astrology. He thinks we are what we choose to make ourselves. For him “planetary influence” is a lot less important than free will, the decisions that human beings make about their own lives. In this Edmund is articulating a much more modern philosophy than his father, a philosophy associated with Machiavelli, an early 16^th Century writer who was very important in our cultural heritage. Machiavelli was the first modern political scientist. In order to gain a government job with one of the powerful Da Medicis, political leaders in Renaissance Italy, Machiavelli wrote a book called The Prince. In it he explained that the ordinary people could believe that forces like God, Fate or the stars controlled their lives, but rulers had to know better. The prince had to operate on the assumption that he made his own luck and controlled his own destiny; in other words, he had to believe in his own free will. Although Machiavelli did not get his job, The Prince became one of the most widely read books of the age. In Shakespeare’s time the idea of free will was associated with villains who were emboldened to take advantage of the rest of the people through deceit. In Shakespeare’s plays these “free will” villains are sometimes called “machiavellis” in tribute to the master. In his speech here Edmund asserts that the disasters which befall people like his father are often the result of their own excesses. Stars and planets have nothing to do with it. Of course, Shakespeare makes sure that Edmund mockingly includes his own astrological charts, so that the true believers in the audience could point out that Edmund’s behavior is entirely consistent with his time of birth.

At line 144 Edmund anticipates what he will say to Edgar, and Edgar appears at that moment, as if on cue in a play. That is the cue for him to assume another role, that of a concerned brother worried by recent astrological signs – “O, these eclipses portend these divisions” [line 147] – just as if Edmund were now playing his father. Furthermore he tells us he has to play this role with “villainous melancholy” – profound sorrow – as if he were a wandering lunatic – “Tom o’ Bedlam” -- who suffered from depression. The reference here to Tom o’ Bedlam anticipates one of the most unusual features of the play. More about that later. At lines 155 – 161 Edmund even paraphrases his father’s statement a few lines earlier about the “unnaturalness between child and parent”

[line 156].

Edgar does not seemed swayed by the astrological references, asking his brother at line 162, “How long have you been a sectary astronomical” as if it were something funny. But when Edmund at line 164 asks when Edgar last saw Gloucester and at 168 asks, “Parted you in good terms? Found you no displeasure in him by word nor countenance?” he seems to hit a responsive chord in his brother. It suggests that Gloucester has been moody in the past and that the brothers are never sure what their father’s state of mind will be. Edgar is overly credulous in this scene, but Shakespeare hints that there may be some believability in Edgar’s uncertainty. When Edmund reveals there is some tension between Gloucester and Edgar, the older son immediately guesses at line 177, “Some villain hath done me wrong.” Edmund piously agrees, “That’s my fear, brother.” Having planted the seed of doubt, Edmund now takes it to a new level, warning his brother to lock himself in Edmund’s room and at line 183, “If you do stir abroad, go armed.” This really gets Edgar’s attention, so that Edmund is able to add at line 187, “I have told you what I have seen and/ heard; but faintly, nothing like the image and horror/ of it.” We don’t know much about Edgar before this first meeting, but we see in this scene that he too can be manipulated, not in exactly the same way as his father, but nevertheless just as effectively.

When Edgar hurries off to hide in Edmund’s room, the bastard returns to verse at line 192 to provide a summary of what he has accomplished in this scene:

A credulous father, and a brother noble,

Whose nature is so far from doing harms

That he suspects none; on whose foolish honesty

My practices ride easy. I see the business.

Let me, if not by birth, have lands by wit.

All with me’s meet [proper], that I can fashion fit.

The change of language to verse once again emphasizes that he is being truthful, in contrast to what went before. The quality that comes through in this passage is how much Edmund enjoys taking advantage of his family. He likes being a villain and feeling superior to his victims. The passage ends with a rhymed couplet, which is the device Shakespeare .often used to signal to his audience that when this character leaves the stage it is the end of the scene. The next character will be in a different place and/or time.

Act I, Scene 3

In the opening lines of this scene we see Goneril make good on her threat to do something about controlling her father’s exercise of power. Notice how she seeks for a rationale for curbing him. [I, 3]

At line 1 Goneril asks her sycophantic servant, Oswald, if Lear hit one of her gentleman who apparently took exception to Lear’s jester. At line 7 she charges that Lear’s companions, the 100 knights about whom we will hear a lot, are “riotous” and that Lear himself complains all the time. Goneril’s response to this domestic tension is to refuse to speak to her father and to encourage her servants to “come slack of former services” [10], that is to deliberately insult the king.. She repeats her directions to Oswald at line 13. Dr. Phil would undoubtedly say this family needs to confront their problems, if they really are problems, and not play games. She explains her strategy and the reasons for it at line 17:

Idle old man,

That still would manage those authorities

That he hath given away. Now by my life,

Old fools are babes again, and must be used

With checks as [well as] flatteries, when they are seen abused.

There is a level of hatred here that Lear still thinks of himself as a king, even when he has given up the rule. Rather than being understanding of her father’s difficult transition, she dismisses him as an “old fool” who acts like a baby and has to be controlled by use of “flatteries” as well as “checks” or discipline. Goneril admits, in effect, to flattering her father when asked to do so in the first scene. She leaves to write her sister to let her know what the plan of action is.

We are introduced to Oswald in this scene who will emerge as a loyal servant who does whatever his employer tells him to, regardless of the morality of the action or the consequences. Oswald will serve as a contrast to another loyal servant, Kent, who is true to the better spirit of his master, what his master should be doing if only he were thinking straight.

Act I, Scene 4

In this scene Kent returns in disguise to serve Lear in a new capacity. King Lear is deliberately insulted and has to learn how that feels. We are introduced to the extraordinary character, the Fool, a professional jester who attempts to use humor to help make Lear see more clearly. Finally we witness the first violent confrontation as Lear discovers what Goneril really thinks of him. In the opening sequence we meet Kent again. How has Kent physically and verbally disguised himself? Why doesn’t Lear recognize when he is being insulted? [I, 4, lines 1 – 94]

In the opening lines Kent appears in disguise and lets us know his plan:

If but as well I other accents borrow

That can my speech defuse [disguise], my good intent

May carry through itself to that full issue [outcome]

For which I razed my likeness [changed my appearance].

On Shakespeare’s stage there was a convention, an unspoken agreement between players and audience, that if an actor simply changed clothes or took off a phony beard, his appearance would have changed sufficiently so that no one could recognize him. We saw this convention used in Twelfth Night to enable Viola to carry off her masquerade as a man. Kent tells us he has “razed” his appearance, which probably means he shaved his beard. Even more important to his disguise, however, is his change in language. From now on Kent will speak largely in prose and adopt the accent and vocabulary of a lower-class peasant. Language has been throughout the history of England the most important social identifier, as we see in a play like My Fair Lady, where the Cockney flower girl becomes the princess simply through voice lessons. Now Kent introduces himself to Lear with this colorful description of his new persona at line 14:

I do profess to be no less than I seem, to

serve him truly that will put me in trust, to love

him that is honest, to converse with him that is wise

and says little, to fear judgment [divine retribution], to fight when I

cannot choose, and to eat no fish.

The “new” Kent is plain-spoken, direct and wise from his experience. In other words, he’s a lot like the “old” in different clothes and accent. The reference to “eat no fish” is interesting, as your notes make clear. This is one of the few references in Shakespeare’s plays which may refer to the rampant anti-Catholicism of that age. Ironically he says he is “as poor as the king,” at line 20, as if he did not realize he was talking to the king. It also suggests that people look upon Lear, now that he has given up his throne, as impoverished. Lear finds the fact that Kent apparently doesn’t know who he is to be amusing and asks what he wants at line 24:

Lear: What wouldst thou?

Kent: Service.

Lear: Who wouldst thou serve?

Kent: You

Lear: Dost thou know me, fellow?

Kent: No, sir, but you have that in your countenance [bearing]

which I would fain call master.

Lear: What’s that?

Kent: Authority.

Kent here identifies that quality which Lear demonstrated throughout the first scene, even when he was making a fool of himself. In fact, if Lear did not have such a commanding sense about himself, we would likely have no tragedy. The kind of humiliation his daughters are about to put him through is made much worse because he is so obviously unable to compromise and change his sense of authority. We may not like Lear as a human being, but his suffering is powerfully felt.

Kent is asked to give his resume for the job as Lear’s attendant, and he is again direct at line 33:

I can keep honest counsel [honorable secrets], ride, run, mar a

curious [elaborate] tale in telling it, and deliver a plain message

bluntly. That which ordinary men are fit for, I

am qualified in, and the best of me is diligence.

Notice here again Kent’s insistence on his verbal limitations. “A curious tale” refers to the fancy speech and elaborate stories associated with courtiers. He is comfortable delivering “plain messages bluntly.” In a way Kent’s disguise works because he keeps telling the other characters what it is. Although Lear will spend the rest of the play referring to Kent as “fellow” or “sirrah,” he apparently adopts the name “Caius.” When asked his age he answers with customary candor: “Not so young, sir, to love a woman for singing,/ nor so old to dote on her for anything. I have/ years on my back forty-eight.” When the average life expectancy was thirty-six, forty-eight was getting up there. One of the things that attract Lear to Kent is this sense of shared maturity.

Throughout this sequence of the play, from line 40 to 97 when he finally appears, King Lear calls frequently for his Fool. How many times does he do so? Furthermore, he seems agitated by the Fool’s absence? Why isn’t he around? (Hint: look at line 75.)

At line 45 Oswald enters and Lear asks where his daughter is, but Oswald does not answer, in effect putting him on hold with “So please you –“at line 46. At line 55 when Lear sends one of his knights to bring Oswald back to explain his behavior, the slimy servant insults the king again by refusing to return. At line 86 when Oswald does re-enter. Lear describes his insolent facial expression: “Do you bandy looks with me, you rascal?” The most calculated insult is at line 81 when Lear asks Oswald who he, the king, is, and Goneril’s sycophant answers, “My lady’s father.” It is tough on a man who has been used to being the center of attention all his life, but it is doubly difficult to tell him that now his identity is defined only by his relationship to his daughter.

What is amazing about the insults to Lear is that the king at first does not recognize them. He has lived in such a social cocoon all his life that he doesn’t know when people are disrespecting him. At line 57 one of his knights has to explain to him what is happening.

My lord, I know not what the matter is;

but to my judgment your Highness is not

entertained with that ceremonious affection as you

were wont. There’s a great abatement of kindness

appears as well in the general dependents [household servants] as in the

Duke himself also and your daughter.

The fact that one of Lear’s underlings has to explain this to him is evidence of how sheltered he has been. Lear acknowledges at line 68 that he had noticed something was amiss: “I have perceived a most faint neglect/ of late, which I have rather blamed as mine own/ jealous curiosity [concern for honor] than as a very pretense [actual intention] and/ purpose of unkindness.” In other words, Lear thought the problem lay within his own perception rather than in anything people were doing to him. What Lear is doing here is making excuses for someone else’s behavior, probably the first time he has ever had to do that. When he really was king, he didn’t have to worry about making allowances.

When Oswald insults Lear for the fourth time with his wiseass answer, “My lady’s father,” Lear loses his temper, much as we saw him do with Kent in the first scene. At line 82 he shouts, “’My lady’s father/’ My lord’s knave, you/whoreson dog, you slave, you cur!” and he begins to beat Oswald. This is exactly the confrontation Goneril has hoped to provoke. However, for Lear to raise his hand against such a lowlife scum is a violation of his honor and royal personage. So at line 88 Kent quickly jumps in and takes over the physical punishment of Oswald, tripping him as he calls him a ‘base football player.” I love that insult, and it shows the antiquity of the game in one form or another. (They probably only played man-to-man pass defense in Shakespeare’s time.) Kent proceeds to thoroughly trounce Oswald, as he says at line 91 to teach the servant “differences,” that is to remind him of his place. Lear applauds Kent’s initiative and offers him money as an “earnest” or payment for his services. At that point the Fool finally reappears.

We know Lear has been anxious about the return of the Fool, and we have some idea of why he has been away. The Fool performs comic routines non-stop. What does all his humor have in common? In this sequence Goneril’s plan behind the confrontation is revealed. What does she intend to do about Lear? Does she provide justification for her actions? [Act I, 4, lines 95 – 355]

Some of you may have seen the character of a professional jester or fool in Twelfth Night. As you recall Feste, the fool, was a comedian hired to entertain the countess Olivia with jokes and humorous observations. According to the centuries-old tradition the jester was someone who was mentally challenged, hence the title “fool.” But in Twelfth Night Feste was the wisest and most perceptive of the characters. So too in this play the character is called simply “Fool,” as if he has no name, just a derogatory job title. Nevertheless he is one of the smartest characters and one of the most courageous because he reminds Lear of the mistakes in judgment he has made, something that Gloucester was unwilling to do. The fool/jester had always been on the edges of court society, considered one of the base servants. In fact he had originally been given just rags to wear and had to construct a suit of clothes that came to be called “motley,” because of its ratty appearance. The fool/jester had made this costume a badge of his office and wore motley with pride. It signified that he might be a halfwit, but he was paid for it. Other things associated with being a fool/jester included wearing bells (supposedly made you funnier), a coxcomb, a special cap made up of weird spires, often tipped with bells, again a symbol of his job. He might use a hand puppet called a zany that he would use in his comic routines. The fool/jester often specialized in cutting edge humor that could be insulting to the powerful lord who employed him. However, he could hide behind his supposed mental problems or use the hand puppet to say the really outrageous things and escape censure most of the time. There were by tradition two general categories of fool/jesters: the “sweet” fools who specialized in gentle humor which was funny without being insulting; the “bitter” fool whose satiric humor could be insulting and upsetting to an audience. It would be similar to the difference between Bill Cosby and Chris Rock as comedians.

In the sequence from line 95 to 243 the Fool has 24 jokes. Some are one-line zingers, some involve songs or more elaborate set-ups. But they all have the same point: to show Lear’s mistakes. The jokes fall into four subcategories:

1.) It was stupid to give up power and wealth.

2.) It was really counterproductive to have banished Cordelia.

3.) It was dumb to put yourself at the mercy of your evil daughters.

4.) It was all caused by the fact that you act without thinking.

The Fool walks in as Lear is giving Kent money, and the jester “hires him too,” by giving him his coxcomb, implying that Kent will also be a fool. At line 101 he explains that by working for Lear, Kent is “taking one’s part that’s out of favor./ Nay, an [if] thou canst not smile as the wind sits,/ thou’lt catch cold shortly.” It’s a mistake to be seen with Lear, who is no longer in power; to survive you have to bend with the wind, that is kiss up to whoever the new power broker is. The Fool explains why Lear is out of power at line 104: “Why, this fellow has banished two on’s [of his] daughters,/ and done the third a blessing against his will.” This is a clever reversal of what we thought happened: Lear “banished” his two daughters, i.e. they won’t be seeing him much longer, once he gave them power, and he did Cordelia a “blessing” by sending her away. At line 107 the Fool makes an unusual request of Lear: “How now, Nuncle [‘uncle,” a term of endearment]? I would I had two coxcombs and two daughters.” He explains at line 110: “If I gave them all my living, I’d keep my coxcombs/ myself. There’s mine, beg another of thy daughters.” So he reminds Lear that the king has surrendered his means of supporting himself, and he suggests that Lear is like a fool by offering him the badge of his job. (It’s not the only time the Fool will remind Lear that it is the king who is mentally challenged.) The term “Nuncle” is one that the Fool will use throughout the play. I had a friend who played the Fool in a production at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival years ago. In creating a sense of his character Jim envisioned that the Fool was actually a deformed illegitimate child of Lear’s, whom Lear kept around the palace but whose relationship he kept hidden by saying he was the fool’s “uncle.”

Lear tolerates the Fool up to a point, but when he thinks his employee has gone too far he threatens him as at line 113: “Take heed, sirrah [base fellow] – the whip.” The Fool’s “jokes” are in actuality a form of therapy as the jester tries to use humor to make the king realize the mistakes he has made and what he must do to make up for his faults. The tragedy is that Lear never really “hears” the Fool’s message. Because the Fool is supposedly a fool, his wisdom mere nonsense, Lear never heeds his warnings. The Fool comments on Lear’s threats with another joke at line 114: “Truth’s a dog must to kennel; he must be/ whipped out, when Lady the Brach [Bitch] may stand by/ th’ fire and stink.” This is a wonderful little morality tale. There are two dogs, one a mangy mutt named “Truth” and the other a fancy poodle named “Lady.” One of the dogs pees in the fireplace, and the owner automatically assumes Truth is the culprit and whips him out of the house to the kennel, while it was Lady who was guilty. People don’t want to believe the truth. Lear calls the Fool a “pestilent gall,” an “irritation” to him. Nevertheless he laughs at the Fool’s jokes and plays along, as at line 120 when the Fool teaches his employer a speech. The nonsense rhymed verse (“How many words can I find to rhyme with ‘showest?’”) is designed to remind Lear about human excess and how we can avoid disaster by practicing self-restraint, something Lear didn’t do earlier. Kent comments that the doggerel poem doesn’t seem to mean anything, is “nothing” [131], to which the Fool quips, “Then ‘tis like the breath of an unfee’d lawyer/ -- you gave me nothing for’t.”

We are back with the motif of “nothing,” and the Fool quickly uses it to tweak Lear. He asks at line 133, “Can you make no use/ of nothing, Nuncle?” to which Lear answers, “Why, no, boy. Nothing can be made out of nothing.” We have an echo here of Lear’s line to Cordelia back in the first scene: “Nothing will come of nothing.” The Fool turns to Kent and quips, “Pirthee, tell him , so much the/ rent of his land comes to; he will not believe a Fool.” Lear is seeing first hand how he has created “nothing” by his actions. Lear’s comment at line 140 is “A bitter Fool.” Remember the two categories of fools? The Fool quickly picks up the challenge and asks at line 141 if Lear knows the difference between a sweet and bitter fool. He suggests a little demonstration of the difference and asks that Lear stand in for the person who advised him to give away his lands. The Fool concludes in a little nonsense verse at lines 144 – 151,

The sweet and bitter fool

Will presently appear,

The one in motely here [the Fool],

The other [bitter fool] found out there [pointing to Lear].

This comic moment is too obvious for even Lear to ignore and he asks, “Dost thou call me fool, boy?” to which the Fool responds, “All thy other titles thou has given away; that/ thou wast born with.” It’s an echo of Regan saying back at the end of the first scene, “He hath ever but slenderly known himself.” Kent, at line 155, reinforces the Fool’s message: “This is not altogether fool, my lord.” He too is working toward Lear’s redemption.

The Fool follows up at line 156 on Kent’s remark about his message not being entirely foolish:

No, faith, lords and great men will not let me [be a fool by myself].

If I had a monopoly out, they would have part

on’t. And ladies too, they will not let me have all

the fool to myself; they’ll be snatching.

The Fool here mockingly complains about unfair competition. The reference to “monopoly” reminds us that English monarchs, especially James I, controlled the economy and rewarded their favorites by allowing them exclusive control over a particular market. The Fool says the supposed superior people horn in on his business by saying or doing foolish things. The additional remark about the ladies is actually a bawdy statement saying that they won’t leave him alone but are always “snatching “ at his “fool” or sexual organ. This is one of the few jokes the Fool makes that is not directed at Lear, but it is an indirect indictment of all the upper classes.

At line 160 the Fool starts a new comic riff by offering Lear two crowns in exchange for an egg. When Lear asks what two crowns they will be, the Fool explains,

Why, after I have cut the egg i’ th’ middle,

and eat up the meat, the two crowns of the egg.

When thou clovest thy crown i’ th’ middle and

gav’st away both parts, thou bor’st thine ass on

thy back o’er the dirt. Thou hadst little wit in thy

bald crown [head] when thou gav’st thy golden one away.

If I speak like myself in this, let him be whipped

that first finds it so.

The Fool’s humor here is directed at the symbolic division of the crown back in the first scene. First the Fool mocks that division as an empty gesture which would result in useless eggshells. Then he refers directly to Lear’s act and compares it to an equally foolish act – carrying a donkey on his back – as a disruption of the natural order. Finally the Fool falls back into a traditional defense against slanders that professional jesters often used: if I say something offensive, the fault lies with the person who perceives it, not with me because I’m so dim-witted I don’t know what I’m saying. He ends at line 170 singing still one more nonsense song.

At line 174 Lear asks the Fool when he started singing so much. The Fool’s answer introduces another attack on Lear’s self-inflicted relationship woes, but this time from a different perspective:

I have used it [singing], Nuncle, e’er since thou mad’st

thy daughters thy mothers; for when thou gav’st

them the rod, and put’st down thine own breeches,

[singing] Then they for sudden joy did weep

And I for sorrow sung,

That such a king should play bo-peep [like a blindfolded child]

And go the fools among.

Prithee, Nuncle, keep a schoolmaster that can teach

thy Fool to lie. I would fain learn to lie.

Here we get another disruption of natural order. Giving his two daughters power and control was like making them Lear’s mother. He should not be surprised when they use the “rod” of punishment on him. The image of Lear lowering his pants to be whipped leads the Fool to another comic quatrain, but one has the sense that the Fool feels bad about the extent to which Lear has disgraced himself. In any event the Fool asks for help in learning how to lie. It is as if it has become too painful for him to keep reminding Lear of his failings. All Lear hears is that the Fool wants to avoid telling the truth, and he uses his same blunt warning of punishment he did before: “And [if] you lie, sirrah, we’ll have you whipped.”

The Fool points out the dilemma into which Lear has placed him at line 186:

I marvel what kin thou and thy daughters are.

They’ll have me whipped for speaking true; thou’lt

have me whipped for lying; and sometimes I am

whipped for holding my peace. I had rather be any

kind o’ thing than a Fool, and yet I would not be

thee, Nuncle; thou hast pared [trimmed] thy wits o’ both sides

and left nothing i’ th’ middle. Here comes one o’

the parings.

The conflict between Lear and his daughters have left the Fool no room to maneuver; he will offend one side or the other. And sometimes he is whipped for “holding his peace,” i.e. not saying anything but also possibly “holding his piece,” i.e. masturbating. The Fool says with great feeling that he would rather be any other kind of a person than a fool, but he would not want to be Lear. He returns to the image of Lear dividing his crown, but now he says Lear has cut away both sides of is brain and left nothing in the middle. We are back to the “nothing” motif. As Goneril enters Fool calls her “one of the parings.”

When Lear asks Goneril why she is frowning so much in recent days, the Fool at line 197 points out the significance of the question:

Thou wast a pretty fellow when thou hadst no

need to care for her frowning. Now thou art an O

without a figure [a digit giving value to a zero]. I am better than thou art now:

I am a Fool, thou art nothing.

Lear didn’t need to worry about other people’s feelings for all the years he was king; they had to adjust to his emotional state, not the other way around. Now he has to worry about what his daughter is feeling because she has the power. The Fool’s comparison of Lear to a zero without any other digit to give it value is very imaginative. Again he winds up reminding Lear of his new place in society at the same time he recalls for us the confrontation with Cordelia with references to “nothing.”

Goneril now has a long speech, from line 206 to 219. In it she makes a perfectly reasonable case for curtailing Lear’s retinue, whose behavior she calls into question. She begins the “all-licensed Fool,” that is the fool is allowed to do or say anything without restraint. Next she includes the 100 knights which she calls an “insolent retinue” who start fights. She says she has told Lear about these problems, but she now realizes that her father protects and allows these misbehaviors. At line 215 she warns him indirectly that his actions “Would not ‘scape censure, nor the redresses [countermeasures] sleep” [fail to be taken]. Such corrections might do Lear “some offense” but they would be absolutely necessary to remedy the situation. What is important in this speech is that Goneril tries to make a solid case for taking charge of her father. But even more important is the unmistakable threat that lies behind the “reasonable” language.

At line 220 the Fool now interprets the message behind Goneril’s “reasonable” words:

For you know, Nuncle,

The hedge-sparrow fed the cuckoo so long,

That it had it head bit off by it young.

So out went the candle, and we were left darkling [in the dark].

The Fool cuts through Goneril’s courtly speech and reduces its indirect meaning to a blunt, cautionary message. The folklore of Shakespeare’s day held that the cuckoo bird would lay its eggs in other birds’ nests. Then the unsuspecting foster parents would hatch the egg. The young cuckoo was much larger and more aggressive than the young of the sparrows that lived in the hedges, and it would quickly crowd its foster siblings out of the nest and demand all the food the parents would bring. The final indignity was that the large, hungry cuckoo chick would bite off the heads of its adoptive parents. This habit of the cuckoo foisting its off-springs onto strangers is one of the reasons that cuckoldry (sexual betrayal of a man by his wife) was associated with the cuckoo. The unsuspecting cuckold would raise another’s child. The Fool envisions this final assault from the cuckoo as if he and Lear were the parents suddenly swallowed by a hungry chick and left in the dark.

Lear doesn’t hear all the indirect language and hidden threats of Goneril’s speech. All he hears is that someone is opposing him. That is enough to call into question Lear’s identity and all his relationships. If his daughter dares to tell him she doesn’t approve of his actions, he does not know who she is at line 224, “Are you our daughter?” This is a graphic example of how much Lear’s identity is tied to people treating him in a certain way. (Notice that he asks the question using the royal “we,” as if it were a public inquiry.) Goneril asks him to remember who he is in a mild speech from line 225 – 229. The Fool once again offers a homely translation of her courtly language at line 230: “May not an ass know when the cart draws/ the horse?” As with the earlier reference to Lear bearing his ass on his back over the dirt, so here we see the disruption of the normal order. Goneril may sound reasonable, but she is seeking a radical change in her relationship with her father. At line 232 Lear again questions his own identity because his daughter seeks to oppose his will:

Does any here know me? This is not Lear.

Does Lear walk thus? Speak thus? Where are his eyes?

Either his notion [thought] weakens, or his discernings [understanding]

Are lethargied [weakened] -- Ha! Waking? ‘Tis not so.

Who is it that can tell me who I am?

Lear’s outburst here is done with heavy sarcasm. The six rhetorical questions are not asked to be answered. He is indirectly emphasizing his daughter’s outrageous behavior by showing how it has called into question his own identity. He even plays out the idea that he may be asleep by testing to see if he is awake. The passage again shows how Lear’s identity is linked to how others see him. Despite the rhetorical nature of the questions, the Fool offers an answer at line 237 to the question “Who am I”: “Lear’s shadow.” This is a very perceptive answer because Lear really has become a shadow of his former self through his own efforts. Lear acknowledges the truth of the statement, but not because of his own failings. At line 238 he says, “I would fain learn that; for, by the marks of sovereignty [symbols of my status as king and father],/ knowledge, and reason, I should be false/ persuaded I had daughters.” Lear misses entirely the suggestion that he has brought this situation on himself; he only sees that his daughters are ignoring who he is and what they owe him. The Fool adds another remark that offers a disruption of normal order at line 241: “[Daughters] Which they will make an obedient father.” In a very real sense this is the goal of Goneril’s efforts to disrupt her father’s way of life. Lear is still thinking of his own “zinger” that he thought he had daughters, and he asks Goneril at line 242, “Your name, fair gentlewoman?” This is clearly another piece of heavy-handed sarcasm. He doesn’t really ask the question to be answered but to indirectly make the point that his daughter has displeased him. One of the reasons Lear’s use of sarcasm is so obvious is because he is not very good at it. He hasn’t had to use sarcasm much in the past. Sarcasm is an indirect form of communications, used by people who cannot openly state their message. People who have real power do not need to hide their meaning or imply their feelings. Sarcasm is the weapon of the weak, and :Lear hasn’t needed to worry about being direct up to this point. Now he cannot exert power the way he used to. It’s a lot like Lear’s having to be told when he was insulted.

Goneril once again responds to her father’s provocation by giving an answer which sounds reasonable. The language she uses in her response from line 243 to 258 is, in comparison to Lear and the Fool’s insulting comments, courtly and moderate. It is courtly because it is in verse, compared to the prose Lear and the Fool have been using. It is courtly because the sentences are longer. For example the sentence that begins at line 247 contains 29 words; in Lear’s passage at line 230 the longest sentence is nine words. The syntax or grammatical structure of the sentence is much more convoluted. For example the sentence that begins at line 253: “Be then desired/ By her, that else will take the thing she begs,/ A little to disquantity your train.” Goneril is asking Lear to get rid of some of his 100 knights, but does so in language which obscures the fact that she is doing the asking. Furthermore, the key verb “disquantity” doesn’t appear until almost the end of the sentence. By way of contrast look at the simple sentence in the Fool’s speech at line 200: “I am a Fool; thou art nothing.” Working with the convoluted syntax to obscure the meaning somewhat is the formal vocabulary. Look at the description of the 100 knights at line 248: “Men so disordered, so deboshed and bold.” The words roll off the tongue and have an alliterative charm (the repeated “d” sounds) but they really don’t tell us why Goneril condemns the knights. Compare that to the very clear choice of words in the Fool’s little homey explanation at line 221: “The hedge-sparrow fed the cuckoo so long/ That it had it head bit off by it young.” These qualities of Goneril’s courtly speech all tend to soften the message and heighten the contrast with Lear and the Fool by making the message more indirect. But Goneril is quite clear about her intention. She wants to destroy her father, and she knows him well enough to know that he bases his identity on how others treat him. That’s why the 100 knights are so important to him. They really don’t serve any useful function except to remind him that he was once a very important man. Therefore, if she can strip his knights from him, she can destroy his sense of self. That’s the subtle threat behind Goneril’s “reasonable” words.

King Lear reacts to this threat to his identity as we might expect. At line 258 he explodes:

Darkness and devils!

