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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... noble gentleman , Edmund ? No , my lord . GLOUCESTER My lord of Kent : remember him hereafter as my honourable friend . EDMUND My services to your lordship . KENT I must love you , and sue to know you better . EDMUND Sir , I shall study ...
... noble lord . KING LEAR My lord of Burgundy . BURGUNDY We first address towards you , who with this king Hath rivall❜d for our daughter : what , in the least , Will you require in present dower with her , Or cease your quest of love ...
... grace, our love, our benison. Come, noble Burgundy. (Flourish. Exeunt all but KING OF FRANCE , GONERIL , REGAN , and CORDELIA .) Bid farewell to your sisters. CORDELIA REGAN GONERIL CORDELIA KING OF FRANCE GONERIL REGAN GONERIL.
... noble and true-hearted Kent banished! his offence, honesty! 'Tis strange. (Exit.) EDMUND This is the excellent foppery of the world, that, when we are sick in fortune— often the surfeit of our own behavior —we make guilty of our ...
... noble , Whose nature is so far from doing harms , That he suspects none : on whose foolish honesty My practises ride easy ! I see the business . Let me , if not by birth , have lands by wit : All with me's meet that I can fashion fit ...