King Lear

Goneril, Oswald, and Edmund discuss changes they’ve observed in Albany, who now seems to have qualms about his family’s behavior, particularly Goneril’s. Goneril is neither surprised nor upset. She wants to marry Edmund now, and Albany can die for all she cares. Goneril and Edmund part with a kiss, and she sighs, “O, the difference of man and man:/To thee a woman’s services are due;/My fool usurps my body” (26-28).

Albany enters and roundly curses his wife, accusing her of vicious cruelty to her father whom he remembers as a good and righteous king. Goneril retorts that she doesn’t expect Albany to step up and repel the French invaders.

In the midst of their fight, a messenger brings news that Cornwall, stabbed by his servant during Gloucester’s blinding, is dead. Aghast to hear of the blinding, Albany wonders why Edmund didn’t stand in Cornwall’s way. Privately, he asks the messenger for more of the story.

Kent meets with a gentleman who brings news of the invasion. The King of France rushed home to deal with a domestic problem, leaving behind a general to take charge of the war. Cordelia, who remains in England, was horrified to hear of her father’s suffering. Kent remarks that human personalities must be determined by the stars; how else could such a kind woman have two villainous sisters.

Kent tells the gentleman that, though Lear is safe, he will resist seeing his loyal daughter. Lear’s terrible choices, Kent adds, “sting/His mind so venomously that burning shame/Detains him from Cordelia” (46-48). Kent, meanwhile, must take care of some secret business. He leaves Lear in the gentleman’s care.

Cordelia consults with a doctor about her father. She laments that Lear was discovered, completely mad, singing to himself and wearing a crown of flowers and weeds. She wonders desperately if anything can cure him; the doctor advises her that what he needs is sleep. Cordelia sends men to find her father so she can keep him under her protection.

A messenger arrives to tell Cordelia that the British forces are marching toward them. Cordelia prepares for war, motivated by love rather than power. She says, “No blown ambition doth our arms incite,/But love, dear love, and our aged father’s right” (27-28).

Regan and Oswald discuss imminent war plans. Regan is less interested in the details of the fight than in Goneril’s communications with Edmund. Like her elder sister, Regan wants to marry him and feels her claim is better. She tells Oswald, “My lord is dead; Edmund and I have talked,/And more convenient is he for my hand/Than for your lady’s” (33-35). 

Edgar claims to have led Gloucester to the cliffs of Dover. In reality, they are on a flat patch of ground. Edgar falsely describes the dizzying view from the heights above the sea: “The murmuring surge/That on th’ unnumb’red idle pebble chafes/Cannot be heard so high. I’ll look no more, Lest my brain turn, and the deficient sight/Topple down headlong” (20-24). At first, Gloucester is suspicious, noting that the ground feels pretty flat and that his guide’s voice has changed. Ultimately, he accepts Edgar’s fiction and prepares himself for death.

But when he tries to throw himself over the imaginary cliff, Gloucester merely falls on his face. Using a new voice, Edgar tells him that he survived a fall from a terrible height, characterizing the event as a miracle. He adds that Gloucester’s guide was a thousand-nosed demon and that Gloucester was saved by some divine intervention. Shaken, Gloucester resolves to endure his pain until he dies naturally.

The mad Lear arrives wearing his flower crown. He speaks nonsense, seeing imaginary animals and phantom daughters while singing songs about lechery, corruption, and the stench of mortality. Like the Fool and Edgar before him, Lear’s madness demonstrates more understanding of the world than his sanity did.

Gloucester recognizes his king by the sound of his voice, but Lear does not recognize Gloucester. In his insanity, Lear mocks him, telling him to read nonexistent papers that Gloucester couldn’t see even if they existed and admonishing him, “What, art mad? A man may see how this world goes with no eyes” (150-151).

Finally, Lear recognizes Gloucester and sits down to console him as he weeps. “Thou must be patient,” he tells him: “We came crying hither;/Thou know’st, the first time that we smell the air/We wawl and cry” (178-80).

Cordelia’s gentlemen arrive to take Lear to safety. He impishly runs away from them. Edgar collects news of the impending battle from one of these gentlemen and then reintroduces himself to Gloucester as a sane man offering to guide him.

Oswald interrupts them and intends to murder Gloucester. Edgar fights and slays him. With his dying breath, Oswald tells Edgar to carry a letter to Edmund. It is a love letter from Goneril in which she begs Edmund to kill Albany and marry her. Edgar vows to stand in Edmund’s way. But first, he must take his father to a safe place.

Cordelia and Kent reunite. She thanks him profusely for taking care of her father. The doctor tells Cordelia that Lear is now safely asleep, bathed, and dressed. Upon seeing him, Cordelia is deeply moved by the sight of her frail old father asleep after his ordeal, remarking, “Was this a face/To be opposed against the jarring winds?” (32-33).

