Act 1 Scene 1 87-92
Lear: What can you say to draw a
A third more opulent than your sisters? Speak.
Cordelia: Nothing, my lord.
Lear: Nothing?
Cordelia: Nothing.
Lear: Nothing will come of nothing. Speak
again.
1.1 215-219
France: This is most strange,
That she whom even but now was your best
object,
The argument of your praise, balm of your age,
The best, the dearest, should in this thrice of
time
Commit a thing so monstrous to dismantle.
France speaks of Lear’s “fore-vouched
affection.”
Language of the marketplace.
“Nothing.”
Coleridge perceived “some faulty admixture of
pride and sullenness” in Cordelia’s silence.
1.1 225Cordelia: I yet beseech your Majesty,
If for I want that glib and oily art
To speak and purpose not, since what I well intend
I’ll do’t before I speak, that you make known
It is no vicious blot, murder, or foulness,
No unchaste action or dishonoured step,
That hath deprived me of your grace and favour;
But even for want of that for which I am richer,
1.1 269-276
Cordelia: The jewels of our father, with washed
eyes
Cordelia leaves you. I know what you are,
And, like a sister, am most loath to call
Your faults as they are named. Love well our
father.
To your professed bosoms I commit him.
But yet, alas, stood I within his grace,
I would prefer him to a better place.
End of 1.1
Goneril: 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 now
cast her off appears too grossly (290-94).
Goneril: The best and soundest of his time hath
been but rash; then must we look from his age
to receive not alone the imperfections of longingrafted condition” (297-300).
1.2
1-5.
Edmund: Thou, Nature, art my goddess; to thy
law
My services are bound. Wherefore should I
Stand in the plague of custom, and permit
The curiosity of nations to deprive me,
For that I am some twelve or fourteen
moonshines.
1.2 31-35
Gloucester: What paper were you reading?
Edmund: Nothing, my lord.
Gloucester: No? What needed then that
terrible dispatch
of it into your pocket? The quality of nothing
hath not such need to hide itself.
1.2 112-24
Gloucester: 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.
Love cools, friendship falls off, brothers divide.
In cities, mutinies; in countries, discord; in
palaces
treason; 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 ( asyndeton & apharesis).
1.3
20-22
Goneril: Old fools are babes again, and must be
used
With checks and flatteries, when they are seen
abused.
1.4
14-18
Kent: I do profess to be no less than what 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, to fight
when I cannot choose, and to eat no fish.
(asyndeton)
1.4
132-136
Fool: Then ‘tis the breath of an unfeed lawyer
---you gave me nothing for’t. Can you make no
use
Of nothing, Nuncle?
Lear: Why, no, boy. Nothing can be made out of
nothing.
1.4 176Fool: I have used it, 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,
Then they for sudden joy did weep,
And I for sorrow sung,
That such a king should play bo-peep
And go the fools among.
1.4 206Goneril: By what yourself too late have spoke and
done,
That you protect this course, and put it on
By your allowance, which if you should, the fault
Would not ‘scape censure, nor the redresses sleep,
Which, in the tender of a wholesome weal,
Might in their working do you that offense,
Which else were shame, that then necessity
Will call discreet proceeding.
1.4 232Lear: Does any here know me? This is not Lear.
Does Lear walk thus? Speak thus? Where are
his eyes?
Either his notion weakens, or his discernings
Are lethargied—Ha! Waking? ‘Tis not so.
Who is it that can tell me who I am?
1.4 283Lear: Hear, Nature, hear; dear goddess, hear:
Suspend they 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 body never spring
A babe to honour her. If she must teem,
Create her child of spleen, that it may live
And be a thwart disnatured torment to her.
Let it stamp wrinkles in her brow of youth,
With cadent tears fret 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.
1.4 308
Lear: Old fond eyes,
Beweep this cause again.
(Prosthesis)
Shakespeare uses figures of speech onedismus,
aposiopesis, apostrophe, exclamation,
interrogation, personification in Lear’s speech
in order to raise the tension and tragic scope
of the drama.
1.5 41Fool: If thou were my Fool, Nuncle, I’d have
thee
beaten for being old before thy time.
Lear: How’s that?
Fool: Thou shouldst not have been old till thou
hadst been wise.
2.1
This scene examines the question “how do we
know someone: by words or deeds?” in the
subplot.
Lear asked for cheap flattery.
