Acts IV and V Quotations Test King Lear
"O Goneril . . . monsters of the deep.)" 4.2.38-61 (179-181) (Albany's lines) Speaker: Situation:
Speaker: Albany Situation: When Goneril returns to her castle Summary: You are lower than dirt. I am fearful about your nature which despises its natural source (your father) and cannot have reliable boundaries. You who would tear herself away from your father like a branch tearing itself away from the tree that sustains it (See picture p. 192) will certainly destroy yourself and others. When Goneril states that the theme of the sermon is ridiculous, Albany says that what is true and good seems horrible to horrible people. Those that are foul only like foul things. He describes both Regan and Goneril as tigers (violent beasts). He describes Lear as so honorable that even a bad-tempered bear would lick him and be tamed by him, but you have driven your father insane in a beastly manner. How could Cornwall have allowed the two of you to behave in this way when Lear had given all of you everything? If you are not all immediately punished by God, it will happen. Human beings left on their own will inevitable eat each other like underwater creatures. (Notice the animal imagery- Tigers and underwater monsters- Regan and Goneril)
"No cause, no cause." 4.7.86-87 (221) Speaker: Situation: Summary:
Speaker: Cordelia Situation: When she is reunited with her father Summary: Here we can see that Lear is not the only one who has undergone a change. Now Cordelia has learned not to be silent. She avoids the ambiguity and supposed equivocation that has led to misunderstanding and tragedy. Her affirmation comes as a negative, which shows that something can come of nothing. Love is not a matter of pretty speeches nor of legality of "cause." Love is a bond that transcends both rhetoric and the law, but it requires expression and communication, both voiced and unvoiced. This redemptive vision closes the 4 th act and even the agonizing events to come cannot render this scene as anything but central to the lessons of the play.
"The weight . . . so long." 5.3.392-395 (261) Speaker: Situation: Summary:
Speaker: Edgar Situation: After Lear's death Summary: Edgar, here and throughout the play, is our representative. Here he addresses onstage and offstage audiences. Order has been restored. "We" means the audiences of any time, not just the survivors of Lear's court or the spectators of Jacobean England. Edgar recognizes the appropriateness of their mourning and the importance of speaking what they really feel, rather than making pompous speeches. Lear and Gloucester have suffered more than this generation could ever suffer. These audience members will never live as long as these characters, beyond their onstage deaths, in the play that tells their story. (Notice that there is hope here. Edgar, the meek one, inherits all.)
"Let's exchange charity . . . his eyes." 5.3.200-207 (249) Speaker: Situation: Summary:
Speaker: Edgar Situation: After wounding Edmund Summary: Let's forgive each other. I am of no less honorable descent than you are. There is justice here that fate has punished Gloucester for the pleasure-giving vice of sex with Edmund's mother, which didn't seem like a serious sin at the time, but resulted in his losing his eyes. Because Gloucester's sin is physical (lechery), he is punished physically. (Lear's sin is mental, misjudgment in dismembering his kingdom and misjudging his daughters, so his punishment is madness.) Notice that humans make choices that lead to these consequences rather than fate playing with humans or astrological events determining human affairs.
"Men must endure . . . Ripeness is all." 5.2.10-12 (235) Speaker: Situation: Summary:
Speaker: Edgar Situation: To Gloucester after the French are defeated. Summary: Gloucester has just said he would stay where he is. "A man may rot even here." Human beings must accept death at its time, just as birth, which are both painful experiences. To await the destined time is the most important thing, as fruit falls only when it's ripe (playing on the idea of rotting). (This has similarities to Hamlet's reliance on God's will before the fencing match with Laertes.
"The worst is not/ So long as we can say 'This is the worst.'" 4/1/30-31 (173) Speaker: Situation: Summary:
Speaker: Edgar (Aside) Situation: As he first sees his blinded father Summary: If we can control language to the extent that we can make a statement about something, things can still get worse. What is unutterable, inexpressible, is the worst that could happen. This silence implied here is similar to and yet different from the silence of Cordelia in Act 1. Then, she refuses to barter her words of "love" for 1/3 of the kingdom. By remaining silent she expresses her integrity and her recognition that there are feelings and truths that cannot be expressed by words. She also shows a stubbornness in refusing to compromise that is related to Lear's "all or nothing" approach to life. While the silence that Edgar implies would occur in the worst circumstances, the limitation of language's ability to express all feelings and truths makes these statements similar.
"Some good . . . own nature." 5.3.291-293 (253-255) Speaker: Situation: Summary:
Speaker: Edmund Situation: After being wounded by Edgar Summary: Edmund attempts to undo some of his evil, showing how Edgar's nobility and the nearness to death affect even this villain. Human nature with all of its flaws which seems to rule in the first four acts is in part defeated in Act Five in favor of something like Grace.
"The wheel is come full circle; I am here." 5.3.209 (249) Speaker: Situation: Summary:
Speaker: Edmund Situation: After he is wounded by Edgar Summary: Fortune's wheel was often pictured as drawing one up to a position of power and then casting one down as it continues to turn. Edmund is "here" at the bottom of the wheel where he started. Edmund gives voice to a fatalistic, cyclic view of human history which is contrasted to another pattern associated with classical tragedy and Judeo-Christian culture, a linear view- the idea of the fortunate fall. One is reborn into knowledge. Even the audience can be reborn by catharsis. (Think of Oedipus). Progress can be made.
