Act 1, Scene 4

A Hall in Albany's Palace.

[Enter Kent, disguised.]
Kent
514 If but as well I other accents borrow,
515 That can my speech defuse, my good intent
516 May carry through itself to that full issue
517 For which I rais'd my likeness.—Now, banish'd Kent,
518 If thou canst serve where thou dost stand condemn'd,
519 So may it come, thy master, whom thou lov'st,
520 Shall find thee full of labours.
[Horns within. Enter King Lear, Knights, and Attendants.]
King Lear
521 Let me not stay a jot for dinner; go get it ready.
[Exit an Attendant.]
King Lear
522 How now! what art thou?
Kent
523 A man, sir.
King Lear
524 What dost thou profess? What wouldst thou with us?
Kent
525 I do profess to be no less than I seem; to serve him truly that
526 will put me in trust; to love him that is honest; to converse
527 with him that is wise and says little; to fear judgment; to fight
528 when I cannot choose; and to eat no fish.
King Lear
529 What art thou?
Kent
530 A very honest-hearted fellow, and as poor as the king.
King Lear
531 If thou be'st as poor for a subject as he's for a king, thou art
532 poor enough. What wouldst thou?
Kent
533 Service.
King Lear
534 Who wouldst thou serve?
Kent
535 You.
King Lear
536 Dost thou know me, fellow?
Kent
537 No, sir; but you have that in your countenance which I would fain
538 call master.
King Lear
539 What's that?
Kent
540 Authority.
King Lear
541 What services canst thou do?
Kent
542 I can keep honest counsel, ride, run, mar a curious tale in
543 telling it and deliver a plain message bluntly. That which
544 ordinary men are fit for, I am qualified in, and the best of
545 me is diligence.
King Lear
546 How old art thou?
Kent
547 Not so young, sir, to love a woman for singing; nor so old to
548 dote on her for anything: I have years on my back forty-eight.
King Lear
549 Follow me; thou shalt serve me. If I like thee no worse after
550 dinner, I will not part from thee yet.—Dinner, ho, dinner!—
551 Where's my knave? my fool?—Go you and call my fool hither.
[Exit an attendant.]
[Enter Oswald.]
King Lear
552 You, you, sirrah, where's my daughter?
Oswald
553 So please you,—
[Exit.]
King Lear
554 What says the fellow there? Call the clotpoll back.—
[Exit a Knight.]
King Lear
555 Where's my fool, ho?—I think the world's asleep.
[Re-enter Knight.]
King Lear
556 How now! where's that mongrel?
Knight
557 He says, my lord, your daughter is not well.
King Lear
558 Why came not the slave back to me when I called him?
Knight
559 Sir, he answered me in the roundest manner, he would not.
King Lear
560 He would not!
Knight
561 My lord, I know not what the matter is; but to my judgment your
562 highness is not entertained with that ceremonious affection as
563 you were wont; there's a great abatement of kindness appears as
564 well in the general dependants as in the duke himself also and
565 your daughter.
King Lear
566 Ha! say'st thou so?
Knight
567 I beseech you pardon me, my lord, if I be mistaken; for my duty
568 cannot be silent when I think your highness wronged.
King Lear
569 Thou but rememberest me of mine own conception: I have perceived
570 a most faint neglect of late; which I have rather blamed as mine
571 own jealous curiosity than as a very pretence and purpose of
572 unkindness: I will look further into't.—But where's my fool? I
573 have not seen him this two days.
Knight
574 Since my young lady's going into France, sir, the fool hath much
575 pined away.
King Lear
576 No more of that; I have noted it well.—Go you and tell my
577 daughter I would speak with her.—
[Exit Attendant.]
King Lear
578 Go you, call hither my fool.
[Exit another Attendant.]
[Re-enter Oswald.]
King Lear
579 O, you, sir, you, come you hither, sir: who am I, sir?
Oswald
580 My lady's father.
King Lear
581 My lady's father! my lord's knave: you whoreson dog! you slave!
582 you cur!
