King LearStandard Ebooks King Lear is a tragedy by Shakespeare, written about 1605 or 1606. Shakespeare based it on the legendary King Leir of the Britons, whose story is outlined in Geoffrey of Monmouth’s pseudohistorical History of the Kings of Britain (written in about 1136). The play tells the tale of the aged King Lear who is passing on the control of his kingdom to his three daughters. He asks each of them to express their love for him, and the first two, Goneril and Regan do so effusively, saying they love him above all things. But his youngest daughter, Cordelia, is compelled to be truthful and says that she must reserve some love for her future husband. Lear, enraged, cuts her off without any inheritance. The secondary plot deals with the machinations of Edmund, the bastard son of the Earl of Gloucester, who manages to convince his father that his legitimate son Edgar is plotting against him. After Lear steps down from power, he finds that his elder daughters have no real respect or love for him, and treat him and his followers as a nuisance. They allow the raging Lear to wander out into a storm, hoping to be rid of him, and conspire with Edmund to overthrow the Earl of Gloucester. The play is a moving study of the perils of old age and the true meaning of filial love. It ends tragically with the deaths of both Cordelia and Lear—so tragically, in fact, that performances during the Restoration period sometimes substituted a happy ending. In modern times, though, King Lear is performed as written and generally regarded as one of Shakespeare’s best plays. This Standard Ebooks edition is based on William George Clark and William Aldis Wright’s 1887 Victoria edition, which is taken from the Globe edition. This book is part of the Standard Ebooks project, which produces free public domain ebooks. |
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... foul fiend follows me ! KING LEAR EDGAR KING LEAR Through the sharp hawthorn blows the cold wind . Hum ! go to thy cold bed , and warm thee . Hast thou given all to thy two daughters ? And art thou come to this ? Who gives any thing to ...
... foul fiend : obey thy parents ; keep thy word justly ; swear not ; commit not with man's sworn spouse ; set not thy sweet heart on proud array . Tom's a - cold . What hast thou been ? A serving - man ... foul fiend Flibbertigibbet: he begins.
... foul fiend rages, eats cow-dung for sallets; swallows the old rat and the ditch-dog; drinks the green mantle of the standing pool; who is whipped from tithing to tithing, and stock- punished, and imprisoned; who hath had three suits to ...
... foul fiend . Prithee , nuncle , tell me whether a madman be a gentleman or a yeoman ? A king , a king ! No , he's a yeoman that has a gentleman to his son ; for he's a mad yeoman that sees his son a gentleman before him . To have a ...
... foul fiend ! five fiends have been in poor Tom at once ; of lust , as Obidicut ; Hobbididence , prince of dumbness ; Mahu , of stealing ; Modo , of murder ; Flibbertigibbet , of mopping and mowing , who since possesses chambermaids and ...