King Lear Family Quotes

KENT: Is not this your son, my lord?
GLOUCESTER: His breeding, sir, hath been at my charge. I have so often blushed to acknowledge him, that now I am brazed to ‘t.
KENT: I cannot conceive you.
GLOUCESTER: Sir, this young fellow’s mother could: whereupon she grew round-wombed, and had, indeed, sir, a son for her cradle ere she had a husband for her bed. Do you smell a fault?

– William Shakespeare

King Lear, Act 1, Scene 1. The Earl of Gloucester jokes to the Duke of Kent about his illigitimate son Edmund, setting the scene for some family drama to come. Gloucester admits that Edmund has been an embarrassment to him and Kent says he doesn’t understand what he means. Gloucester responds with verbal irony, playing on the word "conceive," to explain how Edmund was born out of wedlock. He then cracks a rude joke about female genitals, mocking Edmund’s mother while ignoring Edmund’s presence. "Do you smell a fault?" he tells Kent. This is foreshadowing of how a resentful Edmund will embark on a plot against his father and half-brother.

But I have a son, sir by order of law, some year elder than this, who yet is no dearer in my account. Though this knave came something saucily to the world before he was sent for, yet was his mother fair, there was good sport at his making, and the whoreson must be acknowledged. – Do you know this noble gentleman, Edmund?

– William Shakespeare

King Lear, Act 1, Scene 1. Gloucester makes a lewd and cruel joke to Kent about his bastard son Edmund arriving "saucily" into the world. He says he had "good sport" with his "fair" mother at Edmund’s making. The tactless Earl associates lust with love and is also blind to the feelings of Edmund who is standing beside him, calling him a "whoreson." Gloucester also tells Kent that he has another legitimate son Edgar, although he doesn’t love him any more than Edmund. This passage is foreshadowing of the family conflict to come as Gloucester is punished by a resentful Edmund.

Our son of Cornwall,
And you, our no less loving son of Albany,
We have this hour a constant will to publish
Our daughters’ several dowers, that future strife
May be prevented now.
The two great princes, France and Burgundy,
Great rivals in our youngest daughter’s love,
Long in our court have made their amorous sojourn,
And here are to be answered. Tell me, my daughters –
Since now we will divest us both of rule,
Interest of territory, cares of state –
Which of you shall we say doth love us most,
That we our largest bounty may extend
Where nature doth with merit challenge. Goneril,
Our eldest born, speak first.

– William Shakespeare

King Lear, Act 1, Scene 1. The proud and egotistical old King Lear devises a "love test" to decide how to divide his kingdom between his daughters, Goneril, Regan and Cordelia. He demands that they flatter him with a declaration of total love, and their share of the kingdom will be based on whoever professes to love him most. Lear’s plan is to prevent "future strife" that might result from him dying without an heir – he has no sons and three daughters, with Regan married to the Duke of Cornwall, Goneril to the Duke of Albany, and the King of France and Duke of Burgundy love rivals for youngest daughter Cordelia’s hand. There is a terrible irony in this because Lear’s foolish action results in tragic consequences and the very strife he wishes to avoid. Lear’s fatal flaw is his pride and that and its fellow traveler folly bring about his downfall, which is foreshadowed in this passage.

Sir, I love you more than word can wield the matter,
Dearer than eyesight, space, and liberty,
Beyond what can be valued, rich or rare,
No less than life, with grace, health, beauty, honour;
As much as child e’er loved, or father found;
A love that makes breath poor, and speech unable.
Beyond all manner of so much I love you.

– William Shakespeare

King Lear, Act 1, Scene 1. Goneril is the first to respond to her Lear’s "who loves me most?" test. She falsely professes undying love for her father, using verbal irony to say that she loves him more than words can express. The gullible Lear shows mental and moral blindness when he fails to recognize Goneril’s over the top and insincere flattery as she tells him what he wants to hear. In the matter of his daughters’ love, he cannot tell the difference between the appearance and reality. So he goes on to award Goneril a generous share of his kingdom. The Earl of Gloucester’s later blinding is also forshadowed by Goneril’s declaration of her love being "dearer than eyesight," a phrase that underlines how terrible it would be to lose your eyesight.