"Know thou this . . . a sword." 5.3.35-37 (237) Speaker: Situation: Summary:
Speaker: Edmund Situation: To his captain when he hands him instructions to kill Cordelia and Lear Summary: These lines express Edmund's ruthless personality. He believes that humans have no timeless or eternal principles. They merely go along with whatever the times call for. To be kind is not fitting for a soldier. These situation ethics prove not be as enduring as the values of charity, love, and sacrifice exemplified by Edgar.
"As flies . . . for their sport." 4.1.41-42 (173) Speaker: Situation: Summary:
Speaker: Gloucester Situation: As he is led away from his castle and delivered into to care of Poor Tom (Edgar) Summary: In the same way that playful boys kill flies for fun do the gods kill us. Notice Gloucester's paganism and fatalism, which fits in with his trust in astrology. He is on his way to commit suicide, another instance of his ignorance of his need to rely on God. (Hamlet has the same tendency until near the end of the play.) The ending of the play shows the Christian solution of mercy, forgiveness, and sacrifice as triumphing over the sort of paganism and glorification of instinct represented by the elder daughters and Edmund.
"I have no way . . . commodities." 4.1.19-22 (173) Speaker: Situation: Summary:
Speaker: Gloucester Situation: Speaking to an old man, his tenant, as he makes his way blind from his castle. Summary: He now has "no way," no path, no responsibilities. Now he recognizes his interior blindness. Notice the paradoxes. Our resources, while in prosperity, make us careless or overconfident. The word "mere" for Shakespeare means "totally" or absolutely. So, our total deficiencies are actually our advantages. Lear learns this in the course of the play when he is reduced to a frail human being in a terrifying storm. Kent, always a virtuous man, recognizes the "miracles" that someone experiencing suffering may see. Edgar, another virtuous man, assumes the guise of "Poor Tom" and exposes himself to the harsh elements in order to care for his father, so his "mere defects" prove advantageous.
"Milk-livered man . . . why does he so?" 4.2.62-72 (181) Speaker: Situation: Summary:
Speaker: Goneril Situation: To Albany when she first arrives at her castle Summary: You cowardly man who, when you are struck, turn the other cheek, who cannot tell the difference between what must be resisted in the defense of your honor and what may be permitted, who doesn't know that only fools have pity on villains who are punished before they can do harm. Where are your preparations for war? The King of France is marching on our peaceful country and with a feathered helmet starts to threaten your power. You are a moralizing idiot who, instead of acting, asks why France is invading. Notice that the qualities that Goneril condemns in her husband are shared by Kent, Cordelia, and Edgar, and her condemnation reveals her own code of conduct.
"And my poor fool . . . there!" 5.3.369-375 (259) Speaker: Situation: Summary:
Speaker: Lear Situation: After Cordelia's death and right before his own Summary: "fool"- a term of endearment for Cordelia (Some critics see this as recalling his own fool also, who disappeared earlier) Lear is overwhelmed with sorrow at the finality of Cordelia's death. The two lines can be interpreted in two ways. A. As he nears his own death his last vision of Cordelia is that of her risen from the dead- alive- and he dies happy. B. (More popular in modern productions) In his delirium he imagines that she is alive because he cannot accept the horror of her death.
"They flattered me . . . ague-proof." 4.6115-124 (203) Speaker: Situation: Summary:
Speaker: Lear Situation: As Lear wanders in his madness and meets Gloucester Summary: He describes Goneril and Regan as fawning dogs who told him that he had great wisdom even before he was old and agreed with everything he said, which was not good theology because they were insincere. (James 5:12: "Let you yea be yea and your nay,nay.") When I was out in the storm, I began to understand them. ("Go to." means Go to hell.) They were dishonest in telling me I was "everything." I'm not immune to illness. The storm has taught Lear his real place in the universe. Both Lear and Gloucester make the mistake of thinking they are everything. Both are tortured by that haunting word "nothing" until they become nothing. The play moves from its first scene of everything- accommodation, comfort , luxury, security- to nothing but basic, unadorned humanity. Now Lear has a clear understanding of his lack of self-knowledge which is the cause of so much suffering.
"Come, let's away to prison . . . throw incense." 5.3.9-23 (235-237) Speaker: Situation: Summary:
Speaker: Lear Situation: To Cordelia after their capture Summary: Now Lear has made the choice he should have made in the beginning. He has allied himself with those who, in the world's sense, are fools, and he is prepared to accept the alienation from the world that this requires. He doesn't even want to see his other daughters and eagerly accepts the prison that marks his withdrawal from the world's values, for he has his own new values to sustain. He and Cordelia will sing, pray, tell stories, make fun of gaudy courtiers ("gilded butterflies"), listen to and engage in gossip about the court, and outlast all the ambitious and foolish courtiers. We will be in the world but not of the world. Even the gods will appreciate this sacrifice.
