Act 5 Summary Flashcards
Act 5, Scene 1
-Edmund has command of Regan’s troops as C-Dog is dead
-R questions him about his relationship with G
-Edmund insist his only love for G is ‘In honoured love’
-G+Albany pull up
-G convinces everyone to ‘Combine together gainst the enemy, For these domestic and particular broils Are not the question here’
-Edgar stops Albany and gives him a letter saying ‘If you have victory, let the trumpet sound’ and ‘a champion’ will step forward to prove the truth of the letter
-soliloquy: Edmund tells the audience that he has sworn his love to both G+R and asks ‘Which of them shall I take?’
-also intents to stop the pardon which Albany intents to give Lear and Cordelia for siding with French
Act 5, Scene 2
-battle rages
-Edgar lets Gloucester rest
-returns with news: ‘King Lear hath lost, he and his daughter ta’en’
-Gloucester wants to stay where he is saying ‘a man may rot even here’
-Edgar leads him away
Act 5, Scene 3
-Edmund order officers to lock up Lear and Cordelia
-Edmund secretly sends his captain after them with a notes to ensure they are both put to death
-Albany comes in with R+G who argue over Edmund
-R announces her intention to make Edmund her ‘lord and master’
-R begins to feel very ill and G admits to the audience she has poisoned her sister
-Albany has Edmund arrested for ‘capital treason’ and calls G a ‘gilded serpent’ for her betrayal in promising to marry Edmund if he kills her hubby
-trumpet sound: Edgar steps forward in armour covering his face + Edgar accuses Edmund of being a traitor + brothers fight and Edmund is defeated
-Edmund admits ‘What you have charged me with, that I have done And more, much more’
-Edgar reveals who he really is and his disguises
-Edgar describes who he finally told his father everything and ‘asked his blessing’ to fight duel
-Gloucester’s heart ‘Burst smilingly’ and he died
-Edmund gets inspired and says ‘This speech of yours hath moved me, And shall perchance do good’
-GENTLEMAN interrupts them with a bloody knife taken from G’s heart and tells Albany that G died after confession that ‘her sister By her is poisoned’
-Kent pulls up as himself
-Albany orders bodies to be brought on to the state
-Edmund: ‘Yet Edmund was beloved: The one the other poisoned for my sake And after slew herself’
-Edmund confesses he has ordered for Lear and Cordelia to be killed
-Albany dispatches men to try to save them
-Lear enters carrying body of Cordelia (‘Howl, Howl, Howl’)
-Lear dies and Kent wonders how ‘he hath endured so long’
-Albany and Edgar are left with a Kingdom to rule + consider how they can ‘Speak what we feel, not what ought to say’
