Act 1, Scene 1

A Room of State in King Lear's Palace.

[Enter Kent, Gloster, and Edmund.]
Kent
1 I thought the King had more affected the Duke of Albany than
2 Cornwall.
Gloucester
3 It did always seem so to us; but now, in the division of the
4 kingdom, it appears not which of the Dukes he values most, for
5 equalities are so weighed that curiosity in neither can make
6 choice of either's moiety.
Kent
7 Is not this your son, my lord?
Gloucester
8 His breeding, sir, hath been at my charge: I have so often
9 blush'd to acknowledge him that now I am braz'd to't.
Kent
10 I cannot conceive you.
Gloucester
11 Sir, this young fellow's mother could: whereupon she grew
12 round-wombed, and had indeed, sir, a son for her cradle ere she
13 had a husband for her bed. Do you smell a fault?
Kent
14 I cannot wish the fault undone, the issue of it being so proper.
Gloucester
15 But I have, sir, a son by order of law, some year elder than
16 this, who yet is no dearer in my account: though this knave came
17 something saucily into the world before he was sent for, yet was
18 his mother fair; there was good sport at his making, and the
19 whoreson must be acknowledged.—Do you know this noble gentleman,
20 Edmund?
Edmund
21 No, my lord.
Gloucester
22 My Lord of Kent: remember him hereafter as my honourable friend.
Edmund
23 My services to your lordship.
Kent
24 I must love you, and sue to know you better.
Edmund
25 Sir, I shall study deserving.
Gloucester
26 He hath been out nine years, and away he shall again.—The king
27 is coming.
[Sennet within.]
[Enter Lear, Cornwall, Albany, Goneril, Regan, Cordelia, and Attendants.]
King Lear
28 Attend the lords of France and Burgundy,
29 Gloster.
Gloucester
30 I shall, my liege.
[Exeunt Gloster and Edmund.]
King Lear
31 Meantime we shall express our darker purpose.—
32 Give me the map there.—Know that we have divided
33 In three our kingdom: and 'tis our fast intent
34 To shake all cares and business from our age;
35 Conferring them on younger strengths, while we
36 Unburden'd crawl toward death.—Our son of Cornwall,
37 And you, our no less loving son of Albany,
38 We have this hour a constant will to publish
39 Our daughters' several dowers, that future strife
40 May be prevented now. The princes, France and Burgundy,
41 Great rivals in our youngest daughter's love,
42 Long in our court have made their amorous sojourn,
43 And here are to be answer'd.—Tell me, my daughters,—
44 Since now we will divest us both of rule,
45 Interest of territory, cares of state,—
46 Which of you shall we say doth love us most?
47 That we our largest bounty may extend
48 Where nature doth with merit challenge.—Goneril,
49 Our eldest-born, speak first.
Goneril
50 Sir, I love you more than words can wield the matter;
51 Dearer than eyesight, space, and liberty;
52 Beyond what can be valu'd, rich or rare;
53 No less than life, with grace, health, beauty, honour;
54 As much as child e'er lov'd, or father found;
55 A love that makes breath poor and speech unable;
56 Beyond all manner of so much I love you.
[Aside.]
Cordelia
57 What shall Cordelia speak? Love, and be silent.
King Lear
58 Of all these bounds, even from this line to this,
59 With shadowy forests and with champains rich'd,
60 With plenteous rivers and wide-skirted meads,
61 We make thee lady: to thine and Albany's issue
62 Be this perpetual.—What says our second daughter,
63 Our dearest Regan, wife to Cornwall? Speak.
Regan
64 Sir, I am made of the selfsame metal that my sister is,
65 And prize me at her worth. In my true heart
66 I find she names my very deed of love;
67 Only she comes too short,—that I profess
68 Myself an enemy to all other joys
69 Which the most precious square of sense possesses,
70 And find I am alone felicitate
71 In your dear highness' love.
[Aside.]