Still apparently mad, Lear wakes up and chides Cordelia for waking him from death. Yet he quickly comes back to himself, newly humbled and self-aware. He tells her, “Pray, do not mock me./I am a very foolish fond old man […] And, to deal plainly, I fear I am not in my perfect mind […] Do not laugh at me;/For, as I am a man, I think this lady/To be my child Cordelia” (61-72). Cordelia weeps as father and daughter reconcile.

Kent and a gentleman discuss the imminent war and the bloody battle to come.

At the head of a crowd of soldiers, Edmund and Regan discuss Albany’s wavering and Oswald’s disappearance. Regan quizzes Edmund on whether he slept with Goneril, which he denies.

Goneril and Albany interrupt this conversation. Albany tells them that Lear is with Cordelia. Goneril suggests that they all unite against France since France is their common enemy. As Goneril and Regan jockey to prevent each other from being with Edmund alone, the three exit together.

Edgar appears to Albany in disguise, gives him a letter, and tells him that if the English forces are victorious over the French, Albany should sound a trumpet to summon a champion who will help him.

Edmund reappears and tells Albany it is time to fight. Left alone, Edmund addresses the audience. Having sworn love to both Goneril and Regan, he muses over whether to sleep with “[b]oth? One? Or neither? Neither can be enjoyed,/If both remain alive” (59-60). He also vows that if his forces win the battle, both Cordelia and Lear will receive no mercy.

Edgar leads Gloucester away from the battle, concealing him in the shadow of a tree. Shortly thereafter, he returns and tells Gloucester that all is lost. With Cordelia’s forces defeated, Gloucester must flee. Gloucester resists, wanting only to die, but Edgar chides him: “What, in ill thoughts again? Men must endure/Their going hence, even as their coming hither;/Ripeness is all” (9-11). Gloucester follows him.

The triumphant Edmund enters with his captives, Lear and Cordelia, and instructs guards to take them to prison. Cordelia laments their fate, saying she could tolerate her own fall but not her father’s. Lear gently calms her: “Come, let’s away to prison./We two alone will sing like birds i’ th’ cage” (8-9). Edmund sends an ominous soldier after them with bloody instructions.

Albany demands that Edmund surrender the captives so that Albany may treat them fairly. Edmund weasels his way around this request, and Albany warns him he shouldn’t take liberties: he’s a subject, not a brother. Regan rebukes Albany, warning him that when she marries Edmund, the two men will be brothers. Goneril pushes back, and the two women squabble over Edmund in Albany’s face.

Based on the letter Edgar gave him, Albany arrests Edmund on charges of treason. He sounds the trumpet to summon the mysterious champion Edgar promised. Regan, overcome with a sudden sickness, is carried away. In private, Goneril gloats that she poisoned her sister.

The champion appears: It is Edgar himself in another disguise. He accuses Edmund of treachery and conspiracy and challenges him to a final duel. The brothers battle, and Edgar mortally wounds Edmund.

Albany produces Goneril’s letter to Edmund, confirming the charges against him and implicating her. Desperate, Goneril runs away.

The dying Edmund readily admits to all of the charges laid at his feet and asks who it is that killed him. Edgar reveals himself at last, and Edmund marvels, “The wheel is come full circle” (176).

Edgar explains to Albany that Gloucester is dead. When Edgar revealed his identity, Gloucester’s “flawed heart—/Alack, too weak the conflict to support—/‘Twixt two extremes of passion, joy and grief,/Burst smilingly” (199-202). Moved by this story, Edmund asks Edgar to go on; Edgar duly recounts his reunion with the disguised Kent, during which the two men shared their stories of exile.

A gentleman rushes in screaming that Goneril poisoned Regan and killed herself. Kent arrives asking after Lear, and Albany demands that Edmund tell them where the king and his daughter are. Edmund, slowly dying, reflects on the deaths of the two women who loved him and makes a new resolve: “Some good I mean to do,/Despite of mine own nature” (248-49). Before he is carried away to die offstage, he tells Albany to rush to the castle to halt Lear and Cordelia’s execution.

But it is too late. Lear appears carrying Cordelia’s hanged body and crying “Howl, howl, howl!” (263). The stunned onlookers watch as Lear wails over his daughter’s corpse: “Why should a dog, a horse, a rat, have life,/And thou no breath at all? Thou’lt come no more,/Never, never, never, never, never” (313-15). In despair, Lear too dies.

Shocked and grieving, Albany turns to Kent and Edgar, begging them to rule the kingdom. Kent refuses, saying he has other work to do: “I have a journey, sir, shortly to go./My master calls me; I must not say no” (328-29).

Edgar and Albany are left alone to try to heal the broken state. Edgar closes the play with these solemn words: “The weight of this sad time we must obey,/Speak what we feel, not what we ought to say./The oldest hath borne most; we that are young/Shall never see so much, nor live so long” (330-33).