William Shakespeare

"King Lear"

The location is Britain. Time period: 11th century. The powerful King Lear, sensing the approach of old age, decides to shift the burden of power onto the shoulders of his three daughters: Goneril, Regan and Cordelia, dividing his kingdom between them. The king wants to hear from his daughters how much they love him, “so that during the division we can show our generosity.”

Goneril speaks first. Scattering flattery, she says that she loves her father, “as children / Until now have never loved their fathers.” She is echoed by the sweet-tongued Regan: “I don’t know other joys other than / My great love for you, sir!” And although the falseness of these words hurts the ear, Lear listens to them favorably. It’s the turn of the youngest, beloved Cordelia. She is modest and truthful and does not know how to publicly swear her feelings. “I love you as duty dictates, / No more and no less.” Lear can’t believe his ears: “Cordelia, come to your senses and correct the answer so that you don’t regret it later.” But Cordelia cannot express her feelings better: “You gave me life, good sir, / Raised and loved. In gratitude / I pay you the same.” Lear is furious: “So young and so callous in soul?” “So young, my lord, and straightforward,” replies Cordelia.

In a blind rage, the king gives the entire kingdom to Cordelia's sisters, leaving her only her integrity as a dowry. He provides himself with a hundred guards and the right to live with each of his daughters for a month.

The Earl of Kent, a friend and close associate of the king, warns him against such a hasty decision and begs him to cancel it: “Cordelia’s love is no less than theirs.”<…>Only that which is empty from within thunders...” But Lear had already bitten the bit. Kent contradicts the king, calls him an eccentric old man - which means he must leave the kingdom. Kent responds with dignity and regret: “Since there is no rein on your pride at home, / Then exile is here, but freedom is in a foreign land.”

One of the contenders for Cordelia's hand - the Duke of Burgundy - refuses her, who has become a dowry. The second contender, the King of France, is shocked by the behavior of Lear, and even more so by the Duke of Burgundy. Cordelia’s whole fault “is the timid chastity of feelings that are ashamed of publicity.” “A dream and a precious treasure, / Be a beautiful queen of France...” he says to Cordelia. They are removed. In parting, Cordelia turns to her sisters: “I know your properties, / But, sparing you, I will not name you. / Look after your father, Him with anxiety / I entrust to your ostentatious love.”

The Earl of Gloucester, who served Lear for many years, is upset and puzzled that Lear “suddenly, on the spur of the moment” made such a responsible decision. He does not even suspect that Edmund, his illegitimate son, is weaving an intrigue around him. Edmund planned to denigrate his brother Edgar in the eyes of his father in order to take over his part of the inheritance. He, having forged Edgar's handwriting, writes a letter in which Edgar allegedly plots to kill his father, and arranges everything so that his father reads this letter. Edgar, in turn, he assures that his father is plotting something evil against him; Edgar assumes that someone has slandered him. Edmund easily wounds himself, and presents the matter as if he was trying to detain Edgar, who had attempted to kill his father. Edmund is pleased - he deftly entwined two honest people with slander: “The father believed, and the brother believed. / He is so honest that he is above suspicion. / It’s easy to play with their simplicity.” His machinations were a success: the Earl of Gloucester, believing in Edgar’s guilt, ordered to find him and capture him. Edgar is forced to flee.

For the first month Lear lives with Goneril. She is just looking for a reason to show her father who is boss now. Having learned that Lear killed her jester, Goneril decides to “restrain” her father. “He himself gave up power, but wants to rule / Still! No, old people are like children, / And a lesson in rigor is required.”

Lyra, encouraged by her mistress, is openly rude to Goneril's servants. When the king wants to talk to his daughter about this, she avoids meeting with her father. The jester bitterly ridicules the king: “You cut off your mind on both sides / And left nothing in the middle.”