Cordelia
72 Then poor Cordelia!
73 And yet not so; since, I am sure, my love's
74 More richer than my tongue.
King Lear
75 To thee and thine hereditary ever
76 Remain this ample third of our fair kingdom;
77 No less in space, validity, and pleasure
78 Than that conferr'd on Goneril.—Now, our joy,
79 Although the last, not least; to whose young love
80 The vines of France and milk of Burgundy
81 Strive to be interess'd; what can you say to draw
82 A third more opulent than your sisters? Speak.
Cordelia
83 Nothing, my lord.
King Lear
84 Nothing!
Cordelia
85 Nothing.
King Lear
86 Nothing can come of nothing: speak again.
Cordelia
87 Unhappy that I am, I cannot heave
88 My heart into my mouth: I love your majesty
89 According to my bond; no more nor less.
King Lear
90 How, how, Cordelia? mend your speech a little,
91 Lest you may mar your fortunes.
Cordelia
92 Good my lord,
93 You have begot me, bred me, lov'd me: I
94 Return those duties back as are right fit,
95 Obey you, love you, and most honour you.
96 Why have my sisters husbands if they say
97 They love you all? Haply, when I shall wed,
98 That lord whose hand must take my plight shall carry
99 Half my love with him, half my care and duty:
100 Sure I shall never marry like my sisters,
101 To love my father all.
King Lear
102 But goes thy heart with this?
Cordelia
103 Ay, good my lord.
King Lear
104 So young, and so untender?
Cordelia
105 So young, my lord, and true.
King Lear
106 Let it be so,—thy truth then be thy dower:
107 For, by the sacred radiance of the sun,
108 The mysteries of Hecate, and the night;
109 By all the operation of the orbs,
110 From whom we do exist and cease to be;
111 Here I disclaim all my paternal care,
112 Propinquity, and property of blood,
113 And as a stranger to my heart and me
114 Hold thee, from this for ever. The barbarous Scythian,
115 Or he that makes his generation messes
116 To gorge his appetite, shall to my bosom
117 Be as well neighbour'd, pitied, and reliev'd,
118 As thou my sometime daughter.
Kent
119 Good my liege,—
King Lear
120 Peace, Kent!
121 Come not between the dragon and his wrath.
122 I lov'd her most, and thought to set my rest
123 On her kind nursery.—Hence, and avoid my sight!—
[To Cordelia.]
King Lear
124 So be my grave my peace, as here I give
125 Her father's heart from her!—Call France;—who stirs?
126 Call Burgundy!—Cornwall and Albany,
127 With my two daughters' dowers digest this third:
128 Let pride, which she calls plainness, marry her.
129 I do invest you jointly in my power,
130 Pre-eminence, and all the large effects
131 That troop with majesty.—Ourself, by monthly course,
132 With reservation of an hundred knights,
133 By you to be sustain'd, shall our abode
134 Make with you by due turns. Only we still retain
135 The name, and all the additions to a king;
136 The sway,
137 Revenue, execution of the rest,
138 Beloved sons, be yours; which to confirm,
139 This coronet part betwixt you.
[Giving the crown.]
Kent
140 Royal Lear,
141 Whom I have ever honour'd as my king,
142 Lov'd as my father, as my master follow'd,
143 As my great patron thought on in my prayers.—
King Lear
144 The bow is bent and drawn; make from the shaft.
Kent
145 Let it fall rather, though the fork invade
146 The region of my heart: be Kent unmannerly
147 When Lear is mad. What wouldst thou do, old man?
148 Think'st thou that duty shall have dread to speak
149 When power to flattery bows? To plainness honour's bound
150 When majesty falls to folly. Reverse thy state;
151 And in thy best consideration check
152 This hideous rashness: answer my life my judgment,
153 Thy youngest daughter does not love thee least;
154 Nor are those empty-hearted whose low sound
155 Reverbs no hollowness.
King Lear
156 Kent, on thy life, no more.
Kent
157 My life I never held but as a pawn
158 To wage against thine enemies; nor fear to lose it,
159 Thy safety being the motive.
King Lear
160 Out of my sight!
Kent
161 See better, Lear; and let me still remain
162 The true blank of thine eye.
King Lear
163 Now, by Apollo,—
Kent
164 Now by Apollo, king,
165 Thou swear'st thy gods in vain.
King Lear
166 O vassal! miscreant!
[Laying his hand on his sword.]
