Act 1 Scene 1 87-92

Lear: What can you say to draw aA 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

timeCommit 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.

1.1 225-

Cordelia: I yet beseech your Majesty,If for I want that glib and oily artTo speak and purpose not, since what I well intendI’ll do’t before I speak, that you make knownIt 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 eyesCordelia leaves you. I know what you are,And, like a sister, am most loath to callYour 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 long-ingrafted 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 permitThe 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 dispatchof it into your pocket? The quality of nothinghath 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 ofNature can reason it thus and thus, yet Naturefinds 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 andfather. This villain of mine comes under thePrediction, there’s son against father; the King fallsfrom 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 lovehim that is honest, to converse with him that iswise and says little, to fear judgment, to fightwhen 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

useOf nothing, Nuncle?Lear: Why, no, boy. Nothing can be made out of

nothing.

1.4 176-

Fool: I have used it, Nuncle, e’er since thou mad’st thy daughters thy mothers; for when

thou gav’stthem 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-peepAnd go the fools among.

1.4 206-

Goneril: By what yourself too late have spoke and done,

That you protect this course, and put it onBy your allowance, which if you should, the faultWould 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 necessityWill call discreet proceeding.

1.4 232-

Lear: 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 discerningsAre lethargied—Ha! Waking? ‘Tis not so.Who is it that can tell me who I am?

1.4 283-

Lear: Hear, Nature, hear; dear goddess, hear:Suspend they purpose if thou didst intendTo make this creature fruitful.Into her womb convey sterility,Dry up in her the organs of increase,And from her derogate body never springA 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 benefitsTo laughter and contempt, that she may feelHow sharper than a serpent’s tooth it isTo 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 41-

Fool: 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” (66-70).

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 bothThat all the world shall—I will do such things—What they are, yet I know not; but they shall beThe terrors of the earth.”Threatens madness again.

End of 2.4

Regan:O sir, to willful menThe injuries that they themselves procureMust be their schoolmasters. Shut up your

doors.He is attended with a desperate train,And what they may incense him to, being aptTo 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.4.4Cordelia reappears.4.5Both 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 headTo hear of pleasures name;The fitchew, nor the soiléd horse, goes to 'tWith 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 comeTo this great stage of fools (184-85).4.7Cordelia: O, wind upOf this child-changed father (16-17).Lear: I know you do not love me; for your sistersHave, 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 youngShall 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.