| Nothing will come of nothing: speak again. Lear, Scene I | Nothing – Lear loses everything in the end, and the word ‘nothing’ causes a lot of suffering (e.g. Gloucester + Cordelia’s ‘Nothing, my lord’) |
| Unhappy that I am, I cannot heave My heart into my mouth: I love your majesty According to my bond; no more nor less. Cordelia, Scene I | Shows Cordelia’s truthfulness + virtue |
| Mend your speech a little, Lest you may mar your fortunes. Lear, Scene I | Fortunes + fate – cordelia seals her own fate by not ‘mending her speech’ |
| Lear: So young, and so untender?Cordelia: So young, my lord, and true.Lear: Let it be so; — thy truth, then, be thy dower. Scene I | Fortunes + fate – cordelia seals her own fate by being truthful |
| Come not between the dragon and his wrath. Lear, Scene I | How Lear views himself |
| Lear: The bow is bent and drawn; make from the shaft.Kent: Let it fall rather, though the fork invade The region of my heart Scene I | Shows bravery and loyalty of Kent // arrogance of Lear for banishing his most loyal friend |
| Kill thy physician, and the fee bestow Upon the foul disease. Kent, Scene I | Disease metaphor – moral corruption |
| Time shall unfold what plighted cunning hidesCordelia, Scene I | Foreshadow – talking to Gon and Reg |
| Tis the infirmity of his age: yet he hath ever but slenderly known himself. Regan, Scene I | Saying that Lear has always bee volatile (changeable) |
| Who, in the lusty stealth of nature, take More composition and fierce quality Than doth, within a dull, stale, tired bed, Go to the creating a whole tribe of fops Got ‘tween asleep and wake? Edmund, Scene II | Better to be born out of lust |
| Now, gods, stand up for bastards! Edmund, Scene II | The power of the Gods and their role in the play |
| We have seen the best of our time: machinations, hollowness, treachery, and all ruinous disorders, follow us disquietly to our graves. Gloucester, Scene II | apocalyptic view / premonition – AO4 reflecting gunpowder plot? |
| This is the excellent foppery of the world, that, when we are sick in fortune, often the surfeit of our own behaviour, we make guilty of our disasters the sun, the moon, and the stars; as if we were villains by necessity, fools by heavenly compulsion, knaves, thieves, and treachers by spherical predominance, drunkards, liars, and adulterers by an enforced obedience of planetary influence; and all that we are evil in, by a divine thrusting on: an admirable evasion of who/re-master man, to lay his goatish disposition to the charge of a star! Edmund, Scene II | soliloquy in prose – saying that the stars (/ nature) don’t matter – he is what he is |
| Truth’s a dog must to kennel; he must be whipped out, when Lady the brach may stand by the fire and stink. The Fool, scene iv | Truth = CordeliaBrach = Gon+Reg- shows how upset he is about Cord’s banishment |
| Have more than thou showest, Speak less than thou knowestThe Fool, Scene IV | The Fool giving advice to Lear (+audience) |
| The hedge sparrow fed the cuckoo so long, That it had it head bit off by it young. The Fool, Scene IV | Natural references + imagery |
| Ingratitude, thou marble-hearted fiend, More hideous, when thou show’st thee in a child Than the sea-monster! Lear, Scene IV | Talking to Gon |
| How sharper than a serpent’s tooth it is To have a thankless child! Lear, Scene IV | Lear’s final words of his speech to Gon about wanting her to lose a child to feel his pain – some critics think THIS is when Gon starts to hate Lear |
| Striving to better, oft we mar what’s well. Albany, Scene IV | Sassy Albany having his say |
KING LEAR – ACT 1
July 2, 2019