Gloucester relies only on gossip and hearsay.
The capricious cruelty of fathers guides the play.
2.2
Kent tells Cornwall, Gloucester and Regan that
he’s “no flatterer” and that he’s “too old to
learn.”
“Whoreson” a frequent insult.
2.3
“Edgar I nothing am.”
2.4 47-52
Fool:
Fathers that wear rags
Do make their children blind,
But fathers that bear bags
Shall see their children kind.
Fortune, that errant whore,
Ne’re turns the key to th’ poor.
(apocope)
2.4
Fool: We’ll set thee to school to an ant, to teach
thee there’s no labouring in the winter. 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” (6670).
2.4
104-110 foreshadows his dip into “madness.”
Lear characterizes Goneril as “sharp-toothed
unkindness,” as a “vulture” and “depraved.”
(131-136).
Regan notes his unpredictable mood swings and
how quickly he’ll turn on her as he did Goneril
“O the blest gods! So will you wish on me
when the rash mood is on” (167-68).
Lear calls Goneril “a disease that’s in my flesh”
“a boil/ A plague-sore, or embossed
carbuncle” ( 221-22).
Regan and Goneril reason that even 50 followers
is too many, too expensive for one house.
Regan asks him to bring only 25 men to her
house.
Lear: I gave you all.
Regan: And in good time you gave it (248-49).
2.4 276-285
Lear:
And let not women’s weapons, water drops,
Stain my man’s cheeks. 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.”
Threatens madness again.
End of 2.4
Regan:
O sir, to willful men
The injuries that they themselves procure
Must be their schoolmasters. Shut up your
doors.
He is attended with a desperate train,
And what they may incense him to, being apt
To have his ear abused, wisdom bid fear.
3.1-3.3 exposition
3.4 juxtaposes Edgar’s authentic breakdown
against Lear’s. Lear can only perceive his own
circumstances and projects them onto the
younger man.
Edgar’s wholly bereft of familial support; Lear is
not. When Lear takes off his clothes for Edgar,
it’s the first time we see him act selflessly.
3.7 Transition
Gloucester declared a traitor.
“Out vile jelly.”
Third Servant:
If she live long,
And in the end meet the old course of death,
Women will all turn monsters” (102-104).
4.2
Albany denounces Goneril and assumes the
moral high ground.
He mourns Gloucester’s eyes.
4.4
Cordelia reappears.
4.5
Both Goneril and Regan have designs upon
Edmund
4.6 120-131
• Behold yond simp’ring dame,
Whose face between her forks presages snow;
That minces virtue, and does shake the head
To hear of pleasures name;
The fitchew, nor the soiléd horse, goes to 't
With a more riotous appetite.
Down from the waist they are Centaurs,
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's the sulphurous pit, burning, scalding,
Stench, consumption! Fie, fie, fie! pah! pah!
4.6
Lear: When we are born we cry that we are come
To this great stage of fools (184-85).
4.7
Cordelia: O, wind up
Of this child-changed father (16-17).
Lear: I know you do not love me; for your sisters
Have, as I do remember, done me wrong.
You have some cause, they have not” (72-74).
5.3
Edgar:
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.
Epicoene
TRUE: Why, is it not arrived there yet, the news? A
new foundation, sir, here in the town, of ladies,
that call themselves the collegiates, an order
between courtiers and country-madams, that live
from their husbands; and give entertainment to
all the wits, and braveries of the time, as they call
them: cry down, or up, what they like or dislike in
a brain or a fashion, with most masculine, or
rather hermaphroditical authority; and every day
gain to their college some new probationer.
CLER: A pox of her autumnal face, her pieced
beauty! there's no man can be admitted till
she be ready, now-a-days, till she has painted,
and perfumed, and wash'd, and scour'd, but
the boy here; and him she wipes her oil'd lips
upon, like a sponge.
TRUE: And I am clearly on the other side: I love a
good dressing before any beauty o' the world.
O, a woman is then like a delicate garden; nor
is there one kind of it; she may vary every
hour; take often counsel of her glass, and
choose the best. If she have good ears, shew
them; good hair, lay it out; good legs, wear
short clothes; a good hand, discover it often;
practise any art to mend breath, cleanse
teeth, repair eye-brows; paint, and profess it.