Saddle my horses; call my train [knights] together.

Degenerate bastard, I’ll not trouble thee:

Yet have I left a daughter.

An observer might fault Lear for escalating verbal violence. Certainly calling your own daughter “degenerate bastard” is a bit strong. And rather than talking out their differences, which Dr. Phil might advise, Lear is out the door, convinced that his sole remaining daughter, Regan, will be as outraged as he is. As is customary in family fights like this, the clueless husband enters in the middle of the argument with no idea what is happening. Albany enters at line 264 and Lear demands, “O. sir, are you come?/ Is it your will? Speak, sir.” Are you a party to your wife’s deliberate insult of her king and father? Without giving him a chance to answer, Lear turns his wrath back on his daughter at line 266: “Ingratitude! Thou marble-hearted fiend,/ More hideous when thou show’st thee in a child/ Than the sea-monster.” For Lear the ultimate sin is a child who is not grateful and appropriately obedient after having been given half the kingdom. All poor Albany can do is urge Lear to be patient, but it’s too late. The old man defends his 100 knights from Goneril’s charges. From line 270 to 273 he uses the same courtly language his daughter had previously to assert that the knights are honorable, respectful and well-behaved. Some productions try to show the knights in one extreme or another. One version had the knights all about Lear’s age, so they just sat around and slept a lot. In another production they rode their horses into the dining hall and engaged in food fights. The fact is that how the knights behave is immaterial. Goneril is determined to get rid of them, regardless of the truth of the situation. At line 269 Lear calls his daughter a particularly choice name – “Detested kite!” A kite is a bird which eats carrion, especially dead bodies left hanging up as a public warning. They were like the turkey vultures of Shakespeare’s age, and so his calling Goneril that kind of bird is appropriate; she is feasting on her own father. At line 273 King Lear expresses regret for the first time for what he did to Cordelia; certainly her “sin” seems far less serious when compared to Goneril’s open hostility:

O most small fault,

How ugly didst thou in Cordelia show!’

Which, like an engine [war machine, e.g. a catapult] wrenched my frame of nature

From the fixed place [center of my affections]; drew from my heart all love,

And added to the gall [bitterness]. O Lear, Lear, Lear!

Beat at the gate that let thy folly in [striking his head]

And thy dear judgment out.

Lear’s approach to admitting his past mistakes is interesting. He doesn’t address Cordelia directly but instead talks about her “small fault,” which he now begins to see in a different context. And now Lear gives the first indication of what lies before him: madness. Earlier in this scene Lear complained that when people treat him in some way which he does not like his identity is threatened. Now we see that if this “abuse” continues, the danger is to his sanity – graphically shown by beating his head.

At line 280 Albany says he has no idea what has upset Lear, an excuse the old man dismisses as he goes into his first great curse. As his daughters deliberately provoke him, Lear, who used to wield absolute power, is reduced to verbal curses. They are among the very best in all of the plays because Lear still has that inner power. Here is Lear’s curse of his daughter. Ask yourself if normal relations are ever again possible between these two people after these words have been spoken:

Hear, Nature, hear; dear Goddess, hear:

Suspend thy purpose if thou didst intend

To make this creature fruitful.

Into her womb convey sterility,

Dry up in her the organs of increase,

And from her derogate [degenerate] body never spring

A babe to honor her. If she must teem [give birth like an animal],

Create her child of spleen [ill nature], that it may live

And be a thwart disnatured [unnatural] torment to her.

Let it stamp wrinkles in her brow of youth,

With cadent [plenteous] tears fret [wear] channels in her cheeks,

Turn all her mother’s pains and benefits

To laughter and contempt, that she may feel

How sharper than a serpent’s tooth it is

To have a thankless child.

The speech is a direct echo of Edmund speech calling upon his version of Nature back in the opening lines of Act I, scene 2. Of course, Lear’s Nature is very different from Edmund’s kind of amoral force that looks out for bastards. Lear’s Nature clearly punishes wayward children. More importantly this curse really crosses the line of what can be tolerated. For one thing Lear deliberately uses words like “teem” to make Goneril sound like a sow delivering a litter of piglets. For another the language is really violent and abusive. In one production of King Lear Goneril absorbs this curse as if she was being punched in the stomach. She wrapped her arms around her middle as if she were trying to protect her womb from his hateful words until she ended up lying on the floor in a fetal position. You knew from the expression on her face that she could never forgive her father, would never stop until she had exacted a full revenge. In Shakespeare’s day a powerful curse from your father was a very serious affair, especially if he prayed that you would be made sterile. I like to point out that Lear’s description of the “thwart disnatured” child of spleen is a perfect explanation of a teenager. Seriously, Lear’s anger here leads him beyond the pale; he can never hope to have a normal relationship with his daughter again because of her sin of ingratitude. (“How sharper than a serpent’s tooth it is/ To have a thankless child” was my mother’s favorite curse when I was a teenager.)

Lear storms out and at line 297 Albany asks what set this explosion off. His wife tells him, in effect, to butt out: “Never afflict yourself to know the cause.” Goneril consistently treats her husband with disdain throughout the play; it’s not a healthy marriage. Lear comes back in after only four lines, even more angry than before. Here is what has set him off. In her previous speeches in this scene Goneril had presented herself as a rational adult trying to resolve a problem mutually with her father. She had asked him to “disquantity his train a little” without specifying how many knights she wanted him to get rid of. But when he goes offstage he learns that, behind the reasonable speech, Goneril has already acted and order 50 of the knights out of the castle within a fortnight (two weeks). Her mild words mask the iron fist of someone who is determined to exercise power. Hence Lear’s explosion at line 301: “What, fifty of my followers at a clap [all at once]?/ Within a fortnight?” By her action Goneril reveals her true self to her father and sets the stage for the rest of Lear’s emotional destruction. Albany still hasn’t a clue, but Lear focuses only on his daughter and levels his second great curse at line 302:

Life and death, I am ashamed

That thou hast power to shake my manhood thus!

That these hot tears, which break from me perforce [without control],

Should make thee worth them. Blasts and fogs upon thee!

Th’ untented woundings [injuries too deep to be cleaned] of a father’s curse

Pierce every sense about thee! Old fond [foolish] eyes,

Beweep this cause again, I’ll pluck ye out

And cast you, with the waters that you loose,

To temper clay.

Lear’s first concern here is that Goneril has so enraged him, he is crying. For a man like Lear tears are a sign of weakness, a loss of manhood. He is even angrier that it is Goneril who has made him weep and therefore must feel some triumph over him. He calls down “blasts”, or winds, and “fogs” upon her. These were thought the primary ways in which infection spread to humans. He again invokes the power of a father’s curse upon a daughter, a curse so deep that it cannot be treated. Finally, he blames his eyes for crying and threatens, if they do not stop producing tears, to put out his own eyeballs and use them and his tears to mix with clay and make it more malleable. Lear has set up an impossible dilemma for himself: he does not want to weep and he does not want to go mad, and yet the emotional pressure he feels becomes intolerable. Lear leaves with two threats to Goneril. First, when Regan hears how her sister has treated him, “with her nails/ She’ll flay thy wolvish visage [face like a wolf, considered a cruel animal].”

Second, Lear threatens to “resume the shape [what he was before he gave up power]which thou dost think/ I have cast off for ever”[line 316]. He can only conceive of opposing his daughter by returning to his old dictatorial ways. Lear storms out again.

When Albany once again tries to talk about what just happened, Goneril shuts him up again at line 320 :”Pray you, content. What, Oswald, ho!” What she does here is to tell him to forget about his concerns and turns away to talk with Oswald, her servant. This behavior is terribly insulting to a powerful noble like Albany. After she chases off the Fool, who runs after Lear singing a little nonsense song that insults Goneril, she manufactures a justification for her actions after the fact. From line 329 to 334, Goneril now decides that it would be dangerous to public safety to allow Lear to have his knights. He cannot control the excesses of their behavior, she sarcastically declares. She sends Oswald off to alert Regan about what has happened, urging him to add more reasons for her actions. She now explains to Albany why she pays no attention to his concerns at line 347:

No, no, my lord,

This milky gentleness and course of yours {your habit of reacting mildly],

Though I condemn not, yet under pardon [excuse me for saying],

You are much more attasked [blamed] for want of wisdom

Than praised for harmful mildness.

In other words, people know you’re a wuss and they make allowances for it. The scene ends with Albany backing down, saying, “Well, well, th’ event.” Let’s see how things turn out.

Act I, scene 5

This short scene takes place outside Goneril’s castle as Lear waits for his horses to be brought so he can make his dramatic exit. Except for a couple of short passages of instruction to Kent, the entire scene consists of jokes between the Fool and Lear. Yet, it is one of the most poignant scenes in the play. How has Lear’s state of mind changed from the previous scene? How has the Fool’s humor changed from the previous scene?

[Act I, scene 5]

The Fool’s humor takes the form of eight jokes here. These are shorter, less elaborate than the jokes in the preceding scene, and come in a rapid-fire fashion. The subject matter for most of them continues to be Lear’s folly, but there are a couple that seem to have the sole function of distracting Lear from his growing despair.

The first three jokes taunt Lear for his past mistakes and future misjudgments. At line 8 the Fool asks an unusual question: “If a man’s brains were in’s heels, were’t not in/ danger of kibes?” “Kibes” are chilblains, a common foot ailment in those days. The Fool’s punch line at 11 is “Thy wit shall not go slipshod”: you will never have to wear slippers on your brains because you have none. Lear gives a forced laugh. At line 14 the Fool now warns Lear not to get his expectations up about Regan’s treatment: “Shall see thy other daughter [Regan] will use thee/ kindly, for though she’s as like this [Goneril] as a crab’s/ like an apple, yet I can tell what I can tell.” Regan may treat you as you want, i.e. “kindly,” or she may treat you after her kind or as her nature dictates, which is not so nice. The punch line at 18 makes this play on words clear: “She [Regan] will taste as like this [Goneril] as a crab to a crab.” Back when I was a boy there were plenty of crabapple trees in neighbors’ yards, and everyone knew what that kind of crab tasted like – incredibly sour. Regan will make Lear wish he had not tasted her kindness. The third joke asks Lear if he knows why a man’s nose stands in the middle of his face: the answer at line 22, “Why, to keep one’s eyes on either side’s nose,/ that what a man cannot smell out, he may spy into.” In other words be more careful about accepting people at their word.

At line 24 Lear’s response at first seems nonsensical: “I did her wrong.” Is he having second thoughts about his fight with Goneril? No, he is now terribly sorry for the way he treated Cordelia and acknowledges that he was at fault. It’s sad that it has taken so much turmoil to show Lear the error of his actions. The Fool quickly interjects a new question, almost as if to take Lear’s mind off the regret he is feeling. “Canst tell how an oyster makes his shell [line 26]?” When Lear confesses he doesn’t know, the Fool quips “Nor I neither; but I can tell why a snail has a home.” His answer at line 31, “Why, to put ‘s head in; not to give it away to/ his daughters, and leave his horns without a case.” “Horns” here refer to the snail’s horns but also the mythical horns of a cuckold, a man who has been sexually betrayed by his wife. Such a man was a laughing stock in the society of Shakespeare’s day; so the Fool is casting aspersions upon Lear’s abilities. At line 33 Lear once more reveals that he is very distracted. He’s not listening to the Fool but thinking about what his oldest daughter has done to him: “I will forget my nature [fatherly feelings]. So kind a father!” The Fool again offers a quick joke to take Lear’s mind off his dilemma: “The reason why/ the seven stars [the Pleiades] are no moe [more] than seven is a pretty reason.” And for once Lear seems to have heard the Fool’s question, because he answers, “Because they are not eight.”

The Fool congratulates Lear on his answer and tells him he would make a good Fool. But Lear at line 40 is back in his dark mood: “To take ‘t again perforce [by force]. Monster ingratitude!” Lear envisions exacting some terrible revenge upon his daughter, beginning with taking back his power. The Fool tries to bring Lear back to the present moment by telling him at line 41, “If thou wert my Fool, Nuncle, I’d have thee/ beaten for being old before thy time.” This seems to catch Lear’s attention, and he asks why. The Fool explains, “Thou shouldst not have been old till thou hadst been wise.” This is a very powerful indictment of Lear and at the same time a poignant reminder of his advanced age. Lear at line 46 has another premonition of his coming madness: “O, let me not be mad, not mad, sweet heaven!/ Keep me in temper [sanity]; I would not be mad!”

The scene ends with the Fool addressing the audience with a warning at line 51: “She that’s a maid now, and laughs at my departure,/ Shall not be a maid long, unless things be cut shorter.” This rhymed couplet alerts the audience that the scene will now shift to another location. More importantly the Fool is warning those audience members who are only focused on the jokes and dismiss Lear’s suffering that they are missing the point. If such short-sighted persons were virgins, they would not maintain their chastity for very long, unless men’s “things” were too short to do the job. It’s a bawdy comment in questionable taste, but it does emphasize the fact that King Lear is embarking on a terrible journey.

Act II, Scene 1

In the preceding scene Lear was setting out to go to Regan and Cornwall’s castle.

The entire second act takes place at Gloucester’s castle. In this scene Edmund executes his plan to strip Edgar of his inheritance, if not his life. Edmund is at his most creative in this scene, simultaneously manipulating both his brother and his father. No sooner has he gotten what he wanted from his father than Edmund moves up the ladder of success, attaching himself to Regan and Cornwall as powerful people who can help him get ahead. [Act II, scene 1]

Edmund meets a messenger, Curan, who brings word that Regan and Cornwall will soon arrive. At line 11 he asks Edmund if he has heard of impending warfare between Albany and Cornwall. This is one of several reminders that the kingdom is not a peaceful place and that Lear’s efforts to prevent civil war by dividing the country did not work. Edmund immediately incorporates this news into his plot. At line 22 he calls Edgar out of hiding and in an apparent panic tells him,

My father watches. O, sir, fly this place.

Intelligence is given where you are hid [you’ve been discovered].

You have now the good advantage of the night.

Have you not spoken ‘gainst the Duke of Cornwall?

He’s coming hither, now i’ th’ night, i’ th’ haste [in a hurry],

And Regan with him. Have you nothing said

Upon his party ‘gainst the Duke of Albany [opposing his conflict with Albany]?

Advise yourself.

Edmund here uses two things he knows are true – Cornwall’s arrival and the growing hostility with Albany – to manufacture an additional threat to Edgar’s safety. It doesn’t make any difference if Edgar is innocent of this new charge; he may be seen as a potential enemy of Cornwall whose arrival now forces him to act quickly. At line 30 Edmund begins a desperate charade by announcing Gloucester’s approach:

I hear my father coming. Pardon me:

In cunning [pretense] I must draw my sword upon you.

Draw, seem to defend yourself; now quit you well [appear to fight me].

Yield! Come before my father! Light ho! Here!

Fly, brother. Torches, torches! – So farewell.

Edmund here operates on three different levels at once. He apologizes for drawing his sword against his brother, which gives an additional urgency to the action. It convinces Edgar that Edmund is willing to protect him. At line 33 he cries out “Yield” and calls for torches (Remember this is happening at night!) all for the benefit of his father to convince him that he is trying to stop Edgar. And, of course, he has already told us how he is fooling both his father and brother. The rapidity with which everything happens disorients Edgar and makes him act without thinking. At line 35 Edmund cuts his arms to draw blood and “beget opinion,” create a favorable opinion.

When Gloucester arrives with the torches at line 39, he asks where Edgar is. Edmund quickly reinforces that “opinion” he wanted to create: “Here stood he in the dark, his sharp sword out,/ Mumbling of wicked charms, conjuring the moon/ To stand auspicious mistress.” The image he creates of the “evil” Edgar is like something out of Macbeth: mumbling wicked charms and calling on the spirit of the night. Of course, the idea of “conjuring” a higher power to “stand auspicious mistress” sounds suspiciously like what Edmund himself did back in the opening lines of Act I, scene 2, when he prayed to Nature. This is what Gloucester wants to hear, that his son is unnatural and possessed by demonic powers. Gloucester asks a second time at line 42 where Edgar has gone and has to repeat the question again at line 43 before Edmund finally answers him, giving Edgar a chance to escape. (It’s important that Edgar get away at this juncture so that Edmund can further poison Gloucester’s mind.)

Edmund continues his creative fiction at line 46, telling his father what Edgar tried to persuade him to do:

Persuade me to the murder of your lordship;

But that I told him the revenging gods

‘Gainst parricides did all the thunder bend;

Spoke with how manifold and strong a bond

The child was bound to th’ father.

This is just what Gloucester wants to hear from a dutiful son. Edmund reminds his father of his courageous action in stopping his wicked brother’s sword at a physical cost. Gloucester has heard enough and orders that Edgar be found and “dispatched” – killed outright. He offers a reward to the person who does the deed. Edmund now covers his tracks in an ingenious way, just in case Edgar gets a chance to deny his crime. At line 66 he tells his father:

When I dissuaded him from his intent,

And found him pight [committed] to do it, with curst speech

I threatened to discover [reveal] him. He replied,

“Thou unpossessing [impoverished] bastard, dost thou think,

If I would stand against thee, would the reposal [placing]

Of any trust, virtue, or worth in thee

Make thy words faithed [believed]? No. What I should deny –

As this I would, ay, though thou didst produce

My very character [handwriting] – I’d turn it all

To thy suggestion, plot, and damned practice.

So if Edgar were ever to get to speak to his father and deny the charges against him, Edmund has effectively poisoned the well by saying he would say these things. Edmund even plays up the discrimination against him because he is a bastard. Gloucester falls for the performance completely. At line 80 he angrily denies that Edgar is his son. At line 85 he gives Edmund the news he has wanted to hear: “and of my land,/ Loyal and natural boy, I’ll work the means/ To make thee capable [of inheriting]. Edmund’s rise to the top has been swift indeed.

Cornwall and Regan and their attendants arrive. A word of explanation about what has brought them to Gloucester’s. When Kent and Oswald both delivered messages to Regan at her home, and she was alerted to the imminent arrival of her father, she and Cornwall decided to leave their home immediately and go off to visit Gloucester. They will tell the King’s old advisor that they need to consult with him at line 124 following, but it becomes clear that they have only come so as to avoid having to accommodate Lear in their home. They are shocked by the news that Gloucester’s son has apparently tried to murder him, but the couple has a political agenda, which Regan reveals at line 93: “What, did my father’s godson seek your life?/ He whom my father named your Edgar?” It seems a strange way to identify the suspect, by his relationship with Regan’s father. The purpose of these rhetorical questions becomes clearer at line 96: “Was he not companion with the riotous knights/ That tended upon my father?” In keeping with Goneril’s plan that all evil comes from their father and his attendants, Regan suggests by her questions that if Edgar has been corrupted it must have been because he hung out with those knights, or even that he was named by and associated with Lear himself. It is a real stretch to argue that Edgar is a murderer because he was Lear’s godson, but the girls don’t need to make a cogent argument; they just have to create a suspicion.

Poor Gloucester doesn’t understand Regan’s questions, but Edmund sees immediately what Regan is after. At line 99 he tells her what she wants to hear: “Yes, madam, he was of that consort [hung out with the knights]” so she can proclaim, “No marvel then, though he were ill affected [disposed to evil]./ ‘Tis they that put him on the old man’s death.” Further, Regan explains, her sister has warned her of the danger posed by the knights, so that she has chosen not to be home when they come to visit.

Edmund’s actions here are breathtaking in their swiftness. You can see him saying to himself. “Well, I’ve gotten everything I wanted from the old man 14 lines back. Time to move on and find a new corporate sponsor, someone who can help me get ahead.” Cornwall sees Edmund as a potentially useful guy to have around, someone who knows the score. He praises Edmund’s actions in exposing the plot, calls it at line 108, “A childlike office [something done by a good son],” and Gloucester shows his wounds. Cornwall adds his command that Edgar be killed on sight and at line 115 he extends to Gloucester’s illegitimate son a great honor:

Cornwall: For you, Edmund,

Whose virtue and obedience doth this instant

So much commend itself, you shall be ours.

Natures of such deep trust we shall much need.

You we first seize on.

Edmund: I shall serve you, sir.

Truly, however else.

This is ironic at several different levels. First, great lords and kings would often favor the sons of people who served them by bringing the young men to court and establishing them as wards. It was considered a mark of great favor, and Gloucester quickly thanks Cornwall for the honor. It is ironic that Edmund is being honored as a “good” son for having tricked his father and brother. It is doubly ironic that he is being so honored by Cornwall and Regan, the poster kids of elder abuse. It is triply ironic that Cornwall singles out the man who will take his place in his marriage bed after he dies. So Edmund’s line above about serving Cornwall “Truly, however else,” has a real strange ring to it in light of what is about to happen. Virtue by villains is rewarded by villains.

Act II, scene 2

Kent and Oswald, following Regan and Cornwall from their castle, arrive at Gloucester’s at the same time. Which of these messengers, one from the king and one from Goneril, has priority under normal circumstances? What provokes the confrontation between the two messengers? Why does Kent end up in the stocks, and what’s wrong with that? [Act II, scene 2]

This scene opens with Kent meeting Oswald in front of Gloucester’s castle and starting a fight with him. Kent offers little explanation for his hostility toward Goneril’s servant, although he does remind him at line 29 that he had beaten him after he had repeatedly insulted Lear. The full explanation for Kent’s behavior does not come to light until Act II, scene 4, line 26 where he explains to Lear that Oswald had arrived at Regan’s just after he had delivered the king’s message. Regan and Cornwall quickly packed up and fled their home, making it clear that they were displeased with Kent and his message. The king’s royal messenger deducted that it was the message from Goneril which Oswald brought that created the change in Regan and Cornwall’s attitude. By the way, a royal messenger was considered to be a direct emissary from the monarch and was to be treated with deference and honor, as if the king himself were there. Clearly Kent has not been afforded this treatment. No wonder he is angry when Oswald innocently asks where he can put his horses. When Oswald protests that he has no idea who Kent is or why he should be so hostile, Kent says at line 12 that he knows Oswald and proceeds to deliver one of the most scathing attacks in all of Shakespeare, not so much against Oswald as an individual but as a social type: When Oswald asks what Kent knows him for, he answers:

A knave, a rascal, an eater of broken meats,

a base, proud, shallow, beggarly, three-suited,

hundred-pound, filthy worsted-stocking knave, a

lily-livered, action-taking, whoreson, glass-gazing

superserviceable, finical rogue; a one-trunk-

inheriting slave; one that wouldst be a bawd in

way of good service, and art nothing but the

composition of a knave, beggar, coward, pander, and

the son and heir of a mongrel bitch; one whom I

will beat into clamorous whining if thou deniest the

least syllable of thy addition.

Don’t hold back, Kent! Tell us what you really think. Behind the colorful “dissing” of the speech, what Kent objects to is primarily Oswald pretending to be a gentleman. The real gentleman, a noble and former advisor to the king, disguised as a peasant, gives the run-down on a social type, the poser, the phony gentleman, who often appears in Shakespeare’s plays. Oswald is a “knave” and “rascal,” both of which denote lower-class behavior if not birth. He survives by eating the leftovers on the dishes he takes from the table, “broken meats.” He is at once “base,” lower-class with nothing admirable, while being “proud.” He has three suits to his name, the normal allotment of clothes given to a servant, and he has 100 pounds to his name, a bank balance that real gentlemen would sneer at; later he will insult Oswald’s inheritance as a gentleman as nothing more than a “one trunk.” Furthermore, as a servant he is given stockings to wear made of “worsted,” a really cheap, rough fabric in those days. Instead of exhibiting the valor of a true gentleman who protected his honor, Oswald is a coward, “lily-livered.” The liver was thought to be the organ of courage, and according to folklore a fearful person had no blood in his liver. Oswald is the kind of person who, if someone insults his honor, will bring a law-suit (“action-taking”) rather than fight a duel. Shakespeare knew the type well, having been charged in court with threatening someone in London.. No wonder Kent calls the type “whoreson,” the same thing Gloucester called Edmund. Oswald spends his time looking at himself in the mirror or “glass.” He is “superserviceable,” a wonderful word that means he will do whatever it takes to please his employer; in a couple of lines Kent amplifies on this idea saying Oswald would be like a bawd or pimp “in the way of good service.” Kent ends with a crescendo of insults and threats, including “the son and heir of a mongrel bitch,” my personal favorite.

If Oswald were the gentleman he pretends to be, his honor would be offended by this litany of abuse and he would demand satisfaction with his sword. In earlier days a gentleman was distinguished by his ability to carry and use a sword, licensed by his coat-of-arms. But when Kent reminds Oswald that he beat him before Lear and directly challenges him to draw his sword, the phony gentleman refuses, even when his manhood is attacked by being called a “cullionly barbermonger,” someone who spends his time in barbershops. Kent continues to demand that Oswald draw his sword, and when he refuses and cries for help, Kent beats him at line 43. Edmund responds first to Oswald’s cries and tries to separate the combatants. Kent calls him “goodman boy,” a term of contempt one would use with a peasant, and threatens him with his sword as well. Cornwall enters, orders the fighting to stop and asks Oswald what the matter is. When Oswald pleads that he is out of breath, Kent gets another zinger in at line 54: “No marvel, you have so bestirred your valor./ You cowardly rascal, nature disclaims in thee {renounces any part of you]. A/ tailor made thee.” You are not a real man but the creation of a clothes maker. When Cornwall asks about this last rather strange assertion, Kent explains at line 59 that it must have been a tailor: “A stonemason or a painter could/ not have made him so ill [badly], though they had been / but two years o’ th’ trade.”

Cornwall again asks Oswald what caused the quarrel, and at line 63 the fake gentleman begins by referring to Kent as “This ancient ruffian, sir, whose life I have/ spared at suit of [because of] his gray beard –“ Kent now delivers three great insults at line 65:

Thou whoreson zed [the least-used letter of the alphabet], thou unnecessary letter!

My lord, if you will give me leave, I will tread this

unbolted [unadulterated] villain into mortar and daub the walls of

a jakes [outhouse] with him. Spare my gray beard, you wagtail!

The reference to Oswald as the letter Z of society is pretty literary. Offering to use him to paint a jakes is wonderfully foul. And to call him a “wagtail” is very ingenious. A wagtail was a bird that bobbed up and down, suggesting a fawning, obsequious servant like Oswald. When Cornwall asks if Kent has no reverence, no sense of appropriate language and behavior before his social betters, he replies at line 72 that “anger hath a privilege.” He explains his anger, and now his language changes. Kent has spoken in prose throughout this scene, as befits the scurrilous nature of his insults; he switches to verse as he lays out the serious charges against Oswald as a social type:

That such a slave as this should wear a sword,

Who wears no honesty. Such smiling rogues as these,

Like rats, oft bite the holy cords [sacred bonds of marriage or childhood] atwain

Which are too intrince [intricate] t’ unloose; smooth every passion

That in the natures of their lords rebel,

Being oil to fire, snow to the colder moods;

Renege, affirm, and turn their halcyon beaks [the kingfisher’s beak]

With every gale and vary [change] of their masters,

Knowing naught, like dogs, but following.

Oswald is the kind of servant who brings out the worst in his master. Rather than helping the person he serves maintain a moral balance, the Oswald type encourages the excesses which ultimately will destroy both of them. Unfortunately for Kent he is sharing this insight with three of the most morally flawed people ever to rampage through the world, Edmund, Regan and Cornwall. Their reaction to Kent’s outburst is probably dismissal or incomprehension. Why wouldn’t you want a servant who did exactly what you told him to do and who mirrored your every mood? A dog makes a perfect servant.

Cornwall has assumed command of this situation and he demands that Kent explain why he has quarreled with Oswald. Realizing that he cannot hope to explain moral complexities to the ham-handed duke, Kent simply says, at line 92, “His countenance likes me not.” That is, I don’t like his looks. Cornwall won’t be put off and tries to catch Kent in a verbal trap: if you don’t like Oswald’s looks, “No more perchance does mine, nor his, nor hers {line 93],” to which Kent retorts at line 94,

Sir, ‘tis my occupation to be plain:

I have seen better faces in my time

Than stands on any shoulder that I see

Before me at this instant.

Well, Kent prided himself when he was Lear’s chief advisor with being direct and honest. And now that he has adopted a disguise as a royal messenger, he remains blunt. But he has insulted the wrong people, people who are not used to honesty and do not make allowances for it. Cornwall, trying to match wits with an apparent commoner, explains what he thinks is Kent’s game at line 97:

This is some fellow

Who, having been praised for bluntness, doth affect

A saucy roughness, and constrains the garb

Quite from his nature [using his honesty to hide his deceit]. He cannot flatter, he;

An honest mind and plain, he must speak truth

And [if] they will take it, so; if not, he’s plain.

These kind of knaves I know, which in this plainness

Harbor more craft [deceit] and more corrupter ends

Than twenty silly-ducking observants [obsequious servants]

That stretch their duties nicely [are overly eager in their service].

Cornwall fancies himself a cynical observer of human behavior, and he claims that Kent’s honesty and objection to Oswald’s values really masks a clever and deceptive manipulator. Kent’s plainness is just an act, and he calls him on it.

Kent’s response at line 107 at first seems very strange:

Sir, in good faith, in sincere verity,

Under th’ allowance [approval] of your great aspect [position],

Whose influence [like a planet], like the wreath of radiant fire

On flick’ring Phoebus’ front [face of the sun] –

Behind this apparent gobbledy guck, Kent is mocking the elaborate flattery of courtiers’ language. In effect he is saying, “If you don’t like me as a plain-spoken peasant, I’ll give you the kind of bullshit you’re obviously used to.” Cornwall is too slow to catch the sarcastic thrust and, confused, asks, what Kent means, so that the king’s messenger has to explain at line 111, shifting back to his plain prose after the fancy verse of the courtier,

To go out of my dialect [manner of speech], which you discommend

so much. I know, sir, I am no flatterer. He that [the person you described back at

line 103] beguiled you in a plain accent was a plain knave,

which, for my part, I will not be, though I should

win your displeasure [instead of the title “Your Grace”] to entreat me to ‘t.