I am made of that self mettle as my sister
And prize me at her worth. In my true heart
I find she names my very deed of love;
Only she comes too short, that I profess
Myself an enemy to all other joys
Which the most precious square of sense possesses,
And find I am alone felicitate
In your dear Highness’ love.

– William Shakespeare

King Lear, Act 1, Scene 1. Regan, not to be outdone by Goneril’s exaggerated declaration of love for Lear, tries to "one up" her sister. A hypocritical Regan suggests that Goneril’s love "comes too short" compared to hers, and that the only thing that makes her truly happy is Lear’s love. This highlights the competition between the pair, a rivalry that will climax in destructive violence in the final act, so foreshadowing the murder-suicide to come. Regan talks of having the same "mettle" as her sister, her pun on the word "metal" conveying dramatic irony. For the sisters are very much alike and both have the hardness of metal. As with Goneril, Lear rewards Regan with a large share of his kingdom, unable to distinguish between her empty flattery and the truth. Both sisters are simply trying to gain as much of his power and wealth as possible but he doesn’t see.

I cannot heave
My heart into my mouth. I love your Majesty
According to my bond, no more nor less.

– William Shakespeare

King Lear, Act 1, Scene 1. The stubborn Lear encounters an equally stubborn Cordelia, as her integrity and pride stop her from taking part in the narcissistic Lear’s love test in which his daughters must flatter him to gain his wealth. Using a metaphor she says that she cannot "heave" her heart into her mouth – put her feelings into words. She tells him that she loves him as a daughter should love a father and her king, no more and no less. The "bond" she refers to is the relationship within a family, and also the one between kings and their subjects.

Good my lord,
You have begot me, bred me, loved me.
I return those duties back as are right fit:
Obey you, love you, and most honour you.
Why have my sisters husbands if they say
They love you all? Haply, when I shall wed,
That lord whose hand must take my plight shall carry
Half my love with him, half my care and duty.
Sure I shall never marry like my sisters,
To love my father all.

– William Shakespeare

King Lear, Act 1, Scene 1. Cordelia speaks candidly here about her loyalty and bond to Lear. She says that Lear fathered, raised and loved her, and in return she will obey, love and honor him. But hopefully when she gets married, she will give half her love and duty to her husband. She questions how her married sisters can claim to love their father only when they have husbands to love. She is suggesting that Regan and Goneril are being disloyal to their husbands. Cordelia vows that she will never marry like them to "love my father all" and leave no love for her husband.

Let it be so. Thy truth, then, be thy dower,
For by the sacred radiance of the sun,
The mysteries of Hecate and the night,
By all the operation of the orbs
From whom we do exist, and cease to be,
Here I disclaim all my paternal care,
Propinquity, and property of blood,
And as a stranger to my heart and me
Hold thee, from this, for ever. The barbarous Scythian,
Or he that makes his generation messes
To gorge his appetite, shall to my bosom
Be as well neighboured, pitied, and relieved
As thou my sometime daughter.

– William Shakespeare

King Lear, Act 1, Scene 1. Lear flies into a rage at Cordelia’s stubborn refusal to flatter him and play ball with his love test charade. Her truth will be her only inheritance, he tells her. He calls on the natural forces of the sun, moon and planets to assist in his disowning of Cordelia. Lear promises to treat her "as a stranger to my heart" (simile). He compares his daughter to a "barbarous Scythian" who eats their own children. When he says "Here I disclaim all my paternal care" the tragedy of the play starts to unfold, as Lear gives up his fatherly care and love for her. The first major betrayal in the play is Lear’s betrayal of his daughter Cordelia. This is a decision which will have far-reaching and serious consequences for Lear. And it is one he will later learn to regret when his two other daughters treat him exactly this way. They treat him with unkindness and show him no compassion, just as he does with Cordelia. It is ironic that the daughter who loves King Lear most and the one who respects him most to tell the truth is the one who is disinherited and banished from her own country. This betrayal and cruel abuse of power turns out to be Lear’s greatest folly. His astounding blindness to the true worth of Cordelia and her sisters is his most unforgiveable case of choosing appearances over reality.

