Chapter Synopsis of King Lear - Study Guide by William Shakespeare

sure that Cordelia is his daughter. When he becomes aware he asks for her forgiveness stating that "I am a very foolish fond old man." He also seems to be more lucid and perhaps even sane: "I fear I am not in my perfect mind." Here Lear expresses his state with true self-knowledge, dragging himself back from the tragic brink of his madness to see himself on fortune’s wheel contrasted with the pure image of Cordelia:

"Thou art a soul in bliss; but I am bound

Upon a wheel of fire, that mine own tears

Do scald like molten lead…

I am a very fond foolish old man"

He leaves the court asking that they might "forget and forgive."

Act V, Scene I

The war has begun between the English and the French. Regan questions Edmund as to whether or not he loves her sister, she asserts that she would rather lose the battle than lose her sister to Edmund. Edgar who is disguised gives Goneril’s letter to Albany and asks him to read it before he fights. He requests that if he wins the battle a trumpet should be sounded for the man who delivered the letter and then the contents of the letter can be proved to be true.

Edmund is left on stage alone to consider his predicament. He has sworn his love to both these sisters and their jealousy is so strong that " Neither can be enjoy’d / If both remain alive." He is aware that until the battle is won he needs the help of Albany and decides to wait on his decision until then. He is still an oddly sympathetic character when compared to the two "adder"-like daughters of Lear who are fighting to win him. In his circumspect way, like Claudius in Hamlet or to a lesser extent like Iago in Othello, he stands aside from the madness of the action betrayed by his villainy but charismatic to the end.

Act V, Scene II

Edgar leads his father on stage and leaves him under a tree. When he returns he reports that the British have lost the battle and Cordelia and the King have been captured. Gloucester, defeated claims that he does not want to go on – this upsets his son.

Act V, Scene III

Edmund orders for Lear and Cordelia to be taken away – Cordelia is not angry but only sad for her father’s sake. Lear is adamant that he does not want to see Goneril and Regan and that him and Cordelia will lead a happy life together in prison. They have taken on an almost-divine role. Imprisonment is deemed a fine existence now:

"We two alone will sing like birds I’ the cage…

And take upon ‘s the mystery of things

As if we were God’s spies"

Lear has found in his renewed love for Cordelia and his dismissal of the puerile world of court a higher purpose and a poetry to match that of any other Shakespearean hero.

Regan declares that Edmund is to be her husband. Albany arrests Goneril and Edmund for high treason and points out to Regan that she is unable to marry him because he is already promised to Goneril and