King Lear

Lear arrives at Gloucester's castle to find Kent locked in the stocks. His response is disbelief — flat denial, repeated: "No." "Yes." "No, I say." "I say, yea." "They durst not do't. They could not, would not do't." When Kent confirms it was both Regan and Cornwall, Lear names it for what it is: "'tis worse than murder, to do upon respect such violent outrage." Before he can confront them, he tries to steady himself. Told that Regan and Cornwall will not come out — they are tired, they have been travelling — Lear almost talks himself down. Maybe Cornwall is unwell; illness makes people neglect their duties; he will be patient. Then he glances at Kent still sitting in the stocks. The patience ends. He demands they come out or he will beat the drum at their chamber door till it "cry sleep to death." Regan appears and immediately defends her sister. She tells Lear he is old, that his state of mind needs managing by someone who understands it better than he does, and that he should return to Goneril and apologise. Lear's answer is to kneel in bitter mock-supplication: "Dear daughter, I confess that I am old; age is unnecessary: on my knees I beg that you'll vouchsafe me raiment, bed, and food." Regan tells him to stop performing. Then Goneril arrives. Regan takes her hand. The two sisters present a unified front, and the negotiation begins in earnest — how many followers may Lear keep? One hundred becomes fifty, becomes twenty-five, becomes ten, becomes five. Then Regan asks: "What need one?" What follows is one of the play's central speeches. Lear argues that need is not the point. "Our basest beggars are in the poorest thing superfluous: allow not nature more than nature needs, man's life is cheap as beast's." He is not asking for luxuries. He is arguing for the principle that human dignity exceeds bare survival — that to strip a man to his minimum requirements is to make him less than human. His daughters are unmoved. The storm begins. Lear leaves into it, unable to weep — "this heart shall break into a hundred thousand flaws or ere I'll weep" — and tells the Fool he is going mad. The doors are shut behind him. Regan's verdict: "To wilful men the injuries that they themselves procure must be their schoolmasters."