Kent explains his reversion to the language of the court, even as he insults Cornwall, at least indirectly, as the kind of person who prefers flattery to honesty, as if he knew the difference.

Cornwall doesn’t want to play word games with Kent anymore, and now he turns for an explanation for the argument to Oswald who explains from line 117 – 126 that Lear had recently struck Oswald, unfairly, and that Kent tripped him from behind and took advantage of him to win the king’s approval, even though Oswald did not offer any resistance. Now, upon arriving at Gloucester’s gate at the same time, Kent is trying to win points again by attacking him. Apparently Cornwall shows approval for Oswald’s explanation because Kent now insults the duke again at line 126: “None of these rogues and cowards/ But Ajax is their fool.” Oswald is a rogue and a coward, and his “champion” (the fool who believes him) is Ajax, the bragging halfwit of the Greeks’ army in the Trojan War. Shakespeare had created a memorable characterization of Ajax in his recently written play Troilus and Cressida. The thing that Shakespeare and his audience loved about Ajax as a comic figure was that his name represented wonderful pun: “a jakes” was an outhouse or privy. Cornwall finally gets the insult.

His reaction is swift and unexpected. He orders that the stocks be brought in to punish Kent, “you stubborn [insulting] ancient knave, you reverent [elderly] braggart./ We’ll teach you.” (The insults about his age are probably more hurtful than the attacks on his behavior.) The stocks were a particularly unpleasant form of punishment for a man like Kent. You sat on a raised platform out in public with your feet locked in a heavy wooden device. Sitting in the stocks was no doubt uncomfortable, a lot like riding in coach on certain airlines, but its real purpose was public humiliation. Stocks were used for petty crimes like drunkenness or petty theft; they certainly weren’t used for older men, especially when they were royal messengers representing the king. It is a lot like that great episode of “The West Wing” when the president’s nominee for the Supreme Court is arrested and thrown in a drunk tank in a small town. Kent, suddenly very serious, objects at line 129:

Sir, I am too old to learn.

Call not your stocks for me, I serve the King,

On whose employment I was sent to you.

You shall do small respect , show too bold malice

Against the grace and person [the king’s position and his character] of my master,

Stocking his messenger.

Cornwall’s action is a deliberate insult to Lear, who will soon arrive, and Kent points this out.. Gloucester does as well at lines 142 – 150, emphasizing the socially inappropriate nature of the punishment. If Kent is out of line, it is up to Lear to discipline him.

Cornwall is not the kind of ruler who is used to changing his mind. He thought of the stocks, and by God, he will have them! At line 136 we have an exchange that is quite revealing about the relationship of Cornwall and Regan. Incensed by Kent’s attitude, Cornwall orders that he be placed in the stocks until noon. (We know this exchange is taking place in the morning from the first line of the scene.) Lovely Regan, “the Tiger Bitch,” as I like to call her, gets real enjoyment out of inflicting pain and humiliation on people who can’t fight back, so she chimes in “Till noon? Till night, my lord, and all night too.” She enjoys sadism; her husband enjoys giving her what she wants. It’s a match made in heaven. When Kent objects at line 138, “Why madam, if I were your father’s dog,/ You should not use me so.” Her reply: “ Sir, being his knave, I will.”

After they have made the decision, Regan and Cornwall look for a justification. At line 150 Regan defends their action as a way of satisfying Goneril whose messenger, Oswald, had been abused.

Gloucester is left alone with Kent and offers the following explanation at line 155: “I am sorry for thee, friend. ‘Tis the Duke’s pleasure,/ Whose disposition all the world well knows/ Will not be rubbed nor stopped. I’ll entreat for thee.” Gloucester has spent his life getting along with egomaniacs like Lear and Cornwall, and making excuses for their excesses comes easily for him. Kent tells him not to bother and says he can use the rest. Alone at line 163 Kent takes a very philosophical tack. He realizes that Lear will see in this gesture his own downturn of Fortune. Kent, in his wretched condition, takes the occasion to read a letter from Cordelia. As he says at line 168, “Nothing almost sees

Miracles/ But misery.” Only those who are in the worse condition can see the means of their salvation. Cordelia has learned of his disguise and will undoubtedly act to help her father. Even as we approach the absolute worse of Lear’s suffering Shakespeare wants us to know that help is on the way. That way the audience can maintain some sense of balance in what is about to happen. As Kent says in the final two lines, “Fortune, good night;/ Smile once more, turn thy wheel.” One of the oldest images in Western culture is of the goddess Fortune with her wheel which constantly turns, throwing those who were on top down and elevating those, like Kent in his stocks, who were at the bottom.

Act II, Scene 3

Edgar is a hunted man. He decides to disguise himself as a wandering lunatic, calling himself “Tom of Bedlam.” Why do you think Edgar chooses this as a disguise? How does Edgar evoke the “nothing” motif? [Act III, scene 3]

Edgar heard people shouting that he was a dangerous criminal and managed to hide in a hollow tree. He now makes a fateful decision about how he will escape the dragnet. For several hundred years before Shakespeare’s time and for some time after that, the economy of the English countryside underwent a profound change. England had historically been a country of small farmers: people who owned and worked a small plot of land in subsistence farming, and many others, like Shakespeare’s father, John, who worked someone else’s land as a tenant. In the later Middle Ages landowners in England discovered that they could make much more money raising sheep and selling wool. All they needed was land for pasture. And so land formerly used for farming was transformed for grazing sheep, and people who had farmed the land were evicted and became a class of permanent homeless wanderers. This dispossessed class of rural poor persisted generation after generation and became known as the sturdy beggars. Government officials worried about what to do with them and how to control them. Their concern resulted in a series of regulations called the Poor Laws. The main purpose of these laws was to keep the beggars from wandering and to make the community which had spawned them take responsibility for them. Local parishes, often called “tithings,” were supposed to provide shelter and food for the poor, but the homeless people had to stay where they were supposed to. If they were found outside their home parish, they could be charged with being a “vagrant” and whipped until they left.

One special subcategory of “sturdy beggar” was the insane person. There were few facilities for the care and treatment of madness during the Middle Ages, and when England during its Protestant Reformation around 1540 closed the religious houses, the monasteries and nunneries which had helped the insane, there was only one major treatment center left, the Hospital of Bethlehem in London. We can guess what it was like in this place when we realize that the word “bedlam” was created by shortening the name. A place of lunatic confusion! Patients treated here were often released to free up space for others. Such released madmen were given special licenses to allow them to beg for money to keep themselves alive. The prospect of running into a released schizophrenic was scary. What made it more frightening was what people believed the two causes of madness to be: people went insane because of an excess of emotional stress, as we see happening with King Lear; or they went crazy because they were possessed by demons. To make matters worse, madness by possession was thought to be contagious, so if you were around such insanity for too long, you could become insane yourself. “Bedlam beggars” were a frightening sight, and people who met them often paid handsomely to get them to go away. This form of extortion by fear was so effective there were many cases of regular beggars pretending to be released lunatics to make more money.

At line 9 Edgar describes how to look like a Bedlam beggar:

my face I’ll grime with filth,

Blanket my loins, elf [tangle] all my hairs in knots,

And with presented nakedness outface [endure]

The winds and persecutions of the sky.

At line 14 he explains how such people behave to heighten the effect of their appearance: “who, with roaring voices,/ Strike [stick] in their numbed and mortified bare arms/ Pins, wooden pricks [sharp sticks], nails, springs of rosemary.” At line 17 he describes how they operate on a terrified populace, mostly in the countryside:

And with this horrible object [their overall appearance], from low [small] farms,

Poor pelting [impoverished] villages, sheepcotes, and mills,

Sometimes with lunatic bans [curses], sometimes with prayers,

Enforce their charity [extort money in the form of donations].

People in Shakespeare’s time went to great lengths to avoid such creatures. No wonder Edgar chooses this disguise to escape detection! Throughout his charade Edgar will refer to himself in the third person as “Poor Tom” or by the names of demons who supposedly possess his spirit, as “Turleygod” at line 20. As Edgar says, evoking the motif of “nothing” once again at line 21, “That’s something yet: Edgar I nothing am,” or “ I have a chance at survival as a Bedlam beggar and I must now forget that I was ever Edgar.”

Act II, Scene 4

In this scene King Lear arrives at Gloucester’s castle and discovers Kent in the stocks. This deliberate insult to his authority sends him into a towering rage. He confronts Cornwall and Regan, and soon after Goneril arrives. Lear’s daughters systematically strip him of his sense of authority and therefore his identity. Lear has not learned how to compromise in this hostile new world, and filled with frustration and growing insanity, he finally rushes out into a terrible storm. His children lock the door on him. They will never see their father again.

In the opening sequence, lines 1 – 125, Lear discovers Kent in the stocks. The question of who is responsible for this outrage becomes an obsession for the old man. He alternates between demanding an explanation and making excuses for the actions of Regan and Cornwall. What has happened to Lear’s one hundred knights? Why do Kent and the Fool remain with the king? What signs point to Lear’s coming madness?

[Act II, scene 2, lines 1 – 125]

Even before he sees his messenger in the stocks, Lear realizes he has been insulted. At line 1 – 2 he finds it strange that Regan and Cornwall suddenly left their home, just before he arrived, and did not send Kent back with a message. At line 4 Kent greets Lear, and the king sees the insult immediately at line 6: “Mak’st thou this shame thy pastime?” Are you doing this deliberately to shame yourself? At line 11 he asks, “What’s he that hath so much thy place mistook/ To set thee here?” The Fool mocks the messenger’s situation in sexual terms at line 7:

Ha, ha, he wears cruel garters [unforgiving stockings]. Horses are tied

by the heads, dogs and bears by th’ neck, monkeys

by th’ loins, and men by th’ legs. When a man’s overlusty

at legs [a sexually promiscuous vagabond], then he wears wooden netherstocks.

Lear refuses to accept the fact that anyone could have deliberately done this to a royal messenger, but Kent insists that the act was done consciously and by Lear’s own daughter. At line 20 when the king refuses to believe it and swears by “Jupiter,” king of the gods, Kent counters with “By Juno [queen of the gods], I swear ay.” The act itself is something so outrageous, Lear has trouble conceiving it. Once again we are struck by how the old man has been protected from the vicissitudes of ordinary life where people get insulted everyday. At line 22 he explains the significance of the act:

They durst not do’t;

They could not, would not do’t. ‘Tis worse than murder

To do upon respect [the respect due a king] such violent outrage.

Resolve [tell] me with all modest [appropriate] haste which way

Thou mightst deserve or they impose this usage

Coming from us. [being a royal messenger]

At lines 26 – 44 Kent describes in full what happened. He delivered his message to Regan and Cornwall at their home, but before they had read what Lear had sent, they were interrupted by the arrival of Oswald from Goneril. Her message was given priority, and upon reading it, Regan and Cornwall immediately decided to leave. They ordered Kent to follow them for an answer, but they made their disapproval of Lear’s message clear by giving Kent dirty looks. Arriving at Gloucester’s, Kent once again encountered Oswald and, realizing the poisonous nature of his message, Kent challenged him to a fight. It is this which has incensed Cornwall and Regan to punish him.

The Fool sees the consequences of what has happened, and he tries to warn Lear at line 45: “Winter’s not gone yet, if wild geese fly that way.” In other words, “You are in for more cold and stormy weather if silly people like Oswald or even your daughter and son-in-law act like this.” He then sings a comic song which amplifies on what Lear can expect:

Fathers that wear rags [who are poor]

Do make their children blind [indifferent],

But fathers that bear bags [moneybags]

Shall see their children kind.

Fortune, that arrant whore.

Ne’er turns the key [lets in] to th’ poor.

But for all this, thou shalt have as many dolors [sorrows, with pun on money] for

thy daughters as thou canst tell [count or relate] in a year.

Your children have told you what you wanted to hear so they could get their hands on your wealth. Now they will cause you great pain.

At line 55 Lear has an unusual reaction to this obvious truth about his family relationships: “O, how this mother swells up toward my heart!/ Hysterica passio, down, thou climbing sorrow,/ Thy element’s below.” People at this time believed that extreme emotional upset in men was a pathological condition, and they associated it with women, calling it “the mother.” The technical term Lear uses here, “hysterica passio,” reminds us that emotions had been connected since the ancient Greeks with female sexuality. “Hysteria” and “hysterectomy” have the same root word. The major symptom of “the mother” was a choking sensation, which Lear believes will come from his overcharged heart and seize him. This is one more sign that Lear is headed for some kind of crisis.

Lear leaves to speak with Gloucester, and the first thing Kent asks the Fool at line 61 is why Lear has so few of his hundred knights with him. The Fool answers tauntingly, “And [if] thou hadst been set i’ h’ stocks for that/ question, thou’dst well deserve it.” Kent has dared to ask the question that is glaringly apparent: most of the knights have disappeared, and the coming fight over whether the king can keep his companions is largely academic. The knights themselves have chosen to leave Lear’s company. When Kent asks why at line 66, the Fool does a homey but brilliant analysis of power:

We’ll set thee to school to an ant [as your teacher], to teach thee

there’s no laboring i’ the’ winter [save up during the summer]. All that follow

their noses are led by their eyes but blind men,

and there’s not a nose among twenty but can smell

him that’s stinking [Lear’s fortunes are rotting]. Let go thy hand when a great

wheel runs down a hill, lest it break thy neck with

following. But the great one that goes upward,

let him draw thee after. When a wise man gives

thee better counsel [advice], give me mine again. I would

have none but knaves follow it since a Fool gives it.

‘

Lear is in decline, and the ambitious men who served him are abandoning him. Be careful to pick only those who are heading for success to follow so they can help your career. But as soon as he gives this advice the Fool announces that only “knaves,” those who lack moral scruples or loyalty, should follow it. The Fool reinforces this message with a song from line 77 – 84. The “smart” people will serve their masters only for form, what they can get out of a relationship. The “fools” are loyal to the bitter end, and the Fool vows to stay with Lear. He may be only a fool, but at least he is not a “knave.” Kent is in a similar situation; he has already demonstrated to us that he will stick with Lear regardless of the circumstances. At line 85 he asks, “Where learned you this, Fool?’ to which the Fool answers, “Not i’ th’ stocks, fool.” This is one of the better put-downs in the play.

Lear re-enters with Gloucester, frustrated by the refusal of Regan and Cornwall to leave their room to talk with him at line 87: “Deny to speak with me? They are sick, they are weary,/ They have traveled all the night? Mere fetches [excuses],” and he sends Gloucester back to get a better answer. Gloucester counters by making excuses for his new master, the Duke of Cornwall, at line 90:

My dear lord,

You know the fiery quality of the Duke,

How unremovable [unchangeable] and fixed he is

In his own course.

As we listen to Gloucester trying to justify Cornwall’s boorish behavior, we realize that Gloucester spent years doing the same kind of thing for Lear. He knows there is a new political order, but the old king does not. He explodes in anger at line 93: “Vengeance, plague, death, confusion!/ Fiery? What quality? Why, Gloucester, Gloucester,/ I’d speak with the Duke of Cornwall and his wife.” Notice how he repeats the word “fiery” which obviously bothered him when Gloucester used it. Wringing his hands, Gloucester tells Lear at line 96, “Well, my good lord, I have informed them so.” That’s all that Gloucester can do; it’s not like the old days when Lear’s command was absolute. Lear understands the change in that word “informed.” In the old days no one simply “informed” anyone of the king’s orders. Lear breaks into rage about the word at line 97: “Informed them? Dost thou understand me right?” What part of “command” do you not understand? At line 99 he expands on his anger:

The King would speak with Cornwall. The dear father

Would with his daughter speak, commands – tends service [I’m waiting].

Are they informed of this? My breath and blood!

Fiery? The fiery duke, tell the hot duke that –

And at that point, in the middle of a sentence, Lear suddenly understands what has changed. He is no longer in charge. He begins finding excuses for the way he has been treated at line 103:

No, but not yet. May be he is not well.

Infirmity doth still neglect all office

Whereto our health is bound. We are not ourselves

When nature, being oppressed, commands the mind

To suffer with the body. I’ll forbear.

This is probably the first time in his life the Lear has had to “forbear” or be patient. He accepts the convenient excuse which Gloucester has offered for the Cornwalls’ boorish behavior, as we all do when someone tells us they can’t do something we want because they are sick. But then at line 110 he looks at Kent in the stocks and that sets off his rage again. You can pretend someone is unintentionally rude, but you can’t ignore the deliberate insult of this gesture.

Death on my state [royal power]! Wherefore

Should he sit here? This act persuades me

That this remotion [remaining aloof] of the Duke and her

Is practice [trickery] only. Give me my servant forth [release him].

Go tell the Duke and’s wife I’d speak with them!

Now, presently! Bid them come forth and hear me,

Or at their chamber door I’ll beat the drum

Till it cry sleep to death [until sleep is destroyed].

The old Lear reasserts himself, and we are headed for a family confrontation. All Gloucester can do at line 118 is to whine ineffectually, “I would have all well betwixt you.” Throughout this play the good, decent people, when confronted by the raging anger, madness or evil of the principal characters, are unable to do anything to stop what is happening. We’ll see the same paralysis of good with Albany and Edgar.

At line 119 while he waits for Gloucester’s return Lear feels his emotions rising again, the reappearance of “the mother” of line 55: “O me, my heart, my rising heart! But down!” The Fool no longer needs to use his humor to remind Lear that he made a mistake. Now at line 120 he employs bad jokes to try and distract Lear from his impending emotional explosion. If you feel your heart rising,

Cry to it, Nuncle, as the cockney [ignorant resident of London] did to

the eels when she put ‘em i’ th’ paste alive. She

knapped [rapped] ‘em o’ th’ coxcombs with a stick and

cried, “Down, wantons, down!” ‘Twas her brother

that, in pure kindness to his horse, buttered his hay.

Throughout history certain groups have been made the butt of “dumb” jokes. Apparently in the early 1600’s the working class people who lived in East London were the popular target. You could substitute “blonde” and retell this joke about someone who didn’t know you had to kill the eels before you put them in a boiling sauce. When the creatures writhed and lifted up, the dumb girl thought they were male erections and hit them with a stick. And buttering hay doesn’t really do any favors for the horse. The humor may be raw, and it is a real stretch to go from Lear’s rising heart to eels like erections, but the Fool’s intention here is to try and help relieve the king’s emotional pressure.

In the last part of this scene Regan and Goneril combine to destroy Lear’s sanity. What is the major tactic for doing so? How does Lear facilitate his own destruction? What external event does Shakespeare use as a metaphor for Lear emotional breakdown?

[Act II, scene 4, lines 126 – 308]

Gloucester brings the Cornwalls to finally speak with Lear. After dodging her father earlier, Regan says at line 127 that she is glad to see him. Lear responds sarcastically that he is glad to hear that, since if she wasn’t, then he would suspect that her mother had been an adulteress and she wasn’t really his child. Without any further ado Kent is freed from the stocks, and at line 132 Lear launches directly into his self-pitying complaint about how badly Goneril has treated him:

Beloved Regan,

Thy sister’s naught [naughty, evil]. O Regan, she hath tied

Sharp-toothed unkindness, like a vulture, here. [Points to his heart]

I can scarce speak to thee. Thou’lt not believe

With how depraved a quality – O Regan!.

Lear is so intent on getting affirmation of how badly he has been treated, that he ignores the reality of his situation. The Fool had warned him back in I, 5, line 14 that Regan would be no better than Goneril; he has seen the evidence of the contempt in which he is held by the stocking of his servant; he has realized that the Cornwalls’ earlier refusal to see him was a deliberate rebuff. And yet now he expects Regan to comfort him and agree that he is “more sinned against than sinning.” The fancy term for Lear’s failure to see is called cognitive dissonance. It simply means that even when we know better, we keep making the same mistakes.

If Lear expected sympathy from his second daughter, he is quickly disabused of his fantasy. At line 137 Regan says, “I pray you, sir, take patience. I have hope/ You less know how to value her desert/ Than she to scant her duty,” which is just a fancy way of saying, “If you have a problem with my sister, it’s undoubtedly your fault, not hers.” She goes on to explain at line 141:

If, sir, perchance

She have restrained the riots of your followers,

‘Tis on such ground, and to such wholesome end,

As clears her from all blame.

What’s most remarkable about this reasonable-sounding explanation is that Lear had not mentioned anything about Goneril kicking out 50 of his knights; the two sisters have obviously been in contact. Lear misses the significance of this piece of information. Regan offers an explanation and solution at line 145:

O, sir, you are old.

Nature in you stands on the very verge

Of his confine [the end of your life]. You should be ruled, and led

By some discretion that discerns your state

Better than you yourself [you need elder care]. Therefore, I pray you

That to our sister you do make return,

Say you have wronged her.

“You are old. You need someone to run your life. Go back and stay with Goneril.” Naturally Lear rejects this simple solution. In the old days he would have ordered his daughter punished for even thinking such a thing. Now, stripped of power, Lear is reduced at line 152 to the verbal resistance most of us use when we aren’t happy, sarcasm:

Ask her forgiveness?

Do you but mark how this becomes the house [makes the royal family look].

“Dear daughter, I confess that I am old.

[Kneeling]

Age is unnecessary. On my knees I beg

That you’ll vouchsafe me raiment, bed, and food.”

Sarcasm, a form of irony where we say something but deliberately mean its opposite, is often used when people feel they have no direct power. Because they cannot stop what is happening, they voice their opposition indirectly. Lear doesn’t really want to go back and apologize for being old and beg for sustenance. He reinforces his sarcasm by kneeling. On Shakespeare’s stage to kneel implies that the kneeler is in an inferior social position to the person before whom he kneels, as one would be if he had to beg. Lear does this for dramatic effect, to highlight how incongruous it is for the king to have to lower himself to anyone. Despite the impact of an eighty-year-old king on his knees, Regan dismisses the gesture at line 156 as an “unsightly trick.”

Lear now falls into rage again and utters another one of his monumental curses at line 157 as he swears never to return to Goneril:

Never, Regan.

She hath abated me of half my train [knights],

Looked black upon me, struck me with he tongue,

Most serpentlike, upon the very heart.

All the stored vengeances of heaven fall

On her ungrateful top [hear]! Strike her young bones

You taking [infectious] airs, with lameness…..

You nimble lightnings, dart your blinding flames

Into her scornful eyes! Infect her beauty,

You fen-sucked [drawn from swamps] fogs, drawn by the pow’rful sun,

To fall and blister [afflict with welts] her pride.

In the first four lines he likens Goneril to a snake for depriving him of half his knights. The curse is quite specific as Lear calls down heavenly retribution upon his daughter’s head, her bones, her eyes and her beauty, which he equates with her pride. Notice how this heavenly vengeance takes the form of such natural phenomena as fog, lightening and “airs” or breezes. Regan had not witnessed the earlier curses of Goneril, such as “detested kite” or “dry up in her the organs of increase,” and she is struck by the vehemence of her father’s hatred. She also realizes at line 168 he will soon be saying the same thing to her: “O the blest gods!/ So will you wish on me when the rash mood is on.” In a long speech from line 169 to 180 Lear denies that he will ever curse Regan because she is tender-hearted and not harsh. She will never begrudge her father his pleasures or speak rudely to him or take away his knights. At line 179 he concludes, “Thy half o’ th’ kingdom hast thou not forgot,/ Wherein I thee endowed.” Regan’s cold-hearted response is not, “Thanks, dad” or “I’ll do what you want,” but rather, “Good sir, to th’ purpose,” as if to say, “What’s your point?”

Faced with uncertainty about Regan’s real feelings, Lear fastens onto the one tangible thing he has before him, the fact that his royal servant was stocked. At line 181 he demands to know who was responsible. With the arrival of Goneril (notice the sound of trumpets announcing that fact at this point) things are about to get even more confusing for the old king. So he holds on to this one question and asks for an answer over and over. How many times does he ask all together?

Goneril is preceded by her servant Oswald, whom Lear recognizes at line 184, saying, “This is a slave, whose easy borrowed pride [quality which he does not have himself and so takes from others]/ Dwells in the fickle grace [favor easily changed] of her he follows [i.e. Goneril].” Lear orders him out of the room, but Oswald ignores him, and so at line 187 the old king asks again who put his servant in the stocks, adding, “Regan, I have good hope/ Thou didst not know on’t.” It is, of course, a forlorn hope. Goneril herself enters at 188, Lear rages,

O heavens!

If you do love old men, if your sweet sway

Allow [approve of] obedience, if you yourselves are old,

Make it [this] your cause. Come down and take my part.

Lear calls upon the gods to side with him. He is, therefore, appalled when Regan takes Goneril by the hand, showing her acceptance of her older sister’s behavior. Goneril, however, dismisses Lear’s objections at line 184: “How have I offended?/ All’s not offense that indiscretion [foolishness] finds/ And dotage [old age] terms so.” Lear prays for patience in the face of this provocation and asks, for the third time, who put Kent in the stocks. Cornwall finally confesses he did, but makes no excuse for it, blaming Kent’s “disorders” at line 198. When Lear begins to offer an objection, Regan cuts him off with one of the most devastating insults of the play at line 200: “I pray you, father, being weak, seem so,” that is, recognize that you no longer have any power and act accordingly. Given what he has been and how he still thinks of himself, this must crush Lear’s spirits. Certainly what follows must crush them even further. Regan tells Lear that because she away from home she does not have what is needed to care for him. He must return with Goneril. This from the daughter he was counting on!

Lear’s dramatic response at lines 206 – 216 to the idea of returning to Goneril is a combination of angry exaggeration and sarcasm.

Return with her, and fifty men dismissed?

No, rather I abjure all roofs, and choose

To wage [fight] against the enmity o’ th’ air,

To be a comrade with the wolf and owl,

Necessity’s sharp pinch.. Return with her?

Why, the hot-blooded [impetuous] France, that dowerless took

Our youngest born, I could as well be brought

To knee [kneel before] his throne, and squirelike [like a servant] pension beg

To keep base life afoot. Return with her?

Persuade me rather to be slave and sumpter [mule]

To this detested groom.

This speech breaks into three angry refusals, each introduced as Lear incredulously asks “Return with her.” He first says in a dramatic gesture that he would rather refuse to live indoors again, regardless of the weather and the harshness of nature. Ironically, Lear is a few hundred lines away from doing just that. Always be careful when you make a dramatic statement as a gesture; it may turn true, at least in a Shakespearean play! The second part is at once personal and political. Rather than returning with Goneril this proud King of England would rather humble himself before the King of France and beg for a pittance to keep himself alive. It’s interesting to see that Lear still thinks about Cordelia and what straits he thrust her into. In the third part Lear seeks to make an even more dramatic gesture, and he points to the lowest, slimiest person present, the loathsome Oswald, and sarcastically says he would rather become a personal servant to him. As he points to the “detested groom,” Goneril, at line 216, says, “At your choice, sir,” or “if that’s really what you want.” Lear expects his daughters to be shocked and appalled by how low they are forcing him to stoop. He believes that they will come to their senses when they see how they are disgracing him. Instead, they refuse to play the game and accept the guilt.

King Lear for the first time begins to look beyond his own rage and sense of betrayal. If his daughters are not as he would have them, whose fault is it? In a remarkable speech at lines 218 –230, he begins to accept responsibility, although in a rather odd way:

I prithee, daughter, do not make me mad.

I will not trouble thee, my child: farewell.

We’ll no longer meet, no more see one another.

But yet thou art my flesh, my blood, my daughter,

Or rather a disease that’s in my flesh,

Which I must needs call mine. Thou art a boil,

A plague sore, or embossed carbuncle [swollen boil]

In my corrupted blood.

The key concept here is that Lear, even as he calls Goneril the most disgusting things, acknowledges that she belongs to him, and if she is bad, the fault lies in him, in his “corrupted blood.” We’ll see as the play unfolds how Lear comes to explain the source of this corruption. He goes on to say he will forbear from chiding her or saying insulting things (He’s pretty much done his best in this regard up to this point!) and instead leaves her to the gods to punish her. And he repeats his decision to go and stay with Regan with his 100 knights, this despite Regan’s declaration back at line 202 that she could not accept him. “Cognitive dissonance” strikes again!

Regan quickly destroys the old man’s illusions, telling him again that since she cannot care for him right now, he must return to Goneril. She adds, at line 236, that upon further consideration she will not accept 50 knights when she is able to welcome him. The girls’ rationale sounds perfectly reasonable. Regan says that such a large group is a danger to domestic peace and an unnecessary expense. She questions how so many different people within one household can live peaceably. Goneril adds that Lear can be adequately served by their servants; he doesn’t need his own people. Regan agrees and says that if the servants fail to serve her father properly, then she or Goneril can control them. She concludes that she will not allow Lear to have more than 25 companions. With a voice full of sorrow and injury at line 249 Lear simply says, as they whittle away his identity, “I gave you all,” to which Regan responds crushingly, “And in good time you gave it.” What she’s saying is “Thank god you gave us the kingdom. It was about time.”

You would think that Lear had learned his lesson by now, but he hasn’t. He proceeds to make one of the dumbest decisions of the play at line 255. If Regan will only allow him 25 knights, then he recalculates the mathematics of love:

Those wicked creatures yet do look well-favored,

When others are more wicked; not being the worst

Stands in some rank of praise. I’ll go with thee. [to Goneril]

Thy fifty yet doth double five-and-twenty,

And thou art twice her love.

