KL Key Quotes

liberty

Goneril:

"Sir, I love you more than word can wield the matter; dearer than eye-sight, space and liberty" I:i

nothing

Lear:

"Nothing will come of nothing" I:i

see

Kent:

"See better, Lear" I:i

mad

Lear:

"O! Let me not be mad, not mad, sweet heaven" I:v

wise

Fool:

"Thou should'st not have been old till thou hadst been wise" I:v

I am a fool

Fool:

"I am better than thou art now; I am a Fool, thou art nothing." I:iv

mothers

Fool:

"E'er since thou mad'st thy daughters thy mothers" I:iv

villain

Gloucester:

"O villain, villain! (...) Abhorred villain! Unnatural, detested, brutish villain!" II

vulture

Lear:

"O Regan! She [Goneril] hath tied sharp-toothed unkindness, like a vulture, here." II:iv

old

Regan:

"O, Sir! You are old" II:iv

all

Lear: "I gave you all-"

Regan: "And in good time you gave it." II:iv

unnatural hags

Lear:

"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." II:iv

blow

Lear:

"Blow, winds, and crack your cheeks!" III:ii

Here I stand

Lear:

"Here I stand, your slave, a poor, infirm, weak, and despised old man" III:ii

patience

Lear:

"I will be the pattern of all patience; I will say nothing." III:ii

Edmund to describe Goneril and Regan

Edmund:

"Most savage and unnatural!" III:iii

young vs old

Edmund:

"The younger rises when the old doth fall." III:iii

unaccommodated man

Lear:

"Is man no more than this? [....] unaccommodated man is no more but such a poor, bare, forked animal as thou art." III:iv

little care

Lear:

"Oh, I have ta'en

Too little care of this!"

III:iv

my boy

Lear:

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

III:ii

portable pain

Edgar:

"How light and portable my pain seems now,

When that which makes me bend makes the king bow;

He childed as I fathered!" III:vi

boarish fangs

Gloucester:

"Because I would not see thy cruel nails pluck out his poor old eyes; nor thy fierce sister in his anointed flesh rash boarish fangs." III:vii

no way

Gloucester:

"I have no way, and therefore want no eyes; I stumbled when I saw." IV:i

mew

Goneril:

"Marry, your manhood, mew!" V:ii (Goneril to Albany)

fire

Lear:

"I am bound upon a wheel of fire" IV:vii

foolish fond

Lear:

"I am a very foolish fond old man" IV:vii

kill

Lear:

"Kill, kill, kill, kill, kill, kill!"

IV:vi

worst and worse

Edgar

"Who is't can say 'I am at the worst'?

I am worse than e'er I was." IV

adder

Edmund:

"Each jealous of the other, as the stung are of the adder." V:i

Lear to Cordelia about them being captured

Lear:

"We two alone will sing like birds i'th'cage" V:iii

howl

Lear:

"Howl, howl, howl!" V:iii

stretch

Kent:

"He hates him that would upon the rack of this tough world stretch him out longer" V:iii:313-15

borne most

Edgar:

"The oldest hath borne most: we that are young shall never see so much, nor live so long." V:iii

darker purpose

Lear:

"Meantime, we shall express our darker purpose." I:i

ponderous

Cordelia:

"I am sure my love's more ponderous than my tongue" I:i

dragon

Lear:

"Come not between the Dragon and his wrath" I:i

infirmity

Regan:

"'Tis the infirmity of his age; yet he hath ever but slenderly known himself" I:i

goddess

Edmund:

"Thou, Nature, art my goddess" I:ii

serpent's tooth

Lear:

"How sharper than a serpent's tooth it is to have a thankless child!" I:iv

women's weapons

Lear:

"Let not women's weapons, water-drops, stain my man's cheeks!" II:iv

little world

Gentleman:

"[Lear] strives in his little world of man to out-storm the to- and fro-conflicting wind and rain" III:i

bless

Edgar:

"Bless thy sweet eyes, they bleed." IV:i

tigers

Albany:

"Tigers, not daughters" IV:ii

holy water

Gentleman (describing Cordelia):

"There she shook the holy water from her heavenly eyes" IV:iii

ague-proof

Lear:

"They told me I was every thing; 'tis a lie, I am not ague-proof." IV:vi

cause

Cordelia:

"No cause, no cause" IV:vii

going vs coming

Edgar:

"Men must endure their going hence, even as their coming hither." V:ii

no breath

Lear:

"Why should a dog, a horse, a rat, have life, and thou no breath at all?" V:iii

master

'My master calls me, I must not say no.'

Kent respecting Lear's positive face

'Good my Leige' 'How fares your Grace' 'Sir'

break heart

Lear 'Wilt break my heart?' Kent 'I had rather break mine own.'

out-jest

Gentleman 'the Fool, who labours to out-jest His heart-strook injuries.'

Kent taking care of Lear in storm

'Now, good my Lord, lie here and rest awhile.'

supper

Lear 'We'll go to supper i'th'morning.' Fool 'And I'll go to bed at noon.'

gold vs straw

'Plate sin with gold, and the strong lance of justice hurtless breaks; arm it in rags, a pigmy's straw does pierce it.'

base

'why brand they us with base? with baseness? bastardy? base, base?'

Servant to Cornwall about eye gouging

‘Hold your hand, my Lord.’ Act III Scene VII