Goneril arrives, her speech is rude and impudent. She demands that Lear dismiss half of his retinue, leaving a small number of people who will not “be forgotten and riotous.” Lear is smitten. He thinks that his anger will affect his daughter: “Insatiable kite, / You lie! My bodyguards / A proven people of high qualities...” The Duke of Albany, Goneril’s husband, tries to intercede for Lear, not finding in his behavior what could cause such a humiliating decision. But neither the father’s anger nor the husband’s intercession touches the hard-hearted woman. The disguised Kent did not leave Lear, he came to hire himself into his service. He considers it his duty to be close to the king, who is obviously in trouble. Lear sends Kent with a letter to Regan. But at the same time Goneril sends her messenger to her sister.

Lear still hopes - he has a second daughter. He will find understanding with her, because he gave them everything - “both life and the state.” He orders the horses to be saddled and angrily says to Goneril: “I’ll tell her about you. She / With her nails, she-wolf, will scratch / your face! Don’t think, I will return / To myself all the power / Which I lost, / As you imagined...”

In front of Gloucester Castle, where Regan and her husband arrived to resolve disputes with the king, two messengers collided: Kent - King Lear, and Oswald - Goneril. In Oswald, Kent recognizes Goneril's courtier, whom he reprimanded for disrespect to Lyra. Oswald screams. Regan and her husband, the Duke of Cornwall, come out to the noise. They order Kent to be put in stocks. Kent is angry at Lear’s humiliation: “Even if I were / Your father’s Dog, and not an ambassador, / You wouldn’t need to treat me like that.” The Earl of Gloucester unsuccessfully tries to intercede on Kent's behalf.

But Regan needs to humiliate his father so that he knows who has the power now. She is cut from the same cloth as her sister. Kent understands this well; he foresees what awaits Lear at Regan’s: “You were caught in the rain and under the drops...”

Lear finds his ambassador in the stocks. Who dared! It's worse than murder. “Your son-in-law and your daughter,” Kent says. Lear does not want to believe, but understands that it is true. “This attack of pain will suffocate me! / My melancholy, don’t torment me, go away! / Don’t approach your heart with such force!” The jester comments on the situation: “A father in rags on his children / Brings blindness. / A rich father is always nicer and has a different attitude.”

Lear wants to talk to his daughter. But she is tired from the road and cannot accept him. Lear screams, is indignant, rages, wants to break down the door...

Finally Regan and the Duke of Cornwall come out. The king tries to tell how Goneril kicked him out, but Regan, not listening, invites him to return to his sister and ask her for forgiveness. Before Lear had time to recover from his new humiliation, Goneril appeared. The sisters vied with each other to defeat their father with their cruelty. One proposes to reduce the retinue by half, the other - to twenty-five people, and, finally, both decide: not a single one is needed.

Lear is crushed: “Do not refer to what is needed. The poor and those / In need have something in abundance. / Reduce all life to necessity, / And man will become equal to an animal...”

His words seem capable of squeezing tears from a stone, but not from the king’s daughters... And he begins to realize how unfair he was to Cordelia.

A storm is coming. The wind howls. Daughters abandon their father to the elements. They close the gate, leaving Lear on the street, “...he has science for the future.” Lear no longer hears these words of Regan.

Steppe. A storm is raging. Streams of water fall from the sky. Kent, in the steppe in search of the king, encounters a courtier from his retinue. He confides in him and tells him that there is “no peace” between the Dukes of Cornwall and Albany, that in France it is known about the cruel treatment “of our good old king.” Kent asks the courtier to hurry to Cordelia and tell her “about the king, / About his terrible fatal misfortune,” and as proof that the messenger can be trusted, he, Kent, gives his ring, which Cordelia recognizes.

Lear walks with the jester, beating the wind. Lear, unable to cope with mental anguish, turns to the elements: “Howl, whirlwind, with might and main! Burn lightning! Let down the rain! / Whirlwind, thunder and downpour, you are not my daughters, / I do not blame you for heartlessness. / I didn’t give you kingdoms, I didn’t call you children, I didn’t oblige you with anything. So let it be done / All your evil will is done to me.” In his declining years, he lost his illusions; their collapse burns his heart.