Lear had tried to measure love by words back in the first scene, and he’s still trying to measure love here. It is as if he had forgotten all about calling his eldest daughter “an embossed carbuncle” or “detested kite.” Somehow, they are going to go back to what had existed before, as if all that hatred had vanished. There’s something almost pathetic about Lear’s naiveté. The hundred knights are not about Lear’s need for servants. They are all about his sense of identity; he is who he is because he has one hundred knights at his beck and call. The girls understand this need completely, and they know that stripping him of his attendants will remove the last vestiges of power. Besides, it’s fun to whipsaw him with numbers as they do now. Goneril tells her father at line 260, “What need you five-and-twenty? Ten? Or five?/ To follow in a house where twice so many/ Have command to tend you?” To which Regan adds, “What need one?”

Lear answers this rhetorical question in one of the most famous speeches in the play. In it Lear articulates some hard-won wisdom, gives vent to a sense of injury and finally reveals his breaking point and descent into madness. At line 263 he responds to the question of need:

O reason [calculate] not the need! Our basest beggars

Are in the poorest things superfluous [may have too much of something petty].

Allow not nature more than nature needs [what’s necessary for life],

Man’s life is cheap as beast’s. Thou art a lady;

If only to go warm were gorgeous,

Why, nature needs not what thou gorgeous wear’st,

Which scarcely keeps thee warm.

“You cannot measure need. Even the poorest person has too much of something. If we restrict people to just the bare minimum to meet their needs then they are no better than animals. For example, you are a fine lady who wears gorgeous clothes. If we define your need as mere warmth, you would not need your fine garments which, in truth, barely keep you warm anyway.” Lear here effectively turns the argument back on his daughters, who are undoubtedly quite vain about their latest from Nordstrom’s.

But, for true need --

You heavens, give me that patience, patience I need.

You see me here, you gods, a poor old man,

As full of grief as age, wretched in both.

If it be you that stirs these daughters’ hearts

Against their father, fool me not so much [don’t make me a fool]

To bear it tamely; touch me with noble anger,

And let not women’s weapons, water drops,

Stain my man’s cheeks.

Lear begins to expand his point about need being more than just some minimum for survival, but before he can articulate his idea he gives way to self-pity. He asks for patience to suffer what is happening to him, but then he decides that he cannot accept his daughters’ outrage without protest. Instead of weeping, as he probably has started to do, he wants “noble anger” as would befit a king. In this passage we see Lear go from patiently accepting, to weeping like a woman, to angrily resisting like a man. Even his sense of his own gender identity is affected by this crisis.

No, you unnatural hags!

I will have such revenges on you both

That all the world shall – I will do such things –

What they are, yet I know not; but they shall be

The terrors of the earth. You think I’ll weep.

No, I’ll not weep –

Storm and tempest

I have full cause of weeping, but this heart

Shall break into a hundred thousand flaws [pieces]

Or ere [before] I’ll weep. O Fool, I shall go mad!

In their anger both Lear and Gloucester characterize their children as “unnatural” as Lear does here. He falls into his familiar pattern of cursing and threatening dire punishment. But here, at line 279, the full realization of his situation comes crashing down on the old king in mid-sentence. He cannot think of what he will inflict upon daughters and is reduced to pathetically promising that whatever the punishments are, “they shall be the terrors of the earth.” I believe that in the moment Lear’s spirit finally breaks. He feels himself start to weep and again has that fear this will destroy his manhood. So, since he cannot bring down “noble anger” and he cannot allow himself to weep, he concludes that his heart will break. Shakespeare signals this internal crisis by having the sound of a gathering storm offstage. We can see the storm as a metaphor, a symbol, for what Lear is suffering. Shakespeare’s audience would have seen a closer connection between the two events. They believed that there were subtle but strong links between the little world of man, the microcosm, and the large world of nature, the macrocosm. If things were falling apart for King Lear, that could trigger a sympathetic reaction in the weather. Now, for the first time since line 86 the Fool is referred to. Throughout the crisis with the girls the Fool has been silent. No smart remarks distract from the powerful emotions Lear has experienced. As Lear feels his sanity give way, he cries out to the Fool, as if he realizes now what his closest friend was trying to tell him before. It is too late for wisdom. Lear rushes out into the storm with the Fool, Kent and Gloucester.

Cornwall and the girls feel very self-righteous. At line 289 Goneril smugly declares, “’Tis his own blame; [he] hath put himself from rest [shelter or peace of mind] --/ And must needs taste his folly.” In other words, the old man is only getting what he deserves. Both girls affirm that they will not allow Lear back in with even a single follower. When he returns from seeing Lear leave, Gloucester describes Lear’s rage and the fact there is no other shelter around for miles. Nevertheless, the girls declare that Lear “leads himself,” that is he cannot be deterred. As Regan says at line 301, “to willful men/ The injuries that they themselves procure/ Must be their schoolmasters,” and they forbid Gloucester from offering any help to his old master. They tell him twice, “Shut up your doors.” Whatever happens to Lear in the storm, he has brought it on himself.

Act III, Scene 1

In this scene Kent meets a gentleman, perhaps one of Lear’s hundred knights, and receives a report on Lear’s situation. Kent sends the gentleman to Dover to tell Cordelia what has happened to her father. In light of the emotional power of the preceding scene, what dramatic purposes does this scene serve? What four pieces of important information does the scene provide? [Act III, scene 1]

Having set up Lear’s descent into madness and his flight out into the storm, Shakespeare is in no hurry to show us the payoff. A scene like this builds suspense for what follows. For some reason Kent has been separated from Lear, so he has to get a description of the severity of the storm and Lear’s madness from the gentleman, preparing us for the next scene. Since the special effects available on Shakespeare’s stage were limited, the language here emphasizes how terrible the storm is. Next, we are told that only the Fool is with Lear and that his purpose is to “outjest/ His heart-struck injuries” [line 16]. This is the first time anyone has articulated what the Fool is doing with his humor. Third, Kent tells us again that there is growing animosity between Cornwall and Albany. As a general rule if Shakespeare had some important information that took place off-stage, as this does, he tried to convey that to his audience in about four different places and with different characters. Finally, Kent reminds us that Cordelia knows that Lear is in trouble and now reveals that she has landed in Dover with an army. This information is important because Shakespeare wants us to know, even as we watch Lear’s suffering, that help is on the way.

Throughout this scene Kent is still disguised as a peasant, but he speaks in the formal language of the court, with specialized vocabulary and complex syntax. Despite his appearance, he urges the gentleman to trust him and to deliver the news of Lear’s treatment to Cordelia. Being very coy about his disguise, Kent gives the gentleman a ring by which Cordelia will recognize Kent and will tell the messenger his real identity. We can assume that Shakespeare’s audience enjoyed the idea of characters play-acting a part as Kent does throughout the play.

Act III, Scene 2

This scene of Lear raging in a storm out on a desolate heath is one of the most famous in all of the plays. It is the dramatic heart of the play as we see Lear’s madness mirrored by the violence of nature. As you read this scene notice the three different ways in which King Lear views the storm. How many different elements does the storm have? How does Lear change in a significant way near the end of the scene? How have the Fool’s humor and his message changed from previous scene? [Act III, scene 2]

As Shakespeare wrote this scene in blank verse he did something very unusual with the language. Many of the images Lear uses are condensed and exaggerated, almost in a kind of poetic shorthand. For example, in the first nine lines of the scene the four elements of the storm (wind, rain, lightning and thunder) are shown as instruments of universal destruction, which Lear calls upon as punishment for ingratitude.

Blow, winds, and crack your cheeks. Rage, blow!

You cataracts and hurricanoes, spout

Till you have drenched our steeples, drowned the cocks.

You sulph’rous and thought-executing fires,

Vaunt-couriers of oak-cleaving thunderbolts,

Singe my white head. And thou, all-shaking thunder,

Strike flat the thick rotundity o’ th’ world.

Crack Nature’s molds, all germains spill at once,

That make ingrateful man.

Lear starts with the wind, which he personifies as if it were a person who could blow so hard in rage his cheeks would crack, much as the jazz trumpeter Dizzy Gillespie could do. In the second line he evokes not just rain, but rain so heavy and prolonged it becomes a “cataract” or a “hurricane,” the frightening tropical storm English explorers had encountered. This exaggerated downpour is urged to flood the countryside, and Lear envisions the water covering the highest point in any village, the steeple on the church, atop which sat the weather vane in the shape of a cock. In line four Lear calls down the lightning. People in Shakespeare’s time did not fully understand the nature of an electrical storm. (It was about 150 years before Ben Franklin’s experiment with the kite.) They thought that lightning was caused by the ignition of sulphur in the atmosphere; it happened as quickly as one could think and was the precursor of the thunder, much like a single scout (“vaunt-courier”) on horseback rode out before a mighty army. Lear orders the lightning to strike him. In those days people believed it was the thunder, the sound, which caused the real damage, could split an oak tree. Lear calls upon the ultimate destructive power of the storm to flatten the entire globe, expressed here as “thick rotundity.” Specifically the thunder is to destroy the “molds” and “germains,” the forms and seeds of life itself. The “thick rotundity” could also suggest the shape of a pregnant woman, because all this cosmic destruction is being called down upon the world to stop the birth of ungrateful mankind. Because his daughters have behaved badly all humanity must suffer the consequences. Not only are the images of the four elements of the storm exaggerated, Lear’s emotional reaction, while understandable, is over the top.

Events have spiraled out of control, and the Fool’s message at line 10 now reflects the change and his panic about what is happening:

O Nuncle, court holy-water [flattery] in a dry house is

better than this rain water out o’ door. Good

Nuncle, in; ask thy daughters blessing. Here’s a

night pities neither wise man nor fools.

Earlier in the play the Fool had been relentless in pointing out Lear’s mistakes and his susceptibility to flattery. Now he urges Lear to go back in and play the game, give the girls what they want. Anything would be better than suffering in the storm. The Fool has clearly reached his breaking point just as Lear is getting started with his trial by suffering. The Fool will be less and less important in Lear’s education from this point on.

In his second long speech (lines 14 – 24) Lear shifts his vision of the storm. Now the violence of the elements reminds him of his daughters’ treatment:

Rumble thy bellyful. Spit, fire! Spout, rain!

Nor rain, wind, thunder, fire are my daughters.

I tax [accuse] not you, you elements, with unkindness.

I never gave you kingdom, called you children,

You owe me no subscription [allegiance]. Then let fall

Your horrible pleasure [will]. Here I stand your slave,

A poor, inform, weak, and despised old man.

But yet I call you servile ministers [agents],

That will with two pernicious daughters join

Your high-engendered battles [heavenly armies] ‘gainst a head

So old and white as this. O, ho! ‘tis foul.

In his current state of mind everything, even the storm, is all about Lear and the injustice he has suffered. Therefore, it is not surprising that he again personifies the elements of the storm but now accuses them of being in league with his daughters. And once again, he gives way to self-pity here in the last four lines of the speech.

The Fool is still preoccupied by the need for the two of them to seek shelter. At line 25 he brings up the idea of getting a house for Lear’s head, “a good headpiece” suggesting both the protection of a helmet and the idea of brains. He then sings a little song at line 27 which repeats the idea of taking care of first things first, but now with a little edge directed at Lear’s past follies:

The codpiece that will house

Before the head has any,

The head and he [it] shall louse:

So beggars marry many.

The codpiece was a padded decorative attachment worn on the front of a man’s pants, suggesting, as it does here, a man’s penis. When you are foolish enough to worry about sex before you have a house for your head, you will end up a homeless beggar sharing the lice of many different women, all as wretched as you. Lear’s sexual appetites have left him with daughters who have broken his heart and now left him out in the cold.

The man that makes his toe

What he his heart should make

Shall of a corn cry woe,

And turn his sleep to wake.

The man who elevates the basest part of his body (his toe or his codpiece) over his heart, what he knows is true, will create such pain for himself that he will be unable to sleep. Lear so sinned when he banished Cordelia (his heart) and gave all to his evil daughters (his toes, with the suggestion that the mean girls are punishment for his earlier sexual sins). The Fool finishes his little nonsense lesson at line 35: “For there was never yet a fair woman but she made/ mouths in a glass,” that is, “Beautiful women are often vain and preen into a mirror.” This little truism may suggest that both the girls have used their wiles, honed by their own vanity, to fool their father.

Lear, as usual, is not listening to the Fool. At line 37 he declares, to himself and us, “No, I will be the pattern of patience./ I will say nothing.” Perhaps he realizes how far out of control he has veered, how he has allowed his emotions to carry him further into madness. He tries to steel his resolve not to go down that road. In so doing, of course, he evokes the “nothing” motif once again. Even if Lear does not recognize the echo of his daughter’s stand in the first scene, we do. When Kent enters calling for his master, the Fool responds at line 40, “Marry, here’s grace and a codpiece; that’s a wise man and a fool.” That would seem to indicate Lear ( as a king referred to as “Your Grace”) and the Fool (who often wore an exaggerated codpiece for comic effect). However, the Fool has called Lear a fool throughout the play, and he just drew the parallel between the old man and an unthinking penis. So which is which? The Fool leaves it up to Kent and the audience to decide. In his speech (lines 42 – 48) Kent reinforces the idea of the extreme violence of the storm, just in case the special effects have failed to impress us. He ends at line 47 assuring us, “Man’s nature cannot carry [endure]/ Th’ affliction nor the fear.”

Lear now shifts into his third vision of the storm at line 49 to 59. The elements of the storm become agents for some kind of divine retribution, exposing hidden sins and punishing the offenders.

Let the great gods

That keep this dreadful pudder [turmoil] o’er our heads

Find out their enemies now. Tremble, thou wretch,

That hast within thee undivulged crimes

Unwhipped of justice. Hide thee, thou bloody hand,

Thou perjured, and thou simular [counterfeit] of virtue

That art incestuous. Caitiff [wretch], to pieces shake,

That under covert and convenient seeming [pretense]

Has practiced on [plotted against] man’s life. Close [hidden] pent-up guilts,

Rive [expose] your concealing continents [coverings], and cry

These dreadful summoners grace. I am a man

More sinned against than sinning.

In his preceding speeches in this scene, Lear had personified the elements of the storm. He now imagines guilty sinners who are exposed by the ferocity of the storm to the gods’ punishment. Those who have not been whipped for their crimes, a common form of punishment, need to beware. Criminals who have lied and hidden their plots against other people’s lives or have committed incest will be exposed. Hypocrites will pay for their pretense of virtue. The avenging gods are pictured as “summoners,” officials in the medieval church who apprehended and brought to justice those guilty of immorality. The image here combines the idea of an efficient legal system coupled with the power of religion. Having catalogued the ways in which men have broken the rules, Lear, at the end of his speech, excludes himself from their ranks. He sees himself as the victim, not the criminal. This perception will change as the play progresses.

Kent urges Lear to accompany him to a nearby hovel which will provide temporary shelter from the storm while he returns to Gloucester’s castle and tries to force those inside to allow the king to enter. At this point, line 67, an extraordinary change occurs in the angry, crazed king. He begins to notice someone other than himself:

My wits begin to turn.

Come on, my boy. How dost, my boy? Art cold?

I am cold myself. Where is this straw, my fellow?

The art of our necessities is strange,

That can make vile things precious. Come, your hovel.

Poor Fool and knave, I have one part in my heart

That’s sorry yet for thee.

Even as he reminds us that he is losing his mind, Lear notices the Fool, perhaps for the first time in the play. Throughout the drama up to this point King Lear has been focused just on himself and his mental anguish. Now he realizes he is not alone in his suffering, and he even feels the cold for the first time. Lear’s expression of concern for the Fool and Kent (“knave”) suggests the basis for his possible recovery in the future.

The Fool now sings at line 74 a verse from a song which originally appeared in Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night where it was sung by another professional jester, Feste:

He that has and a little tiny wit,

With heigh-ho, the wind and the rain,

Must make content with his fortunes fit

Though the rain it raineth every day.

Perhaps the Fool sings this song because it suits the weather. Maybe it occurs to him because Lear has talked about losing his wits, going mad, and therefore has “little wit.” The moral expressed here is that one must be happy with whatever his fortunes allow him. Certainly that fits Lear who is going off to try and get comfort in a hovel. The king agrees at line 78: “True, my good boy. Come, bring us to this hovel.” This is one of the only times in the play the Lear seems to hear and to affirm what the Fool is telling him. He seems to have turned a corner in his recovery.

The scene ends with the Fool addressing the audience directly, giving what he calls “a prophecy,” a foretelling of the future. The audience lives in the future which the Fool predicts, so we are able to judge whether he is right. The message is a mixture of social satire and utopian dreams which are intended ironically. The first four lines present ordinary social abuses as if they were signs of a dire calamity: priests ignore the spirit as they emphasize the form of worship; brewers water down their ale; noblemen are slaves of fashion; and the only religious heretics who are burned are the poor victims of venereal disease (“wenches’ suitors”) who experience a burning sensation as a symptom. These “prophecies” would have gotten a big laugh since they were commonplace at the time the play was performed. (Fortunately our society is much more morally advanced.) Then the Fool, from line 85 on, changes his focus and lists six events which will signal a collapse of English society: when courts dispense equal justice; when the social elite are not always impoverished; when people don’t talk badly about their neighbors; when pickpockets don’t work in crowds; when misers count their money in public; and when pimps and whores use their profits to build churches. Here the humor arises because the audience realizes these things are not likely to happen, so “Albion” (an ancient name for Britain) is not in danger of “great confusion.” Should that apocalypse occur, says the Fool, the greatest change would be that people would use their feet for walking. He concludes by telling us that this prophecy will actually be made by Merlin, the great wizard of King Arthur’s court. Arthur was reputedly a leader in Britain before the invasion of the Anglo-Saxons around 700 A.D. while the Fool is in a drama set hundreds of years earlier. We have a character apparently placing events in a timeline for the audience that has already experienced these events. This is one of the only times in all Shakespeare’s plays where a character in a historical drama demonstrates any awareness of differences in time outside the play.

Act III, Scene 3

After being a spectator as Lear ruined his life and then trying ineffectually to bring peace between Lear and the Cornwalls, Gloucester finally takes sides. Unfortunately it is too late to be effective and will cost him dearly. In this scene what are the crimes Gloucester accuses Cornwall, Regan and Goneril of? Why does Edmund decide to betray his father? [Act III, scene 3]

At the beginning of the scene Gloucester calls the treatment of Lear “unnatural” [line 2]. It’s a word that is used frequently throughout the play when people are upset, but in the case of Lear’s being locked out in the storm it seems particularly appropriate. Edmund at line 7 agrees it is “Most savage and unnatural,” but that doesn’t stop him from ratting out his father. At line 3 Gloucester cites another violation, the way the Cornwalls have taken over his house and ordered him around. The people at this time took the code of being a good host and good guest very seriously. At line 6 we get another example of the “nothing” motif, and then Gloucester reveals one more time that there is a growing division between Cornwall and Albany. In addition, he tells Edmund what we already know, that forces seeking to redress the crimes against Lear have landed in England. Gloucester tells his son that they must side with the king’s cause and that he has hidden a letter telling of the coming invasion, even though he has been threatened with death if he seeks to help Lear. At the end of the scene Edmund tells us that he will go directly and tell Cornwall what his father is doing. As he says of this betrayal at line 24, “This seems a fair deserving [worthy of a reward], and must draw me/ That which my father loses – no less than all./ The younger rises when the old doth fall.” After having stolen his brother’s inheritance, Edmund has gotten everything he can from his father. It’s time to move on up the corporate ladder; after all he is a young man in a hurry, and his father is old. Ironically, it’s the same argument Edmund incorporated into the phony letter in I, 2.

This is the first of three scenes about Gloucester’s agony which alternate with those of Lear’s suffering. Shakespeare wants us to view the way the two fathers undergo the consequences of their earlier mistakes in a parallel fashion. Dramatically, it moderates the intensity of the action by shifting our attention between the two old men.

Shakespeare knew that the emotions of the audience could only be stretched so far.

Act III, Scene 4

In this dramatic scene Lear gains wisdom even as he encounters Edgar, disguised as the wandering lunatic Tom o’ Bedlam. The power of Edgar’s performance as a madman threatens Lear’s sanity. Gloucester arrives with an offer of help in a situation where most of the characters are trapped playing a role as someone they really aren’t. Identify those playing roles.

In the first 36 lines Lear, Kent and the Fool arrive at the hovel, but before he will enter Lear shares some important insights into the nature of perception and the way he has lived his life. Why do these insights offer hope that a new, wiser King Lear is emerging? [Act III, scene 4, lines 1 – 36]

The three have arrived at the hovel. Kent describes the storm and need for shelter at line 2: “The tyranny of the open night’s too rough/ For nature to endure.” This assertion give Lear the topic for his first important insight at lines 6 – 12:

Thou think’st ‘tis much that this contentious storm

Invades us to the skin: so ‘tis to thee;

But where the greater malady is fixed [rooted in the mind],

The lesser is scarce felt. Thou’dst shun a bear;

But if thy flight lay toward the roaring sea,

Thou’dst meet the bear i’ th’ mouth. When the mind’s free [from care],

The body’s delicate.

Lear’s point here is one we have all experienced: our state of mind affects how we perceive reality. The unusual analogy of fearing the bear until confronted by the roaring sea is especially powerful. This is the first time in the play where Lear shares his life lessons with others, to help make sense of his reality. And he does so without once mentioning his daughters or how they have injured him.

The moment does not last. At line 12 he applies the insight to himself and returns to his theme of victimization. Notice in this next sequence how his mood violently swings between rage and self-pity and his growing awareness of his own madness:

The tempest in my mind

Doth from my senses take all feeling else,

Save what beats there. Filial ingratitude,

Is it not as [as if] this mouth should tear this hand

For lifting food to’t? But I will punish home.

No, I will weep no more. In such a night

To shut me out! Pour on, I will endure.

In such a night as this! O Regan, Goneril,

Your old kind father, whose frank heart gave all –

O, that way madness lies; let me shun that.

No more of that.

Seeing the rapid variations of emotions in these 11 lines, you can begin to appreciate the challenge for an actor in this role. Lear here is struggling to find some way to deal with his rage and sense of loss, some way which will enable him to move beyond.

This is a strange moment for royal protocol, but neither Kent nor the Fool can get in out of the rain until the king enters the hovel. At line 23 Lear urges his companions to go in first, saying, “This tempest will not give me leave to ponder/ On things would hurt me more.” Then he realizes that they are waiting on him and declares that he will enter. He glances at the Fool, who has been with him through all his trials and says, “In, boy; go first. You houseless poverty --/ Nay, get thee in. I’ll pray, and then I’ll sleep.” His offer here is a small act of kindness, as he suddenly sees in the Fool (“houseless poverty”) the embodiment of all those who are impoverished and lack shelter. This small moment leads Lear to the realization that he shares his condition with mankind at line 28:

Poor naked wretches, wheresoe’er you are,

That bide the pelting of this pitiless storm,

How shall your houseless heads and unfed sides,

Your looped and windowed [full of holes] raggedness, defend you

From seasons such as these? O. I have ta’en

Too little care of this! Take physic, pomp;

Expose thyself to feel what wretches feel,

That thou mayst shake the superflux [that which is superfluous] to them,

And show the heavens more just.

Probably for the first time in his life Lear knows intimately what it means to be without shelter in a “pitiless storm.” He is thinking about someone other than himself and he wonders how people who are homeless, underfed and ill-clad will survive “seasons such as these.” Notice the imaginative way he describes the ragged clothes of these “wretches”; “looped and windowed raggedness” evokes the image of people trying to stay warm with garments full of holes. Remarkably Lear realizes that he did not pay enough attention to the plight of those who suffer as he does himself now that he is no longer king. Ronald Reagan rode to the presidency excoriating “welfare cheats” and “phony poverty programs,” but he was astonished his first winter in Washington when he saw the homeless people trying to stay warm on the heating grates outside the public buildings. It’s one thing to deplore poverty in the abstract but quite another when you see it up close. Lear’s solution is for all in a position of authority (“pomp”) to undergo what he is enduring so that they can understand their obligation to help. Lear doesn’t say that they should become do-gooders, just to make themselves feel better. No, the concept of the absolute monarchy rested on the premise that it was the ruler’s job to justify the relationship of the divinity to the people of the state. For President Reagan it was his decision to make the government stocks of surplus cheese (“the superflux”) available to the poor. This is a remarkable insight for Lear, a man who has not been paying attention for 80 years, and if the play were to end here, we would say that the new Lear who is emerging promises to be a much better father and ruler than he was before. But, alas, things seldom end when we’re at our best, and Lear’s suffering must go on.

In the next 80 lines we are introduced to Edgar’s creation of Tom o’ Bedlam. Edgar can trust no one, and he must make his disguise absolutely convincing if he is to survive. The key to understanding his performance is to remember that Shakespeare’s audience believed that madness, especially that caused by demonic possession, was contagious. The better Edgar plays the lunatic, the better his chances of escape. Like any good actor, Edgar has created a fully realized character with a believable past. What are the pertinent points in his performance? How do you explain King Lear’s reaction to Edgar? [Act III, scene 4, lines 37 – 116]

Edgar’s performance is a spooky combination of humor, grotesqueness, religious cant and powerful hallucinations. His first pronouncement at line 37 as the Fool enters the hovel is to cry out as if the whole world were underwater and he were on a ship, measuring the depth: “Fathom and half, fathom and half! Poor Tom!” Back in Act III, scene 2 Lear had called upon the storm to drown the world; here Edgar gives us a comic confirmation that it is happening. And just as Lear often gives way to self-pity, Edgar’s stock line is “Poor Tom” or “Tom’s a-cold,” as if his existence is defined by his poverty or his suffering. Tom is indeed “poor” and “cold” at several different levels of meaning: physical, psychological and spiritual.

Edgar enters at line 45 probably dressed like the “wretches” Lear had envisioned a few lines before. Tom’s first words are a warning: “Away! The foul fiend follows me. Through the/ sharp hawthorn blows the cold wind. Humh! Go to/ thy cold bed, and warm thee.” Your notes tell you how Tom uses a line from a ballad here, but what is most immediate is the sense that it is dangerous to be around him. Demons surround him; their presence is signaled by the sound of the wind through the trees, which Tom imitates with “Humh.” The message here is clear: Stay away! At line 48 Lear can think of only one reason why a man could be this wretched: “Didst thou give all to thy daughters? And art thou come to this?” Despite the earlier prayer, Lear is back seeing the world through the prism of his own suffering. Tom picks up on the idea of “giving” and at line 50 he provides us with a detailed background of his character:

Who gives anything to Poor Tom? Whom the

foul fiend hath led through fire and through flame,

through ford and whirlpool, o’er bog and quagmire;

that hath laid knives under his pillow and

halters in his pew [ledge outside a window], set ratsbane by his porridge,

made him proud of heart, to ride on a bay trotting

horse over four-inched bridges, to course [attack] his

own shadow for a traitor. Bless thy five wits,

Tom’s a-cold. O, do, de, do, de, do, de. Bless thee

from whirlwinds, star-blasting, and taking. Do

Poor Tom some charity, whom the foul fiend vexes.

There could I have him now – and there – and there

again – and there.

Storm still

One of the symptoms of madness that Tom is aware of is his propensity to suicide, which he blames on the “foul fiend,” that is, Satan. Suicide was considered perhaps the worst of sins by Shakespeare’s audience. Tom feels he has been tempted to kill himself by burning (“fire and flame”), by drowning (“ford and whirlpool”) or by suffocation in quicksand (“bog and quagmire”). More active forms of suicide are knives, halters or nooses outside the window, ratsbane or poison next to his breakfast cereal. Tom has been tempted to kill himself in a fit of pride by riding a horse at a trot over a narrow bridge. He even sees his own shadow as a potential enemy. Such an admission of possible suicide would have been seen as an act of madness, even if Tom is sure it is the devil who is leading him to take his own life. Bedlam beggars would offer generic blessings as a way of getting alms, so Tom blesses his listeners’ wits against the same illness that afflicts him, whether “star-blasting” or “taking.” (check your notes). He is so cold his teeth chatter: “do, de, do, de, etc.” As he asks for “some charity,” he pretends he sees the hallucination of the fiend who threatens him. The act of seeing some demon makes his madness that much more sinister.

Lear, however, sees only another wronged father at line 63: “What, has his daughters brought him to this pass [condition]?/ Could thou save nothing? Wouldst thou give ‘em all?” The Fool, trying to find humor in a frightening situation, quips, “Nay, he reserved a blanket [to wrap up in], else we had been all shamed.” Once Edgar is on the scene the Fool’s comedy will be less and less relevant. At line 66 Lear reverts to his earlier pattern of issuing monumental curses, now on behalf of another supposed victim of elder abuse, Tom. When Kent tries to explain that the lunatic has no daughters, Lear explodes at line 70:

Death, traitor, nothing could have reduced nature

To such a lowness but his unkind daughters.

Is it the fashion that discarded fathers

Should have thus little mercy on [shown to] their flesh?

Judicious punishment – ‘twas this flesh begot

Those pelican daughters.

