Lear Key Quotes Act 4
Scene Speaker Quote
4:1 Edgar “The lowest and most dejected thing of Fortune Stands still in esperance.”
4:1 Gloucester “Away, get thee away; good friend, be gone…Thee they may hurt.”
4:1 Gloucester “I have no way, and therefore want no eyes; I stumbled when I saw…Oh! Dear son Edgar, The
food in thy abused father’s wrath; Might I but live to see thee in my touch.”
4:1 Edgar “(Aside) O Gods! Who is’t can say ‘I am the worst’? I am worse than e’er I was.”
4:1 Gloucester “’Tis the times’ plague, when madmen lead the blind.”
4:1 Edgar “(Aside) I cannot daub it further…And yet I must. Bless thy sweet eyes, they bleed.”
4:1 Gloucester “There is a cliff, whose high and bending head Looks fearfully in he confined deep; Bring me but to
the very brim of it…from that place I shall no leading need.”
4:2 Oswald “I told him of the army that was landed; he smiled at it: I told him you were coming; His answer
was ‘The worse’…”
4:2 Goneril “My most dear Gloucester!...Oh! the difference of man and man. To thee a woman;s services are
due: A fool usurps my bed.”
4:2 Albany “O Goneril! You are not worth the dust which the rude wind blows in your face…Most barbarous,
mpst degenerate! Have you madded.”
4:2 Goneril “Milk-livered man!”
4:2 Albany “See thyself, devil! Proper deformity shows not in the fiend So horrid as in woman.”
4:2 Goneril “Marry, your manhood-mew!”
4:2 Albany “Gloucester, I live to thank thee for the love thou show’dst the king, And to avenge thine eyes.”
4:3 Gentleman “…now and then an ample tear trilled down Her delicate cheek; it seemed she was a queen over
her passion; who most rebel-like, sought to be the king o’er her.”
4:3 Gentleman “…once or twice she heaved the name of ‘father’ Pantingly forth, as if it pressed her heart…”
4:3 Kent “It is the stars, The stars above us, govern our conditions…”
4:4 Cordelia “As mad as the vexed sea; singing aloud; crowned with…all the idle weeds that grow in our
sustaining corn.”
4:4 Doctor “Our foster-nurse od nature is repose which he lacks; that to provoke in him, are many simples
operative, whose power will close the eye of anguish.”
4:4 Cordelia “All you unpublished virtues of the earth, spring with my tears!...remediate in the good man’s
distress!”
4:4 Cordelia “O dear father!...My mourning and importuned tears hath pitied….But love, dear love and our aged
father’s right.”
4:5 Regan “It was great ignorance, Gloucester’s eyes being out, to let him live; where he arrives he moves all
hearts against us…”
4:5 Regan “I know your Lady does not love her husband; I am sure of that: and at her late being here she
gave strange oeilliads and most speaking looks to noble Edmund.”
4:5 Regan “My Lord is dead; Edmund and I have talked and more convenientis he for my hand than for your
Lady’s.”
4:6 Edgar/ “look how we labour.” // ‘Methinks the ground is even.”
Gloucester
4:6 Gloucester “Methinks thy voice is altered, and thou speak’st in better phrase and matter than thou didst.”
4:6 Edgar ‘Give me your hand; you are now within a foot of th’extreme verge: for all beneath the moon would
I not leap upright.”
4:6 Gloucester “(Gloucester throws himself forward and falls)”
4:6 Edgar “Thy life’s a mircle…From the dread summit of this chalky bourn. Look up a-height: the shrill-
gorged lark so far cannot be seen or heard: but look up.”
4:6 Gloucester “I do remember now…’The Fiend, the Fiend’: he led me to that place.”
4:6 Edgar “O thou side-piercing sight!”
4:6 Lear “(enter Lear, fantastically dressed with wild flowers.)”
“…every thing; tis a lie…”
4:6 Lear “None does offend, none, I say, none…Get thee glass eyes; and, like a scurvy politician, seem to
se the things thou dost not.”
4:6 Lear “And when I have stol’n upon those son-in-laws, then, kill, kill, kill, kill, kill, kill!”
4:6 Gloucester “You ever-gentle Gods, take thy breath from me: let not my worser spirit tempt me again to die
before you please!”
4:6 Edgar “(Reads) Let our reciprocal vows be remembered…Your wife so, I would say- Affectionate
servant, Goneril.”
4:7 Cordelia “O my dear father! Restoration hang thy medicine on my lips, and let this kiss repair those violent
harms that my two sisters have in thy reverence made!”
