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Gloucester

King Lear

Lear: Act One Scene One

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King Lear’s first scene is notable in its length and structure. At over 300 lines, with more characters on stage than in all but the last scene of the play, and being divided into three sub-scenes, this first scene is almost a play in itself.

It begins, as do so many of Shakespeare’s plays,
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Hung be the heavens with black, yield day to night!

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Bedford
Hung be the heavens with black, yield day to night!
Comets, importing change of times and states,
Brandish your crystal tresses in the sky,
And with them scourge the bad revolting stars
That have consented unto Henry’s death:
King Henry the Fifth, too famous to live long.
England ne’er lost a king of so much worth.
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Source:
Act 1
Scene 1
Line 1

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I thought the King had more affected the Duke

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Kent
I thought the King had more affected the Duke
of Albany than Cornwall.
Gloucester
It did always seem so to us, but now in
the division of the kingdom, it appears not which
of the dukes he values most, for equalities are so
weighed that curiosity in neither can make choice
of either’s moiety.
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Act 1
Scene 1
Line 1

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Connected Notes:
Lear: Act One Scene One

Is Paris lost? Is Roan yielded up?

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Gloucester
Is Paris lost? Is Roan yielded up?
If Henry were recalled to life again,
These news would cause him once more yield the ghost.
Exeter
How were they lost? What treachery was used?

Awake, awake, English nobility!
Let not sloth dim your honors new begot.

Messenger
No treachery,
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Source:
Act 1
Scene 1
Line 66

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Edmund, how now? What news?

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Gloucester
Edmund, how now? What news?
Edmund
So please your Lordship, none.
He puts a paper in his pocket.
Gloucester
Why so earnestly seek you to put up that letter?
Edmund
I know no news, my lord.
Gloucester
What paper were you reading?
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Source:
Act 1
Scene 2
Line 27

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These late eclipses in the sun and moon

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Gloucester
These late eclipses in the sun and moon
portend no good to us. Though the wisdom of
nature can reason it thus and thus, yet nature finds
itself scourged by the sequent effects. Love cools,
friendship falls off, brothers divide; in cities, mutinies;
in countries, discord; in palaces, treason; and
the bond cracked ‘twixt son and father.
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Source:
Act 1
Scene 2
Line 109

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My dear lord, You know the fiery quality of the Duke

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Gloucester
My dear lord,
You know the fiery quality of the Duke,
How unremovable and fixed he is
In his own course.
King Lear
Vengeance, plague, death, confusion!
—Fiery? What —quality? Why Gloucester, Gloucester,
I’d speak with the Duke of Cornwall and his wife.
Gloucester
Well, my good lord,
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Source:
Act 2
Scene 4
Line 99

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What is thy name? I know thy quality.

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King Henry
What is thy name? I know thy quality.
Montjoy
Montjoy.

The sum of all our answer is but this:
We would not seek a battle as we are,
Nor, as we are, we say we will not shun it.

King Henry
Thou dost thy office fairly.Turn thee back,
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Source:
Act 3
Scene 6
Line 142

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Where hast thou sent the King?

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Cornwall
Where hast thou sent the King?
Gloucester
To Dover.
Regan
Wherefore to Dover? Wast thou not charged at peril—
Cornwall
Wherefore to Dover? Let him answer that.
Gloucester
I am tied to th’ stake, and I must stand the course.
Regan
Wherefore to Dover?
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Source:
Act 3
Scene 7
Line 62

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Yet better thus, and known to be contemned

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Edgar
Yet better thus, and known to be contemned,
Than still contemned and flattered. To be worst,
The lowest and most dejected thing of Fortune,
Stands still in esperance, lives not in fear.
The lamentable change is from the best;
The worst returns to laughter. Welcome, then,
Thou unsubstantial air that I embrace.
The wretch that thou hast blown unto the worst
Owes nothing to thy blasts.
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Source:
Act 4
Scene 1
Line 1

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Is it a beggar-man?

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Gloucester
Is it a beggar-man?
Old Man
Madman and beggar too.
Gloucester
He has some reason, else he could not beg.
I’ th’ last night’s storm, I such a fellow saw,
Which made me think a man a worm. My son
Came then into my mind, and yet my mind
Was then scarce friends with him.
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Source:
Act 4
Scene 1
Line 33

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