King Lear Metaphors and Similes Quotes

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.

– William Shakespeare

King Lear, Act 1, Scene 1. Using a bent bow and shaft as a metaphor to warn off Kent from challenging his decision to banish Cordelia, Lear tells the Earl that he is angry and ready to snap. Kent replies that Lear should let his anger fall on him even if its sharpness pierces his heart. Kent, as always, tries to be Lear’s honest and loyal adviser.

LEAR: Kent, on thy life, no more.
KENT: My life I never held but as a pawn
To wage against thy enemies; nor fear to lose it,
Thy safety being the motive.
LEAR: Out of my sight!

– William Shakespeare

King Lear, Act 1, Scene 1. Kent says that he has never valued his own life except as a pawn (metaphor) Lear could use against his enemies. He pledges that he would protect Lear with his life. But Kent’s protest at Lear’s disowning of Cordelia falls on deaf ears due to Lear’s obstinate pride and failure to see reality. Lear tells the honest and devoted Kent to shut up and get out of his sight. In yet another act of blind folly Lear banishes his most loyal servant and selfless advisor.

See better, Lear, and let me still remain
The true blank of thine eye.

– William Shakespeare

King Lear, Act 1, Scene 1. After told to get out of his sight by Lear for standing up for Cordelia and speaking the truth, Kent urges Lear to see better, since the King has been blinded by stubborness and pride. The loyal Kent also appeals to Lear to allow him to remain where he can look to him for honest advice. Kent’s metaphor of a "blank" – meaning the center of a target – asks us to imagine a weapon aimed at an eye, so this is foreshadowing of Gloucester’s blinding.

KENT: This is nothing, Fool.
FOOL: Then ’tis like the breath of an unfee’d lawyer. You gave me nothing for ‘t. – Can you make no use of nothing, nuncle?
LEAR: Why no, boy. Nothing can be made out of nothing.
FOOL: [to Kent] Prithee tell him, so much the rent of his land comes to.

– William Shakespeare

King Lear, Act 1, Scene 4. When Kent complains that one of the Fool’s rhymes means nothing, the quick witted Fool uses a simile to compare this to the speech of an unpaid lawyer. The Fool asks Lear can he make no use of nothing. Here he is questioning Lear’s life and his foolishness, as Lear has given away all he had to his daughters, so he is literally left with nothing. King Lear, echoing his words of dismissal to daughter Cordelia, says that nothing can be made of nothing. This produces the Fool’s sharp response, telling Kent to remind Lear that his income is nothing now that he has no land, as he won’t believe a fool. Ironically Lear is the great fool in this play and the Fool one of its wisest characters. The theme of nihilism is also explored in this passage with the repeated use use of the word "nothing."

Why, after I have cut the egg I’ the middle and eat up the meat, the two crowns of the egg. When thou clovest thy crown I’ the middle and gavest away both parts, thou borest thine ass on thy back o’er the dirt. Thou hadst little wit in thy bald crown when thou gavest thy golden one away. If I speak like myself in this, let him be whipped that first finds so.

– William Shakespeare

King Lear, Act 1, Scene 4. The Fool tells Lear to give him an egg in return for two crowns and when Lear asks what crowns he will return, the Fool makes this response. He is using the extended metaphor of the split crown and the egg to warn and scold Lear for his foolishness in granting his kingdom to his duplicitous daughters.

Here do you keep a hundred knights and squires,
Men so disordered, so debauched and bold,
That this our court, infected with their manners,
Shows like a riotous inn. Epicurism and lust
Makes it more like a tavern or a brothel
Than a graced palace.

– William Shakespeare

King Lear, Act 1, Scene 4. Goneril uses some colorful similes to complain about Lear’s knights and squires turning her home into something like an inn or a brothel. Her complaints about the faults in others will later appear very ironic in view of her own serious character flaws. Writing in The Guardian newspaper, Shakespearean actor Corin Redgrave said: "Lear, I decided, surrounds himself with a retinue of 100 knights in order to form a shield of masculinity around himself. Goneril instinctively recognises this. Both Goneril and Regan know that this protection must be torn away if they are to establish their ascendancy over their father."

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.

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.

We’ll set thee to school to an ant to teach thee there’s no labouring 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. Let go thy hold when a great wheel runs down a hill lest it break thy neck with following; but the great one that goes upward, let him draw thee after. When a wise man gives thee better counsel, give me mine again. I would have none but knaves follow it, since a Fool gives it.

– William Shakespeare

King Lear, Act 2, Scene 4. The Fool uses metaphorical language to advise Kent that there is no use serving a man like Lear who has nothing to offer. Even the blind can smell his misery. When you see a great wheel rolling down a hill, you shouldn’t try to hold it or it will break your neck, the Fool warns. But the wheel that goes uphill, let it pull you up after it. When a wise man gives you better advice, give mine back, says the Fool.

