Act 4, Scene 3

The French camp near Dover.

[Enter Kent and a Gentleman.]
Kent
2355 Why the king of France is so suddenly gone back know you the
2356 reason?
Gentleman
2357 Something he left imperfect in the state, which since his coming
2358 forth is thought of, which imports to the kingdom so much fear
2359 and danger that his personal return was most required and
2360 necessary.
Kent
2361 Who hath he left behind him general?
Gentleman
2362 The Mareschal of France, Monsieur La Far.
Kent
2363 Did your letters pierce the queen to any demonstration of grief?
Gentleman
2364 Ay, sir; she took them, read them in my presence;
2365 And now and then an ample tear trill'd down
2366 Her delicate cheek: it seem'd she was a queen
2367 Over her passion; who, most rebel-like,
2368 Sought to be king o'er her.
Kent
2369 O, then it mov'd her.
Gentleman
2370 Not to a rage: patience and sorrow strove
2371 Who should express her goodliest. You have seen
2372 Sunshine and rain at once: her smiles and tears
2373 Were like, a better day: those happy smilets
2374 That play'd on her ripe lip seem'd not to know
2375 What guests were in her eyes; which parted thence
2376 As pearls from diamonds dropp'd.—In brief, sorrow
2377 Would be a rarity most belov'd, if all
2378 Could so become it.
Kent
2379 Made she no verbal question?
Gentleman
2380 Faith, once or twice she heav'd the name of 'father'
2381 Pantingly forth, as if it press'd her heart;
2382 Cried 'Sisters, sisters!—Shame of ladies! sisters!
2383 Kent! father! sisters! What, i' the storm? i' the night?
2384 Let pity not be believ'd!'—There she shook
2385 The holy water from her heavenly eyes,
2386 And clamour moisten'd: then away she started
2387 To deal with grief alone.
Kent
2388 It is the stars,
2389 The stars above us, govern our conditions;
2390 Else one self mate and mate could not beget
2391 Such different issues. You spoke not with her since?
Gentleman
2392 No.
Kent
2393 Was this before the king return'd?
Gentleman
2394 No, since.
Kent
2395 Well, sir, the poor distressed Lear's i' the town;
2396 Who sometime, in his better tune, remembers
2397 What we are come about, and by no means
2398 Will yield to see his daughter.
Gentleman
2399 Why, good sir?
Kent
2400 A sovereign shame so elbows him: his own unkindness,
2401 That stripp'd her from his benediction, turn'd her
2402 To foreign casualties, gave her dear rights
2403 To his dog-hearted daughters,—these things sting
2404 His mind so venomously that burning shame
2405 Detains him from Cordelia.
Gentleman
2406 Alack, poor gentleman!
Kent
2407 Of Albany's and Cornwall's powers you heard not?
Gentleman
2408 'Tis so; they are a-foot.
Kent
2409 Well, sir, I'll bring you to our master Lear
2410 And leave you to attend him: some dear cause
2411 Will in concealment wrap me up awhile;
2412 When I am known aright, you shall not grieve
2413 Lending me this acquaintance. I pray you go
2414 Along with me.
[Exeunt.]

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Notes

TLN 2373archaic vocab
“those happy smilets / That play'd on her ripe lip”
'Smilets' is a diminutive form Shakespeare coins here and nowhere else — tiny, fleeting smiles that barely form before they vanish. The Gentleman is describing the way Cordelia's face held two feelings at once: sorrow large enough to fill her eyes, and faint smiles on her lips that 'seem'd not to know / What guests were in her eyes.' The word captures controlled emotion splitting the face in two.
TLN 2385rhetorical device
“holy water from her heavenly eyes”
The Gentleman calls Cordelia's tears 'holy water' — the consecrated water used in Christian ritual — and her eyes 'heavenly.' The comparison is not decorative: it sets Cordelia apart as a figure of grace and sanctity in a play where most characters are defined by self-interest. She weeps at her father's suffering not in rage or self-pity but in a sorrow that is itself described as beautiful and redemptive.
TLN 2388historical topical
“It is the stars, / The stars above us, govern our conditions”
Kent says the only explanation for Cordelia and her sisters being born of the same parents is that the stars — each person's natal constellation — shape their different natures. Astrology was not superstition to Shakespeare's audience but mainstream belief: the position of the planets at birth was thought to determine personality, destiny, and moral character. Kent invokes it here to explain an apparently inexplicable fact: how one household could produce both Goneril and Cordelia.
historical Astrology and the late eclipses
TLN 2390archaic vocab
“one self mate and mate could not beget / Such different issues”
'One self mate' means 'one and the same husband.' 'Self' here is an emphatic adjective meaning 'very same' or 'identical,' a usage now obsolete — it is not the modern reflexive pronoun. 'Issues' means children or offspring. Kent's full point is: the stars must shape character, because otherwise the same father and the same mother could not produce children as different as Cordelia and her sisters.
TLN 2400archaic vocab
“A sovereign shame so elbows him”
Two words here need unpacking. 'Sovereign' means overpowering or supreme — not royal — so 'sovereign shame' is an all-conquering, overmastering shame. 'Elbows' is used as a verb meaning to jostle or thrust aside: shame crowds and pushes Lear so that he cannot face Cordelia. Kent is explaining that Lear refuses to see his daughter not from hard-heartedness but because guilt has become physically oppressive to him.
TLN 2401archaic vocab
“stripp'd her from his benediction, turn'd her / To foreign casualties”
A 'benediction' was a formal paternal blessing — not just general goodwill but a specific ritual act by which a father invoked God's favour on a child. Being stripped of it was a serious spiritual and social loss, not merely a sign of disapproval. 'Casualties' does not mean accidents or injuries here; it means chance events, the hazards of fortune, things that may or may not befall. Kent is saying Lear expelled Cordelia from his blessing and handed her over to whatever luck a foreign country might bring.