King Lear William Shakespeare

KING LEAR: HOW TO LOSE A KINGDOM AND YOUR SANITY IN FIVE EASY ACTS

“Nothing will come of nothing.”
Thus spoke a king who had everything — except common sense.

At the ripe old age of eighty (or as modern HR departments might call it, “past retirement with extreme prejudice”), King Lear decided it was high time to play Monopoly with his kingdom. But instead of simply making a will like any other self-respecting elderly monarch, he threw an emotional auction:
“Who loves Daddy the most?”

….not before making them audition like contestants on Shakespeare’s Got Talent.

Enter the Three Daughters of Doom:

• Goneril (a master of fake affection) waxed lyrical, painting love thicker than Instagram filters: “Sir, I love you more than words can wield the matter…”
  Translation: Give me the property deed, old man.

• Regan (sensing a good competition) doubled down: “Only she comes too short; I profess myself an enemy to all other joys…”
  Translation: I’ll out-fake my sister and snag myself a castle.

• Cordelia, the youngest and, annoyingly, the only one who had read the memo on ‘Honest Communication’, answered with one tiny, fatal word:
  “Nothing.”

  And with that one word —
  just six measly letters —
  Cordelia burned down the entire play before it had even properly begun.

   

(Insert awkward royal silence.)

King Lear, who clearly had a fragile ego the size of the kingdom itself, erupted.
“Nothing will come of nothing! Speak again!” he barked.

(Translation: Compliment me, or you’re out of the will.)

Cordelia, bless her blunt little heart, refused to inflate love like a balloon animal. She explained, with mathematical precision, that she loved her father “according to [her] bond; nor more nor less.” And when she would marry (as princesses inconveniently tend to do), half of her heart would logically be redirected to her husband.

A reasonable point.
A tragic miscalculation.

In Lear’s world, reasonable daughters were as welcome as taxes.

So, in a classic episode of “Who Wants to Be a Disowned Millionaire,” Lear banished Cordelia on the spot.
Because nothing says “good parenting” like disowning your most loyal child because she didn’t write you a Shakespearean sonnet on demand.

Cordelia was promptly packed off to marry the King of France — who, having somehow missed the “no dowry” fine print, gamely accepted her.
(France: the first recorded instance of someone marrying for love instead of land — shocking.)

Meanwhile, Lear — full of pomp, pride, and about as much wisdom as a headless chicken — handed over his kingdom to Goneril and Regan,
the two professional gaslighters,
the Michelin-starred chefs of betrayal.

Exit Cordelia.
Enter Consequences.

But fear not! The old king was not entirely without allies.
Enter:

• Kent: Loyal as a Labrador, outspoken as a Twitter activist, promptly banished for trying to knock some sense into His Royal Foolishness.

• The Fool: Shakespeare’s greatest invention —
  the only man in the court with both brains and a license to mock his employer to his face.
  (“Thou shouldst not have been old till thou hadst been wise!”
  Translation: You got old, but you forgot to grow up.)

The Fool stuck around, making savage jokes while Lear stubbornly plowed the royal chariot straight into a mudhole of misery.

End of Part 1.

Life Lesson #87:
If you give your house keys to people who only love you for your house,
don’t be surprised when they change the locks.

Lear, now a retired king without a retirement plan, decided he would spend alternate weekends living with each of his loving daughters — you know, the ones who just two acts ago were kissing his royal posterior with Shakespearean eloquence.

Spoiler:
They weren’t big fans of houseguests, even royal ones.

First up: Goneril.
Goneril, now drunk on power, found Dad’s entourage of a hundred rowdy knights as charming as a rock concert at a funeral. She politely suggested:
“Hey Dad, maybe ditch the knights? Maybe…ditch yourself?”

Lear, betrayed and bellowing like a wounded buffalo, fled to daughter number two, Regan, hoping for better treatment.

Second spoiler:
She was even worse.

Regan had been busy upgrading her spine to “titanium cruelty” settings and basically told Lear:
“You know what’s better than having half your knights? Having NONE of your knights!”

At this point, you could almost hear the ghost of Cordelia facepalming from France.

Furious, humiliated, and no longer even allowed a plus-one to his own family reunions, Lear stormed into the literal storm — a scene so iconic that English teachers everywhere can quote it in their sleep.

Here, Shakespeare — in a move that would later inspire generations of angsty poets and drama students — made the weather reflect the mind.
Lear howled at the thunder, raged at the rain, and tried (futilely) to file a complaint with Customer Service against the universe.

“Blow, winds, and crack your cheeks! Rage! Blow!”
(Translation: Nature, kindly go as bonkers as I am right now!)

The king — once clothed in power, pomp, and enough ermine fur to carpet a palace — now staggered half-naked across the moors, his mind unspooling like a badly wound cassette tape.

Enter again:
The Fool — still loyal, still sarcastic, still making jokes sharper than Lear’s crumbling sanity.
He wisely noted:
“Thou art a zero without a figure.”
(Translation: You’re basically a giant goose egg, Sire.)