CLER: Yes: why thou art a stranger, it seems, to
his best trick, yet. He has employed a fellow
this half year all over England to hearken him
out a dumb woman; be she of any form, or
any quality, so she be able to bear children:
her silence is dowry enough, he says.
• MOR: That sorrow doth fill me with gladness. O Morose,
thou art happy above mankind! pray that thou mayest
contain thyself. I will only put her to it once more, and it
shall be with the utmost touch and test of their sex. But
hear me, fair lady; I do also love to see her whom I shall
choose for my heifer, to be the first and principal in all
fashions; precede all the dames at court by a fortnight;
have council of tailors, lineners, lace-women, embroiderers,
and sit with them sometimes twice a day upon French
intelligences; and then come forth varied like nature, or
oftener than she, and better by the help of art, her
emulous servant. This do I affect: and how will you be able,
lady, with this frugality of speech, to give the manifold but
necessary instructions.
EPI: Ay, sir. Why, did you think you had married a
statue, or a motion, only? one of the French
puppets, with the eyes turn'd with a wire? or
some innocent out of the hospital, that would
stand with her hands thus, and a plaise
mouth, and look upon you?
TRUE: Believe it, I told you right. Women ought to repair
the losses time and years have made in their features,
with dressings. And an intelligent woman, if she know
by herself the least defect, will be most curious to hide
it: and it becomes her. If she be short, let her sit much,
lest, when she stands, she be thought to sit. If she have
an ill foot, let her wear her gown the longer, and her
shoe the thinner. If a fat hand, and scald nails, let her
carve the less, and act in gloves. If a sour breath, let
her never discourse fasting, and always talk at her
distance. If she have black and rugged teeth, let her
offer the less at laughter, especially if she laugh wide
and open.
TRUE: 'Tis true; no more than all birds, or all fishes. If you appear
learned to an ignorant wench, or jocund to a sad, or witty to a
foolish, why she presently begins to mistrust herself. You must
approach them in their own height, their own line: for the contrary
makes many, that fear to commit themselves to noble and worthy
fellows, run into the embraces of a rascal. If she love wit, give
verses, though you borrow them of a friend, or buy them, to have
good. If valour, talk of your sword, and be frequent in the mention
of quarrels, though you be staunch in fighting. If activity, be seen on
your barbary often, or leaping over stools, for the credit of your
back. If she love good clothes or dressing, have your learned council
about you every morning, your French tailor, barber, linener, etc.
Let your powder, your glass, and your comb be your dearest
acquaintance. Take more care for the ornament of your head, than
the safety: and wish the commonwealth rather troubled, than a
hair about you. That will take her.
MAV: Look how you manage him at first, you shall have
him ever after.
CEN: Let him allow you your coach, and four horses, your
woman, your chamber-maid, your page, your
gentleman-usher, your French cook, and four grooms.
HAU: And go with us to Bedlam, to the china-houses, and
to the Exchange.
CEN: It will open the gate to your fame.
HAU: Here's Centaure has immortalised herself, with
taming of her wild male.
MAV: Ay, she has done the miracle of the kingdom.
EPI: But not with intent to boast them again,
servant. And have you those excellent
receipts, madam, to keep yourselves from
bearing of children?
HAU: O yes, Morose: how should we maintain
our youth and beauty else? Many births of a
woman make her old, as many crops make the
earth barren.
MOR: O, no! there is such a noise in the court,
that they have frighted me home with more
violence then I went! such speaking and
counter-speaking, with their several voices of
citations, appellations, allegations, certificates,
attachments, intergatories, references,
convictions, and afflictions indeed, among the
doctors and proctors, that the noise here is
silence to't! a kind of calm midnight!
Nay, sir Daw, and sir La-Foole, you see the gentlewoman that has done
you the favours! we are all thankful to you, and so should the
woman-kind here, specially for lying on her, though not with her!
you meant so, I am sure? But that we have stuck it upon you to-day,
in your own imagined persons, and so lately, this Amazon, the
champion of the sex, should beat you now thriftily, for the common
slanders which ladies receive from such cuckoos as you are. You are
they that, when no merit or fortune can make you hope to enjoy
their bodies, will yet lie with their reputations, and make their fame
suffer. Away, you common moths of these, and all ladies' honours.
Go, travel to make legs and faces, and come home with some new
matter to be laugh'd at: you deserve to live in an air as corrupted as
that wherewith you feed rumour.