King Lear Exam

"Unhappy that I am, I cannot heave/My heart into my mouth: I love your majesty/According to my bond; nor more nor less." (1.1)

Cordelia speaks to King Lear about the authenticity of her love compared to her sisters' deceit.

Let it fall rather, though the fork invade/The region of my heart: be Kent unmannerly/When Lear is mad. What wilt thou do, old man?/Think’st thou that duty shall have dread to speak,/When power to flattery bows? To plainness honor’s bound,/When majesty stoops to folly. (1.1)

Kent expresses his discontent with flattery towards the king and advocates for honesty.

Is it but this,—a tardiness in nature/Which often leaves the history unspoke/That it intends to do? My lord of Burgundy,/What say you to the lady? Love’s not love/When it is mingled with regards that stand/Aloof from the entire point. Will you have her?/She is herself a dowry. (1.1)

The King of France discusses the purity of love in relation to Cordelia's worth.

There is further compliment of leavetaking between/France and him. Pray you, let’s hit together: if our father/carry authority with such dispositions as he bears, this last/surrender of his will but offend us. (1.1)

Goneril comments on the political implications of her father’s decisions.

Thou, nature, art my goddess; to thy law/My services are bound. Wherefore should I/Stand in the plague of custom, and permit/The curiosity of nations to deprive me,/For that I am some twelve or fourteen moonshines/Lag of a brother? Why bastard? wherefore base?/When my dimensions are as well compact, My mind as generous, and my shape as true,/As honest madam’s issue? (1.2)

Edmund defies the stigma of being a bastard and questions natural order.

This is the excellent foppery of the world,/that, when we are sick in fortune—often the surfeit of our own behavior,—we make guilty of our disasters the sun, the moon, and the stars: as if we were villains by necessity; fools by heavenly compulsion; (1.2)

Edmund reflects on how people blame fate for their misfortunes.

 I do serve you in this business./A credulous father! and a brother noble,/Whose nature is so far from doing harms/That he suspects none: on whose foolish honesty/My practices ride easy! I see the business./Let me, if not by birth, have lands by wit:/All with me’s meet that I can fashion fit. (1.2)

Edmund plots to gain power through deceit rather than inheritance.

Thou wast a pretty fellow when thou hasdst no need to/care for her frowning; now thou art an O without a figure:/I am better than thou art now; I am a fool, thou art nothing. (1.4)

The Fool criticizes Lear’s transformation from power to madness.

Doth any here know me? This is not Lear:/Doth Lear walk thus? speak thus? Where are his eyes?/Either his notion weakens, his discernings/Are lethargied—Ha! waking? ‘tis not so./Who is it can tell me who I am?  (1.4)

Lear questions his identity after being stripped of his power.

That such a slave as this should wear a sword,/Who wears no honesty. Such smiling rogues as these,/Like rats, oft bite the holy cords a-twain/Which are too intrinse to unloose; smooth every passion/That in the natures of their lords rebel: (2.2)

Kent criticizes those who lack true virtue yet hold power.

O, sir, you are old./Nature in you stands at the very confine: you should be ruled and led/By some discretion, that discerns your state/Better than yourself. Therefore, I pray you,/That to our sister you do make return;/Say you have wronged her, sir. (2.4)

Regan suggests Lear needs to be guided due to his old age.

Rumble thy bellyful! Spit, fire! spout, rain!/Nor rain, wind, thunder, fire, are my daughters:/I tax not you, you elements, with unkindness;/I never gave you kingdom, called you children,/You owe me not subscription: then let fall/Your horrible pleasure: here I stand, your slave,/A poor, infirm, weak, and despised old man:/But yet I call you servile ministers,/That have with two pernicious daughters joined/Your high engendered battles ‘gainst a head/So old and white as this. O! O! ‘tis foul! (3.2)

Lear calls upon nature, refusing to take responsibility for his personal tragedies.