Oswald
583 I am none of these, my lord; I beseech your pardon.
King Lear
584 Do you bandy looks with me, you rascal?
[Striking him.]
Oswald
585 I'll not be struck, my lord.
Kent
586 Nor tripp'd neither, you base football player.
[Tripping up his heels.]
King Lear
587 I thank thee, fellow; thou servest me, and I'll love thee.
Kent
588 Come, sir, arise, away! I'll teach you differences: away, away!
589 If you will measure your lubber's length again, tarry; but away!
590 go to; have you wisdom? so.
[Pushes Oswald out.]
King Lear
591 Now, my friendly knave, I thank thee: there's earnest of thy
592 service.
[Giving Kent money.]
[Enter Fool.]
King Lear
593 Fool. Let me hire him too; here's my coxcomb.
[Giving Kent his cap.]
King Lear
594 How now, my pretty knave! how dost thou?
Fool
595 Sirrah, you were best take my coxcomb.
Kent
596 Why, fool?
Fool
597 Why, for taking one's part that's out of favour. Nay, an thou
598 canst not smile as the wind sits, thou'lt catch cold shortly:
599 there, take my coxcomb: why, this fellow hath banish'd two on's
600 daughters, and did the third a blessing against his will; if
601 thou follow him, thou must needs wear my coxcomb.—How now,
602 nuncle! Would I had two coxcombs and two daughters!
King Lear
603 Why, my boy?
Fool
604 If I gave them all my living, I'd keep my coxcombs myself.
605 There's mine; beg another of thy daughters.
King Lear
606 Take heed, sirrah,—the whip.
Fool
607 Truth's a dog must to kennel; he must be whipped out, when
608 the lady brach may stand by the fire and stink.
King Lear
609 A pestilent gall to me!
Fool
610 Sirrah, I'll teach thee a speech.
King Lear
611 Do.
Fool
612 Mark it, nuncle:—
613 Have more than thou showest,
614 Speak less than thou knowest,
615 Lend less than thou owest,
616 Ride more than thou goest,
617 Learn more than thou trowest,
618 Set less than thou throwest;
619 Leave thy drink and thy whore,
620 And keep in-a-door,
621 And thou shalt have more
622 Than two tens to a score.
Kent
623 This is nothing, fool.
Fool
624 Then 'tis like the breath of an unfee'd lawyer,—you gave me
625 nothing for't.—Can you make no use of nothing, nuncle?
King Lear
626 Why, no, boy; nothing can be made out of nothing.
[to Kent]
Fool
627 Pr'ythee tell him, so much the rent of his land
628 comes to: he will not believe a fool.
King Lear
629 A bitter fool!
Fool
630 Dost thou know the difference, my boy, between a bitter fool and
631 a sweet one?
King Lear
632 No, lad; teach me.
Fool
633 That lord that counsell'd thee
634 To give away thy land,
635 Come place him here by me,—
636 Do thou for him stand:
637 The sweet and bitter fool
638 Will presently appear;
639 The one in motley here,
640 The other found out there.
King Lear
641 Dost thou call me fool, boy?
Fool
642 All thy other titles thou hast given away; that thou wast born
643 with.
Kent
644 This is not altogether fool, my lord.
Fool
645 No, faith; lords and great men will not let me: if I had a
646 monopoly out, they would have part on't and loads too: they
647 will not let me have all the fool to myself; they'll be
648 snatching.—Nuncle, give me an egg, and I'll give thee two
649 crowns.
King Lear
650 What two crowns shall they be?
Fool
651 Why, after I have cut the egg i' the middle and eat up the
652 meat, the two crowns of the egg. When thou clovest thy crown i'
653 the middle and gav'st away both parts, thou borest thine ass on
654 thy back o'er the dirt: thou hadst little wit in thy bald crown
655 when thou gavest thy golden one away. If I speak like myself in
656 this, let him be whipped that first finds it so.
[Singing.]