Albany and Cornwall
167 Dear sir, forbear!
Kent
168 Do;
169 Kill thy physician, and the fee bestow
170 Upon the foul disease. Revoke thy gift,
171 Or, whilst I can vent clamour from my throat,
172 I'll tell thee thou dost evil.
King Lear
173 Hear me, recreant!
174 On thine allegiance, hear me!—
175 Since thou hast sought to make us break our vow,—
176 Which we durst never yet,—and with strain'd pride
177 To come between our sentence and our power,—
178 Which nor our nature nor our place can bear,—
179 Our potency made good, take thy reward.
180 Five days we do allot thee for provision
181 To shield thee from diseases of the world;
182 And on the sixth to turn thy hated back
183 Upon our kingdom: if, on the tenth day following,
184 Thy banish'd trunk be found in our dominions,
185 The moment is thy death. Away! by Jupiter,
186 This shall not be revok'd.
Kent
187 Fare thee well, king: sith thus thou wilt appear,
188 Freedom lives hence, and banishment is here.—
[To Cordelia.]
Kent
189 The gods to their dear shelter take thee, maid,
190 That justly think'st and hast most rightly said!
[To Regan and Goneril.]
Kent
191 And your large speeches may your deeds approve,
192 That good effects may spring from words of love.—
193 Thus Kent, O princes, bids you all adieu;
194 He'll shape his old course in a country new.
[Exit.]
[Flourish. Re-enter Gloster, with France, Burgundy, and Attendants.]
Gloucester
195 Here's France and Burgundy, my noble lord.
King Lear
196 My Lord of Burgundy,
197 We first address toward you, who with this king
198 Hath rivall'd for our daughter: what in the least
199 Will you require in present dower with her,
200 Or cease your quest of love?
Duke of Burgundy
201 Most royal majesty,
202 I crave no more than hath your highness offer'd,
203 Nor will you tender less.
King Lear
204 Right noble Burgundy,
205 When she was dear to us, we did hold her so;
206 But now her price is fall'n. Sir, there she stands:
207 If aught within that little seeming substance,
208 Or all of it, with our displeasure piec'd,
209 And nothing more, may fitly like your grace,
210 She's there, and she is yours.
Duke of Burgundy
211 I know no answer.
King Lear
212 Will you, with those infirmities she owes,
213 Unfriended, new-adopted to our hate,
214 Dower'd with our curse, and stranger'd with our oath,
215 Take her, or leave her?
Duke of Burgundy
216 Pardon me, royal sir;
217 Election makes not up on such conditions.
King Lear
218 Then leave her, sir; for, by the power that made me,
219 I tell you all her wealth.—
[To France]