After that brief glimpse of a wiser, more patient man just a few lines before in his prayer, Lear is quickly reverting to symptoms of his madness. Tom can only be in this extreme state of suffering because he has daughters; to suggest any other explanation is an act of treason. And Lear returns to a theme he had introduced before in Act II, scene 4, line 220, that the cause of his daughters’ bad behavior lies in his own sins. Shakespeare’s age believed that the pelican fed its young with its own blood, often at the risk of its own life, so Lear’s daughters and Tom’s feast on their parents. Edgar probably doesn’t understand Lear’s reference to “pelican daughters,” but he responds with some nonsense suggested by “pelican” at line 76: “Pillicock sat on Pillicock Hill.” Although Tom makes it sound as if it is a place name, in some sources “pillicock” is a term of endearment used to refer to a penis. (Feel free to use it.) The Fool’s comment at line 77, “This cold night will turn us all to fools and madmen,” conveys a sense of despair. Just being around Tom threatens everyone’s sanity; the lunatic is also taking over some of the functions the Fool had provided earlier, such as telling a bawdy joke to relieve the tension of a situation. Tom responds at line 80 with a kind of Reader’s Digest version of the Ten Commandments, the kind of thing that Bedlam beggars might recite to encourage people’s charity. It ends with his stock line “Tom’s a-cold.”

King Lear asks Tom what he had been, and his answer at line 85 adds more details to the character’s past:

A servingman, proud in heart and mind; that

curled my hair, wore gloves in my cap; served the

lust of my mistress’ heart; and did the act of dark-

ness with her; swore as many oaths as I spake

words, and broke them in the sweet face of

heaven. One that slept in the contriving of lust

and waked to do it. Wine loved I deeply, dice

dearly, and in woman out-paramoured the Turk.

If we take Tom at his word, he is a member of the lower class who rises above his station and is guilty of all the major seven deadly sins. He calls himself a “servingman,” perhaps someone like Oswald, who is guilty of pride despite his humble origins. He adopts the habits of a courtly lover, curling his hair and wearing the favors of a gentlewoman, often a glove, in his hat as a public display of his exalted rank. He satisfies the sexual desires of his employer, probably the same gentlewoman whose glove he wears. He is sexually promiscuous and has many more lovers, rivaling (“out-paramouring”) the infamous Turkish pashas and their huge harems. He makes many promises and breaks them without thought. He drinks too much, loving wine “deeply” as one swallowing a lot; he gambles too much, loving the dice “dearly,” or expensively, as someone would who ran up big debts. The suggestion here is that it is his life of sin and deceit, pretending to be someone he is not, which has led to his madness. Tom continues at line 93 – 95 cataloging his depraved qualities, identifying some with the appropriate animal, like dog, fox, wolf or lion. The “dog” is identified with madness, as a rabid dog might be, one of the most frightening prospects in that time. At line 95 he identifies the primary source of the temptations to sin:

Let not the creaking of

shoes, nor the rustling of silk betray thy poor

heart to woman. Keep thy foot out of brothels,

thy hand out of plackets, thy pen from lenders’

books, and defy the foul fiend.

It’s mostly the fault of women! Fashionable ladies in those days would wear shoes which deliberately creaked, which like the rustling of silk dresses, was thought to increase sexual allure. Poor men were thus tempted to lose their hearts or to visit brothels or to stick their hands into “plackets,” the openings in women’s petticoats. The only other source of temptation is the person who lends money. Stay away from women and credit cards and you too can “defy the foul fiend,” or Satan. Now Lear had already started to identify the cause of his troubles as a “sickness in my blood,” the existence of some past sin of which he’s guilty which has led him to his current situation. Tom’s creative invention of the oversexed servingman serves to reinforce Lear’s assumption in his madness that the root of his problem is the sex act. Tom finishes his long speech at line 99 by hallucinating again that he sees the fiend who is attacking him, now identified as “Dolphin,” like the French crown prince, trotting by on a horse. We are invited to share in his nightmare vision by hearing the fiend in the sound of the wind: “Still through the hawthorn blows the/ cold wind; says suum, mun, hey no nonny.” In this line “suum, mun” are imitations of the wind; “hey no nonny” was a phrase often found in the refrains of songs as the comic euphemism for a sexual organ or act.

King Lear is profoundly moved by what Tom has said and by his presence. Whereas the Fool had never been able to reach his master by what he said, Lear looks upon Tom as a “philosopher” or “learned Theban,” or scholar from ancient Greece. At line 103 he explains what Tom represents to him:

Thou wert better in a grave than to answer [endure]

with thy uncovered body this extremity of the

skies. Is man no more than this? Consider him

well. Thou ow’st the worm no silk, the beast no

hide, the sheep no wool, the cat [civet] no perfume, Ha!

here’s three on’s [of us] are sophisticated [artificial]. Thou art the

thing itself; unaccommodated [uncivilized] man is no more

but such a poor, bare, forked [two-legged] animal as thou art.

Off, off, you lendings [borrowed clothes]! Come, unbutton here.

[Tearing off his clothes]

The old King Lear would say that Tom was better off dead than suffering as he does. But the newly emerging Lear asks the fundamental question, “Is man no more than this,” the same question posed by the existential philosophers of the 20^th Century. Tom is man stripped to the bare essentials. (People in Shakespeare’s day used the secretions of the civet cat as the base for perfume.) Certainly someone like Tom would have no concern over whether there were 100 or 50 knights to wait on him. In a sudden realization Lear sees that he has been worrying about the wrong things. With zeal of a new convert, he tries to emulate Tom by tearing off his own clothes, although as an 80 year-old man who has always had someone dress him, he does need help with the buttons. Interestingly Lear’s final words in the play will contain an echo of the last line of this speech.

Lear in his wisdom born of madness has moved beyond the Fool, who now at line 112 tries to retrain Lear from undressing:

Prithee, Nuncle, be contented; ‘tis a naughty [wicked]

night to swim in. Now a little fire in a wild field

were like an old lecher’s heart – a small spark, all

the rest on’s body, cold. Look, here comes a

walking fire.

The Fool tries to turn this frightening situation into a joke, exaggerating the downpour much as Tom had back at line 37. Lear may find great philosophical significance in meeting a lunatic in a storm, but all the Fool wants is shelter and warmth. Ever since Lear stormed out of Gloucester’s castle, the Fool has been increasingly irrelevant; Lear no longer needs his insights into his folly, and Tom now commands Lear’s total attention. As the Fool wishes for a little fire, which he cleverly compares to a lecher’s heart, as if on cue a fire suddenly appears in the darkness.

Gloucester enters, looking for Lear, and in the final 70 lines of the scene five of the “good” people in the play interact to try and help Lear cope with his condition. What is ironic about this sequence? [Act III, scene 4, lines 117 – 187]

What is ironic about this portion of the play is that the five people present on stage all want the same thing. They all feel strongly that Lear has been wronged and must be helped to safety. If they were to share their thoughts freely they would soon discover that they have been the victims of deceit or misunderstanding. However, they are unable to step outside the roles they are playing: Tom and Kent can’t drop their disguises; the Fool is trapped playing a comic irrelevancy; Lear and Gloucester cannot see beyond their own suffering. So each plays out his part in this interaction which is the only time all five are together without the interference of Lear’s daughters or Gloucester’s bastard son.

Gloucester enters carrying a torch, an important prop for Shakespeare’s stage. Because the plays were usually performed outdoors at the Globe in the afternoon, the stage convention was established that if a character carried a torch, it meant the action was taking place at night. The audience members could see clearly that Gloucester was approaching, but they knew the characters could not recognize each at first in the imaginary darkness. As Gloucester approaches Tom imagines at line 117 that the “walking fire” is one of his omnipresent demons.

This is the foul fiend Flibbertigibbet. He begins

at curfew [9:00 p.m.], and walks till the first cock [midnight]. He

gives the web and the pin [cataracts], squints the eye, and

makes the harelip; mildews the white [ripening] wheat, and

hurts the poor creature of earth.

My grandmother used the name “Flibbertigibbet” as a comic term for any kid who couldn’t sit still. I’m sure she would have been surprised to learn that the word comes from a book written by Samuel Harsnett right around the same time as the play. Harsnett’s book detailed all the different demons allegedly used by the Jesuits to further their wicked plots. Flibbertigibbet, like any self-respecting satanic power, has a specific time period when he operates, in this case from 9:00 p.m. to midnight. He is responsible for spreading cataracts, causing certain birth defects, ruining wheat just before it can be harvested and generally inflicting trouble for humans and beasts. In this description we can see why the idea of demons and witches has been so important for people around the world as an explanation for seemingly mysterious diseases and disasters which plague them. What is ironic about this passage in the play is that Edgar explains the “walking fire” approaching them as a demon when it is actually his father whose unwarranted suspicions have forced him to play the part of Tom. The vividness of Tom’s description heightens the spooky quality of this encounter. In an effort to ward off the approaching evil, Tom sings a little song at 122 – 126, a magic charm, evoking an Anglo-Saxon saint who cast out demons and witches; “And aroint thee witch” he declares.

The men do not recognize each other at first, and Gloucester calls out asking who they are and their names. Tom eagerly answers at line 131:

Poor Tom, that eats the swimming frog,

the toad, the todpole [tadpole], the wall-newt [lizard] and the water [newt];

that in the fury of his heart, when the foul fiend

rages, eats cow-dung for sallets [salads], swallows the old

rat and the ditch-dog [dead dog in a ditch]; drinks the green mantle [pond scum]

of the standing [stagnant] pool; who is whipped from tithing [village]

to tithing, and stocked, punished, and imprisoned;

who hath had three suits to his back, six shirts to

his body,

Horse to ride, and weapon to wear,

But mice and rats, and such small deer,

Have been Tom’s food for seven long year.

Beware my follower! Peace, Smulkin, peace,

thou fiend!

This tells us more, perhaps, than we wanted to know about Tom’s condition. Living on the verge of starvation, he survives on what he can catch in the countryside. Sometimes his madness and hunger cause him to eat and drink things which are, well, inappropriate. Back in Act II, scene 3, I described how officials sought to control the “problem” of the rural poor, the “sturdy beggars,” through the series of Poor Laws which provided for forcing unwanted vagrants back to their home parish by whipping them or using some other form of punishment to encourage them to move along. Tom describes how he has been so punished, even though at one time, as a favored serving man, he had been given three suits and six shirts by his employer. As a gentleman wannabe, he had even had a horse and could carry a sword, traditional marks of the upper classes. But now his poverty and his madness have reduced him to eating rodents and worse. As he evokes his transformation in the verse of a song, a kind of parody of a popular ballad at that time which your notes tell you about, he is suddenly thrust back into his hallucinations and imagines his demonic companion, perhaps in the form of a black or grey cat called “Smulkin,” who is ready to strike. It’s another scary reference from the Harsnett book.

Gloucester recognizes Lear and is appalled that the king is attended only by his Fool, an apparent peasant (Kent) and a nearly naked lunatic. What has happened to the hundred knights? At line 145 he asks, “What, hath your Grace no better company?” Tom takes umbrage at this insult to his demons and insists at line 145: “The Prince of Darkness is a gentleman./ Modo he’s called, and Mahu.” His demon is a gentleman, so Lear does have some genteel company, and Shakespeare gets to use two more names from Harsnett’s book. Gloucester chooses to ignore Tom’s pronouncement and expresses sympathy for Lear’s plight at line 147: “Our flesh and blood, my Lord, is grown so vile,/ That it doth hate what gets [begets] it.” He clearly has Goneril and Regan in mind, but he says this in front of his own son who knows all too well about “flesh and blood” hating its own child. No wonder Edgar says, rather poignantly, “Poor Tom’s a-cold.”

Gloucester proposes to take Lear to a better shelter, despite his daughters’ “hard commands” not to offer any aid. Lear, however, only wants to talk with Tom, his “philosopher” or “learned Theban” as he calls him. At line 161 he asks Tom what his “study” is, the area of learning he specializes in. Tom replies, “How to prevent [stop] the fiend, and to kill vermin,” like fleas or lice. While Lear and Tom chat privately, Kent, disguised as Caius, urges Gloucester not to bother the king any more because “His wits begin t’ unsettle” [line 165]. Gloucester replies:

Canst thou blame him?

His daughters seek his death. Ah, that good Kent,

He said it would be thus, poor banished man!

Thou say’st the King grows mad – I’ll tell thee, friend,

I am almost mad myself. I had a son,

Now outlawed from my blood; he sought my life

But lately, very late [recently]. I loved him, friend,

No father his son dearer. True to tell thee,

The grief hath crazed my wits.

For some reason Kent does not reveal his identity to Gloucester. And it is likely that Edgar does not overhear his father explain the reason for their sudden estrangement. We are struck by how the course of this tragedy might have changed if everyone would just drop their disguises at this point. But they don’t, and events are about to thrust them into even greater suffering. Gloucester finally convinces Lear to go to better shelter by agreeing to allow Tom to come along. As the scene ends Tom quotes a little nonsense rhyme, probably a verse from a ballad now lost, about the heroic figure of Rowland, a knight in a number of medieval romances. In the verse Rowland is still a squire, a knight in training, but Tom gives him the famous words from the giant in the folk story of Jack and the Beanstalk. What’s most important about this little apparent irrelevancy is that it comes from Tom. Up to this point it has been the Fool whose nonsense rhymes end some scenes. His function in the play, however, has been taken over by Tom.

Act III, Scene 5

Meanwhile, back at the castle, Edmund is ratting out his father. What concern does Edmund express about betraying his father? Why? [Act III, scene 5]

Edmund gives a “performance” in this short scene, in some ways just as creative as his brother’s as Tom. The Bastard worries how his betrayal of his father, which he characterizes at line 4 as “nature [love of father] gives way to loyalty [to Cornwall]” will make him appear to others. Cornwall takes Gloucester’s actions as evidence that his inner evil had prompted Edgar to try to kill him with good reason. Edmund, even as he gives Cornwall the letter his father had received about Cordelia’s return, laments that he must be the one to detect and act as a traitor to his father. Cornwall, for all his moral outrage, offers Edmund some pragmatic advice. Whether or not the charges against Gloucester are true, Edmund’s actions have gained him his father’s title. Edmund puts aside his hypocrisy over revealing his father’s sympathies at line 21 when the bastard hopes that his father is found comforting Lear since that will make his accusations seem more believable. He once again swears allegiance to Cornwall: “I will persever in my course of loyalty, though the conflict be sore between that and my blood [the love he is supposed to feel for his own flesh and blood].” Cornwall, at line 25, promises, “I will lay trust upon thee, and thou shall find a dearer father in my love.” Given Cornwall’s cruelty, this is hardly a comforting thought, but Edmund is moving on up the corporate ladder.

Act III, Scene 6

In this scene Lear, the Fool, Edgar and Kent enter a farmhouse for shelter. Lear insists that the others assist him in a trial of his daughters. How has Lear’s madness change in this scene from what it was earlier? How has the Fool’s humor changed? What happens to the Fool in the play? [Act III, scene 6]

As the party comes in, Tom, the Fool and Lear are each in their own little separate worlds, but they bounce off each other, playing on the words and emotions of the others. Tom begins at line 6: “Frateretto calls me, and tells me Nero is/ an angler in the lake of darkness. Pray, innocent,/ and beware of the foul fiend.” Here is still one more demon from Harsnett’s book who shares the bit of gossip that the notorious Roman emperor Nero likes fishing in the lake of Hell. He urges his companions, who are not fortunate enough to talk with demons, to pray and avoid Satan. The Fool takes up the idea of the social status of Tom, a subject that the lunatic has already raised several times, and asks at line 9, “Prithee, Nuncle, tell me whether a madman be a/ gentleman or a yeoman?” The yeoman was a farmer who owned land but was considered socially inferior to a gentleman. Lear continues to see the world through his own suffering and answers at line 11: “A king, a king.” The Fool had asked the question as one of his riddles designed to distract Lear from his condition. He answers his own riddle at line 12: “No, he’s a yeoman that has a gentleman to his/son; for he’s a mad yeoman that sees his son a gentleman/ before him.” The Fool is describing a social situation that happened frequently in those days where people, even sons of yeomen, rose rapidly to prominence, applied for a coat-of-arms and became official gentlemen while their fathers retained their old status. Shakespeare would use this very same situation for comic effect in a later play Winter’s Tale. In the context of Lear’s madness the joke falls flat here, despite the Fool’s good intention. Lear is still in his own personal hell, and perhaps thinking back to Tom’s description of Nero in the fiery pit, he envisions a fitting punishment for his daughters at line 15: “To have a thousand with red burning spits/ Come hizzing [hissing] in upon ‘em --” That sets Tom off who has his own perception of punishment at line 17: “The foul fiend bites my back.” The Fool, perhaps picking up on the idea of being bitten, comes back with a profound-sounding pronouncement at line 18: “He’s mad that trusts in the tameness of a wolf, a horse’s health, a boy’s love, or a whore’s oath.” It may be the last image here, the idea of an oath, which prompts King Lear’s idea to stage a trial of his tormentors.

At line 20 Lear orders his daughters arraigned and asks Tom, whom he calls “learned justice” and the Fool, “sapient [scholarly] sir,” to act as judges in the trial of the “she-foxes.” Edgar responds with a dual hallucination, First at line 23 he “sees” one of his fiends: “Look, where he stands and glares.” Then he pretends to see one of the daughters and asks, “Want’st/ thou eyes at trial, madam?” Do you want spectators at your trial? He calls to the fiend to come to the trial by singing a line from an old ballad: “come o’er the bourn [brook], Bessy, to me.” Not to be outdone, the Fool joins in and makes up the rest of the refrain at line 26: “Her boat hath a leak,/ And she must not speak/ Why she dares not come over to thee.” As he sings this silly piece of nonsense Tom pretends that the Fool’s voice is that of a fiend disguised as a nightingale. Meanwhile another fiend, Hoppedance, is inside Tom’s belly, causing it to rumble in hunger, crying for two “white” or unsmoked herrings, something a fiend would not get in the smoky depths of hell. Later, at line 41, Tom sings a verse from another nonsense ballad and ends with the vision of a gray cat he calls “Purr,” the form which the devils attending on witches often took.

It may well be that the vividness of Tom’s hallucinations pushes Lear into the next stage of his own madness because he now begins to “see” his daughters. After asking Kent to join the legal commission at line 38, Lear at line 46 declares, “Arraign her first. ‘Tis Goneril. I take my/ oath before this honorable assembly, she kicked/ the poor King her father.” The Fool’s response at line 51 is, “Cry you mercy, I took you for a joint stool.” It’s a funny line, but it also shows that the Fool recognizes the change in Lear. The old king then sees Regan and in his madness imagines her escaping from the court. In frustration he accuses the judges of corruption in allowing her to flee at line 54. Kent urges his master to exercise his patience, that is not to give in to his madness. Even Tom is moved by the change in Lear, and at line 56 he says, “Bless thy five wits,” because clearly he is losing control. Then at line 59 Edgar steps out of his masquerade as Tom and says to the audience, “My tears begin to take his part so much/ They mar my counterfeiting.” This is the first of several places in the play where Edgar reveals the emotional cost of carrying out his deception. Lear’s hallucinations continue to grow and at line 61 he imagines his dogs – “Tray, Blanch, and Sweetheart” – deserting him and barking at him as if he were a stranger. Tom knows all about dogs, since he encounters them everyday in his begging; it was common practice to set dogs on such unwanted visitors. At line 63 he tells Lear, “Tom will throw his head at them, Avaunt, you curs.” Scholars are not sure what Edgar means by this line, but I think Tom here imitates a big dog to frighten those barking at Lear. He recites a verse listing the different kinds of dogs at line 64 – 71 and ends with the image of the dogs jumping through an open doorway to escape from his “throwing his head.” Tom ends with his “Do, de” refrain and a description of how he shows up at public events like fairs and church dedications in order to beg and gives us a sample of his plea, “Poor Tom, thy horn is dry,” at line 74. Your notes explain about the beggar’s horn, but the line has a probable second meaning -- that Edgar is unable to continue his charade.

Lear picks up on the idea that Tom’s horn is dry. At line 75 he suggests that the cause for this hardening may lie with his daughters:

Then let them anatomize Regan. See what breeds

about her heart. Is there any cause in nature

that make these hard hearts? [To Edgar] You, sir,

I entertain [engage] as one of my hundred; only I do not

like the fashion of your garments. You will say

they are Persian [exotic], but let them be changed.

Regan’s heart is so “hard” or uncaring, it must have caused Tom’s horn to dry up. It’s a reach, but Lear, in his madness, is trying to trade comic one-liners with his companions. Here he is abandoned in the storm suddenly worrying about his hundred knights and hiring Tom as one, if he meets the dress code. Lear’s characterizing Tom’s rags and blanket as a “Persian” costume is the height of a crazy kind of sarcasm. The fact that this humor rises from Lear madness doesn’t lessen its humor but does add to the poignancy. Kent is finally able to get Lear to lie down and try to sleep, but even here, at line 82, Lear tries to turn it into a joke: “Make no noise, make no noise; draw the curtains./ So, so. We’ll go to supper i’ th’ morning.” He imagines he is in an ornate four-poster bed instead of a barren farmhouse. As he contemplates finally sleeping, he realizes that it will throw off his schedule of meals. The Fool offers a final response to this last comment: “And I’ll go to bed at noon.” Because these are the last words the Fool speaks in the play, scholars have tried to find some extra significance in them, but I think the line is just the typical nonsense stuff the Fool has done throughout the play.

What happens to the Fool? The text offers no idea. Lear begins the play surround by family and courtiers. He is progressively stripped of his companions until we meet him next in Act IV, entirely alone. The Fool had bragged back in Act II that he would stay loyal to the king because he was a fool, but the fact is that he has lost his purpose in the play. He is never again mentioned in the text after this scene.

Just as Lear finally falls asleep, perhaps to regain his balance, Gloucester enters with the alarming news that bad guys are coming to seize him. Kent reluctantly awakens the king and takes him off toward Dover where they hope to find help. Tom is left behind, and alone at last Edgar, in a rhyming passage, offers a philosophical overview of what he had just experienced at line 101: “When we our betters see bearing our woes,/ We scarcely think our miseries our foes.” What he is saying here is that witnessing Lear’s suffering, because he is socially superior as a king, makes Edgar’s problems seems less. At line 109 he draws a parallel with Lear and himself: “He childed as I fathered.” Both have been betrayed by family members they trusted most. Edgar’s speech is in rhymed verse to set it off from the crazy ramblings of Tom which have all been in prose or in snatches of popular ballads/ The rhymed verse makes it make more formal and may help remind us that despite his lunatic disguise, Edgar is a serious young gentleman. At the end of his speech he tells us he will continue his charade until he can clear his name and be restored to his father’s favor.

Act III. Scene 7

This is the climatic scene in the suffering of Gloucester. Which character comes up with the idea of putting out his eyes? How does Shakespeare reveal the power struggle between Cornwall and Regan? How do Cornwall’s final actions before his death fit his basic character? In terms of social class in Shakespeare’s time, what is unusual about the way Cornwall is killed? [Act III, scene 7]

In this scene where Gloucester is tortured and blinded Shakespeare subtly reveals the social tensions among the characters. For example, Cornwall is very concerned about being perceived in power. It is he that orders Goneril to return home and show her husband the letter Gloucester had received revealing that the French army has landed. He then sends word that Gloucester is to be seized. At line 5 Regan, whom we have seen excited by the prospect of inflicting pain on Kent, demands “Hang him instantly!” but it is her sister, Goneril, the Ice Queen, who comes up with the even more painful punishment, “Pluck out his eyes.” Regan may be cruel, but she is impulsive. Leave it to Goneril to be more cold and fiendish, prolonging the old man’s suffering. Cornwall is not going to let any woman run the show, and at line 7 he declares, “Leave him to my displeasure.” He will make the final decision, swayed by the suggestions of the strong-willed women around him. In a gesture of hypocritical concern he now says to Edmund, who has betrayed his father and put him in danger, “The revenges we are/ bound to take upon your traitorous father are not/ fit for your beholding.” Isn’t that thoughtful? Having ratted old Dad out, Edmund doesn’t have to watch the consequences of his actions. Instead he is sent to accompany Goneril to her castle and to urge Albany to make swift preparations to meet the French threat. Slimy Oswald comes in with word that Lear has escaped with some of his knights and is headed for Dover where he has support.

Cornwall now at line 25 makes it clear that he is determined to take revenge on Gloucester:

Though well we may not pass [judgment] upon his life

Without the form of justice, yet our power

Shall do a court’sy to our wrath, which men

May blame, but not control.

This is a cynical excuse for the abuse of power. Normally, Cornwall says, he would have to go through the motions of a trial before he could do what he wanted to the old man. However, because he is now all-powerful he will skip the charade of justice [bow to his anger] and take out his rage on Gloucester, and no one can do anything about it. Cornwall is about to learn valuable lesson about injustice.

Gloucester is brought in, and Cornwall orders his “corky arms” bound, as if the old man’s limbs were those of a tree that was dry and sapless. Gloucester protests at line 21 that they are his guests and therefore are enjoined from doing harm to him. The code of hospitality was very strong in those days; you had to protect your guests and your host. The objection does not deter the Cornwalls, as Regan urges that the traitor’s arms be tied even tighter. (The girl’s getting excited!) At line 34 Gloucester denies that he is a traitor and calls Regan, not for the only time, “unmerciful lady.” Regan cannot control herself and she begins pulling the hairs out of his beard, a deadly insult to a gentleman. When Gloucester calls her actions “ignoble,” she sneers at him, “So white, and such a traitor.”

Gloucester again evokes the code of hospitality at line 38 in more detail this time:

Naughty [wicked] lady,

Those hairs which thou dost ravish from my chin

Will quicken [come to life] and accuse thee. I am your host.

With robber’s hands my hospitable favors [my face as your host]

You should not ruffle [violently tear] thus. What will you do?

You can hear the desperation growing in Gloucester.

The old man’s cross-examination begins, and we can see the subtle power struggle between husband and wife at line 43:

Cornwall: Come, sir, what letters had you late [recently] from France?

Regan: Be simple-answered [direct], for we know the truth.

Cornwall: And what confederacy have you with the traitors

Late-footed in the kingdom?

Regan: To whose hands you have sent the lunatic King: Speak.

Regan really wants to get in on the interrogation, especially if they get to rough him up. She can’t wait for Gloucester to respond to Cornwall’s questions. Gloucester tries to weasel his way out, claiming that the letter he received was simply speculation and not from someone opposing Cornwall. The fun couple dismiss his answer. Cornwall asks where he has sent Lear, and Gloucester confirms what Oswald reported earlier, that Lear is on his way to Dover. Regan jumps in at line 53: “Wherefore to Dover? Wast thou not charged at peril [upon pain]--” but before he can answer, Cornwall finally asserts his control over the situation: “Wherefore to Dover? Let him answer that.” It is as if Cornwall has to be in charge, and further more the process has got to move more slowly because he can only handle one question and answer at a time with his limited mental ability. Gloucester realizes he cannot wiggle out of the situation and at line 55 uses an unusual but appropriate comparison: “I am bound to th’ stake, and I must stand the course.” He here compares himself to a bear in the popular spectator sport of bear-baiting where bears were chained and set upon by dogs. He has to withstand the attack of a pack of dogs called a “course.” Regan repeats the question “Wherefore to Dover” hoping that he will refuse to answer so she can see him “worked over.” Instead the old man answers defiantly at line 57:

Because I would not see thy cruel nails

Pluck out his poor eyes, nor thy fierce sister

In his anointed [blessed at coronation] flesh rash [strike] boarish fangs.

The sea, with such a storm as his bare head

In hell-black night endured, would have buoyed [risen] up

And quenched the stelled fires [burning stars].

Yet, poor old heart, he holp [helped] the heavens to rain.

If wolves had at thy gate howled that dearn [awful] time,

Thou shouldst have said, “Good porter, turn the key.”

All cruels else subscribe. But I shall see

The winged vengeance overtake such children.

Gloucester pours out his sense of injustice at the way the girls have treated their father. He helped Lear escape because they would have treated their father as badly as they now treat him. They shut him out in a storm so bad that the ocean, under the same circumstances, would have risen up and put out the stars, thought to be heavenly fires. If wolves had howled at Regan’s gate in such a storm, she would have instructed the porter or doorman to let the beasts in. All animals, except men and women, will relent or “subscribe.” So that is why he sent Lear to Dover. Gloucester ends with a melodramatic declaration that he will see the mythological figure of Vengeance, pictured by the Greeks with wings, strike such children.

Poor, slow Cornwall, who still has that suggestion from Goneril in his head about how to punish Gloucester, comes up with what may be the first joke ever all by himself at line 68: “See’t shalt thou never. Fellows, hold the chair./ Upon these eyes of thine I’ll set my foot.” Get it? If he’s blind, he can’t see vengeance. As Gloucester calls for help from the servants who hope to reach his age, Cornwall does the deed. (My son who saw Lear as a small but blood-thirsty child pronounced this scene the greatest in all the plays.) Regan enjoys it so much, she urges her husband to do the other eye: “One side will mock another. Th’ other too.” Doctor Phil would say it’s good when a married couple enjoy the same activities. As Cornwall goes for the second eye, repeating his initial joke, “If you see vengeance --” something almost unparalleled in all the plays occurs: a servant actually raises his hand against his master.

This unnamed man, called simply “First Servant,” justifies his extraordinary actions at line 70, explaining that he has served Cornwall since he was a child and that he is performing the best service he has ever done by telling his master to stop. Regan calls him a “dog,” and Cornwall contemptuously labels him “My villain,” suggesting that his actions are wicked but also the fact that he is a serf or “villain” bound to Cornwall’s estate, a lowly slave. “First Servant” never speaks disrespectfully to Cornwall, but he is less gentle with Regan, telling her at line 77, “If you did wear a beard upon your chin,/

I’d shake it on this quarrel,” in other words, he would treat her, if she were a man, as she had done Gloucester earlier. When Cornwall persists, the two fight and Cornwall is mortally wounded. As if to underscore the unusual nature of this conflict, Regan grabs a sword and asks, “A peasant stand up thus?” as she stabs “First Servant” in the back. As he dies, he calls to Gloucester at line 82 “O, I am slain! My lord, you have one eye left/ To see some mischief on him. O!” He takes some conciliation in the idea that Gloucester will be able to witness the punishment Cornwall will inevitably receive. The significance of this event is that the Cornwalls have crossed a moral boundary; their actions against Gloucester have been so outrageous that even the lower classes, who were supposed to suffer all in silence, cannot stand by.