Fool
657 Fools had ne'er less grace in a year;
658 For wise men are grown foppish,
659 And know not how their wits to wear,
660 Their manners are so apish.
King Lear
661 When were you wont to be so full of songs, sirrah?
Fool
662 I have used it, nuncle, e'er since thou mad'st thy daughters thy
663 mothers; for when thou gav'st them the rod, and puttest down
664 thine own breeches,
[Singing.]
Fool
665 Then they for sudden joy did weep,
666 And I for sorrow sung,
667 That such a king should play bo-peep
668 And go the fools among.
Fool
669 Pr'ythee, nuncle, keep a schoolmaster that can teach thy fool to
670 lie; I would fain learn to lie.
King Lear
671 An you lie, sirrah, we'll have you whipped.
Fool
672 I marvel what kin thou and thy daughters are: they'll have me
673 whipped for speaking true; thou'lt have me whipped for lying;
674 and sometimes I am whipped for holding my peace. I had rather be
675 any kind o' thing than a fool: and yet I would not be thee,
676 nuncle: thou hast pared thy wit o' both sides, and left nothing
677 i' the middle:—here comes one o' the parings.
[Enter Goneril.]
King Lear
678 How now, daughter? What makes that frontlet on? Methinks you
679 are too much of late i' the frown.
Fool
680 Thou wast a pretty fellow when thou hadst no need to care for
681 her frowning. Now thou art an O without a figure: I am better
682 than thou art; I am a fool, thou art nothing.—Yes, forsooth, I
683 will hold my tongue. So your face
[To Goneril.]
Fool
684 bids me, though
685 you say nothing. Mum, mum,
686 He that keeps nor crust nor crum,
687 Weary of all, shall want some.—
[Pointing to Lear.]
Fool
688 That's a shealed peascod.
Goneril
689 Not only, sir, this your all-licens'd fool,
690 But other of your insolent retinue
691 Do hourly carp and quarrel; breaking forth
692 In rank and not-to-be-endured riots. Sir,
693 I had thought, by making this well known unto you,
694 To have found a safe redress; but now grow fearful,
695 By what yourself too late have spoke and done,
696 That you protect this course, and put it on
697 By your allowance; which if you should, the fault
698 Would not scape censure, nor the redresses sleep,
699 Which, in the tender of a wholesome weal,
700 Might in their working do you that offence
701 Which else were shame, that then necessity
702 Will call discreet proceeding.
Fool
703 For you know, nuncle,
704 The hedge-sparrow fed the cuckoo so long
705 That it had it head bit off by it young.
706 So out went the candle, and we were left darkling.
King Lear
707 Are you our daughter?
Goneril
708 Come, sir,
709 I would you would make use of that good wisdom,
710 Whereof I know you are fraught; and put away
711 These dispositions, that of late transform you
712 From what you rightly are.
Fool
713 May not an ass know when the cart draws the horse?—Whoop, Jug! I
714 love thee!
King Lear
715 Doth any here know me?—This is not Lear;
716 Doth Lear walk thus? speak thus? Where are his eyes?
717 Either his notion weakens, his discernings
718 Are lethargied.—Ha! waking? 'Tis not so!—
719 Who is it that can tell me who I am?
Fool
720 Lear's shadow.
King Lear
721 I would learn that; for, by the marks of sovereignty,
722 Knowledge, and reason,
723 I should be false persuaded I had daughters.
Fool
724 Which they will make an obedient father.
King Lear
725 Your name, fair gentlewoman?
Goneril
726 This admiration, sir, is much o' the favour
727 Of other your new pranks. I do beseech you
728 To understand my purposes aright:
729 As you are old and reverend, you should be wise.
730 Here do you keep a hundred knights and squires;
731 Men so disorder'd, so debosh'd, and bold
732 That this our court, infected with their manners,
733 Shows like a riotous inn: epicurism and lust
734 Make it more like a tavern or a brothel
735 Than a grac'd palace. The shame itself doth speak
736 For instant remedy: be, then, desir'd
737 By her that else will take the thing she begs
738 A little to disquantity your train;
739 And the remainder, that shall still depend,
740 To be such men as may besort your age,
741 Which know themselves, and you.
King Lear
742 Darkness and devils!—
743 Saddle my horses; call my train together.—
744 Degenerate bastard! I'll not trouble thee:
745 Yet have I left a daughter.
Goneril
746 You strike my people; and your disorder'd rabble
747 Make servants of their betters.
[Enter Albany.]