King Lear
220 For you, great king,
221 I would not from your love make such a stray
222 To match you where I hate; therefore beseech you
223 To avert your liking a more worthier way
224 Than on a wretch whom nature is asham'd
225 Almost to acknowledge hers.
King of France
226 This is most strange,
227 That she, who even but now was your best object,
228 The argument of your praise, balm of your age,
229 Most best, most dearest, should in this trice of time
230 Commit a thing so monstrous, to dismantle
231 So many folds of favour. Sure her offence
232 Must be of such unnatural degree
233 That monsters it, or your fore-vouch'd affection
234 Fall'n into taint; which to believe of her
235 Must be a faith that reason without miracle
236 Should never plant in me.
Cordelia
237 I yet beseech your majesty,—
238 If for I want that glib and oily art
239 To speak and purpose not; since what I well intend,
240 I'll do't before I speak,—that you make known
241 It is no vicious blot, murder, or foulness,
242 No unchaste action or dishonour'd step,
243 That hath depriv'd me of your grace and favour;
244 But even for want of that for which I am richer,—
245 A still-soliciting eye, and such a tongue
246 As I am glad I have not, though not to have it
247 Hath lost me in your liking.
King Lear
248 Better thou
249 Hadst not been born than not to have pleas'd me better.
King of France
250 Is it but this,—a tardiness in nature
251 Which often leaves the history unspoke
252 That it intends to do?—My lord of Burgundy,
253 What say you to the lady? Love's not love
254 When it is mingled with regards that stands
255 Aloof from the entire point. Will you have her?
256 She is herself a dowry.
Duke of Burgundy
257 Royal king,
258 Give but that portion which yourself propos'd,
259 And here I take Cordelia by the hand,
260 Duchess of Burgundy.
King Lear
261 Nothing: I have sworn; I am firm.
Duke of Burgundy
262 I am sorry, then, you have so lost a father
263 That you must lose a husband.
Cordelia
264 Peace be with Burgundy!
265 Since that respects of fortune are his love,
266 I shall not be his wife.
King of France
267 Fairest Cordelia, that art most rich, being poor;
268 Most choice, forsaken; and most lov'd, despis'd!
269 Thee and thy virtues here I seize upon:
270 Be it lawful, I take up what's cast away.
271 Gods, gods! 'tis strange that from their cold'st neglect
272 My love should kindle to inflam'd respect.—
273 Thy dowerless daughter, king, thrown to my chance,
274 Is queen of us, of ours, and our fair France:
275 Not all the dukes of waterish Burgundy
276 Can buy this unpriz'd precious maid of me.—
277 Bid them farewell, Cordelia, though unkind:
278 Thou losest here, a better where to find.
King Lear
279 Thou hast her, France: let her be thine; for we
280 Have no such daughter, nor shall ever see
281 That face of hers again.—Therefore be gone
282 Without our grace, our love, our benison.—
283 Come, noble Burgundy.
[Flourish. Exeunt Lear, Burgundy, Cornwall, Albany, Gloster, and Attendants.]
King of France
284 Bid farewell to your sisters.
Cordelia
285 The jewels of our father, with wash'd eyes
286 Cordelia leaves you: I know you what you are;
287 And, like a sister, am most loath to call
288 Your faults as they are nam'd. Love well our father:
289 To your professed bosoms I commit him:
290 But yet, alas, stood I within his grace,
291 I would prefer him to a better place.
292 So, farewell to you both.
Regan
293 Prescribe not us our duties.
Goneril
294 Let your study
295 Be to content your lord, who hath receiv'd you
296 At fortune's alms. You have obedience scanted,
297 And well are worth the want that you have wanted.
Cordelia
298 Time shall unfold what plighted cunning hides:
299 Who cover faults, at last shame them derides.
300 Well may you prosper!
King of France
301 Come, my fair Cordelia.
[Exeunt France and Cordelia.]
Goneril
302 Sister, it is not little I have to say of what most nearly
303 appertains to us both. I think our father will hence to-night.
Regan
304 That's most certain, and with you; next month with us.
Goneril
305 You see how full of changes his age is; the observation we
306 have made of it hath not been little: he always loved our
307 sister most; and with what poor judgment he hath now cast her
308 off appears too grossly.
Regan
309 'Tis the infirmity of his age: yet he hath ever but slenderly
310 known himself.
Goneril
311 The best and soundest of his time hath been but rash; then must
312 we look to receive from his age, not alone the imperfections of
313 long-ingraffed condition, but therewithal the unruly waywardness
314 that infirm and choleric years bring with them.
Regan
315 Such unconstant starts are we like to have from him as this of
316 Kent's banishment.
Goneril
317 There is further compliment of leave-taking between France and
318 him. Pray you let us hit together: if our father carry authority
319 with such dispositions as he bears, this last surrender of his
320 will but offend us.
Regan
321 We shall further think of it.
Goneril
322 We must do something, and i' th' heat.
[Exeunt.]

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Notes

TLN 5archaic vocab
“equalities are so weighed that curiosity in neither can make choice of either's moiety”
'Curiosity' here means careful scrutiny or close examination, not idle interest. A 'moiety' is a portion or share. Gloucester is telling Kent that the two dukes' portions of the kingdom are so precisely balanced that the most careful inspection cannot say which is more valuable.
TLN 8archaic vocab
“I have so often blush'd to acknowledge him that now I am braz'd to't”
'Braz'd' means hardened, as if annealed in brass or made calloused by repeated blushes. Gloucester has been embarrassed so many times for having an illegitimate son that the shame no longer registers — he has been brazened into indifference.
TLN 15historical topical
“a son by order of law, some year elder than this”
'By order of law' means legitimate — born inside a legal marriage. Under English common law, a legitimate elder son inherited his father's titles and estate; a bastard son had no legal claim at all. Gloucester's casual disclosure that his legitimate son Edgar is only marginally older than his illegitimate Edmund — and that he regards them with equal affection — plants the resentment Edmund will act on.
TLN 26historical topical
“He hath been out nine years, and away he shall again”
Edmund has been living abroad ('out'), away from his father's household, for nine years and is about to be sent away again. Sending a bastard son overseas — to an army, to a foreign court, to school on the continent — was standard practice among Elizabethan gentry who lacked a settled place for such children at home. Gloucester's casual dismissal of Edmund in the same sentence that introduces him to Kent reinforces Edmund's grievance.
