King Lear Goneril Quotes

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.

Return to her, and fifty men dismiss’d?
No, rather I abjure all roofs, and choose
To wage against the enmity o’ th’ air,
To be a comrade with the wolf and owl, –
Necessity’s sharp pinch!

– William Shakespeare

King Lear, Act 2, Scene 4. Lear tells Regan that he would rather be homeless, and be a comrade of the wolf and owl, and suffer hunger land cold than return to his daughter Goneril and dismiss fifty of his knights. The fury of the family generational battle shows no sign of abating!

Thou art a boil,
A plague-sore, an embossed carbuncle,
In my corrupted blood.

– William Shakespeare

King Lear, Act 2, Scene 4. Lear rages about the unfair treatment he has received from Goneril and says that they’ll never meet or see each other again. While admitting that she is his flesh and blood and daughter, he cannot come to terms with this. He using graphic disease metaphors in this passage to describe her as a boil, plague sore and tumor that corrupts his blood. Relations between dad and mean daughter have reached a new and unforgiving low.

GONERIL: Hear me, my lord.
What need you five-and-twenty, ten, or five,
To follow in a house where twice so many
Have a command to tend you?
REGAN: What need one?

– William Shakespeare

King Lear, Act 2, Scene 4. Lear starts off his retirement with an entourage of one hundred knights to attend him. Daughters Goneril and Regan first demand that he get rid of fifty, then in this passage they go so far as to suggest that he doesn’t need any at all. They are conspiring against Lear because they fear that he might use the knights against them to assert his authority again as King. Any power Lear may think he has left is rapidly disappearing. He is King without a kingdom, he may soon be a master without servants.

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!

– William Shakespeare

King Lear, Act 2, Scene 4. Lear expresses deep hatred of his two daughters Gonerel and Regan, denouncing them as "unnatural hags," thus adding them to Shakespeare’s list of evil women. He vows "The terrors of the Earth!" and revenge for their betrayal of him. But despite his pain he will not weep even though he has good reason to. His heart will break into a hundred thousand pieces before he will weep, he says. In his final line to the Fool he foreshadows his own descent into madness, which happens shortly after this. Lear vents his rage here as his daughters strip away his knights and attendants, his dignity amd power. But all he can do is vent, for when he tries to assert his authority he find that he is powerless.

GONERIL: My lord, entreat him by no means to stay.
GLOUCESTER: Alack, the night comes on, and the bleak winds
Do sorely ruffle. For many miles about
There’s scarce a bush.

– William Shakespeare

King Lear, Act 2, Scene 4. Goneril urges her husband Cornwall not to invite Lear into Gloucester’s palace to lodge. Gloucester, a loyal subject of Lear and concerned for the King’s welfare and safety in the gathering storm, tries to play the peacemaker. But he is just as naive and blind to the truth as Lear. He is attempting to appeal to a humanity which Lear’s older daughters clearly don’t have.

Is it the fashion that discarded fathers
Should have thus little mercy on their flesh?
Judicious punishment! ‘Twas this flesh begot
Those pelican daughters.

– William Shakespeare

King Lear, Act 3, Scene 4. King Lear speaks of the ingratitude and treachery of his daughters. Lear’s experiences with daughters hasn’t been a happy one. He scolds himself for fathering Goneril and Regan and uses a particularly apt metaphor when he calls them "pelican daughters." During Shakespeare’s time it was believed that the mother pelican sacrificed herself by wounding her breast so that her chicks could feed off her blood.

Arraign her first; ’tis Goneril. I here take my oath before this honourable assembly, kicked the poor king her father.

– William Shakespeare

King Lear, Act 3, Scene 6. Lear presents a sad spectable as he holds a mock trial for his ungrateful daughters, calling for Goneril to be arraigned first. She stands accused in Lear’s comic and absurd indictment of the crime of having "kicked the poor king her father." With Lear presiding, Edgar, Kent and the Fool are the trial judges, and the defendants (where are not there) are represented by a stool. In this scene Lear’s descent to madness borders on the ridiculous.

