Egdar

And with presented nakedness outface/The winds and persecutions of the sky - Edgar 2.3

takes off his aristocratic clothing and reduces himself to the status of a Bedlam Beggar to weather the storm

 ‘That’s something yet; Edgar I nothing am’ - Edgar 2.3

nothing reverberates he has reduced himself from aristocracy to the ‘basest shape’ ‘nothing’

‘something’ he realises that something can, in fact, come from ‘nothing’

Edgar realises that being ‘nothing’ can be transformative

‘My tears begin to take his part so much/They mar my counterfeiting.’ - Edgar 3.6

shows Edgar’s overwhelming compassion for the vulnerable old man (Lear)

‘When we see our better bearing our woes,/We scarcely think our miseries our foes.’; - Edgar 3.6

when see our superiors afflicted by our troubles we find it easier to bear our own miseries

variation on ‘it is good to have company in misery’

‘He childed as I fathered’ - Edgar 3.6

as Lear has been kicked out by his daughters, so Edgar has been banished by his father

 ‘Yet better thus, and known to be contemned/Than still contemned and flattered. To be worst,/…Stands still in esperance.’ - Edgar 4.1

it is better to be as i am openly despised than to still be despised while being openly flattered

wheel of fortune ‘stands still in esperance’ idea of false optimism and hope which is of course immediately dashed

‘World, world, O world!/But that thy strange mutations make us hate thee,/Life would not yield to age.’ - Edgar 4.1

moment of hope and then the worst happens Gloucester walks in blinded he thought things couldn’t get any worse The pathetic sight of his father causes him to observe that surprises like this (or "strange mutations") are enough to make us hate life.

’O gods! Who is it can say, ‘I am the worst?/I am worse than e’er I was…the worst is not/So long as we can say ‘This is the worst’.’ - Edgar 4.1

rejecting the false optimism of ‘stands still in esperance’

Edgar finds that there is indeed worse to come

‘Bad is  the trade that must play fool to sorrow.’ - Edgar 4.1

it’s bad business to continue his disguise for his father he recognizes that he is distressing his father yet continues in his disguise

 ‘Bless thy sweet eyes; they bleed.’- Edgar 4.1

compassion again

‘Why I do trifle thus with his despair/Is done to cure it.’ - Edgar 4.6

Edgar may be seen as playing a game with his father an element of cruelty since it leads Gloucester to expect then denies him the one thing he wants - to die.

sanctimonius idea that he will relieve Gloucester from the sin of suicide

duplicitous side of Edgar self-righteous

saving his father from the sin of despair as if he is some christ-like figure

 ‘And yet I know how conceit may rob/The treasury of life when life itself/Yields to the theft.’ - Edgar 4.6

conceit is Gloucester imagining he is jumping off a high cliff

just the thought of it could kill him

which suggests the perilous dangerous nature of Edgar’s trick

‘yields to the theft’ his life has been taken away

‘Thus might he pass indeed.’ - Edgar 4.6

Edgar staging this fiction to make Gloucester’s life a miracle and have evidence of clear gods there is no evidence of Gods in the play

‘Thy life's a miracle.’ - Edgar 4.6

the play no more supports the idea that miracles can happen, unless contrived by human intervention (Edgar) than it does the existence of gods

‘Bear free and patient thoughts.’ - Edgar 4.6

Edgar’s sanctimonious self-righteous stoic , patience to endure suffering the only lesson in life is that you have to put up with suffering

‘A most poor man, made tame to fortune’s blows,/Who, by the art of known and feeling sorrows,/Am pregnant to good pity.’ - Edgar 4.6

saying that he has experience and seen suffering, he himself has embodied hardship it has been transformative and made him full of pity and compassion for others link to last lines of the play and the importance of feeling ‘wretches feel’

 ‘a serviceable villain,/As duteous to the vices of thy mistress/As badness would desire.’ - Edgar 4.6

obsequious Oswald

theme of service

Oswald does whatever Goneril says showig her power in this ruthless universe

‘Men must endure/Their going hence even as their coming hither./Ripeness is all.’ - Edgar 5.2

his encouragement of the need to endure suffering, if you accept life you must accept death

‘O know, my name is lost’ - Edgar 5.3

Edgar in yet another disguise he has no coat of arms or identifying marks when going into the duel with Edmund

he is not recognised until Edmund sees his ‘fair and warlike appearance’

 ‘My name is Edgar and thy father’s son.’ - Edgar 5.3

reveals himself once he has wounded Edmund (fatally) so that he can reclaim his name and title in aristocracy

‘The gods are just and of our pleasant vices/Make instruments to plague us:/The dark and vicious place where thee he got/Cost him his eyes.’ Edgar 5.3

a biblical commonplace - Edgar’s moralizing applies to Edmund and to Goneril and Regan, as for all of these the wheel of fortune comes full circle in this scene

 ‘Never - O fault! - revealed myself unto him/Until some half hour past, when I was armed,’ - Edgar 5.3

it was necessary for the structure of the play that Edgar maintain his anonymity but the fault he acknowledges here is part of his character too for it is appropriate that his is morally perceptive about himself as well as others
If Gloucester dies with a glimpse of happiness (‘joy and grief’) Edgar nevertheless reveals himself in a way that brings about his father’s death

‘I asked his blessing and from first to last/Told him our pilgrimage.’ - Edgar 5.3

pilgrimage he sees himself as a saint

‘but his flawed heart,/A;lack, too weak the conflict to support,/’Twixt two extremes of passion, joy and grief,/Burst smilingly.’; - Edgar 5.3

delayed revelation contributed to the death of his father whether it brought him transient ‘joy’ or not

repetition of ‘burst’ get a sense of the genuine anguish of Gloucester’s heart breaking

‘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.’ - Edgar 5.3 last words of the play

burden of the agony suffering chaos and destruction in the tragic universe

must be acknowledged and embraced respected pay diservance homage to the magnitude of suffering

echoes the very beginning ‘speak’ ‘nothing’ Lear’s vainglorious love trial required empty flattery and dishonesty

acknowledgement that Edgar has suffered at the end he has returned the ability to pity others’ suffering

those who follow could never suffer so much nor endure it