TLN 31archaic vocab
“we shall express our darker purpose”
'Darker' means more hidden or private, not sinister: Lear is about to reveal a purpose he has kept secret until this moment. The royal 'we' is the first-person plural a king uses for himself, marking the formal, official register of the announcement to come.
TLN 32historical topical
“Give me the map there.—Know that we have divided In three our kingdom”
Lear produces a physical map and announces he has already divided Britain into three portions — one for each daughter and her husband. The map makes the partition a visible, theatrical act: the kingdom is something that can be cut up and handed out. To a Jacobean audience who knew King James I was pressing Parliament to unite England and Scotland into one 'Great Britain,' a king dividing a unified island into three pieces would have read as a self-evident disaster.
historical The division of the kingdom and the Union
TLN 39historical topical
“Our daughters' several dowers, that future strife May be prevented now”
'Several' means separate or respective (each daughter's own portion). A 'dower' was the land or property settled on a bride as part of the marriage arrangement; here Lear is assigning the kingdom itself as dowry. By announcing all three shares now, he hopes to forestall quarrels after his death. The irony is that his announcement produces the catastrophe it was meant to prevent.
TLN 44historical topical
“we will divest us both of rule, Interest of territory, cares of state”
'Divest' means to strip off, as one takes off a garment. Lear proposes to remove from himself the actual power of kingship — governance, territory, administration. 'Interest of territory' means legal title to the land. The play's defining tragedy is that Lear tries to give away the substance of kingship while keeping its symbols; the theory that a king has two inseparable bodies — the natural man and the undying royal office — holds that such a separation is impossible.
historical The king's two bodies
TLN 59archaic vocab
“shadowy forests and with champains rich'd, With plenteous rivers and wide-skirted meads”
'Champains' (also 'champaigns') are open flat plains or fields — the French word came into English for wide, unwooded countryside. 'Wide-skirted meads' are broad meadows. Lear's description of Goneril's third as forests, open plains, rivers, and meadows is a miniature geography of Britain's landscape types, making the division concrete and territorial.
TLN 88archaic vocab
“I love your majesty According to my bond; no more nor less”
'Bond' means the natural obligation that binds a child to a parent — the duty owed by virtue of the relationship itself, not additional to it. Cordelia is not being cold; she is saying she loves Lear exactly as much as a daughter is bound to love a father, which is to say genuinely and completely. The play's tragedy hinges on Lear's inability to hear 'bond' as a word of love rather than a legal minimum.
TLN 98archaic vocab
“That lord whose hand must take my plight shall carry Half my love with him, half my care and duty”
'Plight' here means a solemn pledge or faith — specifically, the troth-plight of betrothal or marriage, when two people pledge their hands and faith to each other. Cordelia is saying that when she marries, her husband will rightfully claim half the love she now gives entirely to her father. This is theologically and legally orthodox — Ephesians 5:31 and the marriage service both held that a wife cleaves to her husband — but Lear, who has confused private paternal love with royal entitlement, cannot accept it.
TLN 107classical allusion
“by the sacred radiance of the sun, The mysteries of Hecate, and the night; By all the operation of the orbs”
Lear swears by three pagan powers: the sun, Hecate (the Greek goddess of magic and night), and the influence of the heavenly bodies (planets and stars). The play is set in a pre-Christian, pagan Britain, so characters invoke gods of nature and the heavens rather than the Christian God. This triple oath — sky, underworld goddess, and the stars — is a solemn, cosmic form of cursing Cordelia.
classical Triple Hecate
TLN 111archaic vocab
“Here I disclaim all my paternal care, Propinquity, and property of blood”
'Propinquity' means nearness of kinship — the state of being closely related. 'Property of blood' means the rights and claims that belong to the blood relationship between parent and child. Lear is doing something that Elizabethans would have recognized as legally and morally impossible: a father cannot simply dissolve the natural bond with his child by declaring it void.
TLN 114classical allusion
“The barbarous Scythian, Or he that makes his generation messes To gorge his appetite”
The Scythians were nomadic peoples of the Eurasian steppe who, in ancient Greek and Roman writing, were the archetype of savagery — the farthest-flung, most uncivilized people imaginable. Ancient sources also attributed to certain peoples (sometimes the Scythians, sometimes Thyestean figures in myth) the cannibalistic eating of their own offspring. Lear is saying that even such a monster — who eats his own children — will be closer to his heart than Cordelia.
