| Thou, nature, art my godess | The start of Edmund’s soliloquy, shows he does not subscribe to human law, rather the more brutal ‘law of the jungle’, survival of the fittest etc |
| the curiosity of nations to deprive me, for that I am some twelve or fourteen moonshines lag of a brother?’ | Edmund, professing how unfair it is that he does not get his father’s inheritance simply because he is younger than Edgar |
| my dimensions are as well compact, my mind as generous and my shape as true, as honest madam’s issue?’ | Edmund, saying he is the same as if he were legitimate |
| 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, saying surely he’s better as he was made in a moment of passion and not bored, ritualistic sex. Highlights the idea of him having a ‘natural’ bond with Gloucester and he sees sex as natural – shows he’s outside the traditional Jacobean morality |
| Nothing, my lord | Edmund to Gloucester in response to Kent’s asking of ‘what paper were you reading?’, echoes Cordelia |
| If it be nothing I shall not need spectacles | Gloucester to Edmund in response to Edmund telling him he has nothing in his pocket, irony as like Lear he has failed to see the true nature of his child |
| the oppression of aged tyranny | In ‘Edward’s’ letter, insults age, similar to Goneril and Regan’s criticism of Lear |
| These late eclipses in the sun and moon portend no good to us | Gloucester to Edmund, shows he sees the heavens as symbolising & causing chaos and order in human affairs |
| nature finds itself scourged by the sequent effects:…brothers divide;…the bond cracked ‘twixt son and father | Gloucester to Edmund, shows that whilst Edmund sees his plan as ‘natural’ Gloucester sees the opposite; the division between families in unnatural |
| The king falls from bias of nature; there’s father against child | Gloucester to Edmund, shows he sees the king’s decision as going against nature as well |
| As if we were villains by necessity, fools by heavenly compulsion | Edmund, ridiculing his father’s beliefs that the heavens dictate our fate. |
| I should have been that I am, had the maidenliest star in the firmament twinkled on my bastardizing | Edmund, he thinks that the fates and heavens play no part in the creation of our characters |
| How long have you been a sectary astronomical? | Edgar to Edmund’s lamenting of astronomical charts, shows he too ridicules Gloucester’s ideas of fate |
| A brother noble, whose nature is so far from doing harms that he suspects none | Edmund about Edgar, laughing about how easily he is convinced of Edmund’s innocence |
| Let me, if not by birth, have lands by wit; all with me’s meet that I can fashion fit. | Last lines of the scene, shows he’ll do anything to get what he wants |
King Lear Act 1 scene 2 quotes
July 25, 2019