Kent comes out to meet Lear. He persuades Lear to take refuge in the hut, where poor Tom Edgar is already hiding, pretending to be crazy. Tom engages Lear in conversation. The Earl of Gloucester cannot abandon his old master in trouble. The sisters' cruelty disgusts him. He received news that there was a foreign army in the country. Until help arrives, Lear must be covered. He tells Edmund about his plans. And he decides to once again take advantage of Gloucester’s gullibility in order to get rid of him too. He will report him to the Duke. “The old man is missing, I’ll move forward. / He’s lived and that’s enough, it’s my turn.” Gloucester, unaware of Edmund's betrayal, searches for Lear. He comes across a hut where the persecuted have taken refuge. He calls Lear to a refuge where there is “fire and food.” Lear does not want to part with the beggar philosopher Tom. Tom follows him to the castle farm where their father is hiding. Gloucester goes to the castle for a while. Lear, in a fit of madness, arranges a trial of his daughters, inviting Kent, the jester and Edgar to be witnesses and jurors. He demands that Regan's chest be opened to see if there is a heart of stone there... Finally, Lyra manages to be put to rest. Gloucester returns, he asks the travelers to quickly go to Dover, since he “overheard a plot against the king.”

The Duke of Cornwall learns of the landing of French troops. He sends Goneril and Edmund with this news to the Duke of Albany. Oswald, who spied on Gloucester, reports that he helped the king and his followers escape to Dover. The Duke orders Gloucester to be captured. He is captured, tied up, and mocked. Regan asks the earl why he sent the king to Dover, contrary to orders. “Then, so as not to see / How you tear out the old man’s eyes / With the claws of a predator, like a boar’s tusk / Your fierce sister will plunge / into the body of the anointed one.” But he is sure that he will see “how thunder will incinerate such children.” At these words, the Duke of Cornwall tears out an eye from the helpless old man. The earl's servant, unable to bear the sight of the old man being mocked, draws his sword and mortally wounds the Duke of Cornwall, but is also wounded himself. The servant wants to console Gloucester a little and encourages him to look with his remaining eye at how he is avenged. The Duke of Cornwall, before his death, in a fit of anger, tears out his second eye. Gloucester calls on Edmund's son for revenge and learns that it was he who betrayed his father. He understands that Edgar has been slandered. Blinded and grief-stricken, Gloucester is pushed out into the street. Regan sees him off with the words: “Drive him to the neck! / Let him find his way to Dover with his nose.”

Gloucester is escorted by an old servant. The Count asks to leave him so as not to incur anger. When asked how he will find his way, Gloucester bitterly replies: “I have no way, / And I don’t need eyes. I stumbled / when I was sighted.<…>My poor Edgar, unfortunate target / of blind anger / of a deceived father...” Edgar hears this. He volunteers to become a guide to a blind man. Gloucester asks to be taken to a cliff “large, hanging steeply over the abyss” to commit suicide.

Goneril returns to the palace of the Duke of Albany with Edmund; she is surprised that the “peacemaker-husband” did not meet her. Oswald talks about the Duke’s strange reaction to his story about the landing of troops and Gloucester’s betrayal: “What is unpleasant makes him laugh, / What should please him makes him sad.” Goneril, calling her husband “a coward and a nonentity,” sends Edmund back to Cornwall to lead the troops. Saying goodbye, they swear their love to each other.

The Duke of Albany, having learned how inhumanely the sisters acted with their royal father, meets Goneril with contempt: “You are not worth the dust / Which the wind showered you in vain... Everything knows its root, and if not, / It dies like a dry branch without juice " But the one who hides “the face of an animal under a woman’s guise” is deaf to her husband’s words: “Enough! Pathetic nonsense! The Duke of Albany continues to appeal to her conscience: “What have you done, what have you done, / Not daughters, but real tigresses. / An aged father, whose feet / A bear would reverently lick, / Driven to madness! / Satan’s ugliness / Nothing compared to an evil woman’s ugliness...” He is interrupted by a messenger who reports the death of Cornwall at the hands of a servant who came to the defense of Gloucester. The Duke is shocked by the new atrocities of the sisters and Cornwall. He vows to repay Gloucester for his loyalty to Lear. Goneril is concerned: her sister is a widow, and Edmund stayed with her. This threatens her own plans.