LEAR: [To Kent] I loved her most, and thought to set my rest
On her kind nursery. [To Cordelia] Hence and avoid my sight! –
So be my grave my peace, as here I give
Her father’s heart from her.

– William Shakespeare

King Lear, Act 1, Scene 1. When Kent tries to get Lear to see the terrible mistake he has made in disowning Cordelia, Lear makes an extraordinary admission. He is angry because Cordelia is the daughter he loved best whom he hoped would nurse him in his retirement years. He then banishes Cordelia from his sight and withdraws his love from her. It is no surprise that Lear’s family is so dysfunctional when as a father he can be such a blind fool.

Thou, Nature, art my goddess. To thy law
My services are bound. Wherefore should I
Stand in the plague of custom, and permit
The curiosity of nations to deprive me
For that I am some twelve or fourteen moonshines
Lag of a brother? why "bastard"? Wherefore "base,"
When my dimensions are as well compact,
My mind as generous and my shape as true
As honest madam’s issue? Why brand they us
With "base," with "baseness," "bastardy," "base," "base,"
Who, in the lusty stealth of nature, take
More composition and fierce quality
Than doth within a dull, stale, tired bed
Go to th’ creating a whole tribe of fops
Got ‘tween asleep and wake? Well then,
Legitimate Edgar, I must have your land.
Our father’s love is to the bastard Edmund
As to th’ legitimate. Fine word, "legitimate."
Well, my legitimate, if this letter speed
And my invention thrive, Edmund the base
Shall top th’ legitimate. I grow, I prosper.
Now, gods, stand up for bastards!

– William Shakespeare

King Lear, Act 1, Scene 2. In this soliloquy Edmund says that the only laws he shows loyalty to are the laws of nature, exposing him as a moral nihilist and one of the play’s evil villains. The proud and resentful Edmund laments his "base" status as the bastard son of the Earl of Gloucester. He questions the injustice of customs that deprive bastards like him of the birthright given to legitimate sons like his half-brother Edgar. Edmund, who does not feel bound by legal rules, shows his determination to set things right regarding this. Scheming for power, he plots to take Edgar’s legitimate inheritance of "land" – the Gloucester property and position. The letter referred to in his "bastard" speech is one Edmund forged implicating Edgar in a plot against Gloucester and which Edmund is about to present to father to trick him.

Legitimate Edgar, I must have your land.
Our father’s love is to the bastard Edmund
As to th’ legitimate. Fine word, "legitimate."
Well, my legitimate, if this letter speed
And my invention thrive, Edmund the base
Shall top th’ legitimate. I grow, I prosper.

– William Shakespeare

King Lear, Act 1, Scene 2. The Machiavellian Edmund has a lot in common with Lear’s villainous daughters Goneril and Regan – the capacity for duplicity! While the sisters fool Lear with deceptive expressions of love, Edmund forges a letter to trick his father the Earl of Gloucester and falsely accuse his innocent abrother Edgar. Edmund notes that his father loves him as much as his legitimate son, but he is unhappy that as a bastard he stands to inherit nothing. However, Edmund pledges that through his scheme to discredit his brother he will enjoy prosperity, triumph over the honest Edgar and take his inheritance. Edmund feels no loyalty to his family and believes he is entitled to the Gloucester wealth and title.

GLOUCESTER [Reads]: "This policy and reverence of age makes the world bitter to the best of our times; keeps our fortunes from us till our oldness cannot relish them. I begin to find an idle and fond bondage in the oppression of aged tyranny; who sways, not as it hath power, but as it is suffered. Come to me, that of this I may speak more. If our father would sleep till I waked him, you should enjoy half his revenue for ever, and live the beloved of your brother, Edgar."
Hum? Conspiracy? "Sleep till I waked him, you should enjoy half his revenue," – My son Edgar! Had he a hand to write this? a heart and brain to breed it in? – When came this to you? Who brought it?