Poor naked wretches, whereso’er you are,/That bide the pelting of this pitiless storm,/How shall your houseless heads and unfed sides,/Your looped and windowed raggedness, defend you/From seasons such as these? O, I have ta’en/Too little care of this! Take physic, pomp,/Expose thyself to feel what wretches feel,/That thou mayst shake the superflux to them,/And show the heavens more just. (3.4)

Lear expresses regret for neglecting the plight of the less fortunate.

Why, thou wert better in thy grave than to answer/with they uncovered body this extremity of the skies. Is/man no more than this? Consider him well. Thou owest/the worm no silk, the beast no hide, the sheep no wool, the/cat no perfume. Ha! here’s three on ’s are sophisticated!/Thou art the thing itself: unaccommodated man is no/more but such a poor bare, forked animal as thou are. Off,/off, you lendings! come unbutton here. (3.4)

Lear contemplates human existence and vulnerability.

Because I would not see thy cruel nails/Pluck out his poor old eyes; nor thy fierce sister/In his anointed flesh stick boarish fangs. The sea, with such a storm as his bare head/In hell-black night endured, would have buoyed up,/And quenched the stelled fires:/Yet, poor old heart, he holp the heavens to rain./If wolves had at thy gate howled that stern time,/Thou shouldst have said ‘Good porter, turn the key,’/All cruels else subscribed: but I shall see/The winged vengeance overtake such children. (3.7)

Gloucester expresses his anger on Lear’s mistreatment.

Hold you hand, my lord:/I have served you ever since I was a child;/But better service have I never done you/Than now to bid you hold. (3.7)

The servant shows his dedication to Kent.

I have no way, and therefore want no eyes;/I stumbled when I saw: full oft ‘tis seen,/Our means secure us, and our mere defects/Prove our commodities. 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. (4.1)

Gloucester reflects on wisdom and error, wishing to regain sight.

"As flies to wanton boys, are we to the gods./They kill us for their sport." 4.1

Gloucestor presents humanity as mere playthings of the gods.

Wisdom and goodness to the vile seem vile:/Filths savor but themselves. What have you done?/Tigers, not daughters, what have you performed?/A father, and a gracious aged man,/whose reverence even the head-lugged bear would lick,/Most barbarous, most degenerate! have you madded./…If that heavens do not their visible spirits/Send quickly down to tame these vile offences,/It will come,/Humanity must perforce prey on itself,/Like monsters of the deep. (4.2)

Albany condemns violent acts against their father.

"You are much deceived: in nothing am I changed/But in my garments."

Edgar asserts his integrity despite his transformed appearance.

Hadst thou been aught but gossamer, feathers, air,/So many fathom down precipitating,/Thouedst shivered like an egg; but thou dost breathe;/Hast heavy substance; bleed’st not; speak’st; art sound./Ten masts at each make not the altitude/Which thou hast perpendicularly fell:/Thy life’s a miracle. Speak yet again. (4.6)

Edgar marvels at Lear's resilience amidst adversity.

What, art mad? A man may see how this world/goes with no eyes. Look with thine ears: see how yond/justice rails upon yond simple thief. Hark, in thine ear:/change places; and handy-dandy,/which is the justice, which is the thief? Thou hast seen a farmer’s dog bark at/a beggar?... And the creature run from the cur? There thou mightst/behold the great image of authority: a dog’s/obeyed in office. (4.6)

Lear contemplates justice in a world that seems chaotic.

To both these sisters have I sworn my love;/Each jealous of the other, as the stung/Are of the adder. Which of them shall I take? Both? one? or neither? Neither can be enjoyed/If both remain alive:…/…As for the mercy/Which he intends to Lear and to Cordelia,/The battle done, and they within our power,/Shall never see his pardon; for my state/Stands on me to defend, not to debate. (5.1)

Edmund grapples with his affections and strategies for power.

We are not the first/Who, with best meaning, have incurred the worst./For thee, oppressed king, am I cast down;/Myself could else out-frown false fortune’s frown. (5.3)

Cordelia reflects on the nature of fate and her father’s downfall.

"The gods are just, and of our pleasant vices/Make instruments to plague us."

Edgar suggests that divine justice corrects moral failures.