King Lear Quotes - Act 4

Edgar believes there is an advantage to his current situation. He claims that when one is in a fortunate position, change is a bad thing. However, when one is the lowest of the low, any change can only bring happiness.

“The lamentable change is from the best:

The worst returns to laughter.”

Gloucester says there is no point in his life any more, and therefore he does not need his eyesight. He is beginning to gain insight and he realises that he has made serious mistakes.

“I have no way, and therefore want no eyes; I stumbled when I saw”

Edgar, applied to see his blind father, says that if it were not for the strange changed that make us hate life, we would not accept growing old.

“But that thy strange mutations make us hate thee,

Life would not yield to age.”

Gloucester, unaware that Edgar is in his presence, says that he is sorry he was wrongly angry with his dear son. He longs to touch Edgar’s face and if he could, he would be as happy as if he could see again.

“O dear son Edgar, The food of thy abused father’s wrath-

Might I but live to see thee in my touch,

I’d say I had eyes again!”

Gloucester tells the old man leading him that life is very hard. He says that just as reckless boys kill flies for fun, so the gods play with the lives of men.

“As flies to wanton boys are we to the gods. They kill us for their sport.”

Edgar, who has just tricked Gloucester into believing he is at the edge of a cliff, says in an aside that the only reason he plays with Gloucesters misery is to cure it.

“Why I do trifle thus with his despair is done to cure it.”

Glouster, believing that the gods have saved him from dying, says that now he will endure his suffering until the suffering itself cries out that he has has enough and allows him to die.

“Henceforth I’ll bear

Affliction till it do cry out itself

Enough, enough, and die.”

Lear tells Glouster that small crime are obvious when committed by the poor person but the rich well-dressed person can have their crime covered up. Lear is wandering in the wilderness, confronting the brutal truths of life, power, and justice. He has gone from king to beggar, and his eyes are opened to the hypocrisy of society.

“Through tattered clothes small vices do appear;

Robes and furred gowns hide all.”

Lear says the reason babies cry when they are born is that they realise they are in a world which is nothing more than a stage where fools act out their lives.

“When we are born, we cry that we are come

To this great stage of fools.”

Lear kneels before Cordelia and tells her that he is a very foolish, unreasonable old man.

“I am a very foolish fond old man.”