– William Shakespeare

King Lear, Act 1, Scene 2. The letter forged by Edmund and purporting to come from Edgar proposes that the brothers kill their father so that they can enjoy his "revenue" (wealth). Although Edgar is Gloucester’s son and heir so they must have a close and caring relationship, Gloucester appears a little too ready to believe that he is involved in a diabolical murder plot. But Gloucester is too blind to see through Edmund’s wicked subterfuge and recognize Edgar’s innocence of any betrayal of his father.

O villain, villain! His very opinion in the letter. Unnatural, detested, brutish villain! Worse than brutish! Go, sirrah, seek him; I’ll apprehend him: abominable villain! Where is he?

– William Shakespeare

King Lear, Act 1, Scene 2. Gloucester labels son and heir Edgar an unnatural, brutish and abominable villain and demands to know where he is. But he is too hasty to fall for the manipulating Edmund’s deception and lies, which he swallows hook, line and sinker. So Gloucester plays the blind fool and condemns his true son Edgar without ever giving him a chance to defend himself. So much for Gloucester family justice!

Love cools, friendship falls off, brothers divide; in cities, mutinies; in countries, discord; in palaces, treason; and the bond cracked ‘twixt son and father.

– William Shakespeare

King Lear, Act 1, Scene 2. After Edmund’s shock revelation of Edgar’s plot to kill his father – completely false, as Edmund is the betrayer – Gloucester is in a dark mood. In this passage he expresses his dark nihilistic vision of a dysfunctional world of complete social breakdown: love gone cold, friendships broken, brothers at odds, riots in the cities, civil wars, kings betrayed, and the bond between fathers and sons broken.

By day and night he wrongs me. Every hour
He flashes into one gross crime or other
That sets us all at odds.

– William Shakespeare

King Lear, Act 1, Scene 3. After the division of Lear’s kingdom, the King spends the first part of his retirement at Goneril’s castle. But nobody is playing happy families. A frustrated Goneril bitterly complains to her steward Oswald that her father is offending her day and night, every hour causing some offense that has the fighting. This sets the scene for some family conflict ahead.

E’er since thou mad’st thy daughters thy mothers. For when thou gav’st them the rod and put’st down thine own breeches.

– William Shakespeare

King Lear, Act 1, Scene 4. This is the Fool’s reply when Lear asks him when did he become so fond of singing. Since you made his daughters your mothers, and gave them the spanking rod and pulled down your pants, he bluntly and cheekily tells Lear. The King’s jester is pointing out the terrible mistake he made when he transferred all his power to daughters Goneril and Regan.

Ingratitude, thou marble-hearted fiend,
More hideous when thou show’st thee in a child
Than the sea-monster!

– William Shakespeare

King Lear, Act 1, Scene 4. Lear flies into a rage when daughter Goneril complaints about the conduct of Lear’s 100 knights and asks him to reduce their number, keeping only what he needs. Using a metaphor he curses the cold-hearted devil, ingratitude, saying it is more hideous than a sea monster when it appears in a child. Daddy and daughter are not happy living under the one roof.

Hear, Nature, hear, dear goddess, hear!
Suspend thy purpose if thou didst intend
To make this creature fruitful.
Into her womb convey sterility.
Dry up in her the organs of increase,
And from her derogate body never spring
A babe to honour her! If she must teem,
Create her child of spleen, that it may live
And be a thwart disnatured torment to her.
Let it stamp wrinkles in her brow of youth,
With cadent tears fret channels in her cheeks,
Turn all her mother’s pains and benefits
To laughter and contempt, that she may feel
How sharper than a serpent’s tooth it is
To have a thankless child! – Away, away!

– William Shakespeare

King Lear, Act 1, Scene 4. Lear finally realizes that his daughter Goneril is betraying him. For Goneril, living with Lear is not working out so well, so if he wants to stay with her she rules that he must lose 50 of his knights as they are too rowdy. Calling on the goddess of Nature, an enraged Lear curses his Goneril’s womb with sterility. And if the gods decide that she will have children, he wishes that she goes through painful labor and has a "thankless child" to make her life thoroughly miserable. Lear uses the metaphor of the pain of a snake bite to describe what it feels like to have a thankless child.