Cornwall is badly hurt, and yet with his dying breath, he drags himself to Gloucester and puts out the second eye: “Lest it see more, prevent it. Out, vile jelly./ Where is your luster now?” This is the quintessential Cornwall. He has to finish what he started, and then he has to mock Gloucester with that final question here. Most people, faced with impending death, would not be so committed to doing evil. But the fun continues because Gloucester calls for his beloved son Edmund at line 87 to “enkindle all the sparks of nature/ To quit this horrid act.” He’s asking Edmund to gather all the sparks of nature into a fire to offset the darkness into which he has been plunged and to pay back the outrage done to him. This gives Regan the chance to derive even more pleasure by telling the old man at line 89, “Thou call’st upon him that hates thee. It was he/ That made the overture [revelation] of thy treasons to us;/ Who is too good to pity thee.” Ironically, now that he is blind, Gloucester finally “sees” the truth at line 92: “O my follies! Then Edgar was abused [wrongly accused]./ Kind gods, forgive me that, and prosper him.” Regan gets the best line as she orders the servants to take Gloucester at line 94, “Go thrust him out at gates, and let him smell/ His way to Dover.” This is vintage Regan in its arrogant cruelty.

The scene ends as Regan helps her husband, who is bleeding to death, offstage. The remaining servants are left to clean up the carnage. One of them says at line 100, “I’ll never care what wickedness I do,/ If this man come to good.” In other words, he hopes that Cornwall suffers for his crimes. Another servant says of Regan, “If she live long/ And in the end meet the old course of death [die of natural causes],/ Women will all turn monsters.” What he is saying is that if Regan escapes punishment, then all women will be free to behave as monstrously as they want because there is no divine justice. The two servants then go to treat Gloucester’s injuries with “flax and whites of eggs.” (This is good first aid information in case you are ever confronted with a similar situation.) They decide to find Tom o’ Bedlam to lead the blinded Gloucester, an interesting choice in therapy. It is significant that throughout this scene the servants speak in verse, as if their actions in opposing the cruelty of the upper classes somehow elevated their social status temporarily.

Act IV, Scene 1

The first five scenes of this act are short and build to the climactic sixth scene where we see Lear and Gloucester at the low point in their struggle with madness and despair. Both men are ultimately reconciled with the children they have betrayed. In this first scene Gloucester and Edgar are reunited. How has Gloucester’s attitude toward his life changed since the last time we saw him? Why? The central question of this entire section of the play is the following: Edgar and Gloucester are alone together in this scene, both fully aware of what had caused their initial rift. Why doesn’t Edgar reveal himself to his father? Why does he continue this masquerade as Tom? [Act IV, scene 1]

Edgar at some point in his life apparently took a college philosophy course, because he frequently tries to put his life and suffering in a larger context, as he does in the first nine lines of this scene:

Yet better thus, and known to be contemned [hated],

Than still contemned and flattered. To be worst,

The lowest and most dejected [saddest] thing of fortune,

Stands still in esperance [hope], lives not in fear:

The lamentable change is from the best,

The worst returns to laughter [will inevitably improve]. Welcome, then,

Thou unsubstantial air that I embrace!

The wretch that thou hast blown unto the worst

Owes nothing to thy blasts [is unafraid of what you can do.]

You can see Edgar here trying to make a virtue out of being at the bottom of the wheel of Fortune. At least, he tells himself, it can’t get any worse. At that moment in comes his father with two empty eye sockets, being led by a poor peasant. Edgar realizes his earlier philosophical musings were incorrect. At line 10 he laments, “World, world, O world!/ But that thy strange mutations make us hate thee,/ Life would not yield to age.” The message here is a little obscure, but we can sense the meaning: “We are only willing to grow old and accept death because of the unforeseen changes and chances of our hateful lives.” The sight of his ravaged father is a real shock.

Gloucester is concerned about the safety of others, but most of all he is full of despair. He tells the old tenant farmer leading him to get away before he is punished for helping a traitor. When his care provider warns him that if he leaves, Gloucester will be unable to see his way, the earl replies at line 18,

I have no way and therefore want [lack] no eyes;

I stumbled when I saw. Full oft ‘tis seen,

Our means secure us, and our mere defects

Prove our commodities. Oh, dear son Edgar,

The food [target] of thy abused [deceived] father’s wrath!

Might I but live to see thee in my touch,

I’d say I had eyes again!

Gloucester’s regret is powerfully expressed here: he was “blind” before he lost his eyes. When he says, “Our means secure us,” what he’s saying is that our prosperity makes us careless; “our mere defects,” our disadvantages, turn out to benefit us. Gloucester is, however, not happy about this apparent luck in the game of life. Indeed, he blames his current plight on the fact he did not see the risks that confronted him. Rather poignantly he wishes only to “see” his son one more time. Why doesn’t Edgar speak up at this point?

Edgar is busy re-evaluating and amending his earlier statement on the philosophical advantages of being at the absolute bottom. At line 25 he tells us,

O Gods! Who is ‘t can say “I am at the worst”?

I am worse than e’er I was…..

And worse I may be yet: the worst is not

So long as we can say “This is the worst.”

Edgar obviously feels terrible about his father’s suffering, but it is characteristic of him that he tries to make sense out of experience as it is happening to him. This passage is an example of the extreme suffering in King Lear, and Edgar is the one character who keeps us focused on what is happening and how ordinary people try to cope in the middle of a catastrophe. However, why doesn’t he reach out to his father at this moment?

Edgar is recognized as Tom the madman at line 26, but at line 31 Gloucester points out that he is not entirely mad:

He has some reason, else he could not beg.

I’ th’ last night’s storm I such a fellow saw,

Which made me think a man a worm. My son

Came then into my mind, and yet my mind

Was then scarce friends with him. I have heard more since.

As flies to wanton [unthinking] boys, are we to th’ gods,

They kill us for their sport.

So Gloucester remembers Tom from their last encounter, remembers thinking how pitiful he was, but also how the beggar reminded him of us son, Edgar. Despite the elaborate disguise the father sensed the presence of his son. So why doesn’t Edgar reveal himself at this point? Gloucester’s recollection of Tom/Edgar is powerfully tinged with the lesson he thinks he has learned. He now sees the relationship of man to the gods as something so cynical that it challenges his will to continue living. Traditional religion often pictures the divinity as a benevolent father that looks after us. Some religions even imagine their god as a malevolent force for evil, like Satan for Tom. Gloucester has moved beyond this duality. For him there is neither good nor evil in the Almighty; the gods are no more than mindless kids who practice cruelty on a cosmic scale just for the hell of it, like ten year-olds tearing the wings off flies. This is a picture of the universe with neither meaning nor hope. This is about as close to absolute despair as you can get. For people at the time this play was written such despair was the worst of the mortal sins. It meant that the sinner had given up any idea that things could improve and that he was close to taking his own life as a consequence. Suicide was the mark of such despair. Why doesn’t Edgar speak up and comfort his father?

Edgar begins to reveal his motives for continuing his cruel masquerade at line 37: “How should this be?/ Bad is the trade that must play fool to sorrow,/ Ang’ring itself and others.” His question here could mean several different things: How was my father blinded? How was this horrible thing allowed to take place? Why does my father forgive me? I think his question might mean any or all of these things, but most of all I believe it refers to the state of despair implicit in Gloucester’s “flies to wonton boys” remark. Edgar is most concerned about his father’s state of mind. At line 39 he utters his first words in his Tom persona: “Bless thee, master.”

Gloucester asks the old farmer to leave him in the care of Tom, requesting only that some clothes be brought to cover Tom’s nakedness. When the care provider objects that Tom cannot lead Gloucester since he is mad, the earl makes a cogent observation at line 46: “’Tis the times’ plague, when madmen lead the blind.” The extraordinary upheaval of events in Lear’s kingdom has led to this situation where the lunatics are in control. Edgar tries to continue with his play-acting, saying his stock line “poor Tom’s a-cold” at line 52. By now these simple words have taken on many different levels of meaning because of the situation in which they are spoken. Tom is indeed “cold” because of the suffering both speaker and listeners have undergone. And now Edgar verbalizes his own mixed emotions: “I cannot daub it [carry on or cover up, as if he were covering a wall with plaster]….And yet I must.” The old tenant farmer has left; Edgar and his father are alone together. Why does Edgar feel he has to continue, when he himself doesn’t want to? The only thing Edgar allows himself is to have Tom recognize his father’s suffering at line 55: “Bless thy sweet eyes, they bleed.”

Gloucester asks Tom if he knows the way to Dover, and he answers playing the lunatic at full power at line 57: “Both stile and gate, horse-way and footpath./ Poor Tom hath been scared out of his good wits.” He then proceeds to list the ‘five fiends” who have possessed him at one time, an Olympic record in demonic possession: Obidicut, Hobbididence, Mahu, Modo and our old friend Fibbertogibbet, each one associated with a mortal sin or some kind of physical affliction. Gloucester, properly impressed with Tom’s credentials, gives him his purse and some important philosophical musings. Does Gloucester’s message here remind you of any similar passage earlier in the play?

Here, take this purse, thou whom the heavens’ plagues

Have humbled to all strokes [brought so low as to humbly accept everything];

that I am wretched

Makes thee the happier. Heavens, deal so still [always]!

Let the superfluous [overindulged] and lust-dieted [sated in lechery] man,

That slaves your ordinance [treats your laws as his slaves], that will not see

Because he does not feel [empathize], feel your pow’r quickly [right now]

So distribution should undo excess,

And each man have enough.

The last two lines of this passage mean that when someone clearly sees what the laws of heaven are, then he will take what he has but does not need and give it to those who suffer, thereby establishing an equity among all mankind. This is a remarkable insight for a man who now realizes that he has allowed his lust to control his life and has not paid attention to the needs of those around him. He asks Tom if he knows the cliffs at Dover, famous sheer precipices, and asks to be led there, from where he will not need any further help, a rather ominous note. Why doesn’t Edgar reveal his identity to his father?

Act IV, Scene 2

In this scene we see our favorite corporate climber, Edmund, moving up the next rung on the ladder of success. And we see the transformation in Goneril’s husband, Albany. What has happened between Goneril and Edmund since we saw them last? What plan seems implicit in what they say to each other? What has happened to change Albany? How does his transformation affect the balance between the forces of good and evil? Finally, why does news of the death of Cornwall seem to upset Goneril? How does this development foreshadow later events in the play? [Act IV, scene 2]

The first thing to say about this scene is that it is an example of Shakespeare’s economy in developing the storyline of Edmund and Lear’s two daughters. Think about all that has happened since we saw Cornwall send Edmund off to escort Goneril back home, all the steps in a casual relationship which has blossomed into full-blown lust. Goneril, obviously looking for some affection outside her marriage to a man she does not respect, is attracted to young Edmund, now Earl of Gloucester and so worthy of her attentions. Edmund, having used his father and Cornwall for all he can get from them, is looking for a new champion – a woman, queen of half the country and a kindred spirit, over whom he can exercise some sexual control. The romantic night spent at the Super 8 Motel in St. Albans, the ensuing discussion about what it would be like if they could live as man and wife – all these Shakespeare skips over, assuming we can fill in the blanks ourselves.

Goneril and her new squeeze are greeted by slimy Oswald who brings shocking news of Albany’s transformation at lines 3 –11. Goneril’s husband, having heard about her treatment of her father, is so disgusted with her behavior that he has totally reversed the moral values that Goneril expected him to hold, so that news of the landing of the French army and Gloucester’s alleged treachery he applauds, while Edmund’s revealing his father’s secrets and Goneril’s return he disparages. He tells Oswald he has “turned the wrong side out,” that is, he has drawn the wrong conclusion. Goneril explains his reaction at line 12:

It is the cowish terror of his spirit,

That dares not undertake: he’ll not feel wrongs,

Which tie him to an answer. Our wishes on the way

May prove effects.

Rather than any kind of moral revulsion on Albany’s part, Goneril sees her husband’s reactions as fear (like a frightened cow). He will avoid any kind of response which would require him to stand up and act. At line 17 she characterizes her marriage as one in which she has to take the initiative and Albany plays the woman’s part (“give the distaff [spindle used in spinning, symbol of a wife]/ Into my husband’s hands” l. 17) What’s a little sinister here is that final sentence. It implies that Goneril and Edmund have conspired to change her circumstances so that they might be together. And she’s not talking about getting a divorce! She reinforces the message at line 19: “ere long you are like to hear,/ If you dare venture in your own behalf,/ A mistress’s command.” Here again the message is veiled. Presumably she is already his mistress in a sexual sense, but if our little ambitious bastard is willing to take a chance and act in his own self-interest, he could call her “mistress” in the sense of his wife and co-ruler of Albany’s half of the kingdom. Goneril gives Edmund a favor, probably something like a scarf, to symbolize the bond between them; this was a standard practice in the days of chivalry when a knight was about to go into battle. And she kisses him before he leaves, telling him, again with a double meaning, at line 22: “This kiss, if it durst speak,/ Would stretch thy spirits up into the air:/ Conceive, and fare thee well,” to which Edmund responds, “Yours in the ranks of death.” Goneril is implying that the promise behind the kiss will swell Edmund’s ambition (“stretch thy spirits up”). She’s also saying that the kiss will swell his penis as well. “Conceive” can mean imagine your future, or it can mean get an erection. Edmund answers her in the same vein. “Yours in the ranks of death” was what the bold knight told his lady love before he rode into the jousting lists with her favor; it’s what an ambitious upstart might say when he was willing to risk death in order to murder his mistress’s husband; and it was what a horny stud would say just before orgasm, which was referred to as “dying.” There’s a whole lot going on here.

Edmund leaves, and Goneril comments on her situation at line 26: “O, the difference of man and man!/ To thee [Edmund] a woman’s services are due:/ My fool [Albany] usurps my body.” As Doctor Phil would say, “It doesn’t look good for this marriage.” But when at the next line Albany enters, at line 29, Goneril chides him for not being happier to see her: “I have been worth the whistle,” which your notes explain. It’s as if Goneril were saying, “I just kissed my boyfriend after arranging your murder, and how dare you fail to greet me with the proper affection.” Albany’s answer at line 30 demonstrates that this marriage is in trouble: “You are not worth the dust the rude wind/ Blows in your face.” This exchange sets off 38 lines of fierce marital fighting, one of the best examples Shakespeare ever wrote of this particular genre of verbal conflict. Albany is appalled by what he has heard of his wife’s treatment of her father. Goneril is enraged that Albany is not more upset about news of the French invasion. At line 50 she calls him “Milk-livered man!/ That bear’st a cheek for blows, a head for wrongs.” Your notes explain the significance of lily- or milk-livered. More telling, she describes her husband as a “moral fool” at line 58, as if his concern about good and evil had turned him into a ridiculous moron. For his part Albany says of Goneril at line 59, “See thyself, devil!/ Proper deformity seems not in the fiend/ So horrid as in woman.” In other words, we are used to seeing devils as deformed, but such appearance makes women seem even more awful. Goneril gets the last word in the argument as an messenger enters, line 68, and she tells her husband, “Marry, your manhood mew.” Your notes give you one explanation, but I think a better reading is that Goneril disparages Albany’s manhood as mewing like a cat, which is what she thinks of his strength and resolve.

The messenger brings word of Cornwall’s death in the breathless style of The National Inquirer, as if the shock and horror was that a servant dared raise his hand to his master. Albany’s reaction at line 78 offers a different interpretation: “This shows you are above,/ You justicers, that these our nether crimes [sins committed in this lower world]/ So speedily can venge.” Which earlier passage in the play does this remind you of? Goneril now has a rather strange reaction at line 83 when she speaks only to us:

One way I like this well;

But being widow, and my Gloucester with her,

May all the building in my fancy pluck

Upon my hateful life. Another way,

The news is not so tart.

Goneril’s chief competitor for control of the entire kingdom, Cornwall, has just died. No wonder she likes this news and finds it “not so tart.” However, she is instantly jealous of her widowed sister and worries that Edmund (“Gloucester” now) may find her so attractive that it will ruin Goneril’s “castles in the air,” or “building in my fancy.” How does this suspicion prepare us for the final scene in the play?

Albany asks about Edmund’s reaction to Gloucester’s blinding and learns the bastard had just been at his castle. The fact that he did not pay his respects to the lord of the manor, Albany, would immediately arouse the wronged husband’s suspicions. Albany swears that he will wreck revenge for the loss of Gloucester’s eyes. Albany’s transformation, coupled with Cornwall’s death, begins to balance the forces of good and evil in the play.

Act IV, Scene 3

This is what I call “a housekeeping scene,” in which we get some necessary details out of the way while we prepare for the next emotional highpoint. What earlier scene in the play is this similar to? Why has Shakespeare eliminated the King of France from the action? [Act IV, scene 3]

This scene is very similar to Act III, scene 1 where Kent in his disguise as a peasant talks to a gentleman in courtly language and gives us the latest information on the relationship of Lear and Cordelia. We learn first that the King of France has had to return to his country, leaving his queen, Cordelia, to deal with her father’s crisis on her own. There are at least three reasons for Shakespeare including this development. First, psychologically it focuses the upcoming reconciliation on just father and daughter without the complication of a husband; it makes for more emotional impact. Second, politically the absence of the French king downplays the idea that the invasion is in any sense an attempt by France to conquer England; it emphasizes the assertion that Cordelia is only there to help her father. Third, dramatically Shakespeare often eliminated characters whom he had introduced early in the play because he was now using that actor in another role; with a group of only 12 -- 14 actors, he had to double or even triple cast his company members and therefore had to “explain” the absence of someone he no longer had the personnel to present.

We learn that Cordelia’s reaction to her father’s suffering is both restrained and heart-felt. She weeps when she learns what was done to him, but at the same time she exercises restraint over her passions. At line 17 we learn she did not give way to rage but showed patience and sorrow, even as she learns of his being locked out in the storm at lines 27 – 30. Her emotional reaction described here prepares us for the genuine power of the scene when they are finally reunited in Act IV, scene 7. Kent is moved to speculate on how Cordelia can be so different from her sisters at line 33:

It is the stars,

The stars above us, govern our conditions [our essential characters];

Else one self mate and make [husband and wife] could not beget

Such different issues [children].

In addition to acknowledging the fact that Cordelia is so different from her siblings, this passage once again reinforces the idea that these events are taking place in a pagan context where the stars are thought to govern human development.

We find out that King Lear is somewhere around Dover but that his distracted condition (a polite way of saying insanity) and his shame over how he treated his daughter at the outset have kept him from coming to see her. Finally Kent continues to insist that he will maintain his disguise for a while longer, a piece of suspense that must have been more important in Shakespeare’s time than it is in ours.

Act IV, Scene 4

Here is a continuation of the previous scene where we see Cordelia directing the search for Lear. [Act IV, scene 4] The short scene prepares us for Lear’s insane obsession with wildflowers in a lengthy description of how he appears in the first six lines. Cordelia consults a doctor about how to treat her father when he is found and is told at line 12 that “Our foster-nurse of nature is repose” or sleep. Cordelia is very worried that her father in his condition may harm himself and urges her soldiers to find him. Finally, at the end of the scene, line 23, Cordelia reaffirms that the sole reason for the French army’s being in England is to help Lear:

O dear father,

It is thy business that I go about;

Therefore, great France [the French king]

My mourning and importuned tears hath pitied.

No blown [inflated] ambition doth our arms incite,

But love, dear love, and our aged father’s right.

Act IV, Scene 5

Back at Gloucester’s castle things have progressed quickly in Edmund’s climb to the top. What has transpired since the last time we saw him? What political mistake does Regan now realize she has made? Why does Regan seek to read Goneril’s letter to Edmund? [Act IV, scene 5]

Here is another scene in which a lot has happened offstage and Shakespeare expects us to catch up. Just as Goneril feared back in Act IV, scene 2, Edmund now has a new girlfriend, one not burdened with a live husband. You have to love this kid: he keeps his options open and moves easily from one person to another who can help his climb. Regan immediately suspects something is going on between her sister and her new squeeze when she confirms with slimy Oswald at line 4 that Edmund had not spoken to Albany as social protocol would have required. She asks for the first time about the letter from Goneril to Edmund at line 6.

Regan now realizes that it was a major political blunder to turn the blinded Gloucester out of the house. At line 9 she explains:

It was great ignorance, Gloucester’s eyes being out,

To let him live. Where he arrives he moves

All hearts against us: Edmund, I think, is gone,

In pity of his misery, to dispatch

His nighted [dark] life; moreover, to descry [discover]

The strength o’ th’ enemy.

Tyrants throughout history have discovered that one of the most powerful weapons against them is the presence of their victims. Edmund is such a sentimental softie he has gone out to find his father himself to put him out of his misery (and clean up the mistake made by the Cornwalls). He is also the one person who seems to have taken charge of preparations to fight the French, scouting to see how many men they have.

Regan is obsessed with Goneril’s letter, and she tries several different tacks to find out what it says. She urges Oswald to spend the night for his own safety [line 16]. Then she asks at line 19 why Oswald’s employer had written and hadn’t just sent a verbal message by him. She tries flattering Oswald (line 26, “I know you are of her bosom” or confidence) and promise of future reward (line 21, “I’ll love thee much” if you let me read the letter). When her efforts fail to persuade Oswald, she tries a more direct approach, telling him she knows something is going on between her sister and Edmund. At line 30 she states her position:

My lord is dead; Edmund and I have talked,

And more convenient [socially appropriate] is he for my hand

Than for your lady’s; you may gather more [surmise what’s going on].

If you do find him [Edmund], pray you, give him this [a courtly favor].

And when your mistress hears thus much from you,

I pray, desire her call her wisdom to her.

This last speech is a not so subtle message to Goneril to keep her hands off Edmund. The two sisters who were united in the destruction of their father and Gloucester will destroy themselves over a weasel like Edmund. Regan sends Oswald off on his mission with advice to keep an eye out for Gloucester’s whose death will be rewarded.

Act IV, Scene 6

This is the climatic scene for the suffering of Gloucester and Lear. The two fathers are reunited after their children have traumatized them. The first 79 lines deal with the resolution of Edgar’s masquerade as Tom and the beginning of Gloucester’s redemption. How has Edgar changed his disguise since we saw him last? Why? How is he able to deceive his father so thoroughly? Why does he do it? [Act IV, scene 6, lines 1 – 79]

The scene opens with Edgar deliberately trying to shape his father’s perceptions. At line 2 he tells Gloucester they are climbing the hill leading up to the cliff at Dover. Gloucester senses the ground is even. Edgar asks if he can hear the sea, but his father says he hears only that Tom is much better spoken than he had been before. Tom denies any change, except in the clothes he wears, but the fact is that throughout this scene Edgar does not have Tom speak of any demonic hallucinations or even once do his patented, “Poor Tom’s a-cold.” At line 11 Edgar does his most effective manipulation of Gloucester’s imagination:

Come on, sir; here’s the place: stand still. How fearful

And dizzy ‘tis to cast one’s eyes so low!

The crows and choughs [jackdaws] that wing the midway air

Show scarce so gross [big] as beetles. Half way down

Hangs one that gathers sampire [an herb that grows on the cliff], dreadful trade!

Methinks he seems no bigger than his head.

The fishermen that walk upon the beach

Appear like mice; and yond tall anchoring bark [ship]

Diminished to her cock [rowboat]; her cock, a buoy

Almost too small for sight. The murmuring surge

That on th’ unnumb’red idle pebble chafes

Cannot be heard do high. I’ll look no more,

Lest my brain turn and the deficient sight

Topple down headlong.

Edgar begins by telling Gloucester how he would react if he could see. He then supplies specific visual details to heighten this effect on the imagination – the birds, the sampire hunter, the fishermen, the ship and finally its small rowboat towed behind. Then he shifts to auditory images, the sound of the waves on the pebbled beach. Notice how Shakespeare uses words to describe this last phenomenon which sound like the thing they describe – “the murmur on unnumbered pebbles.” The power of Edgar language has the desired effect and Gloucester is convinced he is on the top of the cliff.

True to his word Gloucester gives Tom a rich jewel and expresses the hope that fairies will help create more money for the lunatic. For his part Edgar at line 33 gives us the only explanation for his elaborate charade since he saw his blinded father in Act IV, scene 1: “Why I do trifle thus with his despair/ Is done to cure it.” Edgar correctly realized that his father was not yet ready to be reunited with his son, especially in light of all that had happened to him. The old man has to undergo some kind of miraculous redemption that will convince him that his life is worthwhile. Gloucester kneels, he thinks, at the edge of the precipice and prays at line 35:

O you mighty gods!

This world I do renounce, and in your sights

Shake patiently my great affliction off:

If I could bear it longer and not fall

To quarrel with [rebel against] your great opposeless [omnipotent] wills,

My snuff [candlewick] and loathed part of nature should

Burn itself out. If Edgar live, O bless him!

He falls forward into the abyss and loses consciousness. In this final prayer we see the depth of Gloucester’s despair. His life is a “great affliction” and “loathed part of nature,” which he chooses to renounce. To live any longer will lead him to contest the wills of the gods, and yet by killing himself that is exactly what he is doing.

How do you help someone come back from this state of unhappiness? By staging a miracle, an intervention by some higher power that reclaims your life when you least expect or deserve it. Because the gods do not cooperate with a natural miracle, it is left to Edgar to provide it. He worries that the shock of his imaginary fall might have killed his father and is relieved when the old man revives. At line 49 he adopts still another disguise as someone on the beach below who watched the fall.

Hadst thou been aught but gossamer, feathers, air,

So many fathom down precipitating,

Thou’dst shivered like an egg; but thou dost breathe;

Hast substance; bleed’st not; speak’st; art sound.

Ten masts at each [one on top of another] make not the altitude

Which thou hast perpendicularly fell;

Thy life’s a miracle. Speak yet again.

The character Edgar pretends to be here is a curious combination of a working class man (like a fisherman, familiar with the height of a ship’s mast) and a learned person using fancy, polysyllabic words like “precipitating” and “perpendicularly.” The disguises used by Kent and Edgar are almost entirely verbal, vocabulary and speech patterns unique to the characters they create.

Gloucester’s first reaction to his “miracle” is to express regret at line 60 – 64. You should be able to kill yourself to escape “wretchedness” or “the tyrant’s rage.” Edgar then draws the connection for Gloucester between his state of mind and his attempted suicide at line 66:

This is above all strangeness.

Upon the crown o’ th’ cliff, what thing was that

Which parted from you?……

As I stood here below, methought his eyes

Were two full moons; he had a thousands noses,

Horns whelked [twisted] and waved like the enridged [furrowed] sea:

It was some fiend; therefore, thou happy father [lucky old man],

Think that the clearest [purest] gods, who make their honors

Of men’s impossibilities [by performing miracles impossible to men], have preserved thee.

This fantastical description of the “thing” at the top of the cliff is apparently the way that some people imagined the actual appearance of a fiend. So it was Satan who led Gloucester to the top of the cliff and induced him to jump, and it was the gods, the most righteous of the gods, that have saved his life. The old man realizes the significance of what has happened at line 75:

I do remember now: henceforth I’ll bear

Affliction till it do cry out itself

“Enough, enough,” and die. That thing you speak of,

I took it for a man; often ‘twould say

“The fiend, the fiend” – he led me to that place.

So in Gloucester’s mind Tom was simply the devil waiting to tempt him into the sin of despair. Now he has a warrant to survive until the gods have chosen the time for his death. Edgar, in his philosophical mode, sums up the lesson at line 79: “Bear free and patient thoughts.” He’s reminding his father and us that we must not allow sorrow or impatience to lead us into despair. So Gloucester has been saved and redeemed by a “miracle,” but there is no respite.

We now experience the full force of Lear’s madness. These next 126 lines are among the most emotionally powerful and conceptually challenging in all of Shakespeare’s plays, for the insanity has a strange kind of internal logic. Mixed in with the madness there are statements of great wisdom, born of suffering, and moments of real poignancy as the two battered old men recognize each other and reach out for companionship. As you shift through Lear’s mad talk, what does he seem to think is the origin of human evil? Find at least one place where Lear seems to make sense. Find at least one place where there is some humor. [Act IV, scene 6, line 80 – 206]

Lear enters, adorned with wild flowers as we had been warned two scenes back. In Shakespeare’s plays inappropriate apparel is evidence of mental instability. The sight of the obviously crazy king prompts Edgar to say, at line 81 that no sane person would dress thus and then at line 85 to call it a “side-piercing sight.” Lear is obsessed about the tasks of a king as he comes in and is in the middle of a conversation with himself, another symptom of mental instability: “No, they cannot touch me for coining [arrest me for counterfeiting]; I am the king himself.” Every English king issued a new set of coins with his picture soon after he was crowned. Therefore, in a technical sense the only person in the kingdom who could make his own money was the monarch. Lear continues his monologue by free association, one idea or image leading to another.

Nature’s above art in that respect. There’s

your press-money. That fellow handles his bow

like a crow-keeper; draw me a clothier’s yard.

Look, look, a mouse! Peace, peace, this piece of

toasted cheese will do ‘t. There’s my gauntlet; I’ll

prove it on [challenge] a giant. Bring up the brown bills. O,

well flown, bird! i’ th’ clout, i’ th’ clout; Hewgh!

Give the word.