TLN 121historical topical
“Come not between the dragon and his wrath”
The dragon was the heraldic emblem of the ancient kings of Britain: the Red Dragon, still the symbol of Wales today, was the standard of the legendary Brutus and the British kings his line produced — the lineage in which the Lear legend places the king. Lear calling himself 'the dragon' is a claim of legendary British royal identity, not merely a figure for his anger.
historical King Leir and legendary Britain
TLN 122archaic vocab
“I lov'd her most, and thought to set my rest On her kind nursery”
'Set my rest' is a phrase from the card game primero: to stake everything on a single hand, making one's final stand. 'Nursery' means tender care, the act of nursing the aged — Lear had planned to live out his days cared for by Cordelia. The gambling image is precise: he wagered his comfort on a love-test and lost.
TLN 129historical topical
“I do invest you jointly in my power, Pre-eminence, and all the large effects That troop with majesty”
'The large effects that troop with majesty' means the outward signs of royal authority that accompany kingship — armed retinue, ceremony, precedence, obedience from subjects. Lear is handing over the real instruments of power to Cornwall and Albany. In the very next breath he declares he will keep 'the name and all the additions to a king' — the title — but without the substance. Kent will call this madness.
historical The great chain of being (order and degree)
TLN 139stage direction note
“This coronet part betwixt you”
A coronet is a small crown worn by nobles below the rank of monarch; it is not the royal crown itself. Lear hands a ducal coronet — the token of Cordelia's share of the kingdom — to Cornwall and Albany to split. The act of dividing a crown between two men on stage is a visual symbol of the sundering of the kingdom, and Cornwall and Albany exchange an awkward silence before Kent speaks: neither takes it. The staging literalizes what is being broken.
TLN 144archaic vocab
“The bow is bent and drawn; make from the shaft”
'Make from the shaft' means get out of the path of the arrow — stand aside before it is released. Lear is warning Kent to back off: the decision is made and the shot is about to be fired. Kent refuses, saying he would rather take the arrow through the heart than abandon honest service. The image of an unstoppable projectile recurs as a metaphor for Lear's irrevocable judgments throughout the scene.
TLN 154rhetorical device
“those empty-hearted whose low sound Reverbs no hollowness”
Kent uses the physics of sound as a metaphor for sincerity: a hollow vessel makes a loud echo ('reverbs hollowness'), but a solid one does not. Those whose loud professions of love ring out most clearly are the empty ones — Goneril and Regan. Those like Cordelia who speak softly are full, not hollow. The reverb image inverts the obvious equation of volume with substance.
TLN 161archaic vocab
“let me still remain The true blank of thine eye”
The 'blank' is the white centre of an archery target — the bull's-eye. Kent is asking Lear to keep him in sight as the true target of honest counsel: look at me rather than away from me. The word plays against the immediately preceding 'See better, Lear': Kent offers himself as something to aim at, a fixed point of true loyalty the king should not dismiss.
TLN 163classical allusion
“Now, by Apollo,— Now by Apollo, king, Thou swear'st thy gods in vain”
Apollo was the Greek and Roman god most associated with truth, prophecy, and the sun. Both Lear and Kent invoke his name, but Kent throws the oath back: swearing by Apollo to do something unjust is swearing the god of truth in vain — an act of impiety, and precisely what the play's first scene has been: a travesty of just judgment.
classical Apollo and the oracle at Delphos
TLN 169rhetorical device
“Kill thy physician, and the fee bestow Upon the foul disease”
Kent compares himself to a doctor and Lear's misjudgment to a disease: killing the physician and paying the disease does not cure it, it kills the patient. The medical metaphor was a standard Renaissance way of describing honest counsel as medicine — necessary, sometimes painful, but healing. Lear is doing the opposite: he is rewarding the flattery (the 'foul disease') and punishing the cure (Kent's plain speech).
TLN 173archaic vocab
“Hear me, recreant! On thine allegiance, hear me”
'Recreant' means a traitor, a coward who has abandoned his faith or duty — from the Old French 'recreant', one who renounces his sworn allegiance. Lear is accusing Kent of breaking his feudal oath. 'On thine allegiance' means 'in the name of the loyalty you owe me as your king'; it was the gravest possible command to obedience, invoking the legal and moral bond between lord and vassal.