King Lear
748 Woe that too late repents!—
[To Albany.]
King Lear
749 O, sir, are you come?
750 Is it your will? Speak, sir.—Prepare my horses.—
751 Ingratitude, thou marble-hearted fiend,
752 More hideous when thou show'st thee in a child
753 Than the sea-monster!
Albany
754 Pray, sir, be patient.
[to Goneril]
King Lear
755 Detested kite, thou liest!:
756 My train are men of choice and rarest parts,
757 That all particulars of duty know;
758 And in the most exact regard support
759 The worships of their name.—O most small fault,
760 How ugly didst thou in Cordelia show!
761 Which, like an engine, wrench'd my frame of nature
762 From the fix'd place; drew from my heart all love,
763 And added to the gall. O Lear, Lear, Lear!
764 Beat at this gate that let thy folly in
[Striking his head.]
King Lear
765 And thy dear judgment out!—Go, go, my people.
Albany
766 My lord, I am guiltless, as I am ignorant
767 Of what hath mov'd you.
King Lear
768 It may be so, my lord.
769 Hear, nature, hear; dear goddess, hear
770 Suspend thy purpose, if thou didst intend
771 To make this creature fruitful!
772 Into her womb convey sterility!
773 Dry up in her the organs of increase;
774 And from her derogate body never spring
775 A babe to honour her! If she must teem,
776 Create her child of spleen, that it may live
777 And be a thwart disnatur'd torment to her!
778 Let it stamp wrinkles in her brow of youth;
779 With cadent tears fret channels in her cheeks;
780 Turn all her mother's pains and benefits
781 To laughter and contempt; that she may feel
782 How sharper than a serpent's tooth it is
783 To have a thankless child!—Away, away!
[Exit.]
Albany
784 Now, gods that we adore, whereof comes this?
Goneril
785 Never afflict yourself to know more of it;
786 But let his disposition have that scope
787 That dotage gives it.
[Re-enter Lear.]
King Lear
788 What, fifty of my followers at a clap!
789 Within a fortnight!
Albany
790 What's the matter, sir?
King Lear
791 I'll tell thee.—Life and death!—
[To Goneril]
King Lear
792 I am asham'd
793 That thou hast power to shake my manhood thus;
794 That these hot tears, which break from me perforce,
795 Should make thee worth them.—Blasts and fogs upon thee!
796 Th' untented woundings of a father's curse
797 Pierce every sense about thee!—Old fond eyes,
798 Beweep this cause again, I'll pluck you out,
799 And cast you, with the waters that you lose,
800 To temper clay. Ha!
801 Let it be so: I have another daughter,
802 Who, I am sure, is kind and comfortable:
803 When she shall hear this of thee, with her nails
804 She'll flay thy wolvish visage. Thou shalt find
805 That I'll resume the shape which thou dost think
806 I have cast off for ever.
[Exeunt Lear, Kent, and Attendants.]
Goneril
807 Do you mark that?
Albany
808 I cannot be so partial, Goneril,
809 To the great love I bear you,—
Goneril
810 Pray you, content.—What, Oswald, ho!
[To the Fool]
Goneril
811 You, sir, more knave than fool, after your master.
Fool
812 Nuncle Lear, nuncle Lear, tarry,—take the fool with thee.—
813 A fox when one has caught her,
814 And such a daughter,
815 Should sure to the slaughter,
816 If my cap would buy a halter;
817 So the fool follows after.
[Exit.]
