SHAKESPEARE, WILLIAM: King Lear

King Lear

by

William Shakespeare

Quotes for Discussion

Goneril: You see how full of changes his age is, the observation we have made of it hath not been little. He always loved our sister most; and with what poor judgement he hath not cast her off appears too grossly.

Regan: "Tis the infirmity of his age. Yet he hath ever but slenderly know himself.

Goneril: the best and soundest of his time hath been but rash; then must we look to receive from his age, not alone the imperfections of long engraffed condition, but therewithal the unruly waywardness that infirm and choleric years bring with them.
Shakespeare, King Lear, Act 1, Scene 1, Great Books Volume 27, pg 247

Edmund: It is his hand, my lord, but I hope his heart is not in the contents
Earl of Gloucester: Hath he never heretofore sounded you in this business?
Edmund: Never, my lord; but I have hear him oft maintain it to be fit that, sons at perfect age, and fathers declining, the father should be as ward to the son, and the son manage his revenue.
Shakespeare, King Lear, Act 1, Scene 2, Great Books Volume 27, pg 248

King Lear: What services canst thou do?
Earl of Kent: I can keep honest counsel, ride, run, mar a curious tale in telling it, and deliver a plain message bluntly. That which ordinary men are fit fore, I am qualified in, and the best of me is diligence.
King Lear: How old art thou?
Earl of Kent: Not so young, sir to love a woman for singing, nor to old to dote on her for anything. I have years on my back forty-eight.
King Lear: Follow me; thou shalt serve me. If I like thee mo worse after dinner, I will not part from thee yet. Dinner, ho, dinner! Where's my knave? my Fool? Go you and call my Fool hither.

Shakespeare, King Lear, Act 1, Scene 4, Great Books Volume 27, pg 250

Fool: Mark it, nuncle:
Have more than thou showest

Speak less than thou knowest

Lend less than thou owest,

Ride more than thou goest,
Learn more than thou trowest,

Set less than though throwest,

Leave thy drink and thy whore,

And keep in-a-door

And thou shalt have more

Than two tens to a score.
Shakespeare, King Lear, Act 1, Scene 4, Great Books Volume 27, pg 250

Fool: I marvel what kin thou and thy daughters are. They'll have me whipped for speaking true, thou'lt have me whipped for lying; and sometimes I am whipped for holding my peace. I had rather be any kind o' think than a Fool; and yet I would not be thee, nuncle; thou hast pared thy wit o' both sides, and left nothing i' the middle. Here comes one o' the parings.
Shakespeare, King Lear, Act 1, Scene 4, Great Books Volume 27, pg 252

Earl of Kent: Fellow, I know thee.
Oswald: Why dost thou know me for?
Earl of Kent: A knave; a rascal; an eater of broken meats; a base, proud, shallow, beggarly, three-suited, hundred-pound, filthy, worsted-stocking knave; a lily-livered, action-taking knave, a whoreson, glass-gazing, superserviceable, finical rogue; one-trunk-inheriting slave; one that wouldst be a bawd, in way of good service, and art nothing but the composition of a knave, beggar, coward, pandar, and the son and heir of a mongrel bitch; one whom I will beat into clamouous whining, if thou deniest the least syllable of thy addition.
Shakespeare, King Lear, Act 2, Scene 2, Great Books Volume 27, pg 256

Earl of Kent: Who's there, besides foul weather?
Shakespeare, King Lear, Act 3, Scene 1, Great Books Volume 27, pg 262

King Lear: Blow, winds, and crack your cheeks! rage! blows!
Shakespeare, King Lear, Act 3, Scene 1, Great Books Volume 27, pg 262

Edgar: "Child Rowland to the dark tower came, his word was still:

'Fie, foh, and fum. I smell the blood of a British man.' "
Shakespeare, King Lear, Act 3, Scene 3, Great Books Volume 27, pg 266

Edgar: Away, old man; give me thy hand; away! King Lear hath lost, he and his daughter ta'en. Give me thy hand; come on.

Earl of Gloucester: No farther sir; a man may rot even here.

Edgar: What, in ill thoughts again? Men must endure their going hence, even as their coming hither; Ripeness is all. Come on.

Earl of Gloucester: And that's true too.
Shakespeare, King Lear, Act 5, Scene 1, Great Books Volume 27, pg 278

VOCABULARY - KING LEAR
Great Books Volume 27

nuncle, pg 251

From the phrases an uncle, mine uncle. A nondescript term pertaining to a member within a close group of friends, used by another within the same group. The term is somewhat endearing