Beneath this jumble of words and ideas, there is a kind of connecting logic. Lear begins with the idea of his picture on a coin. That leads to the first sentence: a live king (nature) is better than an artificial one (art). “Coins” suggest one of their uses, as the token payment made to men drafted or “pressed” into the king’s army. That in turn leads to a hallucination of recruits training for war. (An old English law maintained that all able-bodied men of the lower classes were supposed to be proficient with the English long bow, the weapon that had given the English a military advantage for several centuries.) Now Lear complains that one of the recruits obviously has not been practicing; he handles his bow as if he were a boy hired to chase crows away from a field with a big stick. Lear orders the inept soldier to draw his bow back to its full extent, the distance from outstretched fingers to nose, the same measurement still used in some places to designate a yard of fabric. Suddenly Lear is distracted by the sight of a mouse (real or imaginary is unclear) and offers to placate the rodent with cheese. He just as suddenly changes his mind and treats the mouse as if it were a threat and throws his battle glove, his “gauntlet,” as a challenge and invitation to a duel. The idea of combat leads him back to the images of war preparation. He “sees” the advance of the men armed with halberds, a combination battle axe and spear and called a “brown bill.” Then it’s back to archery practice as he observes a skilled archer loose an arrow, “a bird,” that hits the target or “clout” in the center. He even imitates the sound the arrow makes, “hewgh.” Finally, realizing there are others present, he demands the password from Edgar, an important aspect of military discipline. Edgar, filled with pity for Lear’s deteriorating mental state, answers “Sweet marjoram,” an herbal remedy for brain disease, and the king gives him permission to pass.

Gloucester recognizes Lear’s voice, and at line 97 the king responds to Gloucester:

Ha! Goneril, with a white beard! They flattered

me like a dog [fawned like a dog], and told me I had white hair

in my beard ere the black ones were there. To

say “ay” and “no” to everything that I said! “Ay”

and “no” too was no good divinity. When the

rain came to wet me once and the wind to make

me chatter; when the thunder would not peace at

my bidding; there I found ‘em, there I smelt ‘em

out. Go to, they are not men o’ their words: they

told me I was everything; ‘tis a lie, I am not ague-proof.

At first Lear sees Gloucester as his daughter Goneril, disguised with a white beard; it is not the first time he hallucinates that he sees her. He then shares an insight about how his daughters tricked him, wisdom hard-won through suffering. They flattered him and told him he was getting on in years (had white hairs in his beard) even before he had grown a beard (with black hairs) as a young man. They agreed with everything he said, saying “yes” and “no” according to Lear’s whim, but he now realizes that they were doing him no favors by being loyal “yes-men.” He remembers back to the storm on the heath and the wind and rain which thoroughly soaked him. His suffering in the storm he now sees was proof that his daughters lied to him. They told him he was everything, could do no wrong, but they lied. They said he was perfect, but he still is sick with a fever or “ague” from that experience.

At line 108 Gloucester recognizes Lear and asks, “Is it not the king?” Lear’s lengthy response, line 109 – 133, reveals the depth of his despair in the form of cynicism and a loathing of humanity, expressed in a disgust with female sexuality.

Ay, every inch a king.

When I do stare, see how the subject quakes.

I pardon that man’s life. What was thy cause?

Adultery?

Thou shalt not die: die for adultery! No.

The wren does to ‘t, and the small gilded fly

Does lecher in my sight.

Let copulation thrive: for Gloucester’s bastard son

Was kinder to his father than my daughters

Got [begotten] ‘tween the lawful sheets.

To ‘t, luxury [lechery], pell-mell! For I lack soldiers.

This passage is unlike earlier episodes of Lear’s obvious hallucinating, such as lines 83 -- 93 above. Rather than jumping from idea to idea in a free association, the meaning here is focused on a single subject. Nor is there a sense that Lear “sees” an imaginary subject, as he “saw” the recruit. Here rather he is reviewing his past performance as a king and in particular his responsibility for upholding public morality, specifically the injunction against adultery. Whereas back in Act III, scene 4, line 35, Lear saw his job as king to “show the heavens more just,” he now cynically rejects any such function because, as he concludes, the illegitimate Edmund as not as bad as his own legitimate daughters. He builds to a pitch of absolute cynicism, urging his subjects to throw away all restraint and to behave as the animals do, producing as many offspring as possible since Lear will need more men for the army. By 1942 German leaders realized that losses in the war with Russia would be heavy and the campaign might last for years, so that Germany would run out of soldiers. Consequently, Hitler announced that it was the duty of all loyal women to get pregnant and produce as many children as possible, even though most men were at the front. Lear makes a similar pronouncement, although for different reasons. He identifies the source of the problem at line 120:

Behold yond simp’ring dame,

Whose face between her forks presages snow,

That minces [squeamishly pretends to] virtue and does shakes the head

To hear of pleasure’s name [bawdy talk].

The fitchew [polecat or prostitute], nor the soiled horse, goes to ‘t

With a more riotous appetite..

Down from the waist they are Centaurs [lustful half man, half horse],

Though women all above:

But to the girdle do the gods inherit.

Beneath is all the fiend’s.

There’s hell, there’s darkness, there is the sulphurous pit.

Burning, scalding, stench, consumption, fie, fie, fie!

pah, pah! Give me an ounce of civet [perfume], good apothe-

cary, sweeten my imagination: there’s money for thee.

Once again we have the sense that this is not a hallucination of a specific women but a composite of a type of hypocritical “moral” lady, who “simpers” or acts coy. She blushes if the idea of sex is even mentioned, which seems to suggest that sexually (“between her forks” or legs) she is chaste. In reality she is as promiscuous as the “polecat” (ironically a slang terms for a prostitute) or a well-fed horse in the spring. Here is the source of all the problems Lear and Gloucester have encountered – women and their sexuality. In reality women are like those mythological creatures the Centaurs, half-man and half horse or beast. The upper half of their bodies appears godly and pretends to be virtuous; from the waist down they belong to the devil. The woman’s sexuality, her lustful appetite, specifically her vagina, is the real hell, the dark pit which burns with fires of sulphur. It is responsible for the pain, disgust and disease (“consumption”) which plagues mankind. Lear feels this disgust so strongly, even though he realizes it is in his memory, that he asks his companions for a perfume, as if they ran the local drugstore, to “sweeten his imagination.” He even offers them money (real or imaginary, we don’t know), but it brings us back to where we began with Lear’s musings on money and counterfeiting at line 83 following.

Doctor Phil would say that Lear has a lot of work to do on some personal issues. Gloria Steinham, the noted feminist, would say he needs a long stretch in a political re-education camp. We can understand in a way what brought him to this extreme position about women. His daughters betray his love; he realizes he is responsible for giving them life; the act of procreation which created them must have been evil; that evil must reside in the sexuality of women who made him procreate in the first place. Given the twisted logic of Lear’s self-perception as a victim, this conclusion that it’s all the fault of women makes sense. More importantly, it will make the means of Lear’s redemption through his daughter Cordelia all the more unexpected.

The second important aspect of Lear’s cynicism about women and about political power is that it is the equivalent of Gloucester’s despair. Gloucester lost faith in his life to such an extent that he contemplated suicide; Lear also loses faith in his life to such an extent that he does not see any meaning in any of the processes which makes life bearable for most of us: love, birth, friendship or justice. Gloucester needed the intervention of Edgar in a staged “miracle” to help restore his faith; Lear will need a similar intervention from his one good child.

Lear’s request to his companions triggers responses from both Gloucester, who finally realizes it is his king, and Edgar. To show his recognition and honor his monarch, Gloucester, at line 134 asks, “O, let me kiss that hand.” Lear’s answer is at once poignant and wise: “Let me wipe it first; it smells of mortality.” Lear wants to wipe his hand because he no longer feels worthy of homage from anyone, especially an old friend like Gloucester. His hand “smells of mortality” because he knows now that life is just the preparation for death and also that the business of living, of being mortal, is always messy. It is almost the kind of answer one might expect from a Zen master, someone with the wisdom of the East. Gloucester can certainly relate to the idea of mortality, given what he has lived through. He observes at line 136, “O ruined piece of nature! This great world/ Shall so wear out to nought. Dost thou know me?” Lear is a piece of nature that has been ruined – by his suffering, his madness, his loss of faith, by life itself. We have come a long way since both these men spoke so confidently of what nature intended back at the beginning of the play. The larger universe, macrocosm, (“great world”) will come to an end just as Lear and Gloucester, as examples of the small world of mankind, the microcosm, is coming to an end.

Lear probably does recognize Gloucester, although he has not seen him since he was mutilated. His recognition at line 138 is breath-taking in its inappropriate humor:

I remember thine eyes well enough. Dost thou

squiny [squint] at me? No, do thy worst, blind Cupid, I’ll

not love. Read thou this challenge; mark but the

penning of it.

In our politically correct age you would never call attention to someone’s infirmity as Lear does here. The king then compounds his initial blunder by asking, facetiously, if Gloucester is squinting at him. Then he comes up with a remarkable free association: if Gloucester is blind, perhaps he is Cupid, the blind child of Venus who was associated with lustful passion because it was the kind of irrational attraction that was like a child without judgment shooting arrows without sight. The ancient Greeks and Romans treated such love as a joke. No wonder the people in Shakespeare’s day used the figure of the blind Cupid as a sign in front of a brothel! Gloucester won’t get Lear to fall in love ever again. In fact Lear will challenge the god of love to a duel and presents an imaginary challenge to the blind man, asking that he pay special attention to the handwriting, probably very formal and fancy. Gloucester, of course, explains that his blindness is real, and even if the letters were all as bright as the sun, he could not read the challenge. By the way, Gloucester speaks in verse throughout this exchange, as befits someone treating the ideas in a serious manner; Lear, playing around in his madness, speaks in prose. Lear’s humor here is outrageous, but it is a kind of black humor. It’s very inappropriateness is evidence that he is crazy; but it also suggests to us that so much has happened to these two old men that their only response may be to laugh.

Edgar, at line 143, comments, probably echoing our reaction in the audience: “I would not take [believe] this from report: it is/ And my heart breaks at it.” This simple observation elevates what is happening on stage to something greater than just the spectacle of a madman and a blind man comparing injuries. Edgar is saying, “I can’t believe I’m seeing this!” Lear insists that Gloucester read the challenge, and he responds by asking, “What, with the case of eyes?” referring to the empty sockets that once held his eyes like cases which hold jewels. This gives Lear a chance to make another joke about Gloucester’s blindness at line 147:

O, ho, are you there with me? No eyes in your

head, nor no money in your purse? Your eyes are

in a heavy case, your purse in a light, yet you

see how this world goes.

Lear begins here by asking if this is Gloucester’s story, that he’s blind. He is also in this initial question drawing the parallel between Gloucester and himself; they’re both in the same place. The blindness he turns into a joke – no eyes and no money. Gloucester’s eyes (or lack of them) are a “heavy case,” something sad with a pun on the earlier use of “case” at line 146; having no money makes your purse “light.” When he asks if Gloucester sees how the world goes, the blind man answers at line 151, “I see it feelingly.” What a great line! Gloucester does now see the world through his sense of touch, “feelingly.” But he also sees the world now through his emotions or feelings, through his pain and suffering. That’s certainly more than he could say back in the first act when he allowed his feelings for his son Edgar to be twisted and perverted.

Gloucester’s world is one of wronged love and betrayal, but Lear now insists that the world is one of injustice and the corruption of power, as he details beginning at line 152:

What, art mad? A man may see how this world

goes with no eyes. Look with thine ears: see how

yond justice rails upon yond simple [ordinary] thief. Hark,

in thine ear: change places, and, handy-dandy [eeny-meany],

which is the justice, which is the thief? Thou hast

seen a farmer’s dog bark at a beggar?....

And the creature run from the cur? There thou

mightest behold the great image of authority: a

dog’s obeyed in office.

Lear’s vision here is pretty clear, even though four centuries have passed. We are used to the image of corrupted judges and politicians who rob those they are supposed to protect. Lear’s loss of faith in the political state has brought the former king to the cynical conclusion that whoever has power is the farmer’s dog and is obeyed simply because he has authority.

Lear’s powerful language for these last lines has been in prose. Now he shifts into a further discussion of corruption lying at the heart of all human endeavor, and his language changes into verse at line 162:

Thou rascal beadle [church policeman], hold thy bloody hand!

Why dost thou lash that whore? Strip thy own back;

Thou hotly lusts to use her in that kind [in the way]

For which thou whip’st her. The usurer hangs the cozener. [The powerful moneylender by controlling the courts is able to punish the common cheat]

Through tattered clothes small vices do appear;

Robes and furred gowns [clothes of the rich] hide all. Plate sin with gold,

And the strong lance of justice hurtles breaks;

Arm it in rags, a pygmy’s straw does pierce it.

Again, Lear’s vision of the effect of wealth on justice is as relevant today as it was when he wrote the play. We are no longer surprised when we learn the self-righteous churchman or politician is having sex with the kind of woman he publicly condemns. We should know if we don’t that large companies are able to charge exorbitant interest rates or manipulate the financial markets to their benefit. In our country refined cocaine used by people primarily with money has one set of punishments; crack cocaine, the same drug used by people primarily with little money, has much stiffer penalties. We are all familiar with the phenomenon of the celebrity defendants who escape justice through the use of high-price criminal lawyers. These injustices, Shakespeare tells us, are not new.

Rather than being filled a zeal to reform the flawed system, Lear cynically accepts it and declares the only course is to use it. At line 170 he declares,

None does offend, none, I say, none; I’ll able [pardon] ‘em.

Take that [the authorization just bestowed] of me, my friend, who have the power

To seal the accuser’s lips [thwart justice]. Get thee glass eyes,

And, like a scurvy [corrupt] politician [schemer], seem [appear]

To see the things thou dost not. Now, now, now, now,

Pull off my boots: harder, harder; so.

Lear as king was at the center of the corruption he earlier decried. He had

the power to “seal the accuser’s lips” and he advises the blinded Gloucester how to use the system by pretending to see or understand things he doesn’t really. At the end of this passage Lear apparently returns to his efforts to strip away the trappings of civilization, much as he had when he tried to disrobe with Tom o’ Bedlam out in the storm. He orders Gloucester to pull off his boots, which he may not even have on. Just an observation: in several of Shakespeare’s tragedies he will have a character repeat a word three or more times in rapid succession as an indication of mental turmoil.

Edgar summarizes for us what we have been witnessing for the last 90 lines. At line 176 he observes, “O, matter and impertinency [sense and nonsense] mixed!/ Reason in madness!” Lear finally acknowledges Gloucester directly at line 178:

If thou wilt weep my fortunes, take my eyes.

I know thee well enough; thy name is Gloucester:

Thou must be patient; we came crying hither;

Thou know’st, the first time that we smell the air

We wawl [bawl] and cry. I will preach to thee: mark….

When we are born, we cry that we are come

To this great stage of fools.

Lear and Gloucester finally connect fully in this passage. In a gesture of empathy as he watches the eyeless Gloucester weep for his suffering, Lear offers his own eyes. He consoles his friend by telling him we all cry when we are born. This universal fact, says the disillusioned Lear, is based on our innate realization, even as infants, that we have come “To this great stage of fools,” the world. This is powerful stuff.

At this point, right in the middle of line 185, Lear’s madness resurfaces. It is the nature of his illness that he can go from the most profound wisdom to blatant nonsense in a moment. Scholars have puzzled over the meaning of the passage from 185 to 189, especially the reference to “block,” and have come up with explanations ranging from a stool used for mounting a horse to a device used for shaping a hat. What do you think?

This is a good block.

It were a delicate [clever] stratagem, to shoe

A troop of horse [cavalry unit] with felt; I’ll put ‘t to proof [test it];

And when I have stol’n upon these son-in-laws,

Then, kill, kill, kill, kill, kill, kill!

It’s clear that Lear harbors some feelings of resentment toward his daughters and their husbands when we get six “kills” at the end of the speech. But what do you make of the “block” at line 185? Here’s my explanation: When Lear refers to “this great stage of fools,” he acknowledges that he is standing upon an actual stage. Perhaps he hits the floor with his foot or hand and makes the resounding noise that was frequent on the raised platform that served as the stage in the Globe Theater. I think “block” is simply a way of conceptualizing the actual stage. If you were to bring a bunch of cavalry horses onto the stage to sneak up on the bad guys, how could you keep the sound of the hooves from alerting Cornwall and Albany? (Remember, Lear does not know the first is dead and the second is having a profound change of heart.) So we get this plan to cover the horses’ hooves with material to deaden the sound. As for the six “kills,” remember my earlier point about unusual repetition of words often signaling mental turmoil.

At line 190 the search party that Cordelia sent out finally finds Lear. Here again we have humor which seems inappropriate as the old king first tries to talk his way out of custody and then makes a break for freedom. At lines 192 – 195 Lear looks for rescue from the men who have been sent to find and care for him, seeing them as a hostile force. He complains at line 193 that he is the “natural fool of fortune,” playing on the idea that bad things have a way of happening to him and also on his being a “natural,” or idiot. As a king captured in battle he would have been held for a substantial ransom. At line 194 he asks for “surgeons” because he has been “cut to th’ brains,” that is he has hurt his wits. Cordelia’s men are there to help him, and they try to reassure him, but Lear sees only that he must face these new enemies by himself and he begins to weep. At line 197 he says his tears would make him “a man of salt” or that he will use his tears to water the garden or sprinkle to keep down the dust. This passage is deliberately funny and poignant at the same time: Lear’s terror and sense of overwhelming suffering are palpable, but the harder the relief party try to help, the more agitated he becomes. His emotions are made tangible in his tears which he describes in outrageous comparisons that end up being laughable. It gets better at line 201 where Lear vows, “I will die bravely [courageously, handsomely], like a smug [spruced up] bridegroom.” At one level Lear fears for his life, but here his impending death is described in sexual terms, with the king as a newly married husband about to “die” in the sense of reaching climax (IV, 2, line 25). Finally at line 202 Lear reminds his rescuers that he is a king, and they acknowledge his station at line 204 and probably kneel before him. Lear, like a naughty child, declares “Then there’s life in ‘t [there’s still hope]. Come, and you get it,/ you shall get it by running. Sa, sa, sa, sa.” Once again we get the rule of “three or more repeated words” as Lear shouts a hunting call and runs off as if this were all just a game.

The last 84 lines in this scene contain several significant plot points and foreshadowing of events to come. What hint do we get in this sequence about why Cordelia will lose the coming battle? In the course of this scene how many different disguises does Edgar adopt? Why does he change his identity in the last 45 lines of the scene? What is ironic about the fight between Edgar and Oswald? What is the principal euphemism found in Goneril’s letter to Edmund? How does Edgar propose to use the letter in the future? [Act IV, scene 6, lines 207 – 291]

One of the gentlemen sent to find King Lear offers an assessment of the situation of the poor old man at line 207:

A sight most pitiful in the meanest wretch [lowest person],

Past speaking of in a king! Thou hast one daughter

Who redeems nature from the general curse

Which twain have brought her to.

Lear’s past life and advanced age have made it even more difficult for him to adapt to the changes in his condition, thereby increasing the poignancy of his suffering. The last sentence here, which compares Cordelia and her older sisters, has both an immediate significance for the situation and a more general, religious import which your notes explain. Based on this sympathetic expression, Edgar, although still disguised as a peasant, asks about the coming conflict. At line 218 we learn “Though that the Queen on special cause is here [trying to find her father],/ Her army is moved on.” So apparently when the troops of Albany and Edmund arrive, most of Cordelia’s soldiers are not there to meet them.

At line 220 Gloucester reconfirms his new commitment not to give into despair: “You ever-gentle gods, take my breath from me;/ Let not my worser spirit [my dark side] tempt me again/ To die before you please.” He then asks Edgar at line 223 who he is. Edgar says only that he is a poor man who has suffered and is therefore sensitive to the pain of others. This is the second verbal disguise Edgar was taken on in the scene so far, and he will change once again at line 238 when he confronts Oswald. Goneril’s slimy servant enters at line 229, spotting Gloucester at once. He is delighted by the prospect of taking the old blind man’s life, thereby “raising his fortunes.” Gloucester welcomes his coming death and says at line 233 “Now let thy friendly hand/ Put strength enough to ‘t.” Oswald’s hand would be “friendly because it would bring the death he seeks. But Edgar intercedes to stop Oswald and suddenly and inexplicably speaks now like a country man from the southern part of England around Dorset. The notes in your text help you puzzle out the rather strange dialect. What is ironic about this confrontation is that Oswald is a gentleman wannabe who will fight with the weapon of the real gentleman, the sword. Edgar, who is a real gentleman disguised as a peasant, fights with a “ballow” or club, the weapon of the lower class. Oswald meets his just rewards and is mortally wounded. Like most deaths in Shakespeare’s plays it takes a while for him to die, long enough to offer his purse to pay for his burial and to pass on the responsibility for delivering Goneril’s letter to Edmund. Edgar, at line 256, summarizes Oswald’s miserable life: “A serviceable villain [a handy criminal or a fawning lower class servant],/ As duteous [obedient] to the vices of his mistress/ As badness would desire.” At the least, Oswald encouraged the excesses of Goneril’s evil; at the worst, he actively increased her evil. Edgar takes the letter and, apologizing for violating Goneril’s privacy at line 263, as a real gentleman should do, he opens it and reads its explosive contents. The letter reiterates the implied agreement between Albany’s wife and the new Earl of Gloucester we saw in the opening lines of Act IV, scene 2 where she hinted at the murder of her husband. In the letter’s ten lines the closest she comes to saying “murder” or “kill” is at line 267: “You have many opportunities to cut him off.” She may be a murdering slut, but she is careful not to use offensive language! At line 280 Edgar tells us what he plans to do: “in the mature time [at the right time],/ With this ungracious paper [evil letter] strike the sight/ Of the death-practiced [targeted for murder] Duke [Albany].” So we are prepared in this last sequence for Cordelia’s defeat in the looming battle and Edgar’s exposure of Goneril and his brother’s murder plot.

Act IV, Scene 7

This is the scene where Lear and Cordelia are reconciled. Emotionally we have been building toward this scene since Lear banished his daughter back at the beginning of the play. In terms of the dynamics of redemption this scene is similar to the staged “miracle” that Edgar arranged for his father. In what ways is this scene a miracle for Lear? What are the four specific things done to help restore the king’s sanity? [Act IV, Scene 7]

The scene opens with Cordelia just learning of Kent’s masquerade. At line 6 she urges him to take off his peasant disguise and “Be better suited.” He wants to continue his play-acting, however, and asks her to protect his identity. Apparently Shakespeare’s audience got a bigger kick out of seeing characters pretending to be something they really aren’t than do modern audiences. At line 14 Cordelia prays for her sleeping father’s recovery:

O you kind gods!

Cure this great breach in his abused [disturbed] nature.

Th’ untuned and jarring senses, O, wind up [put in tune]

Of this child-changed father.

In the third line here Cordelia uses a comparison that will be important throughout the rest of the scene: the idea that mental harmony is like musical harmony; people in 1604 believed that music could actually be used to cure madness. In the last line of this passage Cordelia refers to her father as “child-changed” which could mean he has become like a child again, simple-minded, or he has been changed by his children, the cruelty of the girls.

Lear is brought in, sleeping in a chair. We learn at line 22 that he has been dressed in clean and appropriate clothes. (One of the symptoms of madness was wearing the wrong clothes in public, which someone should tell Courtney Love about.) We already know from an earlier scene with Cordelia’s doctor that sleep is a restorative for the troubled mind. At line 25 the doctor orders the therapeutic music to be played loud enough to awaken Lear; the harmony of music is a good thing for madness. Finally, at line 26 we get the fourth specific thing done to help Lear recover his sanity, as Cordelia kisses her father:

O my dear father, restoration hang

Thy medicine on my lips, and let this kiss

Repair those violent harms that my two sisters

Have in thy reverence [the honor due you as king and father] made.

At line 30 he condemns the unspeakable cruelty of her sisters:

Had you not been their father, these white flakes [snowy hair]

Did challenge pity of them [should have evoked in them]. Was this a face

To be opposed against the warring winds?

To stand against the deep dread-bolted thunder [rumble of the thunder]?

In the most terrible and nimble stroke

Of quick, cross [zigzag pattern] lightning to watch – poor perdu [lonely sentry] –

With this thin helm [literally “helmet,” but suggesting aged head].

Locking Lear out of the castle in the storm has become the stuff of legend. It’s made all the more powerful since we, the audience, witnessed it, and Cordelia knows of it only by report. The thrust of her argument here is that even if he weren’t their father, Goneril and Regan should have had pity on Lear because of his age. She continues to berate her sisters, using the argument at line 36 that we’ve heard in the play before: even “my enemy’s dog” would have been treated better. She characterizes Lear’s suffering as having been made worse because he had to undergo it with “swine and rogues forlorn,” unhappy beggars, clearly referring to Tom. Your notes tell you the significance of the interesting reference to “short and musty straw” at line 40. As Lear awakens, Cordelia is urged to speak first to him.

Lear’s response to his daughter at line 45 is a measure of how far Lear has to journey in his mind to reach Cordelia. His reunion and reconciliation with his daughter will certainly constitute a miracle in his mind:

You do me wrong to take me out o’ th’ grave:

Thou art a soul in bliss; but I am bound

Upon a wheel of fire, that mine own tears

Do scald like molten lead.

The disoriented old man believes at first he has already died. The vision of his young innocent daughter is as an angel in heaven, representing a soul that has been saved, “in bliss.” But in his mind he is as far from heaven as possible: he is a soul in torment in hell, strapped to a fiery wheel for punishment, weeping tears of molten lead. This is one of the most powerful images in all of literature.

Cordelia ask if her father recognizes her, and he, saying she is a spirit, asks when she died. Then at line 52 Lear begins to question his surroundings:

Where have I been? Where am I? Fair daylight?

I am mightily abused [disoriented]. I should ev’n die with pity,

To see another thus. I know not what to say.

I will not swear these are my hands: let’s see,

I feel this pin prick. Would I were assured

Of my condition.

We can see Lear beginning to come back; at least he is aware that he does not know what has happened to him. He even has to perform a test with a pin to see if he is awake and if his hands belong to him. Cordelia now kneels before her father and asks for his benediction, thinking this might remind him of who she is. To her horror the old man suddenly kneels to her and explains at line 59:

Pray, do not mock me:

I am a very foolish fond [silly] old man,

Fourscore [eighty] and upward, not an hour more nor less;

And, to deal plainly,

I am not in my perfect mind.

Methinks I should know you and know this man [perhaps Kent],

Yet I am doubtful; for I am mainly ignorant

What place this is, and all the skill I have

Remembers not these garments, nor I know not

Where I did lodge last night. Do not laugh at me,

For, as I am a man, I think this lady

To be my child Cordelia.

This simple but powerful passage allows us to see Lear finally recognize who his daughter is. He remembers his age and tries to excuse his faulty memory because of it. The questions he puzzles over are things that any of us might first seek to know if we were to suddenly awaken from a similar trauma: who are the people around me? Where am I? Where did I get these clothes I have on? Where did I sleep last night? Then when he finally recognizes his daughter, he does not at first speak directly to her. He even apologizes for voicing his assumption that it is Cordelia, asks not to be laughed at.

She weeps and he feels her tears at line 71, another piece of physical proof that this is not one of his previous hallucinations:

Be your tears wet? Yes, faith, I pray, weep not.

If you have poison for me, I will drink it.

I know you do not love me; for your sisters

Have, as I do remember, done me wrong.

You have some cause, they do not.

To which she replies, poignantly, at line 75: “No cause, no cause.” One of the important points to make about these powerful emotional connections between father and daughter is how simple the language is. You can see the tangible evidence at the bottom of the page of your text, which has relatively few footnotes for these exchanges. Shakespeare was fully capable of writing simply when the situation allowed the emotion to carry the scene as here.

Lear asks a few more questions and asks that he not be “abused” or deceived again. The doctor warns Cordelia not to try and rush her father’s recovery by asking him to recollect too much too soon. As Lear walks out on his daughter’s arm, the old man apologizes once again at line 84: “You must bear with me. Pray you now, forgive/ and forget. I am old and foolish.” The scene ends with Kent asking a gentleman about news of the approaching English armies and learning that Edmund is in command of the troops formerly led by Cornwall. The informant volunteers the rumor that Gloucester’s banished son, Edgar, has fled to Germany to join Kent. The disguised noble man is able to turn this into a subtle joke about “report” or rumor being “changeable” or unreliable. This small exchange echoes a similar one in the play Measure for Measure where people spread wild stories about a missing monarch who is disguised and listening to the stories himself. It’s one small comic payoff for Kent continuing his play-acting.

Act V, Scene 1

This scene represents the high water mark for our corporate climber, Edmund. What are some of the ways Edmund seeks to assert his authority? On what is that authority based, and why is it an unstable basis for power? What does Albany say he will do about the French army? What is Edgar’s intention in delivering the letter to Albany? Explain why Edmund’s final speech in this scene is especially cynical. [Act V, Scene 1]

In the opening lines Edmund sends a messenger to find out what Albany’s intentions are about opposing the French army. He is irritated that Albany has not shared his plans for the battle, saying at line 3: “he’s full of alteration [change]/ And self-reproving [self-recrimination].” It is highly presumptuous for a bastard son of a nobleman, even one who has inherited his father’s title, to demand of the ruler of half the kingdom what he intends to do. However. Edmund feels empowered because of his understanding with Regan, the widow of the ruler of the other half of the kingdom. Of course, this is a slippery basis for power, as Edmund learns when Regan, lines 8 – 16, quizzes him about his feelings for her sister. Despite his protests of innocence (I especially liked “The thought [suspicions of his having slept with Goneril] abuses you,” is unworthy of you) she still believes he is guilty at line 12. When Goneril enters with her husband, she tells us at line 18 “I had rather lose the battle than that sister/ Should loosen [come between] him and me.” That is a very dangerous situation for someone like Edmund who is doing the most dangerous kind of sexual high jinks, playing around with two sisters at the same time. Doesn’t he ever watch “Judge Judy”?