Goneril
818 This man hath had good counsel.—A hundred knights!
819 'Tis politic and safe to let him keep
820 At point a hundred knights: yes, that on every dream,
821 Each buzz, each fancy, each complaint, dislike,
822 He may enguard his dotage with their powers,
823 And hold our lives in mercy.—Oswald, I say!—
Albany
824 Well, you may fear too far.
Goneril
825 Safer than trust too far:
826 Let me still take away the harms I fear,
827 Not fear still to be taken: I know his heart.
828 What he hath utter'd I have writ my sister:
829 If she sustain him and his hundred knights,
830 When I have show'd th' unfitness,—
[Re-enter Oswald.]
Goneril
831 How now, Oswald!
832 What, have you writ that letter to my sister?
Oswald
833 Ay, madam.
Goneril
834 Take you some company, and away to horse:
835 Inform her full of my particular fear;
836 And thereto add such reasons of your own
837 As may compact it more. Get you gone;
838 And hasten your return.
[Exit Oswald.]
Goneril
839 No, no, my lord!
840 This milky gentleness and course of yours,
841 Though I condemn it not, yet, under pardon,
842 You are much more attask'd for want of wisdom
843 Than prais'd for harmful mildness.
Albany
844 How far your eyes may pierce I cannot tell:
845 Striving to better, oft we mar what's well.
Goneril
846 Nay then,—
Albany
847 Well, well; the event.
[Exeunt.]

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Word definitions on hover

Notes

TLN 514archaic vocab
“other accents borrow, That can my speech defuse”
'Defuse' here means to disguise or render unrecognizable. Kent, freshly banished, is promising himself that his new accent and manner will so thoroughly conceal his identity that his true purpose — continued service to Lear — can go forward safely.
TLN 528historical topical
“to eat no fish”
In Elizabethan England, eating fish on Fridays and in Lent was associated with Catholic practice; Protestants who wanted to signal their faith sometimes ostentatiously refused fish. Kent's boast that he eats 'no fish' was a quick audience shorthand for: I am a sound, plain Protestant Englishman. The play is nominally set in pagan Britain, so the joke is an anachronism — but the audience would catch it immediately.
TLN 542archaic vocab
“mar a curious tale in telling it and deliver a plain message bluntly”
'Curious' means elaborate, over-refined, or finicky — the kind of ornate speech a courtier might use. Kent is saying he lacks the polish for fancy rhetoric but can deliver a straightforward message directly. This self-description deliberately marks him as an anti-courtly plain-speaker, which is Kent's defining trait.
TLN 554archaic vocab
“Call the clotpoll back”
A 'clotpoll' (also 'clodpoll') is a blockhead — literally a lump of earth for a head. Lear is ordering a knight to fetch back Oswald, who has just walked away without answering. The insult establishes at once how little Lear regards Goneril's steward.
TLN 562archaic vocab
“entertained with that ceremonious affection as you were wont”
'Entertained' means treated or received; 'wont' means accustomed to. The Knight is noting carefully that the household no longer receives Lear with the formal marks of honor due to a king — the protocol of deference and ceremony has quietly been withdrawn.
TLN 570archaic vocab
“blamed as mine own jealous curiosity than as a very pretence”
'Jealous curiosity' means over-anxious, suspicious over-attention to slights — Lear has been telling himself that his sense of neglect is his own hypersensitivity rather than a real plot. 'Pretence' means purpose or design, not a false show. Lear is admitting he suspected the truth but suppressed it.
TLN 581archaic vocab
“My lady's father! my lord's knave: you whoreson dog”
Oswald has answered 'My lady's father' when Lear asked who he was — technically accurate but pointedly demeaning, putting daughter above king. Lear explodes: 'whoreson' is a common, strong insult (literally 'son of a whore') functioning like a very coarse intensifier. The exchange compresses the whole problem of the play: Lear has given his power away and his new title is merely 'my lady's father' — daughter's dependent, not king.
historical The king's two bodies
TLN 586historical topical
“you base football player”
Football in Elizabethan England was a rough, lower-class street game — no fixed rules, often played between neighboring villages, and notorious for brawling, broken legs, and damaged property. To call someone a 'football player' was to mark them as low-bred and violent. Kent uses it as a contemptuous class-insult against Oswald.
