king lear act 1 quotes

8/10/2019 King Lear Act 1 Quotes

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Act 1Scene 1

GloucesterThe division of the kingdom

This knave came something saucily into the world...there was good sport athis making

LearMeantime we shall express our darker purpose

Tis or fast intentTo shake all cares and business from our age,Conferring them on younger strengths while weUunburthened crawl toward death.

We have this hour a constant will to publishOur daughters several dowers, that future strife May be prevented now

Which of you shall we say doth love us most?

GonerilI love you more than words can wield the matter;Dearer than eyesight, space and liberty.

CordeliaWhat shall Cordelia speak? Love, and be silent.

ReganSir, I am made of the self-same metal as my sister

And prize me at her worth. In my true heartI find names my very deed of love;Only she comes too short

CordeliaI am sure my loves

More richer than my tongue

LearOur joy,What can you say to draw A third more opulent than your sisters?

Nothing can come of nothing.

CordeliaUnhappy that I am, I cannot heaveMy heart into my mouth. I love your majesty

According to my bond; no more no less.


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LearMend your speech a little,Lest it mar your fortunes.

CordeliaWhy have my sisters husbands, if they say they love you all?

LearSo young, and so untender?

CordeliaSo young, my lord and true

LearLet it be so! Thye truth then be thy dower.

Here I disclaim all my paternal care,Propinquity and property of blood,

And as a stranger to my heart and meHold thee from this forever.

The barbarous Scythian,Or he that makes his generation messesTo gorge his appetite, shall to my bosomBe as well neighboured, pitied, and relieved,

As thou my sometime daughter.

LearCome not between the dragon and his wrath.I loved her most and thought to set my restOn her kind nursery. Hence and avoid my sight.

Let pride, which she calls plainness marry her.

Only we still retainThe name, and all the addition to a king.

KentRoyal Lear, whom I have honoured as my king,Loved as my father, as my master followed

LearThe bow is bent and drawn; make from the shaft.

KentBe Kent unmannerlyWhen Lear is mad

Reverse thy doom (Reserve thy state)


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CheckThis hideous rashness. Answer my life my judgement,Thy youngest daughter does not love thee least,Nor are those empty-hearted whose low sound

Reverbs no hollowness.

LearKent, on thy life, no more!

KentMy life I have never held but as a pawnTo wage against thine enemies; nor fear to lose it,Thy safety being the motive

LearOut of my sight!

KentSee better Lear, and let me still remainThe true blank of thine eye.

LearWith strained prideTo come between our sentence and our power

If on the tenth day following,Thy banished trunk be found in our dominions,The moment is thy death.

But now her price is fallen

Therefore, beseech youTo avert your liking a more worthier way

FranceThis is most strange,

That she that even but now was your best object,The argument of your praise, balm of your age,Most best, most dearest

CordeliaIf for I want that glib and oily artTo speak and purpose not

A still- soliciting eye, and such a tongue As I am glad I have not, though not to have itHath lost me in your liking


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LearBetter thouHadst not been born than not to have pleased me better.

France

Loves not loveWhen it is mingled with regards that stands

Aloof from the entire point

Fairest Cordelia, that art much rich, being poor;Most choice, forsaken; and most loved, despised!

LearFor weHave no such daughter, nor shall ever seeThat face of hers again. Therefore be goneWithout our grace, our love, our benison.

CordeliaI know you what you are

Use well our father

I would prefer him to a better place!

Time shall unfold what plighted cunning hides.Who cover faults, at last shame them derides.Well may you prosper!

GonerilYou see how full of changes his age is . He has always loved our sistermost, and with what poor judgement he hath now cast her off appears toogrossly.

ReganTis the infirmity of his age, yet he hath ever but slenderly known himself.

GonerilThe imperfections of long- ingraffed condition

ReganSuch unconstant starts we are like to have of him as this of Kentsbanishment.

GonerilPray you let us hit together:: if our father carry authority with such dispositionas he bears, this last surrender of his will but offend us.

