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.