That sir which serves and seeks for gain,
And follows but for form,
Will pack when it begins to rain
And leave thee in the storm.
But I will tarry; the Fool will stay,
And let the wise man fly.
The knave turns fool that runs away;
The Fool no knave, perdie.

– William Shakespeare

King Lear, Act 2, Scene 4. The Fool in this song uses a metaphor from nature, about rain and storm, to convey his loyalty to Lear. He is also foreshadowing the metaphorical storm to follow. He tells Kent that the person who serves for profit and puts on the appearance of loyalty will take off when it starts to rain and leave him in the storm. But the Fool will stay and let the wise man flee. The scoundrel who runs away is a fool, but this fool is no scoundrel, says the Fool.

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.

REGAN: O, sir, to wilful men,
The injuries that they themselves procure
Must be their schoolmasters. Shut up your doors:
He is attended with a desperate train,
And what they may incense him to, being apt
To have his ear abused, wisdom bids fear.
CORNWALL: Shut up your doors, my lord. ‘Tis a wild night.
My Regan counsels well. Come out o’ th’ storm.

– William Shakespeare

King Lear, Act 2, Scene 4. There is a total lack of compassion from daughter Regan for her father Lear’s welfare and safety. Having driven the old man out of the house and into the storm, she cold-heartedly says that the injuries Lear gets from his foolishness will be his "schoolmasters" (metaphor meaning to teach him a lesson). Both she and her husband Cornwall command Gloucester to shut up his doors, effectively locking Lear out in the storm. Any bond that may have existed in the past between Lear’s older daughters and their father has now completely disappeared.

KENT: Where’s the King?
GENTLEMAN: Contending with the fretful elements;
Bids the wind blow the earth into the sea
Or swell the curlèd waters ‘bove the main,
That things might change or cease; tears his white hair,
Which the impetuous blasts with eyeless rage
Catch in their fury and make nothing of;
Strives in his little world of man to outscorn
The to-and-fro conflicting wind and rain.
This night, wherein the cub-drawn bear would couch,
The lion and the belly-pinchèd wolf
Keep their fur dry, unbonneted he runs
And bids what will take all.

– William Shakespeare

King Lear, Act 3, Scene 1. A gentleman tells Kent that Lear is contending with a horrific storm that is coming on. Nature is disrupted and so is Lear’s nature. Instead of seeking shelter he runs bare-headed through the wind and rain crying out for the world to end, while all animals take cover. Trying to "outscorn" the hostile elements, he bids them to drown the earth so that things might change or stop for him. As he clearly descends into madness, the physical storm becomes a metaphor for Lear’s inner emotional turmoil.

Blow, winds, and crack your cheeks! rage! blow!
You cataracts and hurricanoes, spout
Till you have drench’d our steeples, drown’d the cocks!
You sulphurous and thought-executing fires,
Vaunt-couriers to oak-cleaving thunderbolts,
Singe my white head! And thou, all-shaking thunder,
Smite flat the thick rotundity o’ the world!
Crack nature’s moulds, all germens spill at once,
That make ingrateful man!

– William Shakespeare

King Lear, Act 3, Scene 2. Cast out by his daughters, a mad Lear is on the wild heath shouting at the storm and telling it to rage and blow for all it is worth. The once powerful King of Britain absurdly shouts orders to the raging wind, rain, thunder and lightning. He bids the storm to strike him with lightning and drown the whole world. Lear has lost all his power but does not appear to realize it. The tempestuous weather is a metaphor for the turmoil inside the mind of Lear, who is overflowing with anger and beginning to lose his sanity after clashing with his ungrateful daughters.

Rumble thy bellyful! Spit, fire! spout, rain!
Nor rain, wind, thunder, fire are my daughters.
I tax not you, you elements, with unkindness.
I never gave you kingdom, called you children,
You owe me no subscription. Then let fall
Your horrible pleasure. Here I stand your slave,
A poor, infirm, weak, and despised old man.
But yet I call you servile ministers,
That will with two pernicious daughters join
Your high-engendered battles ‘gainst a head
So old and white as this. O, ho, ’tis foul!

– William Shakespeare

King Lear, Act 3, Scene 2. In the middle of the storm on the heath, Lear rages against daughters Regan and Goneril who have turned him out of their homes. Seeing himself a victim of injustice, he accuses the storm of joining forces with his two wicked daughters to strike his old white head. The storm serves as a metaphor for Lear’s inner turmoil and mounting madness over his daughters’ unkindness. In this passage we also see him becoming aware of his powerlessness, as he first shouts orders to nature and then realizes that he has no power over the elements. He invites the storm to do its worst to him and "let fall Your horrible pleasure." Wallowing in self-pity but indicating that he has begun to acquire true self-knowledge, he describes himself as a "slave" and "poor" and a "despised old man."
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