Meanwhile, Kent (who had disguised himself so cleverly even Lear didn’t recognize him — because apparently a mustache and some dirt were the Clark Kent glasses of the Middle Ages) hovered nearby, saving Lear from frostbite and fatal bouts of self-pity.

And just when you thought things couldn’t get any more absurd…

Enter Poor Tom.
(A.K.A. Edgar in disguise, A.K.A. Gloucester’s good son doing an Oscar-worthy performance as a mad beggar.)

Poor Tom roamed the storm too, half-naked, raving, pretending to eat rats and imaginary devils —
because, let’s face it, sanity was so last season.

Lear looked at Poor Tom — dirty, deranged, and destitute — and had an epiphany:
“Is man no more than this?”
Translation: Maybe underneath all the crowns and robes and bank accounts, we’re just shivering hairless apes, after all.

At which point, Lear stripped off what little remained of his own clothing.
Because if dignity was going down, it was going down spectacularly.

Thus, King Lear, once a monarch, now became one with the mud, shouting nothing into the roaring wind,
a human exclamation mark abandoned by grammar itself.

Meanwhile, backstage in the subplot nobody ordered but everyone got served anyway:

Gloucester — Lear’s loyal nobleman and part-time fool in his own right — had been busy getting duped by his illegitimate son, Edmund.

Edmund, professional snake and aspiring villain of the year, convinced Gloucester that his good son, Edgar, was plotting patricide. (Which was a bold strategy, considering Edgar was too busy pretending to be a demon-infested beggar to plan anything.)

Poor Gloucester believed every word because, apparently, trusting your evil child was the trending parenting choice of the 1600s.

When Gloucester tried to help the fallen King Lear,
Regan’s husband — the delightfully sadistic Duke of Cornwall —
punished Gloucester by gouging out his eyes.

Yes.
Plucked them out.
Live on stage.
Shakespeare: bringing you family-friendly content since 1606!

And in true Shakespearean irony, Gloucester, only after being blinded, finally saw the truth:
his good son was loyal; his bad son was a backstabbing maniac.

Because nothing says character development like losing your actual eyeballs.

Thus, by the halfway point, the situation was roughly:

• King Lear: naked, raving, wiser (sort of).

• Gloucester: blind, betrayed, hobbling toward redemption.

• Edgar: playing multiple roles, surviving on whatever he could scavenge.

• Edmund: ascending the villain ladder like a LinkedIn influencer on steroids.

• Goneril and Regan: squabbling over Edmund like two hyenas fighting over a very morally flexible piece of meat.

• Cordelia: M.I.A. but planning a righteous comeback.

And somewhere above it all, Shakespeare’s invisible pen snickered,
“Let’s see how much worse this can get.”

(Answer: So much worse.)

Meanwhile, somewhere across the English Channel,
Cordelia was polishing her “Best Daughter Ever” trophy, getting news that her dear old dad had gone from
Majestic Monarch → Homeless Mud Philosopher
faster than you can say “family counseling.”

Not being the type to hold grudges (unlike literally every other character in the play),
Cordelia decided to invade England —
not for glory, not for revenge, but purely to rescue her decrepit, delusional dad.

(Historical Note: Shakespeare invented the idea of someone starting a war just for emotional closure.)

Meanwhile, back in Lear Land, things had truly hit Absurdity Level: Red Alert.

Goneril and Regan — the two sisters who could once fake-sweetness like pros — were now scratching each other’s eyes out over their mutual crush:
the newly hot property, Edmund, bastard son turned court heartthrob.

Nothing spells romance like seducing a treacherous social climber who’s already betrayed his own family.
(But hey, dating apps hadn’t been invented yet.)

Goneril even plotted to poison Regan so she could have Edmund all to herself.
Because apparently, in the Lear household, sisterhood meant stabbing you slightly slower than enemies.

Meanwhile…

King Lear was slowly being patched back together by Cordelia’s French forces.
After much tender care and the literary equivalent of trauma therapy, Lear — now more sheepish than kingly — finally woke up and recognized Cordelia.

Cue one of the most heartbreakingly sweet moments in English drama,
where Lear, no longer an egomaniacal wrecking ball, whispered:
“I am a very foolish fond old man…”

(Translation: I’ve been a world-class idiot, and my only loyal daughter was the one I threw under the bus.)

Cordelia, because she had the patience of a saint and the forgiveness level of someone who clearly deserved a better family,
hugged him anyway.

Meanwhile, Shakespeare, who by now had probably run out of synonyms for “disaster,”
decided it was time to tie all the tragic threads into one giant knot of cosmic unfairness.

Because just as Lear and Cordelia’s relationship was finally repaired…

THE WAR WAS LOST.
CORDILIA WAS CAPTURED.
LEARNER WAS CAPTURED.

And just when you thought,
“Okay, at least they’ll be imprisoned together and maybe spend the rest of their days braiding each other’s hair and singing old French songs…”

NO.

