King Lear

William Shakespeare, c. 1606

Shakespeare’s tragedy of an aged king of Britain who divides his kingdom between the two daughters who flatter him and banishes the youngest, Cordelia, who will not.

Start reading26 scenes, about 27,000 words

Famous quotes

Unhappy that I am, I cannot heave
My heart into my mouth: I love your majesty
According to my bond; no more nor less.
Act I, Scene I, spoken by CordeliaIn context
- Family
- Love
Come not between the dragon and his wrath.
Act I, Scene I, spoken by LearIn context
- Anger
Time shall unfold what plighted cunning hides:
Who covers faults, at last shame derides.
Act I, Scene I, spoken by CordeliaIn context
- Time
- Truth & Lies
Now, gods, stand up for bastards!
Act I, Scene II, spoken by EdmundIn context
This is the excellent foppery of the world, that, when we are sick in fortune, often the surfeits of our own behaviour, we make guilty of our disasters the sun, the moon, and the stars
Act I, Scene II, spoken by EdmundIn context
- Luck
- Responsibility
Ingratitude, thou marble-hearted fiend,
More hideous when thou show’st thee in a child
Than the sea-monster!
Act I, Scene IV, spoken by LearIn context
- Children
- Family
How sharper than a serpent’s tooth it is
To have a thankless child!
Act I, scene iv.In context
- Children
- Family
Striving to better, oft we mar what’s well.
Act I, Scene IV, spoken by AlbanyIn context
- Change
A knave; a rascal; an eater of broken meats; a base, proud, shallow, beggarly, three-suited, hundred-pound, filthy, worsted-stocking knave
Act II, Scene II, spoken by KentIn context
- Clever Jabs
O, reason not the need: our basest beggars
Are in the poorest thing superfluous:
Allow not nature more than nature needs,
Man’s life is cheap as beast’s.
Act II, Scene IV, spoken by LearIn context
- Money
I will do such things,⁠—
What they are yet, I know not; but they shall be
The terrors of the earth.
Act II, Scene IV, spoken by LearIn context
- Anger
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,
Strike flat the thick rotundity o’ the world!
Crack nature’s moulds, all germens spill at once,
That make ingrateful man!
Act III, Scene II, spoken by LearIn context
- Anger
- Nature
I am a man,
More sinn’d against than sinning.
Act III, scene ii.In context
- Good & Evil
Poor naked wretches, wheresoe’er you are,
That bide the pelting of this pitiless storm,
How shall your houseless heads and unfed sides,
Your loop’d and window’d raggedness, defend you
From seasons such as these? O, I have ta’en
Too little care of this! Take physic, pomp;
Expose thyself to feel what wretches feel,
That thou mayst shake the superflux to them
And show the heavens more just.
Act III, Scene IV, spoken by LearIn context
- Charity
- Justice
The prince of darkness is a gentleman
Act III, Scene IV, spoken by EdgarIn context
- Good & Evil
And worse I may be yet. The worst is not
So long as we can say ‘This is the worst.’
Act IV, Scene I, spoken by EdgarIn context
- Hope
As flies to wanton boys are we to the gods,
They kill us for their sport.
Act IV, Scene I, spoken by GloucesterIn context
- God
- Life & Death
There thou mightst behold the great image of authority: a dog’s obeyed in office.
Act IV, Scene VI, spoken by LearIn context
- Government
- Power
Through tatter’d clothes great vices do appear;
Robes and furr’d gowns hide all. Plate sin with gold,
And the strong lance of justice hurtless breaks;
Arm it in rags, a pygmy’s straw does pierce it.
Act IV, Scene VI, spoken by LearIn context
- Justice
- Money
Men must endure
Their going hence, even as their coming hither;
Ripeness is all.
Act V, Scene II, spoken by EdgarIn context
- Life & Death
- Maturity
Howl, howl, howl, howl! O, you are men of stone.
Had I your tongues and eyes, I’ld use them so
That heaven’s vault should crack. She’s gone for ever!
I know when one is dead, and when one lives;
She’s dead as earth.
Act V, Scene III, spoken by LearIn context
- Life & Death

Act I

Scene IA Room of State in King Lear’s Palace
Scene IIA Hall in the Earl of Gloucester’s Castle
Scene IIIA Room in the Duke of Albany’s Palace
Scene IVA Hall in Albany’s Palace
Scene VCourt before the Duke of Albany’s Palace

Act II

Scene IA court within the Castle of the Earl of Gloucester
Scene IIBefore Gloucester’s Castle
Scene IIIThe open Country
Scene IVBefore Gloucester’s Castle; Kent in the stocks

Act III

Scene IA Heath
Scene IIAnother part of the heath
Scene IIIA Room in Gloucester’s Castle
Scene IVA part of the Heath with a Hovel
Scene VA Room in Gloucester’s Castle
Scene VIA Chamber in a Farmhouse adjoining the Castle
Scene VIIA Room in Gloucester’s Castle

Act IV

Scene IThe heath
Scene IIBefore the Duke of Albany’s Palace
Scene IIIThe French camp near Dover
Scene IVThe French camp. A Tent
Scene VA Room in Gloucester’s Castle
Scene VIThe country near Dover
Scene VIIA Tent in the French Camp

Act V

Scene IThe Camp of the British Forces near Dover
Scene IIA field between the two Camps
Scene IIIThe British Camp near Dover