Scene Speaker Quote
4:1 Edgar “The lowest and most dejected thing of Fortune Stands still in esperance.”
4:1 Gloucester “Away, get thee away; good friend, be gone…Thee they may hurt.”
4:1 Gloucester “I have no way, and therefore want no eyes; I stumbled when I saw…Oh! Dear son Edgar, The
food in thy abused father’s wrath; Might I but live to see thee in my touch.”
4:1 Edgar “(Aside) O Gods! Who is’t can say ‘I am the worst’? I am worse than e’er I was.”
4:1 Gloucester “’Tis the times’ plague, when madmen lead the blind.”
4:1 Edgar “(Aside) I cannot daub it further…And yet I must. Bless thy sweet eyes, they bleed.”
4:1 Gloucester “There is a cliff, whose high and bending head Looks fearfully in he confined deep; Bring me but to
the very brim of it…from that place I shall no leading need.”
4:2 Oswald “I told him of the army that was landed; he smiled at it: I told him you were coming; His answer
was ‘The worse’…”
4:2 Goneril “My most dear Gloucester!...Oh! the difference of man and man. To thee a woman;s services are
due: A fool usurps my bed.”
4:2 Albany “O Goneril! You are not worth the dust which the rude wind blows in your face…Most barbarous,
mpst degenerate! Have you madded.”
4:2 Goneril “Milk-livered man!”
4:2 Albany “See thyself, devil! Proper deformity shows not in the fiend So horrid as in woman.”
4:2 Goneril “Marry, your manhood-mew!”
4:2 Albany “Gloucester, I live to thank thee for the love thou show’dst the king, And to avenge thine eyes.”
4:3 Gentleman “…now and then an ample tear trilled down Her delicate cheek; it seemed she was a queen over
her passion; who most rebel-like, sought to be the king o’er her.”
4:3 Gentleman “…once or twice she heaved the name of ‘father’ Pantingly forth, as if it pressed her heart…”
4:3 Kent “It is the stars, The stars above us, govern our conditions…”
4:4 Cordelia “As mad as the vexed sea; singing aloud; crowned with…all the idle weeds that grow in our
sustaining corn.”
4:4 Doctor “Our foster-nurse od nature is repose which he lacks; that to provoke in him, are many simples
operative, whose power will close the eye of anguish.”
4:4 Cordelia “All you unpublished virtues of the earth, spring with my tears!...remediate in the good man’s
distress!”
4:4 Cordelia “O dear father!...My mourning and importuned tears hath pitied….But love, dear love and our aged
father’s right.”
4:5 Regan “It was great ignorance, Gloucester’s eyes being out, to let him live; where he arrives he moves all
hearts against us…”
4:5 Regan “I know your Lady does not love her husband; I am sure of that: and at her late being here she
gave strange oeilliads and most speaking looks to noble Edmund.”
4:5 Regan “My Lord is dead; Edmund and I have talked and more convenientis he for my hand than for your
Lady’s.”
4:6 Edgar/ “look how we labour.” // ‘Methinks the ground is even.”
Gloucester
4:6 Gloucester “Methinks thy voice is altered, and thou speak’st in better phrase and matter than thou didst.”
4:6 Edgar ‘Give me your hand; you are now within a foot of th’extreme verge: for all beneath the moon would
I not leap upright.”
4:6 Gloucester “(Gloucester throws himself forward and falls)”
4:6 Edgar “Thy life’s a mircle…From the dread summit of this chalky bourn. Look up a-height: the shrill-
gorged lark so far cannot be seen or heard: but look up.”
4:6 Gloucester “I do remember now…’The Fiend, the Fiend’: he led me to that place.”
4:6 Edgar “O thou side-piercing sight!”
4:6 Lear “(enter Lear, fantastically dressed with wild flowers.)”
“…every thing; tis a lie…”
4:6 Lear “None does offend, none, I say, none…Get thee glass eyes; and, like a scurvy politician, seem to
se the things thou dost not.”
4:6 Lear “And when I have stol’n upon those son-in-laws, then, kill, kill, kill, kill, kill, kill!”
4:6 Gloucester “You ever-gentle Gods, take thy breath from me: let not my worser spirit tempt me again to die
before you please!”
4:6 Edgar “(Reads) Let our reciprocal vows be remembered…Your wife so, I would say- Affectionate
servant, Goneril.”
4:7 Cordelia “O my dear father! Restoration hang thy medicine on my lips, and let this kiss repair those violent
harms that my two sisters have in thy reverence made!”