TLN 591archaic vocab
“there's earnest of thy service”
'Earnest' is a first installment or pledge-payment — like a deposit to seal a contract. Lear gives Kent money as a token that more reward will follow once the service is proved. The commercial image is quietly ironic in a scene about what loyalty is really worth.
TLN 593cultural context
“here's my coxcomb”
A 'coxcomb' is the jester's cap — traditionally sewn with a cloth imitation of a rooster's comb and sometimes fitted with bells. When the Fool offers his cap to Kent as payment for backing a man 'out of favour,' he is saying Kent has earned the badge of foolishness. Lear's offering the Fool's cap to Kent a moment earlier turns the joke back on the king himself.
TLN 598archaic vocab
“canst not smile as the wind sits, thou'lt catch cold shortly”
To 'smile as the wind sits' means to turn your face whichever way the wind blows — that is, to flatter whoever holds power at the moment. The Fool is warning Kent that siding with a disgraced master is dangerous: anyone who cannot trim his sails to the prevailing wind (here, Goneril's new authority) will soon be left out in the cold.
TLN 607rhetorical device
“Truth's a dog must to kennel; he must be whipped out, when the lady brach may stand by the fire and stink”
The Fool turns an allegory into a single vicious image: Truth is like a mongrel kicked out to the kennel, while a 'brach' — a bitch hound — is allowed to warm herself at the fire despite her smell. The brach is flattery or falsehood; the kicked-out dog is honest speech. The Fool is commenting on his own situation: he tells Lear truth and risks the whip; the fawning Goneril sits close to the warmth of power.
historical The great chain of being (order and degree)
TLN 613rhetorical device
“Have more than thou showest, Speak less than thou knowest”
The Fool delivers a rhyming catalogue of prudential maxims — spend less than you have, lend less than you possess, gamble cautiously ('set less than thou throwest'), avoid women and drink, stay home — and then deflates the whole thing: follow all this advice and you gain nothing ('more than two tens to a score' = nothing beyond twenty). The jingle is a parody of proverbial wisdom. Its point is that Lear did the opposite of every one of these cautions when he gave his kingdom away.
TLN 624cultural context
“'tis like the breath of an unfee'd lawyer”
A 'fee' was the payment a lawyer received for his counsel; an 'unfeed' (unpaid) lawyer would naturally give you nothing worth hearing. The Fool compares his rhyme to the worthless breath of a lawyer who has not been retained — since Kent gave nothing for it, it is worth nothing. The comparison is a dig at the mercenary nature of legal advice, a stock joke in Shakespeare's day.
TLN 626cultural context
“nothing can be made out of nothing”
Lear repeats an axiom of classical and scholastic natural philosophy: ex nihilo nihil fit — from nothing, nothing comes. In Aristotle and later Scholasticism, creation out of nothing was impossible without divine intervention. The Fool immediately turns the logic back: Lear gave away his land; his land now brings nothing in rent; so that is exactly what was made from nothing. The philosophical tag becomes a prophecy of Lear's own destitution.
TLN 645historical topical
“if I had a monopoly out, they would have part on't and loads too”
A 'monopoly' was a royal grant giving one person or company exclusive right to trade in a particular commodity. Elizabeth I granted many such monopolies as a form of patronage; in the Parliament of 1601 they caused a major controversy, with MPs attacking them as extortionate privileges that cornered the market in everyday goods like starch, salt, and playing cards. The Fool jokes that even his exclusive right to be a fool would be seized by the lords and great men — a pointed joke about royal favouritism.
TLN 652rhetorical device
“thou clovest thy crown i' the middle and gav'st away both parts, thou borest thine ass on thy back”
The Fool builds an extended analogy: an egg has two 'crowns' (the round tops of each half) and a yolk (the meat) inside; Lear divided his crown in half and gave both halves away, eating out the middle. 'Thou borest thine ass on thy back' is a fable allusion — a man who carried his donkey rather than riding it, reversing the natural order (the burden carries the carrier). Lear has inverted nature: he is now dependent on those who should depend on him.