Edmund — always the overachiever in evil deeds — secretly ordered that Cordelia be hanged in prison.
Because why settle for medium-level villainy when you can go full supervillain?

Lear, devastated beyond words, staggered onstage carrying Cordelia’s dead body in his arms.

“Howl, howl, howl, howl!” he cried —
which is Shakespearean for “There are literally no words for this level of grief.”

In the grand tradition of tragedies everywhere, Lear’s heart — already frayed like a medieval sock — broke.
He died over Cordelia’s corpse, leaving behind a stage so littered with bodies that the cleanup crew probably had to call for reinforcements.

Meanwhile, what about the subplot?

Oh, right:

• Edgar finally unmasked himself as Gloucester’s good son.

• Gloucester, overwhelmed by joy and guilt, promptly died.
  (As one does in Shakespeare when emotions get too complicated.)

• Goneril poisoned Regan — because sisters before misters was clearly NOT the family motto —
  and then stabbed herself when things got awkward.

• Edmund, fatally wounded in a duel with Edgar, tried to cancel Cordelia’s execution last-minute —
  but, in the grand style of all terrible last-minute heroes,
  was too late.

Thus, in the end, a handful of vaguely moral survivors were left blinking at each other on the corpse-covered stage, wondering what kind of cosmic joke they’d just lived through.

(Answer: A Shakespearean one.) 

So.
After approximately 3 murders, 2 suicides, 1 blinding, 1 madness spiral, 1 wronged daughter, 1 backfired villain, and a partridge in a pear tree, the stage of King Lear was basically a medieval junkyard of human failure.

In the final moments, the surviving semi-sane character — Edgar, the formerly banished good son —
stood among the dead, looked at the wreckage, and uttered something so moving that it might as well have been printed on a motivational poster for existentialists:

“The weight of this sad time we must obey;
Speak what we feel, not what we ought to say.”

(Translation: Drop the fake speeches. Just be real.
Pity Lear hadn’t taken that advice back in Act I, huh?)

The Fool, long gone from the stage by this point (perhaps laughing into the cosmic ether), had been right all along:
The real fools were the ones wearing crowns and capes, not the ones with jester’s caps.

THEMES, or, What We Learned While Everyone Was Dying

1. Ego is a Dangerous Full-Time Job.

Lear’s entire tragedy happened because he couldn’t take a daughter telling him the truth.
(Warning: Inflated egos may cause side effects including paranoia, rash disowning, and catastrophic kingdoms.)

2. Nothing Will Come of Nothing.

Cordelia’s “Nothing” — a simple refusal to flatter — rippled outward into a hurricane of betrayal, madness, and death.

This “Nothingness” isn’t just emotional:
it’s philosophical, existential, Shakespearean.
Lear discovers that strip away the robes, the titles, the gold, and you’re left with —
“a poor, bare, forked animal.”
(Congratulations, humans: we’re all slightly overdramatic hairless monkeys!)

Later, T.S. Eliot — in The Waste Land — would echo this chilling realization:
“Nothing again nothing.”
Because after enough betrayals and broken illusions, even the richest soil can become a barren wasteland.

3. Children are Unreliable Retirement Plans.

Trusting your offspring to handle your estate based on how big they smiled at you that morning?
Not recommended.
(Especially when your daughters are basically medieval versions of reality TV villains.)

4. Suffering Leads to (Occasional) Wisdom.

King Lear gained true insight only after he had lost everything:
his kingdom, his daughters, his mind, even his clothes.
Apparently, human beings need to be smashed into cosmic dust before they start asking the right questions.

5. Life is a Giant, Absurd, Laughable Tragedy.

The storm. The fools. The double-crosses. The eye-gougings.
Shakespeare reminds us that we are all comic actors stumbling through a script we barely understand —
full of passions, plots, and pratfalls,
until the final curtain drops.

Or, as Lear might have put it, if he’d lived long enough to post on Twitter:

“Today’s royal decree: Love honestly, question flattery, and always check the fine print before signing over your kingdom.”

EPILOGUE: THE FOOL’S LAUGHTER

If any one character survived with their dignity intact,
it was The Fool —
that puckish truth-teller who, through rhyme and riddle,
spoke more wisdom than all the kings and dukes combined.

Some scholars like to believe the Fool “disappeared” from the play halfway through because
Lear became the Fool himself —
laughing bitterly at his own downfall,
seeing, at last, the cosmic joke he had once ruled over.

And what a joke it was.

A king who mistook compliments for character.

Daughters who mistook betrayal for power.

A bastard who mistook ambition for destiny.

In the end, they all returned to the same place:
dust and nothingness.

Thus King Lear ends —
not with a grand victory,
not with the crowning of a glorious heir,
but with emptiness, exhaustion, and a lingering question:

What does it profit a man to gain the whole world and lose —
himself?

Or, if you prefer it Lear-style:
“Nothing will come of nothing.”

And indeed —
nothing did.

Curtain.