Edgar leads his father. The Count, thinking that there is a cliff edge in front of him, rushes and falls in the same place. Comes to his senses. Edgar convinces him that he jumped off the cliff and miraculously survived. Gloucester henceforth submits to fate until she herself says: “Go away.” Oswald appears and is tasked with taking out old man Gloucester. Edgar fights him, kills him, and in the pocket of the “flatterer, servile evil mistress” he finds a letter from Goneril to Edmund, in which she offers to kill her husband in order to take his place herself.

In the forest they meet Lear, intricately decorated with wildflowers. His mind left him. His speech is a mixture of “nonsense and sense.” A courtier appears calling for Lear, but Lear runs away.

Cordelia, having learned about her father's misfortunes and the hard-heartedness of her sisters, rushes to his aid. French camp. Lear in bed. The doctors put him into a life-saving sleep. Cordelia prays to the gods for the “father who fell into infancy” to return his mind. In the dream, Lyr is dressed again in royal robes. And then he wakes up. Sees Cordelia crying. He kneels in front of her and says: “Don’t be strict with me. / I'm sorry. / Forget. I am old and reckless."

Edmund and Regan are at the head of the British army. Regan asks Edmund if he is having an affair with his sister. He pledges his love to Regan. The Duke of Albany and Goneril enter with the beating of drums. Goneril, seeing her rival sister next to Edmund, decides to poison her. The Duke proposes to convene a council in order to draw up a plan of attack. Edgar, in disguise, finds him and gives him a letter from Goneril that was found on Oswald. And he asks him: in case of victory, “let the herald<…>He will call me to you with a trumpet.” The Duke reads the letter and learns about the betrayal.

The French are defeated. Edmund, who came forward with his army, takes King Lear and Cordelia prisoner. Lear is happy that he has found Cordelia again. From now on they are inseparable. Edmund orders them to be taken to prison. Lear is not afraid of imprisonment: “In a stone prison we will survive / All the false teachings, all the greats of the world, / All their changes, their ebb and flow<…>We will sing like birds in a cage. You will stand under my blessing, / I will kneel before you, asking for forgiveness.”

Edmund gives a secret order to kill them both.

The Duke of Albany enters with an army, he demands that the king and Cordelia be handed over to him in order to dispose of their fate “in accordance with honor and prudence.” Edmund tells the Duke that Lear and Cordelia have been captured and sent to prison, but refuses to hand them over. The Duke of Albania, interrupting the sisters' obscene squabble over Edmund, accuses all three of treason. He shows Goneril her letter to Edmund and announces that if no one comes to the call of the trumpet, he himself will fight Edmund. At the third call of the trumpet, Edgar comes out to duel. The Duke asks him to reveal his name, but he says that for now it is “contaminated with slander.” Brothers fight. Edgar mortally wounds Edmund and reveals to him who the avenger is. Edmund understands: “The wheel of fate has completed / Its turn. I am here and defeated." Edgar tells the Duke of Albany that he shared his wanderings with his father. But before this fight he opened up to him and asked for his blessing. During his story, a courtier comes and reports that Goneril stabbed herself, having previously poisoned her sister. Edmund, dying, announces his secret order and asks everyone to hurry up. But it’s too late, the crime has been committed. Lear enters carrying the dead Cordelia. He endured so much grief, but he cannot come to terms with the loss of Cordelia. “My poor girl was strangled! / No, he’s not breathing! / A horse, a dog, a rat can live, / But not you. You are gone forever...” Lear dies. Edgar tries to call the king. Kent stops him: “Don’t torture me. Leave his spirit alone. / Let him go. / Who do you have to be to yank him again / onto the rack of life for torment?”

“No matter how much melancholy the soul is struck by, / Times forces us to be persistent” - the final chord is the words of the Duke of Albany.

The British King Lear, in his old age, decides to place the burden of the throne on his daughters: Regan, Cordelia and Goneril. In return, their father wants to hear how much they love him.

Goneril is the first to say the word, showering her father with flattery, and then Regan, it seems, repeats her sister’s words. But Lear was really looking forward to the words of the third, youngest Cordelia: “I love you as duty dictates,” she said, which greatly shocked his father. For such straightforwardness of the youngest, the father gives the kingdom only to her older sisters, taking for himself a hundred guards and the right to visit each of the daughters for one month. The king's friend Earl of Kent asked him to change his mind about the younger one, but Lear did not want to change his mind. The King of France is flattered by Cordelia's words and proposes to her to be queen. They leave together.