TLN 662rhetorical device
“thou mad'st thy daughters thy mothers; for when thou gav'st them the rod, and puttest down thine own breeches”
The Fool accuses Lear of inverting the parent-child relationship: by surrendering authority, Lear has made himself the child and his daughters the parents who wield the rod. 'The rod' is both the symbol of parental authority (the rod used to punish children) and the sceptre of royal power. To 'put down thine own breeches' means to bend for a spanking — Lear has voluntarily submitted to the discipline he should be administering.
historical The great chain of being (order and degree)
TLN 667cultural context
“such a king should play bo-peep And go the fools among”
'Bo-peep' is the children's game of hiding the face and popping out — here meaning Lear has made himself a laughingstock, playing childish games rather than governing. 'Go the fools among' means to join the company of fools. The Fool is saying he wept because a king reduced himself to a child's game.
TLN 676rhetorical device
“thou hast pared thy wit o' both sides, and left nothing i' the middle”
The Fool carries the egg-and-crown image forward: just as Lear cut the egg in two and threw away both halves (leaving nothing), he has shaved his wisdom ('wit') off both sides of his head and left only an empty bald middle. The bald crown, the golden crown given away, and the fool's cap offered earlier all converge here. 'Here comes one o' the parings' signals Goneril's entrance.
TLN 678archaic vocab
“What makes that frontlet on”
A 'frontlet' is a band or ornament worn across the forehead — Lear is asking why Goneril is wearing a furrowed brow as if it were a headband. He uses a physical object to describe her permanent frown: her displeasure has become part of her face like a piece of jewellery.
TLN 681archaic vocab
“thou art an O without a figure”
In arithmetic, a 'figure' is a non-zero digit placed before a zero to give it value — '0' alone is worth nothing, but '10' is ten. Lear without his royal title and land is a zero with no digit in front of it: a round nothing. The Fool is saying that stripped of his crown, Lear is literally worth less than the Fool himself.
TLN 689cultural context
“this your all-licens'd fool”
An 'all-licensed' fool is a court jester whose employment specifically gave him the privilege of speaking any truth without punishment — the license of the fool's cap extended to the content of his speech. Goneril names the institution to challenge it: she is pointing out that the Fool has been given an immunity that he now abuses, and she intends to revoke it.
TLN 704cultural context
“The hedge-sparrow fed the cuckoo so long That it had it head bit off by it young”
The cuckoo lays its eggs in other birds' nests; the foster parent (here the hedge-sparrow) feeds the much larger cuckoo chick, which eventually repays the care by killing the parent. The Fool is applying this natural fact directly to Lear: he raised and fed his daughters, and now Goneril is devouring him. The cuckoo was the standard Elizabethan byword for ungrateful parasitism.
TLN 715rhetorical device
“Doth any here know me?—This is not Lear”
Lear's question to the assembled court is half rhetorical outrage, half genuine existential crisis: if his daughter can treat him this way, he must no longer be the Lear he was. His self-questioning — 'Doth Lear walk thus? speak thus? Where are his eyes?' — reaches the terrifying centre of his situation: he gave his authority away and is discovering he cannot retrieve the self that authority made him. The Fool's answer, 'Lear's shadow,' is the play's most economical formulation of this loss.
historical The king's two bodies
TLN 733archaic vocab
“epicurism and lust Make it more like a tavern or a brothel”
'Epicurism' in Elizabethan usage meant gluttony and sensual self-indulgence — the popular (and unfair) reading of the ancient philosopher Epicurus, whose actual ethics were restrained but whose name had become shorthand for pleasure-seeking excess. Goneril accuses Lear's retinue of turning her palace into a place of debauchery. Whether her description is true or a fabricated pretext is deliberately left for the audience to judge.
TLN 744archaic vocab
“Degenerate bastard”
'Degenerate' means having fallen away from the nature and virtue of one's ancestors — literally, to have become unlike one's own kind. 'Bastard' here is not a technical legal term (Goneril is legitimate) but an insult meaning she has no true filial feeling and might as well be a stranger's child. Lear is saying she has ceased to be his daughter in the only sense that matters: she no longer behaves as his daughter should.