CORNWALL: Edmund, I hear that you have shown your father
A childlike office.
EDMUND: It was my dury, sir.

– William Shakespeare

King Lear, Act 2, Scene 1. Gloucester and others are completely taken in by Edmund’s vicious lies about Edgar. The Duke of Cornwall says that he has been told Edmund acted like a true son to his father Gloucester. Basking in his new popularity, Edmund replies that it was his duty, suggesting that it is a child’s duty to protect his father. The reality is that Edmund is not a good son, but an evil villain scheming to usurp Gloucester’s title and possessions from Edgar.

My face I’ll grime with filth,
Blanket my loins, elf all my hairs in knots,
And with presented nakedness outface
The winds and persecutions of the sky.
The country gives me proof and precedent
Of Bedlam beggars who with roaring voices
Strike in their numbed and mortifièd arms
Pins, wooden pricks, nails, sprigs of rosemary,
And, with this horrible object, from low farms,
Poor pelting villages, sheepcotes, and mills,
Sometime with lunatic bans, sometime with prayers,
Enforce their charity. "Poor Turlygod! Poor Tom!"
That’s something yet. "Edgar" I nothing am.

– William Shakespeare

King Lear, Act 2, Scene 3. In the woods Edgar plans to disguise himself as a deranged inmate of Bedlam hospital called Poor Tom. He will smear his face with mud, strip himself, wear only a blanket and brave the wind, bad weather and natural elements almost naked. He has seen beggars from insane asylums mutilate their arms with pins and nails, pray and shout insane curses, forcing poor villagers and farmers to give them alms. Poor Tom, they call themselves. He is no longer Edgar, he announces, renouncing his family identity.

Fathers that wear rags
Do make their children blind,
But fathers that bear bags
Shall see their children kind.
Fortune, that arrant whore,
Ne’er turns the key to th’ poor.

– William Shakespeare

King Lear, Act 2, Scene 4. When Lear arrives at Gloucester’s palace he is shocked to find Kent placed in stocks by Lear’s daughter Regan and Cornwall. The wise Fool attributes the humiliation of the King’s messenger to Lear’s reversal in fortune. Using rhyme and metaphor he satirizes Lear’s act of folly in giving away "bags" of money to daughters Regan and Goneril. When fathers are poor and "wear rags" their children are blind to their needs, the Fool says. But if their fathers are rich, then the children are nice to them. Fortune is a fickle whore who never opens her door to the poor, the Fool warns. Lear is now "poor" after giving away his kingdom to Regan and Goneril.

O, how this mother swells up toward my heart!
Hysterica passio, down, thou climbing sorrow,
Thy element’s below!

– William Shakespeare

King Lear, Act 2, Scene 4. Lear feels betrayed by his daughters who are telling him what to do and disrespecting him. His fatherhood is being taken away from him and it is being replaced by motherhood, he believes. He says that he is suffering from "Hysterica passio," a medical disorder of women which brings on choking or breathlessness. English Shakespearean actor Corin Redgrave said of Lear: "Lear is terrified of the mother, ie the woman, within him. Scholarly notes explain that according to ideas of anatomy at this time, hysterica passio begins in the womb (hysteria in Greek), and climbs, via the heart, to the patient’s throat, suffocating him."

O, sir! You are old;
Nature in you stands on the very verge
Of her confine. You should be rul’d and led
By some discretion that discerns your state
Better than you yourself. Therefore, I pray you
That to our sister you do make return.
Say you have wronged her.

– William Shakespeare

King Lear, Act 2, Scene 4. Regan doesn’t mince her words here and shows her disrespect for Lear, after he curses his other daughter Goneril because of her unkindness to him. Regan bluntly tells Lear that he is old and is at the very edge of his natural lifespan. She suggests that Lear, who has handed over his kingdom to his daughters, is too old to even govern himself. He should let others take care of him who understand him better than he understands himself. And he should go back to Goneril’s house and admit that he was wrong. In this speech Regan is patronizing and exerts her power by holding up Lear’s impotence before him.
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