Lear chooses Goneril's first home. In the house, the servants who were ordered by the mistress are openly rude to him; the daughter does not want to talk to him, avoiding the meeting. Thus, the daughter wants to show her father who is in charge now. Goneril's husband, the Duke of Albany, comes to Lear's defense, but this did not stop his daughter, and the father leaves for the second - Regan, to whom he had already sent a messenger from Kent.

At Gloucester Castle, Kent meets Goneril's messenger, Oswald, who recognizes Kent and meets Regan and the Duke of Cornwall, who order the messenger Lear to be put in shackles. When Lear comes to his second daughter, he receives the same attitude as from the first. Regan, too, along with Goneril, who has arrived, are trying to show their father who is in charge now. Now he understands that he senselessly offended his youngest daughter then, and leaves his daughters.

Kent sends an envoy to France to the king's youngest daughter, and he himself goes in search of him. The Earl of Gloucester respects the old king and also goes to look for him. Kent finds a hut where Lear and the beggar philosopher Tom were sitting, where Gloucester soon comes. Gloucester takes everyone to his farm, and he himself goes into the castle. Everyone settled down to rest, when Gloucester returns with information about a conspiracy against the king, and insists that they immediately set off on the road to Dover. A spy who was nearby the king told everything to the Duke of Cornwall, who orders Gloucester to be captured and the king to be spied on further. Gloucester is cruelly mocked and deprived of one eye, but the old man is saved by Edgar.

When the Duke of Albany finds out how his daughters behaved with their father, he is filled with contempt for his wife when she returned from her sister. Goneril learns that Gloucester is alive. Realizing that she needs to kill her husband, she sends the messenger Oswald to find and kill old man Gloucester, and convey a secret message to Edmund that he must kill the Duke. The messenger finds the old man, fights with Edgar and dies.

At this time, Cordelia finds out about everything that is happening to her father and immediately goes to his aid. Edmund and his army capture Cordelia and Lear in the French camp, and secretly give the order to kill them. Then the Duke of Albany appears with an army. He demands that the captive king and his daughter be given to him, but Edmund refuses. Based on the letter that Goneril wrote, which Edgar intercepted and gave to the Duke, Albansky accuses the sisters and Edmund of conspiracy and high treason. The sisters commit suicide, but then the king appears with the dead Cordelia in his arms. He endured so much humiliation and grief, but the death of his daughter broke him.

Essays

The story of the tragic fate of the British king and his three daughters has become a classic of world literature. The dramatic plot has earned high popularity: there are many theatrical productions and film adaptations of the work.

The dramatic work was created on a legendary basis - the story of the British King Lear, who in his declining years decided to transfer power to his children. As a result, the monarch became a victim of the neglect of his two eldest daughters, and the political situation in the kingdom worsened, threatening his complete destruction. Shakespeare added another storyline to the well-known legend - the relationships in the family of the Earl of Gloucester, whose illegitimate son, for the sake of power and position, did not spare either his brother or his father.

The death of the main characters at the end of the work, intense pathos, a system of characters built on contrasts are absolute signs of a classic tragedy.

"King Lear": a summary of the play

The British King Lear is going to marry off his three daughters, divide the lands into three parts and give them as dowries, handing over the reins of government to their husbands. He himself plans to live out his life as a guest in turn with his daughters. Before the division of the lands, the proud Lear wanted to hear from the children how much they loved their father and to give them what they deserved.

The two eldest daughters Goneril and Regan swore to their father of their unearthly love for him and, having received equal shares of land, became the wives of the Dukes of Albany and Cornwall. The youngest daughter Cordelia, to whom the King of France and the Duke of Burgundy were wooing, sincerely loving her father, was pure in soul and did not want to show off her feelings. She didn't answer. When the king was outraged by such disrespect, she said that she would not marry, since she would have to give most of her love to her husband, and not to her father.