TLN 185classical allusion
“Away! by Jupiter, This shall not be revok'd”
Jupiter (Zeus) was the supreme ruler of the classical gods — the king of Olympus who enforced oaths and dispensed justice with his thunderbolts. For a king to swear by Jupiter is to invoke the highest divine sanction for his word. The irony is that Lear swears by the king of the gods that his unjust banishment of Kent is irrevocable, immediately after Kent has argued — correctly — that the judgment is wrong.
classical Jupiter, king of the gods
TLN 188rhetorical device
“Freedom lives hence, and banishment is here”
Kent inverts the expected meaning of 'banishment': the man who is told to leave is actually free, because he keeps his integrity; the man who stays in a court where flattery rules is the truly imprisoned one. The epigram defines the play's moral geography — the 'outside' where Kent and later Lear are cast will prove to be the place of truth, and the 'inside' of the court the place of corruption.
TLN 207archaic vocab
“aught within that little seeming substance, Or all of it, with our displeasure piec'd”
'Little seeming substance' is a contemptuous description of Cordelia: she appears to be 'little substance' — a small, inconsiderable thing. 'Piec'd' means added to, augmented by — here, with Lear's displeasure as the added burden she carries. Lear is presenting Cordelia to Burgundy as a damaged piece of goods, reduced in 'price' by his anger. The market language (price fallen, a thing 'piec'd' with displeasure) degrades a daughter into a transaction.
TLN 227archaic vocab
“she, who even but now was your best object, The argument of your praise, balm of your age”
'Object' means the thing on which one's affection or attention is fixed. 'Argument' means subject-matter or theme. The King of France is pointing out that Cordelia was — until moments ago — the person Lear loved most, the subject of all his praise, the comfort of his old age. France uses this to argue that something catastrophic must have happened or Lear's judgment must have failed, because the change is too sudden and violent to be explained by ordinary offense.
TLN 265archaic vocab
“Since that respects of fortune are his love, I shall not be his wife”
'Respects of fortune' means considerations of wealth and material advantage — what Fortune can offer rather than what the heart genuinely feels. Cordelia is stating that Burgundy's love was conditional on her dowry, not on her person. Now that her 'fortune' (property) has been taken away, his 'love' disappears with it. The scene stages a contrast between commercial love (Burgundy) and unconditional love (France).
TLN 267rhetorical device
“Fairest Cordelia, that art most rich, being poor; Most choice, forsaken; and most lov'd, despis'd”
France builds three paradoxes (figures called antithesis or oxymoron) to declare his love: richest because stripped of wealth, most desirable because forsaken, most loved because despised. The rhetorical device enacts France's argument that Cordelia's true value is visible precisely because the false value of dowry and flattery has been removed. Where Lear judged Cordelia by what she said, France judges her by what she is.
TLN 296archaic vocab
“At fortune's alms. You have obedience scanted, And well are worth the want that you have wanted”
'Fortune's alms' means a charity gift from Fortune — implying that France's offer was not a prize won by merit but mere luck, a beggar's portion from a fickle goddess. 'Scanted' means stinted or held back. The last clause is a deliberate paronomasia (wordplay on 'want'/'wanted'): 'you deserve to lack the things you have lacked' — you withheld obedience, so you deserve to receive nothing. Goneril's speech is bitter and petty, as self-serving as her love-test flattery.
TLN 311historical topical
“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-ingraffed condition, but therewithal the unruly waywardness that infirm and choleric years bring with them”
Goneril invokes the Renaissance medical theory of the four humours: 'choleric' denotes an excess of yellow bile, associated with hot temper and rashness. 'Long-ingraffed condition' means deeply rooted habits (ingraffed = grafted in, as if fixed in the character like a graft in wood). Goneril is arguing, with clinical precision, that Lear's rash decision about Cordelia is not a new failing but the pattern of a lifetime, now amplified by the physical deterioration of old age.
TLN 322archaic vocab
“We must do something, and i' th' heat”
'I' th' heat' means while the iron is hot — immediately, while the moment is favorable for action, before Lear's anger has time to cool and he reconsiders. Goneril is urging Regan to act before their father can recover his senses or his resolve. The scene's final line is both a practical conspirators' decision and an early signal that the sisters will not wait for events to develop naturally. Their private colloquy is the play's first hint of the coming alliance against Lear.