Edgar

power, kingship and authority

• ‘the weight of this sad time we must obey’

tragedy features and suffering

• ‘the worst is not so long as we can say ‘this is the worst’’ 4.1

• ‘my tears begin to take his part so much they mar my counterfeiting’ (about Lear) 3.6 59-60

• ‘how light and portable my pain seems now, when that which makes me bend makes the King bow’ 3.6 106-107

nature and order

• ‘the wind and persecutions of the sky’ 2.3 12

• ‘and by the happy hollow of a tree, escaped the hunt’ (about the bounty Gloucester put on him) 2.3 2-3

justice and society   

• ‘He’s dead. I am only sorry he had no other death man.’ (about Oswald)

• ‘most learned justice’ (said by Lear) 3.6 21

clothing and disguise

• ‘The country gives me proof and precedent of Bedlam beggars, who with roaring voices strike in their numbed and mortified bare arms’ 2.3

• ‘I will preserve myself; and am bethought to take the basest and most poorest shape’ 2.3 6-7

• ‘my face I’ll grim with filth, blanket my loins, elf all my hairs in knots and with presented nakedness’ 2.3 9

• ‘I am no less in blood than thou art, Edmund… My name is Edgar’ 5.3 165-167

nothing

• ‘Edgar I nothing am’ 2.3 20

• ‘take the basest and most poorest shape’ 1.3 7

the gods

• ‘the gods are just, and of our pleasant vices make instruments to plague us’ 5.3 168-169

disease and sickness

• ‘who gives anything to Poor Tom, whom the foul fiend hath led through fire and through flame, and through ford and whirlipool e’er bog and quagmire; that hath laid knives under his pillow', and halters in his pew’ 3.4

language

• ‘come on sir; here’s the place. Stand still! How fearful and dizzy’tis to cast one’s eyes so low!’ (to Gloucester) 4.6 11-12

• ‘Tom’s a-cold. Odo de do de do de’ 3.4 55

imagery of animals and monsters

• ‘I will preserve myself, … that ever penury in contempt of man brought near to beast’ 2.3

• ‘the prince of darkness is a gentleman’ 3.4