The king, not seeing the selfless purity of his daughter, renounced her, depriving her of her dowry and dividing the land between her older sisters. The Earl of Kent, a loyal subject of the king, stood up for Cordelia, for which Lear expels him from Britain. The Duke of Burgundy refused the landless bride, and the wise king of France, seeing the purity of the girl, happily took her as his wife. The eldest daughters, believing that their father is out of his mind, decide to stick together and remove the king from power as much as possible.

The illegitimate son of the Earl of Gloucester, Edmund, decides to get rid of his brother Edgar in order to gain his father's love, inheritance and honorary title. He shows his father a letter, allegedly written by his brother, where Edgar persuades him to kill his father together. And he tells his brother that the count wants to destroy him. Trusting Gloucester renounced his own son and put him on the wanted list. Edgar is forced to hide, pretending to be crazy Tom.

The king is visiting Goneril, who has reduced the staff of his servants by half and ordered her own not to indulge their father. The exiled Kent, disguised as Kai, becomes the king's loyal servant. The neglectful attitude of the daughter and her yard offended the father. Cursing her, the king went to Regan. She kicks her father out into the street on a stormy night. The king, the jester and Kent take refuge from the weather in a hut, where they meet Edgar, pretending to be crazy.

Goneril, along with Regan and her husband, plots to get rid of the king. Overhearing this, Gloucester secretly decides to help Lear, who has lost his mind from grief, by sending him to Dover, where the headquarters of the French forces that attacked decapitated Britain are located. Edmund, trying to please the king's daughters, reports his father's plans. Maddened with anger, Regan's husband, the Duke of Cornwall, tears out Gloucester's eyes. The servant, trying to stop the Duke, wounds him and Cornwall dies. Edgar, disguised as crazy Tom, becomes the guide of the exiled Earl of Gloucester and leads him to the king.

Goneril returns home with Edmund and learns that her husband does not support their behavior. She promises her heart to young Gloucester and sends him back. Regan's widow also shows Edmund her love. He vows to be faithful to each of them.

Kent brought the king to Cordelia. She is shocked by her father's insanity and persuades the doctors to heal him. Having woken up, Lear asks his daughter for forgiveness. Edgar meets Goneril's servant Oswald, who is tasked with destroying Gloucester. After fighting him, Edgar kills him and takes Goneril's letter. With this letter he goes to the Duke of Albany, from which it becomes known about the connection between his wife and Edmund. Edgar asks the Duke, if the British win, to get even with his brother.

Both armies are preparing for battle. As a result of the battle, the British army, led by Edmund and Regan, won. Goneril, having guessed about her sister's plans for Edmund, is jealous and decides to get rid of her sister. Edmund rejoices after capturing Cordelia and the king. He sends them to prison and gives special instructions to the guard. The Duke of Albania demands the extradition of the king and his youngest daughter. However, Edmund does not agree. While the sisters quarrel over Edmund, the Duke accuses all three of treason and, showing Goneril's letter, calls for someone who can fight the traitor. Edgar comes out and, having defeated his brother in battle, says his name.

Edmund understands that retribution has been accomplished for what he did to his brother and father. Before his death, he admitted that he had ordered the death of the king and Cordelia, and ordered that they be urgently sent for. Unfortunately, it was too late. The dead Cordelia, who was hanged by the guard, was carried out in the arms of the unfortunate king, and the courtier reported that Goneril, having poisoned her sister, had stabbed herself.

Unable to bear Cordelia's death, the king's life, full of suffering and torment, is interrupted. And the surviving loyal subjects understand that they need to be persistent, as required by the rebellious times.

Characteristics

"King Lear", according to critics, is more of a work of reading than a stage play. The play is full of events, but the philosophical reflections of the characters occupy a greater place in it.

Rich world of characters
Each character, created by the author skillfully and truthfully, has a special character and inner world. Each hero has his own personal tragedy, into which Shakespeare initiates the reader.

The king is strong and confident from the first scenes. However, at the same time, he is selfish and blind, which is why he loses his crown, power, respect and his own children. His mind comprehends the truth as much as possible at the moment of insanity. The creation of the remaining images of the work is close to the system of classic division of characters into positive and negative.

