King Lear Quotes Flashcards
Gloucester’s opinion on Edmund in the opening scene?
‘I have so often blushed to acknowledge him that now I am brazed to’t’
‘There was good sport in his making’
Scene 1 reference to Lear’s ill health?
‘While we unburdened crawl toward death’
RSC - Lear is on a higher position on his throne with an empty hollow underneath him
The task Lear gives to his daughters?
‘Which of you shall we say doth love us most’
Sets competition then is surprised when there is a loser
How much Goneril loves Lear?
‘Sir, I do love you more than word can wield the matter’
Somewhat rehearsed and hyperbolic - reference to formal title reflects lack of parental love
Cordelia’s aside reflecting her distain for the competition?
‘What shall Cordelia speak? Love, and be silent.’
The aside establishes complicity and creates a personal relationship.
Cordelia’s response to her father?
‘Nothing, my lord’
Lear’s response to Cordelia?
‘Nothing will come of nothing. Speak again.’
How does Lear view Cordelia after he response to the love test?
‘So young and so untender?’
‘Here I disclaim all my parental care’
Lear characterises himself as a dragon?
‘Come not between the dragon as his wrath’
How does Kent react to Lear in the first scene?
‘Be Kent unmannerly when Lear is mad. What woudst thou do, old man?’
Does Lear think that Cordelia should have been born?
‘Better thou hadst not been born than not to have pleased me better.’
What does Edgar say in the fake letter?
‘You should enjoy half his revenue’
How does Gloucester react to Edgar’s supposed betrayal?
‘Unnatural, detested, brutish villain - worse than brutish!’ - dramatic irony
How does Edmund think that the world views him?
‘Why brand they us with base? With baseness, bastardy? Base, base?’
What does Edmund want from his brother?
‘Legitimate Edgar, I must have your land.’
What does Edmund want the gods to do?
‘Now gods, stand up for bastards!’
What is an early parallel between Lear and Gloucester?
‘The King falls from bias of nature - there’s father against child’
‘the bond cracked ‘twixt son and father’
Edmund views Gloucester as stupid after he believes the letter?
‘This is the excellent foppery of the world’
Goneril views her father as a child after he moves in with her?
‘Old fools are babes again’
Lear wants to see his fool?
‘Where’s my fool? Ho, I think the world’s asleep’
Lear feels sorry for himself at Goneril’s house?
‘I have perceived a most faint neglect of late’
Why does the Fool think Lear is a fool?
‘All thy other titles thou hast given away; that thou wast born with’
Freudian way that the fool sees Lear as a child?
‘thou mad’st thy daughters thy mothers’
Lear is mean to Goneril?
‘Into her womb convey sterility’
‘How sharper than a serpent’s tooth it is to have a thankless child’
Lear does not want to cry after Goneril is mean to him?
‘Old fond eyes, beweep this cause again, I’ll pluck ye out’
‘I will forget my nature: so kind a father!’
What is the Fool’s words of wisdom when they leave Goneril?
‘Thou shouldst not have been old till thou hadst been wise’
Lear thinks he might be mad after leaving Goneril?
‘O let me not be mad, not mad, sweet heaven! I would not be mad.’
What does Gloucester say when Edgar runs away?
‘Now, Edmund, where’s the villain?’
Beginning of alliance between Edmund and Cornwall?
‘You have shown your father a child-like office’ - means service proper to a son
‘Natures of such deep trust we shall much need; you we first seize on’
What does Edgar become in his soliloquy?
‘To take the basest and most poorest shape’
‘Edgar I nothing am’
Lear talks about how horrible his children are when he goes to Regan’s house?
‘They durst not do’t: They could not, would not do’t - ‘tis worse than murder’
How does Lear talk about his madness as if it were female hysteria?
‘O, how this mother swells up toward my heart!’
Lear’s reaction when Regan does not want to speak with him?
‘Vengeance, plague, death, confusion!’
Syntax becomes broken
How does Lear describe Regan’s actions?
‘sharp-toothed unkindness, like a vulture’
Regan patronises her father when he comes to stay with her?
‘O, sir, you are old’
How does Lear describe Goneril’s actions to Regan?
‘struck me with her tongue most serpent-like’
What question does Lear keep repeating when he sees Kent in the stocks?
‘How came my man i’the stocks?’
What does Lear say when he gets angry at Regan?
‘thou art my flesh, my blood, my daughter, or rather a disease that’s in my flesh’
Lear views man’s life as worthless?
‘man’s life is cheap as beasts’
Lear does not want to cry after Regan is mean to him?
‘let not women’s weapons, water drops, stain my man’s cheeks’
‘you unnatural hags’
‘you think I’ll weep, no, I’ll not weep’
Gloucester’s reaction to Lear’s tantrum?
‘The King is in high rage’
What does Regan say after Lear leaves?
‘O sir, to wilful men the injuries that they themselves procure must be their schoolmasters’
How does Kent describe himself?
‘I am a gentleman of blood and breeding’
What does Lear say in the storm?
‘Blow winds and crack your cheeks! Rage, blow!’
Physical thunder and lighting in the Nunn version
Lear’s hypocritical polyptoton in the storm?
‘I am a man more sinned against than sinning.’
