Lear Quotes Flashcards
Edmund is a bastard
‘[…]a son for her cradle ere she had a husband for her bed. Do you smell a fault?’
‘[…]this knave came something saucily to the world[…]’
Lear wants to retire
‘To shake all cares and business from our age[…] while we crawl unburdened toward death.’
Goneril loves Daddy
‘Dearer than eyesight, space or liberty, beyond what can be valued, rich or rare[…]’
Regan loves Daddy
‘Which the most precious square of sense possesses.’
Cordelia’s spoken love.
‘Nothing, my lord.’
‘Nothing?’
‘Nothing.’
[…]
‘I love your majesty according to my bond, no more nor less.’
Lear is incredulous
‘How, nothing will come of nothing. Speak again.’
Cordelia insinuates her sister have Electra-complexes.
‘Why have my sisters husands, if they say they love you all?’
Lear is furious…with everyone.
‘Thy truth then be thy dower[…]’
‘Peace, Kent, Come not between a dragon and his wrath!’
Oh, France, you old romantic!
‘Fairest Cordelia, that art most rich being poor.’
Edmund is a little shit.
‘Nature, art my goddess.’
Edmund is illegitimate and this upsets him, like the little bitch he is.
‘Why brand they us with base? With baseness, bastardy? Base, base?’
Edmund calls on God to help him
‘Edmund the base shall top the legitimate. I grow, I prosper: Now gods, stand up for bastards.’
The Fool talks about the silly old cuckoo bird.
‘The hedge-sparrow fed the cuckoo too long that it’s had it head bit off by it young’
Lear has a senior dementia moment (Very silly)
‘Who is it who can tell me who I am?’
‘Lear’s shadow.’
Lear is cross that Goneril touched his no-no area
‘I am ashamed that thou hast power to shake my manhood thus[…]’
The Fool thinks Lear is old
‘Thou shouldst not have been old till thou hadst been wise.’
Gloucester’s old heart is frail and fragile.
‘my old heart is cracked, it’s cracked.’
Kent is all sad that Cordelia isn’t there because the realm is falling apart and he is madly in lurve with Lear.
‘Take vantage, heavy eyes, not to behold this shameful lodgings’
Edgar becomes Poor Thomas, or Tom for short.
‘Edgar I nothing am.’
The Fool fails to take his own worldly advice.
‘When a wise man gives thee better council give me mine again; I would have none but knaves follow it since a fool gives it.’
Lear is angry with Cornwall. So angry, that he could become dragon-like again.
My breath and blood! Fiery?
Lear bitches about Goneril to Regan
‘Sharp-toothed unkindness, like a vulture’
‘Struck me with her tongue most serpent-like’
‘Into her scornful eyes, infect her beauty[…]’
Regan has betrayed Lear and demands he returns with Goneril
‘You will return and sojourn with my sister.’
‘Return with her?’ x 3
Lear gets all flesh, blood and paternalistic.
‘But yet thou art my flesh, my blood, my daughter, or rather the disease that’s in my flesh.’
‘Thou art a boil, a plague sore, or an embossed carbuncle in my corrupted blood.’
Regan is being an unreasonable bitch
‘I gave you all - ‘
‘And in good time you gave it.’
It’s not about needs, it’s about wants.
‘O, reason not the need! Our basest beggars are in the poorest thing superfluous. Allow not nature more than nature needs, man’s life is cheap as beast’s’
Lear threatens the sisters.
‘You unnatural hags, I will have such revenges on you both that all the world shall - I will do such things - what they are yet I know not, but they shall e the terrors of the earth!’
Lear’s heart breaks.
‘[…] but this heart shall break into a hundred thousand flaws or e’er I’ll weep. O fool, I shall go mad.’
The front door
Shut up your doors
Lear is driven mad by the weather (storm)
‘Storm still’
‘Blow wind and crack your cheecks! Rage, blow!’
‘Spit fire, spout rain!’
‘Crack nature’s moulds’