Is there any cause in nature that make these hard hearts?

– William Shakespeare

King Lear, Act 3, Scene 6. A troubled King Lear wonders is there any reason why nature should provide such hard hearts lacking in kindness and compassion to Regan and Goneril. In a mock trial of his daughters, with Edgar and the Fool and Kent as judges, Lear is questioning whether evil is natural and a part of human nature, or whether it comes from somewhere else. In the sentences before this quote, Lear speaks of dissecting Regan to examine her heart: "Then let them anatomise Regan; see what breeds about her heart."

Because I would not see thy cruel nails
Pluck out his poor old eyes, nor thy fierce sister
In his anointed flesh stick boarish fangs.

– William Shakespeare

King Lear, Act 3, Scene 7. Gloucester tells Regan why he supports Lear. He says that he wants to protect Lear from the evil intentions of Regan and her sister Goneril, using animal imagery to describe their predatory and violent nature. Gloucester’s unfortunate words "pluck out his poor old eyes" foreshadows his own blinding, which happens moments after he speaks them. His words also reflect Lear’s metaphorical blindness.

GONERIL: Now, where’s your master?
OSWALD: Madam, within, but never man so changed.
I told him of the army that was landed;
He smiled at it. I told him you were coming;
His answer was "The worse." Of Gloucester’s treachery
And of the loyal service of his son
When I informed him, then he called me "sot"
And told me I had turned the wrong side out.
What most he should dislike seems pleasant to him;
What like, offensive.

– William Shakespeare

King Lear, Act 4, Scene 2. When Goneril returns to her palace, Oswald tells her that Albany has changed. It appears that his eyes are now opened to Goneril’s villainy. Oswald says that Albany is happy the French army has landed, but not happy to know he is seeing Goneril again. When Oswald tells him of Gloucester’s "treachery" and Edmund’s "loyal service," Albany brands Goneril’s self-seeking steward a "sot" and "turned the wrong side out."

I must change arms at home, and give the distaff,
Into my husband’s hands.

– William Shakespeare

King Lear, Act 4, Scene 2. Goneril tells Edmund that her husband Albany is such a coward that must reverse the normal gender roles so that she is the man of the house. Learning of Albany’s reluctance to fight against Lear and Cordelia, Goneril says that Albany is only fit for domestic duties and should be given the “distaff.” She on the other hand will “change arms” and take over his position as sword-carrying military leader.

You are not worth the dust which the rude wind
Blows in your face. I fear your disposition.

– William Shakespeare

King Lear, Act 4, Scene 2. When Goneril says that she has been worth the whistle, Albany chooses a "wind" metaphor to dismiss her as being worthless. Albany is another character blinded from the truth and to the wickedness of his wife Goneril towards her father Lear. Cautious and slow to act at first, here he finally sees her for what she is. He goes so far as to say he has come to fear his wife for her actions.

She that herself will sliver and disbranch
From her material sap perforce must wither
And come to deadly use.

– William Shakespeare

King Lear, Act 4, Scene 2. In Albany’s comment about Goneril cutting herself off from father, he uses a metaphor comparing her to a branch that tries to tear itself from the tree that sustains it. He says that she will wither and come to a deadly end. This is foreshadowing that Goneril will destroy herself and others – in the next act she commits suicide by stabbing herself, having poisoned her sister Regan.

Wisdom and goodness to the vile seem vile.
Filths savour but themselves. What have you done?
Tigers, not daughters, what have you performed?
A father, and a gracious agèd man,
Whose reverence even the head-lugged bear would lick,
Most barbarous, most degenerate, have you madded.
Could my good brother suffer you to do it?

– William Shakespeare

King Lear, Act 4, Scene 2. Albany has had enough of his wife Goneril and her sister Regan. Using an apt animal metaphor, he says they have behaved like tigers and not daughters in their barbaric mistreatment of King Lear. He accuses them of driving insane their kindly old father, whom even an angry bear would have been gentle with.
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