What does Edmund think about the young and old?
‘The younger rises when the old doth fall.’
He moves the letter down to signify the fall
How does Lear compare the storm to his mind?
‘the tempest in my mind doth from my senses take all feeling else’
‘filial ingratitude’
What does Lear say about the poorer areas of his kingdom?
‘O, I have ta’en too little care of this’
What does Edgar say in disguise as Poor Tom?
‘Whom the foul fiend hath led through fire and through flame’
He is wearing a loin cloth
How does Lear see himself in Poor Tom?
‘Nothing could have subdued nature to such lowness but his unkind daughters’
What does the Fool think the effects of the storm will be?
‘This cold night will turn us all to fools and madmen’
What does Gloucester think about his and Lear’s children?
‘Our flesh and blood, my lord is grown so vile’
What does Lear think of Poor Tom?
‘First let me talk with this philosopher’
What does Lear think about the hearts of his daughters?
‘Is there any cause in nature that make these hard hearts?’ - rhetorical question
What does Edgar think about suffering and lonliness?
‘Who alone suffers, suffers most i’the mind’
What does Cornwall say as he plucks out Gloucester’s eyes?
‘Out, vile jelly’
How does Regan make fun of Gloucester after his eyes have been plucked out?
‘Let him smell his way to Dover’
What does Gloucester think about gods?
‘As flies to wanton boys are we to the gods, they kill us for their sport’
Edgar decides to help his father?
‘Give me thy arm, Poor Tom shall lead thee.’
Goneril falls in love with Edmund?
‘She places a chain around his neck’
‘This kiss, if it durst speak, would stretch thy spirits up into the air.’
Goneril insults Albany?
‘Milk-livered man’
‘A moral fool’
Albany insults Goneril?
‘You are not worth the dust which the rude wind blows in your face’
‘See thyself, devil’
Cordelia’s reaction to her father’s treatment?
‘There she shook the holy water from her heavenly eyes’
Regan falls in love with Edmund?
‘Noble Edmund’ - ironic epithet
‘more convenient is he for my hand than for your lady’s’
How Edgar justifies what he does to his father?
In an aside
‘Why I do trifle thus with his despair is done to cure it’
Gloucester becomes depressed?
‘Away and let me die’
Lear battles with his mortality?
‘I am not ague-proof’
In response to Gloucester trying to kiss his hand - ‘Let me wipe it first, it smells of mortality’
Richard Eyre film - Lear is dressed as a homeless man
How Lear describes his daughters when talking to Edgar and Gloucester?
‘Down from the waist they are centaurs, though woman all above’
Lear’s idea about birth?
‘When we are born we cry that we are come to this great stage of fools’
Lear imagines himself leading an army in a revenge battle with a battle cry?
Six exclamatory imperatives - ‘Then kill, kill, kill, kill, kill, kill!
Richard Eyre film - he stabs a bin bag with a horse shoe
Lear quote relating to the wheel of fortune?
‘I am even the natural fool of fortune.’
Cordelia criticises her father?
‘Thy medicine on my lips, and let this kiss repair those violent harms that my two sisters have in thy reverence made.’
We start to feel sorry for Lear when he recognises Cordelia?
‘Methinks I should know you and know this man, yet I am doubtful’
‘I think this lady to be my child Cordelia’
‘If you have poison for me, I will drink it.’
Edmund’s view of Goneril and Regan?
‘Each jealous of the other as the stung are of the adder’ jealous = suspicious
‘Neither can be enjoyed if both remain alive’
How does Edgar reveal what happened in the battle?
‘King Lear hath lost, he and his daughter ta’en.’
RSC version - there is only a tree on stage. We hear audio of the battle and shadows
Edgar talks about life and death?
‘Men must endure their going hence even as their coming hither.’ - links to a Christian endurance
Eyre film - Gloucester feels Edgar’s face
Cordelia’s reaction to being captured?
‘Myself could else outfrown false fortune’s frown’
Lear’s reaction to being captured?
‘No, no, no, no.’
‘We two alone will sing like birds i’the cage’
‘Laugh at gilded butterflies’
Eyre film - they rub noses
Albany insults Goneril again?
‘This gilded serpent’
Edgar reveals to everyone that he is Edgar?
‘My name is Edgar and thy father’s son.’
RSC - he is wearing a helmet
Eyre - Edgar snaps Edmund’s spine
Edmund’s reaction to his death?
‘The wheel is come full circle, I am here’
Allusion to the wheel of fortune
Edmund’s reaction to the death of Goneril and Regan?
‘I was contracted to them both; all three now marry in an instant’
Albany’s reaction to the death of his wife?
‘Produce the bodies, be they alive or dead.’
Lear’s reaction to Cordelia’s death?
‘Howl, howl, howl, howl!’
RSC - she is pushed in on a wooden platform
Kent’s summation of the play’s ending?
‘All’s cheerless, dark and deadly’
What happened to the Fool?
‘And my poor fool is hanged’
Lear believes Cordelia is breathing?
‘Look on her: look, her lips, look there, look there!’
Kent decides to kill himself?
‘My master calls me, I must not say no.’
The final line of the play from Edgar?
‘The oldest hath borne most; we that are young shall never see so much, nor live so long.’