We must do somethng and i the heat Scene 2


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EdmundThou, Nature, art my goddess; to thy law my serviced are bound

Why bastard? Wherefore base?When my dimensions are as well compact,

My mind as generous, and my shape as true, As honest madams issue? Why brand they usWith base? With baseness? Bastardy? Base, base?

Legitimate Edgar, I must have your land.

As to th legitimate. Fine word - legitimate!Well my legitimate, if this letter speed

And my invention thrive, Edmund the baseS hall top th legitimate. I grow; I prosper.Now gods, stand up for bastards!

Gloucester (reads) I begin to find an idle and fond bondage in the oppression of aged tyranny

Gloucester (reads) If our father would s leep till I wakd him, you should enjoy half his revenue.

Edmund But I have heard him oft maintain it to be fit that, sons at perfect age, andfathers declining, the father should be as ward to the son, and the sonmanage his revenue

GloucesterUnnatural, detested, brutish villain! Worse than brutish! Go sirrah, seek him.Ill apprehend him. Abominable villain.

I would unstate myself to be in a due resolution.

These late eclipses in the sun and moon portend no good to us. This villainof mine comes under the prediction.

EdmundThis is the excellent foppery of the world, that when we are sick in fortune,often the surfeit of our own behaviour, we make guilty of our disasters thesun, the moon, the stars;

EdgarSome villian hath done me wrong.

EdmundI am no honest man if there be any good meaning toward you

A credulous father! And a brother noble,Whose nature is so far from doing harms


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KentThis is not altogether fool, my lord

Fool

When thou clovest thy crown in the middle and gavst away both parts thouborst thine ass on thy back over the dirt. Thou hadst little wit in thy bald crownwhen thou gavst thy golden one away

For when thou gavst them the rod, and putst down thine own breeches

I rather be any kind of thing than a fool! And yet I would not be thee nuncle.

I am a fool, thou art nothing

GonerilBut other of your insolent retinueDo hourly carp and quarrel breaking forth iI rank and not to be endured riots

(I) now grow fearfulBy what yourself, too, late have spoke and doneThat you protect this course.

FoolThe hedge-sparrow fed the cuckoo so longThat it had it head bit off by it young.

May not an ass know when the cart draws the horse?

Lear Doth any here know me? This is not Lear

Who is it that can tell me who I am?

FoolLears shadow

Goneril: As you are old and reverend, you should be wise.

Men so disordered, so deboshed, and boldThat this our court, infected with their manners,Shows like a riotous inn. Epicurism and lustMake it more like a tavern or a brothel

The shame itself doth speakFor instant remedy.

A little to disquantity your train


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LearDarkness and devil! Saddle my horses! Call my train together! Degeneratebastard, Ill not trouble thee;Yet have I left a daughter.

Ingratitude, thou marble-hearted fiend,More hideous wh en thou showst thee in a child Than the sea-monster!

Detested kite, thou liest!My train are men of choice and rarest parts

O most small fault, how ugly didst thou in Cordelia show!

Beat at this gate that let thy folly in And thy dear judgment out!

Hear, nature, hear! Dear goddess, hear!Suspend thy 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 spring A babe to honour her.

That she may feelHow sharper than a serpents tooth it is To have a thankless child!

What, fifty of my followers at a clap?Within a fortnight?

I am ashamd That thou hast power to shake my manhood thus

With her nails

Shell flay thy wolfish visage . Thou shalt findThat Ill resume the shape which thou dost thinkI have cast off forever.

Albany I cannot be so partial, Goneril,To the great love I bear you

Goneril What he hath uttered I have writ my sister.

If she sustain him and his hundred knights,When I have showd th unfitness -


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And thereto add such reasons of your own As may compact it more

This milky gentleness and course of yours

AlbanyStiving to better oft we mar whats well.

Scene 5

Fool If a mans brains were ins heels, weret not in danger of kibe s?Thy wit shall not go slip-shod

S hell taste as like this as a crab does to a crab

Lear I did her wrong

To take it again perforce! Monster ingratitude!FoolThou shouldst not have been old til thou hadst been wise.

Lear O, let me not be mad, not mad, sweet heaven!Keep me in temper; I would not be mad!

king lear act 1 quotes

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