| “I hear my father coming. Pardon me: in cunning I must draw my sword upon you. Draw, seem to defend yourself; now quit you well.” | EdmundTelling Edgar to pretend that they are fighting, so that his father thinks Edgar is evil |
| “O madam, my old heart is cracked, it’s cracked.” | GloucesterHe is upset that Edgar seems to be a villain |
| “Nothing almost sees miracles but misery.” | KentYou must be mad to see the extraordinary; says this in the stocks |
| “Fortune, good night; smile once more, turn thy wheel.” | KentCalling upon fate |
| “While I may ‘scape, I will preserve myself; and am bethought to take the basest and most poorest shape that every penury, in contempt of man…Edgar I nothing am.” | EdgarEdgar must now play the role of the filthy bastard and assume the role of nothing (shift of power) |
| “Fortune, that arrant *****, ne’er turns the key to th’ poor. But for all this, thou shalt have as many dolors for thy daughters as thou canst tell in a year.” | FoolSaying that the King will only get pain from his daughters |
| “We’ll set thee to school to an ant, to teach thee there’s no laboring i’ th’ winter. All that follow their noses are led by their eyes but blind men, and there’s not a nose among twenty but can smell him that’s stinking…But I will tarry; the Fool will stay.” | FoolAdvising Kent not to be so loyal, because Lear is headed down a bad path, but he says that he himself will always remain loyal |
| “The King would speak with Cornwall. The dear father would with his daughter speak, commands–tends–service. Are they informed of this? My breath and blood! Fiery? The fiery Duke, tell the hot Duke that–no, but not yet. May be he is not well.” | King LearDemanding that he speak immediately with Cornwall and his daughters, but then softens up, which shows his battle to maintain power |
| “O, sir, you are old, nature in you stands on the very verge of his confine. You should be ruled, and led better than you yourself. Therefore I pray you that to our sister you do make return, say you have wronged her.” | ReganTrying to convince King Lear that he does not need as many knights; encouraging him to reconcile with Goneril; undermining his power |
| “You nimble lightnings, dart your blinding flames into her scornful eyes! Infect her beauty, you fen-sucked fogs, drawn by the pow’rful sun, to fall and blister her pride.” | King LearCalling upon nature to give Goneril justice; tension between Regan’s plea for reconciliation and his desire for justice |
| “I pray you, father, being weak, seem so.” | ReganTelling King Lear that he is weak, and he should stop trying to act so strong. |
| “I prithee, daughter, do not make me mad.” | King LearBegging Goneril to ease up; implies that maybe his daughters have caused him to go insane |
| “But I’ll not chide thee. Let shame come when it will, I do not call it.” | King LearTelling Goneril that she will get what she deserves and trusting that fate will bring her justice |
| “I’ll go with thee. Thy fifty yet doth double five-and-twenty, and thou art twice her love.” | King LearHe will take Goneril’s offer instead of Regan’s, because she is giving him more (calculated type of love) |
| “What need one?” | ReganChallenging Lear, saying he is not even worth one knight |
| “No, you unnatural hags! I will have such revenges on you both that all the world shall–I will do such things–what they are, yet I know not; but they shall be the terrors of the earth. You think I’ll weep. No I’ll not weep. I have full cause of weeping, but this heart shall break into a hundred thousand flaws or ere I’ll weep. O Fool, I shall go mad!” | King LearDeclaring that his daughters will be avenged, and that instead of being broken by their behavior, he will go crazy |
| “O, sir, to willful men the injuries that they themselves procure must be schoolmasters. Shut up your doors.” | ReganDoes not care that her father has gone mad, and is in the middle of the biggest storm in history, and is hoping he will just have to learn his lesson |
King Lear Quotations Act II
July 30, 2019