Albany at line 21 explains what he intends to do about the French invasion:

Sir, this I heard, the King is come to his daughter,

With others whom the rigor of our state [tyranny of the country]

Forced to cry out [protest]. Where I could not be honest [true to principles],

I never yet was valiant; for this business,

It touches us [concerns us], as France invades our land.

Not bolds the King, with others, whom, I fear,

Most just and heavy causes make oppose.

Albany is really conflicted about this invasion. He understands the French have come at the behest of Cordelia to help her father and others who have been treated unjustly by, although he does not name them, Regan, Goneril, Cornwall and now Edmund. He does not feel good about opposing the efforts to achieve justice for those oppressed by injustice. However, there is a foreign army which has invaded, and it is Albany’s business to deal with it. He makes clear in the last two lines, however, that he does not think the French troops have simply emboldened Lear and others to raise phony grievances. His wife and sister-in-law mock his moral concerns and urge that the threat of the invaders be dealt with before they argue whether the opposition was justified. Albany offers to meet with Edmund to discuss military plans. Goneril tries to stay behind, possibly to deliver her message to Edmund about killing Albany after the battle since Oswald and her letter have vanished, but Regan insists that her sister go with her.

Edgar, in still one more disguise, delivers to Albany Goneril’s letter to Edmund and tells him that if Albany wins the battle, he, Edgar, will reappear and produce a champion, that is a knight of noble birth, to prove by combat that the letter and its murder plot is legitimate. If Albany loses the battle, and his life, then the letter and its “machination” or trickery will be academic. At line 51 Edmund comes in and forcefully tells Albany to take care of business. Edmund has scouted the enemy and has determined the number of their troops. Albany goes off to prepare for a battle he feels very uneasy about.

Rather than being concerned about blowing his new power arrangement, Edmund exults in his triumph. He very cynically appraises his options at line 55:

To both these sisters have I sworn my love;

Each jealous [suspicious] of the other, as the stung

Are of the adder. Which of them shall I take?

Both? One? Or neither? Neither can be enjoyed,

If both remain alive: to take the widow

Exasperates, makes mad her sister Goneril;

And hardly shall I carry out my side [fulfill my ambition],

Her husband being alive. Now then, we’ll use

His countenance [authority] for the battle; which being done,

Let her who would be rid of him devise

His speedy taking off. As for the mercy

Which he intends to Lear and to Cordelia,

The battle done, and they within our power,

Shall never see his pardon: for my state

Stands on me to defend, not to debate [not to worry about right and wrong].

Like every one of Shakespeare’s other great villains, Edmund takes delight in his work. Here he struts in his accomplishment in having won the two most powerful women in the kingdom. Rather than being worried about their suspicions of each other, he brags about his accomplishment, making it clear as he goes over his options that he doesn’t really love either one. You just know he’s headed for a fall! His plan here (for remembered, he hasn’t seen the letter Oswald was carrying) is for Goneril to do the nasty business of getting rid of her husband, after they have used him in winning the battle. The sinister note in this speech, the fact that Edmund will see to it that neither Cordelia nor Lear receives any mercy after the battle, is a logical step for this bastard who has climbed over so many people to get to the top. He has within his grasp the opportunity to make himself sole ruler of the kingdom. Cordelia, as a possible claimant for the throne, or Lear, who might take back his crown, are just in the way, and Edmund has succeeded brilliantly to this point by acting swiftly and ruthlessly.

Act V, Scene 2

Back in the discussion of Act IV, scenes 2 and 5, I talked about the economy with which Shakespeare set up and showed the implication of Edmund’s sexual conquests of Goneril and Regan. This scene, however, sets the world’s record for economic treatment of a major plot point – eleven lines to cover the fall of Lear and Cordelia. Why does Shakespeare make this scene so short? [Act V, scene 2]

Having prepared for this confrontation throughout much of the play, and after giving us several indications about the outcome, Shakespeare doesn’t really need to do much more than let us know the inevitable has happened. We don’t need armies trooping across the stage or the explanation of strategy. The key is that the good guys lose. In the opening line Edgar refers to Gloucester as “father” in the sense of “old man.” He will not reveal his true identity for a while longer. When he faces one more disappointment, poor Gloucester once again gives up hope at line 8. His son chides him and offers this succinct advice at line 9: “What, in ill thoughts again? Men must endure/ Their going hence, even as their coming hither:/ Ripeness is all.” Back in Act IV, scene 6, line 184 King Lear had proclaimed that we cry when we are born because we have come “to this great stage of fools.” Here is the companion piece of wisdom: We must remain on this great stage until we are fully mature, like a piece of fruit ready to drop; it is not our decision to make. Gloucester acknowledges the truth of the observation as the scene ends

Act V, Scene 3

We have reached the final climatic scene. As is often the case in Shakespeare’s dramas, the last scene ties up all the loose ends and builds to a great emotional ending. This one is one of the most powerful, so much so that Samuel Johnson, the greatest of the Shakespearean scholars of the 18^th Century declared that it was too painful to be performed on stage. As you go over this scene again, ask yourself why Johnson would have made this judgment? In the first forty lines of the scene we see the immediate aftermath of the capture of Lear and Cordelia and the fatal plans Edmund has for them. What dominates this sequence is the utterly new Lear who has emerged. How is the character here different from King Lear in the opening scene? [Act V, scene 3, lines 1 – 40]

Captured after the defeat of whatever portion of the army she had with her, Cordelia is defiant. At line 3 she tells Edmund,

We are not the first

Who with best meaning [intention] have incurred the worst.

For thee, oppressed King, I am cast down;

Myself could else out-frown false fortune’s frown.

Shall we not see these daughters and these sisters?

Cordelia still wants to fight, to score moral points and try and shame her sisters for their outrages against their father. What a difference we find in the man who is the object of all this strife! Lear’s great transformation unfolds at line 8:

No, no, no, no! Come, let’s away to prison:

We two alone will sing like birds i’ th’ cage:

When thou dost ask me blessing, I’ll kneel down

And ask of thee forgiveness: so we’ll live,

And pray, and sing, and tell old tales, and laugh

At gilded butterflies, and hear poor rogues

Talk of court news; and we’ll talk with them too,

Who loses and who wins, who’s in, who’s out:

And take upon’s the mystery of things,

As if we were God’s spies: and we’ll wear out,

In a walled prison, packs and sects of great ones

That ebb and flow by th’ moon.

Lear begins by emphatically denying Cordelia’s last request, to confront her sisters. Instead he urges that they cheerfully go off to prison together where, like caged birds, they will revel in their confinement. He suggests a mutual process of blessing and forgiving, much as we saw back in the reunion scene in Act IV, scene 7. Lear evokes a sense of joy and fulfillment because they will be beyond the human strife and contention which drive others. Those who are still in the “rat race” of winning and losing are “gilded butterflies,” creatures which are superficially attractive but destined to an early grave. Lear and Cordelia will not turn their backs on these “poor rogues” but will talk with them, gossip about court doings and pretend they really care about the scorecard of “who’s in, who’s out.” But in reality father and daughter will be far beyond such foolishness. They will have grasped the “mystery of things,” the meaning of life, as if they spied on this mortal world for God himself. In this paradise locked away in a prison, they will look upon the suffering of the rest of mankind with a kind peace and acceptance. Lear makes a term in prison with Cordelia sound like heaven itself.

Elsewhere in the play I have pointed out how Shakespeare will use repetition of a single word to signal a kind of mental turmoil. Here we begin with “no” four times, but here it is not a sign of madness but, Lear would say, his first moment of sanity. Back in the first scene Lear banished his daughter; here he embraces the chance to be with her, even in a prison. In the earlier part of the play Lear drove himself mad over the question of whether or not he would have 100 knights; here he welcomes the chance to be alone with Cordelia. When he was King Lear he was all about power, pomp and authority; now he welcomes the opportunity to sing and pray and live a simple life. Before he demanded respect and obedience; now he welcomes the reciprocity of blessing and forgiving. The character was so driven by status and control, it was as if his first name was “King”; now he contemplates the ordinary pleasures of human interaction, even with “gilded butterflies,” who represent everything he has left behind. It is as if he had a whole new identity and needed to find a new name. Lear’s remarkable transformation is almost like a religious experience or an attainment of Zen wisdom. It is also potentially dangerous, especially around those who still believe the old world of striving and competing is the ultimate achievement. In a Russian film version of the play, directed by Grigori Kozintsev in 1970, this scene is staged with Lear and Cordelia surrounded and separated by Edmund’s personal guards, a lot of ambitious-looking Edmund clones. As Lear does this speech, he must shout it to Cordelia who is held some distance away, with all the Edmund wannabes listening. They look at each other with increasing puzzlement: if the former king who had it all now joyfully dismisses all they hope to achieve, maybe they are in the wrong game. You can see Edmund becoming increasingly agitated, because Lear’s message here is subversive. People like Edmund can’t stand the idea that they are pursuing the wrong dream. No wonder he orders Lear and Cordelia taken away.

Lear’s speech at line 20 – 25 further reveals his new attitude:

Upon such sacrifices, my Cordelia,

The gods themselves throw incense. Have I caught thee?

He that parts us shall bring a brand from heaven,

And fire us hence like foxes. Wipe thine eyes:

The good years shall devour them, flesh and fell [skin],

Ere they shall make us weep. We’ll see ‘em starved first.

Come.

The “sacrifices” Lear refers to are the renunciations of their old way of life, and the gods are so pleased by such changes they “throw incense” or bless them. Cordelia probably gives some gesture of agreement that prompts Lear to ask “Have I caught thee,” or do you see what I mean. As Edmund’s soldiers move to take them away, the old father demands that he not be separated from his daughter and uses a most unusual comparison about “foxes.’ Your notes explain the reference, but the key here is his assertion that the two of them have some kind of divine protection. He advises his daughter not to weep and assures her that her evil sisters will be punished by the “good years” which your notes tell you refers to plague and pestilence. Another interpretation of the phrase is that the very successes, the “good years,” of Goneril and Regan will lead to their undoing. In a curious way Lear is right in his prediction, as we are about to see.

The arrangements for staging the supposed suicide of Cordelia are discussed at lines 27 – 40. The key here is that Edmund has found a captain who is much like himself at the beginning of the play, desperate to advance and willing to do anything. Edmund has already advanced him and promises more for carrying out the murder. (As with Goneril in her letter, Edmund is very careful not to use unpleasant words here like “kill” or “murder.”) At line 32 he warns his accomplice not to be “tender-minded,” compassionate, nor to think about the deed too much. The captain assures Edmund he will accomplish the deed, telling him at line 39, “I cannot draw a cart, nor eat dried oats;/ If it be man’s work, I’ll do ‘t.” Edmund has taken the next step in evil-doing – tempting another to commit a terrible sin and thereby endanger his immortal soul.

Almost all the loose ends of the plot are tied up in this long sequence. Both the bad and the good are punished. Which of the villains dies as a result of trickery and deceit? Which of the villains dies unrepentant and which has a change of heart? Why? How does Gloucester finally die? How is Kent finally revealed? What does Shakespeare do to increase the suspense in this section of the play? [Act V, scene 3, lines 41 – 258]

Albany and the two sisters enter, and the duke compliments Edmund on his “valiant strain,” or heritage at line 41. He asks for custody of the royal prisoners. At line 46 – 60 Edmund gives an answer of obfuscation and delay, explaining that he has had Lear taken away because his condition might arouse pity and stir opposition to their cause. He ends up suggesting that the question of who will handle custody of Cordelia and her father should be decided later, at a more appropriate time. At line 60 Albany deflates his balloon: “Sir, by your patience,/ I hold you but a subject [subordinate] of this war,/ Not a brother.” It puts the presumptuous bastard in his place, but it immediately sets off a nasty fight with and between the girls. Regan fires first at line 62 in defense of her boyfriend in the face of Albany’s crack about his not being a brother:

That’s as we list to grace him [please to honor him].

Methinks our pleasure might have been demanded,

Ere you spoke so far [strongly]. He led our powers,

Bore the commission of our place and person;

The which immediacy may well stand up

And call itself your brother.

In other words, all he did to forward the cause of the English victory and his closeness to her, gives him the right to be treated as an equal. That does not sit well with Goneril at line 67: “Not so hot:/ In his own grace he doth exalt himself/ More than in your addition.” This is great! Older sister is angry that Regan praised Edmund and says, right in front of her husband, that the bastard’s qualities demonstrate his superiority more than her praise can. But Regan insists at line 69: “In my rights,/ By me invested, he compeers [equals] the best.” Her power and her favor are what make Edmund so great. This exchange, although carried out in courtly language, has quickly degenerated into a cat fight. At line 71 Goneril finally mentions what has been worrying her since Cornwall’s death: “That were the most [honoring of him], if he should husband you.” Regan knows that’s what’s nagging her sister and taunts her: “Jesters do oft prove prophets.” Yes, even though you treat it as a joke, he may ask me to marry him, and then won’t you look stupid! Goneril pooh-poohs that idea at line 73: “That eye that told you so looked but a-squint,” or you weren’t seeing right if you saw that in your future. So mocked by her sister, for whom the most important thing now is who gets to champion Edmund’s future, Regan now publicly proposes to the bastard at line 74:

Lady, I am not well; else I should answer

From a full-flowing stomach [filled with emotion and anger]. General,

Take thou my soldiers, prisoners, patrimony;

Dispose of them, of me; the walls are thine [Regan’s body, like a fallen city]:

Witness the world, that I create thee here

My lord, and master.

To which Goneril asks, mockingly, “Mean you to enjoy him?” What Regan does here in publicly throwing herself at Edmund’s feet would be considered disgraceful and unnatural. But the girls have lost all control in their competition for Edmund’s love. The reason for Goneril’s mocking question is, of course, found in Regan’s sudden revelation that’s she’s unwell. Goneril knows why.

Albany finally steps in and warns his wife at line 80 that she has no right to contest her sister’s choice of Edmund. Edmund, finally speaks up (After all, he has enjoyed the girls fighting over him!) at line 81 says that Albany has no say in the matter either. Now the duke reveals his special secret, calling the bastard a “Half-blooded fellow,” a reminder of his illegitimacy. Regan urges him to strike the drum and challenge Albany to a duel, but Albany is way ahead of the bad guys for once. At line 83 he declares:

Edmund, I arrest thee

On capital treason; and in thy attaint [guilt]

This gilded serpent [Goneril]. For your claim, fair sister,

I bar it in the interest of my wife,

‘Tis she is subcontracted [engaged] to this lord,

And I, her husband, contradict your banes [marriage banns or contract].

So Albany finally acts on the content of the letter Edgar gave him. In a stroke of comic irony he acts as a marriage broker for his wife, flaunting the perversity of her proposal to marry Edmund once her husband was murdered. Goneril must be devastated realizing that her top secret plot has been uncovered, but she treats it as a joke at line 90, calling the whole thing, “an interlude” or comic drama. Now Albany gets serious and he orders the trumpet to sound for a challenger to come forth and prove the charge against Edmund to be true. If no one else will appear, he himself challenges Edmund to mortal combat and to signify the seriousness of the challenge throws down his “pledge” [line 94] in the form of his battle glove or “gage.” Edmund quickly accepts the challenge, as a gentleman must do, and says he will fight Albany or anyone to maintain his innocence. It’s now that Albany reveals his ace in the hole at line 104: “Trust to thy single virtue [you’re on your own], for thy soldiers,/ All levied [drafted] in my name, have in my name/ Took their discharge.” He has outfoxed the bad guys; even should Edmund win the single combat, he has no one to back him up.

A herald enters and with all the proper fanfare issues an open opportunity for another wishing to challenge Edmund as a traitor to do so. The trumpets sound three times, and it is all very dramatic. It is also a ritual from the medieval age, long outdated in Shakespeare’s time, but something that he used in a number of plays, apparently for sentimental value. Ironically this challenge ritual would have been even more out of place in prehistoric Britain, centuries before the age of chivalry. Edgar appears and formally accepts the challenge, with one small twist. It such a situation it was mandatory that the challenger reveal his identity to assure every one that he had the right by reason of title and birth to engage in such combat. But Edgar at line 122 announces his name and title have been stolen from him. He proceeds to accuse Edmund of being false to “thy gods, thy brother , and thy father” [line 136] and a conspirator against Albany. As he says at line 138 Edmund is, “from th’ extremest upward of thy head/ To the descent and dust below thy foot,/ A most toad-spotted traitor.” The toad was thought to carry poison in its spots. Now Edmund is within his rights to refuse to fight this unknown knight without finding out his identity, but he is so stung by the accusations and undone by Albany’s trickery that he goes ahead and accepts the challenge. They fight and Edmund is mortally wounded. As he lies there dying ( and it will take him over 140 lines to finally expire, a near record in Shakespearean death scenes!) his lady love, his romantic conspirator, Goneril, taunts him for stupidity at line 153:

This is practice [deception], Gloucester.

By th’ law of war thou wast not bound to answer

An unknown opponent; thou are not vanquished,

But cozened [tricked] and beguiled.

At one level we shouldn’t be surprised that Goneril turns so quickly on the man she was willing to risk everything for. None of these villains is worthy of admiration in any way. There is another level of significance here, however. Edmund didn’t know the rules because he really wasn’t a knight or a true gentleman. He had been faking it from the beginning, and now it has caught up with him. His girlfriend just has to rub his nose in his own social failure. Even in the face of her own guilt and the defeat of her champion Goneril is defiant. Back at line 96 when Regan sudden illness got worse, Goneril was ecstatic and told us, “If not, I’ll ne’er trust medicine,” implying that she had poisoned Regan. Now at line 156 Albany tells her to be quiet or he will stuff her letter into her mouth. When Albany says she knows it is her handwriting, she answers, “Say, if I do, the laws are mine, not thine:/ Who can arraign me for ‘t?” Her answer is ever the answer of tyrants who seek to put themselves above the law. She rushes out shouting, “Ask me not what I know.” These are her final words in the play.

By contrast, the dying Edmund has a change of heart and at line 164 confesses to what he was charged with. He asks for the unknown knight to now reveal his identity. Edgar’s great revelation begins at line 168:

Let’s exchange charity [forgiveness].

I am no less in blood than thou art, Edmund;

If more [more noble since legitimate], the more th’ hast wronged me.

My name is Edgar, and thy father’s son.

The gods are just, and of our pleasant [pleasurable] vices

Make instruments to plague us:

The dark and vicious place where thee he got [begot],

Cost him his eyes.

Edgar draws the moral connection which both Lear and Gloucester have been working toward throughout the play. The sins of the fathers have come back to haunt them. Even Edmund sees the justice of what has befallen him at line 175: “Th’ hast spoken right, ‘tis true;/ The wheel is come full circle; I am here.” The wheel is of course a reference to the wheel of Fortune which throughout the play characters have been warned will turn back to where it began. Albany asks Edgar to tell how he escaped and what has happened to his father. Edgar, in a very long speech, lines 184 – 201, tells how he took care of his father, “saved him from despair” [line193] and then, just before the combat with Edmund, asked his blessing and revealed himself, finally.

But his flawed heart –

Alack, too weak the conflict [of emotions] to support –

‘Twixt two extremes of passion, joy and grief,

Burst smilingly. [lines 198 – 201]

We now see that Edgar was probably right to conceal his identity from his father for so long. At the least his prolonged masquerade and staged suicide attempt gave him a chance to spend time with his father and help him overcome his powerful despair. We see in that two word description of his death the emotional extremes he underwent: his heart “burst” but it did so “smilingly,” or joyfully to be reunited with his son.

This description moves even Edmund who says at line 201, “This speech of yours hath moved me,/ And shall perchance do good.” So Edmund has a change of heart. The only problem is that it takes him forever to act on his good impulse. What Shakespeare does throughout this sequence is to build tension to an almost intolerable degree by just taking his time! All the hidden identities have to be uncovered, the old friends welcomed home, the evil sisters disposed of. All this time the plot to murder Cordelia has been in operation since back at line 40. Even here, although he wants to do the right thing, it will take Edmund over 40 lines to reveal what is happening off stage. Members of the audience have been known to shout out to the actors, “Forget about where Kent has been, save Cordelia!”

Edgar tells about meeting Kent in disguise and the banished earl enters at line 234. A messenger brings word that Regan died of poison, which Goneril confessed giving her before taking her own life with a knife. Edmund, ever the stud, observes at line 230, “I was contracted to them both: all three/ Now marry in an instant,” suggesting that they are all united in death in a grotesque play on physical union. Kent asks the whereabouts of Lear, and Albany suddenly remembers that Lear is in prison and demands information from Edmund. But before he can tell them about the planned murder, the bodies of the sisters are brought in and at line 241 Edmund gets to savor one moment of triumph: “Yet Edmund was beloved:/ The one the other poisoned for my sake,/ And after slew herself.” What poor Edmund sees as his crowning achievement, getting two women to fall in love with him, was really part of what destroyed him. Dr. Phil would have lots of folksy wisdom about the demons that drove our corporate climber. Even as Edmund tells about the plot to murder Cordelia, finally, at line 245, “Despite of mine own nature,” the rescue party is once again delayed since they need some “token of reprieve” and have to take Edmund’s sword, all of which takes another seven lines. He tells the details of the plot at line 254:

He [the captain] hath commission from thy wife [Albany} and me

To hang Cordelia in the prison, and

To lay the blame upon her own despair,

That she fordid herself [committed suicide].

We see how this theme of despair and suicide runs throughout the play – from Gloucester to Tom o’ Bedlam, from Goneril to Cordelia.

Finally the play draws to its overwhelming conclusion. Do you have any sense why Samuel Johnson would believe the play could not be performed upon the public stage? How many times in this final sequence does Lear seem to believe that Cordelia may still be alive? What does he seem to believe at the moment of his death? What heroic gesture does Shakespeare give the grief-stricken father? What echo is contained in the last words Lear utters? Why is Edgar given the final words in the play? [Act V, scene 3, lines 259 – 328]

Lear enters carrying Cordelia’s body in his arms. The power of this passage lies as much in the situation as in the language. The death of Cordelia, especially after the moving reunion with her father, seems so unfair. Given all that Lear has undergone already, this final loss is all the more terrible. Furthermore, the murder of Cordelia violates the moral balance we expect at the end of a drama like this. At line 265 Kent asks, “Is this the promised end?” He’s referring to the concept of Doomsday, the end of the world, but it is a question that could just as easily be applied to the play itself. In our popular art of video games and movie special effects, death is often cheapened. The deaths at the end of King Lear are all the more heartfelt because we have come to know the characters, especially Lear, so intimately. In Samuel Johnson’s day the death of Cordelia and Lear were just too powerful and real for many audience members to witness in the immediacy of the live theater.

Lear’s first great speech at line 259 has some echoes from previous scenes:

Howl, howl, howl, howl! O, you are men of stones:

Had I your tongues and eyes, I’d use them so

That heaven’s vault should crack. She’s gone forever.

I know when one is dead and when one lives;

She’s dead as earth. Lend me a looking-glass;

If that her breath will mist or stain the stone,

Why, then she lives.

Lear begins with that pattern of four repeated words which we have seen him use in moments of madness and great emotion. The images of heaven’s destruction caused by the power of human emotion at lines 260 -261 recall the opening lines in Act III, scene 2 when Lear is in the storm on the heath. Albany’s response at line 266, “Fall and cease,” echoes this idea of cosmic Armageddon, as do Kent and Edgar’s shocked comments at line 265 -- 266. We also get the first indications of Lear’s denial which runs throughout the passage, his inner struggle over whether or not Cordelia is really dead. At line 261 he declares flatly that “She’s gone forever,” but then at line 263 he asks for a mirror to check and see if she might not be alive. In Shakespeare’s day this was the cutting-edge medical technology in determining if the patient was still alive. At line 267 he tries a different approach with hopeful results: “This feather stirs; she lives. If it be so,/ It is a chance which does redeem all sorrows/ That ever I have felt.” Even as he joyfully concludes that his daughter is still alive, Lear phrases it in subjunctive terms: “If it be so….” suggesting that he is not 100% sure. But if she is still living it will make up for all the sorrows he has undergone.

At this point, line 270, Kent finally decides to reveal his identity to Lear, but he has waited too long. Lear is naturally all consumed with his efforts to save, he thinks. his daughter and he resents the interruption:

A plague upon you, murderers, traitors all!

I might have saved her; now she’s gone for ever.

Cordelia, Cordelia, stay a little. Ha,

What is ‘t thou say’st? Her voice was ever soft,

Gentle and low, an excellent thing in woman.

I killed the slave that was a-hanging thee….

I have seen the day, with my good biting falchion [sword]

I would have made them skip: I am old now,

And these same crosses [difficulties] spoil me. Who are you?

Mine eyes are not o’ th’ best: I’ll tell you straight.

Here again Lear is torn by conflicting emotions, initially blaming Kent and the others for preventing him from saving Cordelia and then allowing himself to believe she is still alive, speaking to him softly. This self-delusion makes his suffering sorrow all the more poignant. At line 276 we learn that Lear had killed the man, probably the ambitious captain back at line 40 of this scene whom Edmund had sent to do the deed. It is one small consolation for the old man, a heroic act before his death, reminding us and him of what he had been capable of. Finally at the end of this sequence he acknowledges the presence of Kent, asking who he is and apologizing for his failing eyesight.

Between lines 282 and 296 Lear’s failing grasp on reality is shown in an exchange with Kent. At line 284 he finally recognizes his banished advisor, but when Kent tries to explain that he has been playing the part of Caius, Lear’s trusty servant, the old king simply fades out at line 289, answering inappropriately and again at line 291. At line 294 when Kent tells him the news that Goneril and Regan have killed themselves, Lear absently answers “Ay, so I think.” Edgar observes, “He knows not what he says, and vain is it/ That we present us to him.” News of Edmund’s death offstage is dismissed as unimportant in these circumstances. (Shakespeare has arranged for the villain to die elsewhere since there will be four bodies on the stage at the end of the play, the maximum number that the remaining actors could carry off.)

Lear’s third and final big speech is at 307 – 313 and continues the pull of emotion:

And my poor fool is hanged: no, no, no life?

Why should a dog, a horse, a rat, have life,

And thou no breath at all? Thou’lt come no more,

Never, never, never, never, never.

Pray you, undo this button. Thank you, sir.

Do you see this? Look on her. Look, her lips,

Look there, look there.

Most commentators believe the reference to the “fool” here is to Cordelia with the word used as a term of endearment. However, some people like to believe that somehow Lear has found out about his old companion who has also been killed by hanging. It seems too coincidental to me, and if Lear were talking about his jester, he would have included a few more details, at least indicating where this had taken place and who was responsible. It is clear from the next two lines (308 – 309) that he is referring to Cordelia’s body which is right in front of him. We get one of those strings of repetitions at 310, now poignantly confirming that his daughter is really dead. Then Lear’s heart begins to fail, and as he feels he is suffocating he asks for help with the button on his robe which may be restraining his breathing. Where else in the play do we get this image with the button? Why would Shakespeare have an echo at this point? In the final two lines he seems to delude himself one more time and imagines he sees her lips moving. In some productions these last two lines are directed not to the bystanders from whom Lear seeks confirmation, but to the heavens, as if a defiant Lear was angry at the gods for allowing his beloved daughter to die. Lear dies, either deluded with love or enraged with injustice. When Edgar tries to revive him, Kent at line 315 urges, “Vex not his ghost [spirit]. O, let him pass! He hates him/ That would upon the rack of this tough world/ Stretch him out longer.” Kent is obviously arguing that Lear not be forced to extend his life any longer. However, the idea is contained in a perfect metaphor: life for Lear has become like the torture instrument called “the rack” on which victims were physically stretched in agony.

For modern audience the death of King Lear is the obvious endpoint of the play. For Shakespeare’s audience the restoration of order in the kingdom, even a mythological place in prehistory, is vital. At line 300 the Duke of Albany has already proposed the necessary corrective steps to be taken: “For us, we [royal “we”] will resign/ During the life of this old majesty,/ To him our absolute power.” Kent and Edgar will obviously be restored to their rightful positions. Then after Lear’s death, Albany is so moved, perhaps by a regret for having in any way helped in the defeat of the French army, he tries to turn the kingdom over to Kent and Edgar at line 321. However, Kent announces, “I have a journey, sir, shortly to do;/ My master calls me, I must not say no.” So he will soon follow Lear into death. It is left to Edgar to pronounce the final words of the play at line 325:

The weight of this sad time we must obey,

Speak what we feel, not what we ought to say.

The oldest hath borne most: we that are young

Shall never see so much, nor live so long.

There are several significant points about this final rhymed passage. First, Edgar urges that those who survive speak their grief and feelings truthfully, without any social restraint. The suffering of the play has stripped away the need for any niceties. Second, Edgar reminds us that, despite his own ordeal or that of Kent, it was Lear and Gloucester, the oldest people who have suffered the most; none of those present will ever go through anything like their pain. Third, the fact that Edgar speaks the final words in the play implies that he will be the leader in the world to come. The implication is that Edgar, because of all he has undergone and witnessed, will be a wiser, more humane ruler. He will also be the only monarch in England, thereby reuniting the kingdom which Lear’s initial foolishness had torn asunder. Thus ends the tragedy of King Lear.