TLN 751rhetorical device
“Ingratitude, thou marble-hearted fiend, More hideous when thou show'st thee in a child Than the sea-monster”
Lear personifies Ingratitude as a fiend whose heart is marble -- the coldest, hardest, most unyielding material -- and then compounds it: such a fiend is worse in a child than in the abstract or even in a sea-monster. The 'sea-monster' is a commonplace image of extremity and chaos, yet parental ingratitude exceeds it. This marks the moment Lear begins to see his situation as a rupture in the natural order rather than mere bad manners.
historical The great chain of being (order and degree)
TLN 769cultural context
“Hear, nature, hear; dear goddess, hear”
Lear prays not to a Christian God but to Nature as a goddess — consistent with the play's deliberately pagan ancient-British setting. Nature in this context is both the cosmic force that orders the world and the deity who governs reproduction and generation. His invocation of her against his own daughter is also an invocation of the natural order she governs: a daughter who defies a father has defied Nature herself, and Lear calls Nature's power to ratify the curse.
TLN 772rhetorical device
“Into her womb convey sterility! Dry up in her the organs of increase”
Lear calls down a formal curse of barrenness on Goneril, asking Nature to make her unable to bear children. If she must bear a child, he asks that it be a 'thwart disnatur'd torment' — a cross-grained, unnatural creature that will make her suffer as she has made him suffer. The curse is a parent wishing on a child exactly what the child has done to the parent: a child that dishonours its father. The logic is brutal and symmetrical.
TLN 782rhetorical device
“How sharper than a serpent's tooth it is To have a thankless child”
This is the scene's most quoted line, and it uses a simple comparative simile: a serpent's bite is acutely painful; a thankless child's betrayal is sharper still. The contrast of the venomous, treacherous serpent with the bond owed by a child sharpens the wound, elevating Lear's private grief into something archetypal.
TLN 792cultural context
“I am asham'd That thou hast power to shake my manhood thus; That these hot tears, which break from me perforce”
Lear is humiliated that he is weeping — weeping before a woman, weeping in court. In his world, tears are weakness; a king and a man should not shed them. 'Perforce' means against his will. The speech marks the beginning of Lear's psychological breakdown: emotion he cannot control is breaking through the armour of royalty and masculinity. He threatens to pluck out his own eyes rather than let them weep again.
TLN 796archaic vocab
“Th' untented woundings of a father's curse”
To 'tent' a wound (from the French tente, a surgical probe) was to clean and probe it with a rolled lint plug so it would heal properly from the inside out. 'Untented' wounds are too deep to probe and clean — they cannot be healed by any surgeon. Lear is saying a father's curse inflicts injuries that no medicine can reach or treat.
TLN 804archaic vocab
“She'll flay thy wolvish visage”
Lear predicts that Regan — who he is sure will take his side — will tear off the wolf-mask of cruelty Goneril is wearing. 'Visage' is face. The wolf-image characterizes Goneril as a predator hiding behind a human appearance; Regan's nails will strip the disguise. This expectation about Regan is catastrophically wrong, and the error drives the central movement of Acts 2 and 3.
TLN 822archaic vocab
“He may enguard his dotage with their powers, And hold our lives in mercy”
'Enguard' means to surround with a guard, to fortify. 'Dotage' means the weakness of extreme old age, specifically the mental feebleness associated with it. 'Hold our lives in mercy' means to have us at his mercy, to hold our lives in his power. Goneril is arguing to Albany that keeping Lear's hundred knights is a real military threat: a senile man can still become dangerous if his knights form an armed household retinue around him.
TLN 840archaic vocab
“This milky gentleness and course of yours”
'Milky' means watery-weak or excessively tender — thin and pallid like diluted milk. Goneril is rebuking Albany for his conciliatory attitude toward Lear, calling his mildness a form of political stupidity. 'Attask'd' (TLN 842) means taken to task, blamed or censured. Goneril is preparing the audience for Albany's moral arc: he will slowly harden against her cruelty, not against his father-in-law.