The main idea of ​​the play

The work is based on the eternal problem of fathers and sons, depicted by the example of two families - King Lear and the Earl of Gloucester. In both cases, fathers are humiliated and betrayed by their children. But it cannot be said that they are innocent victims of what happened. King Lear's pride and arrogance, inability to see the truth, and tendency to make rash and categorical decisions led to a tragic outcome. The illegality of conceiving a son, who felt second-class and tried to gain a position in society by any means, is the reason for Edmund’s behavior.

57. KING LEAR

King Lear ruled Britain with dignity and wisdom for sixty years.

God did not give the king a son, but he had three daughters - Honorilla, Regau and Cordeila. King Lear loved all his daughters, but the youngest, Cordale, more than the other two.

Feeling that his old age was approaching, King Lear decided to quickly marry off his daughters and, during his lifetime, give them and their husbands ownership of half of his kingdom.

But first he wanted to be sure of the love and devotion of his daughters. The King called them to him and asked all three: “Tell me, how great is your love for me?” The eldest, Honorilla, replied: “Oh, my father! I love you above all that is in the sublunary world!” - and swore to the truthfulness of her words by all the gods Regau said. “I love you, my father, more than my own soul!” And Cordeila answered like this: “No daughter, if she does not want to lie, will claim that she loves her father more than it is fitting for a daughter to love her father. My love for you is truly like this.”

Lear was pleased with the words of his eldest daughters, but Cordeila's answer saddened and angered him.

The king said: “Your love is not great compared to the love of your sisters! You showed indifference to me, and I will answer you in kind. I will give half of my kingdom to Honoril and Regau, and you will not receive a small particle from it. Since you are still my daughter, I will find you a husband too, but don’t expect to marry with the same honor as your older sisters.” Soon Honorilla and Regau entered into marriage as two noble young men. King Lear divided half the kingdom between them, saying that after his death they would receive the other half.

And the Frankish king Aganippus sent matchmakers to Cordeila, having heard about her beauty, prudence and good character.

King Lear ordered the groom to tell her that he would give Cordale for him, but without any dowry, since he generously endowed her older sisters with land, gold and silver.

To which Aganippus replied: “I have no shortage of lands, gold and silver. I'm only looking for a good wife."

Cordeila went to the land of the Franks and became queen there. Time passed, and King Lear became completely decrepit. Honorilla and Regau, with flattering speeches, persuaded him to transfer all of Britain to them and their husbands, and to live out his life in retirement in the house of any of them.

The old king and his retinue of forty loyal warriors settled near Honorilla. Her husband, Maglaun, showed honor and respect to his father-in-law. But after two years, Honorilla decided that forty warriors required too much expense, and said to her father: “Let go of half, twenty is enough for you.”

The offended father left the house of the eldest daughter and went to the middle one. Regau and her husband Henwin greeted Lir with due respect, but less than a year later the middle daughter demanded that her father give up thirty-five warriors and leave only five.

Then King Lear returned to Honorilla. She accepted her father, but this time she allowed him to keep only one squire, reminding Lear that now he had nothing and would live with her out of mercy.

Lear had to come to terms. More and more often he remembered his youngest daughter, but did not dare turn to her for help, believing that since the older sisters, whom he had endowed with power and wealth, were doing this to him, then Cordeila, married off without a dowry and due honor, and hear will not want to know about his father's plight.

But soon it became completely unbearable for him to live in Honorilla’s house, and he decided to try his luck with Cordeila.

Old Lear and his squire boarded a ship and sailed to the land of the Franks. There were many noble people on the ship, and they all treated the king, deprived of his kingdom, with open contempt.

Seeing this, old Lear wept bitterly and exclaimed, turning to the heavens: “Oh, inexorable sky! Why did you give me fragile happiness and then take it away? I remember how I once, at the head of many thousands of warriors, crushed enemy armies and stormed cities, how I ruled the state and everyone glorified me. Now I have fallen into insignificance, and the memory of my former power does not please me, but depresses me.”

And the old king also said: “Woe is me! My older daughters did not love me, but the gifts that were expected of me. Now I have nothing to give them, and their love has dried up.”

The ship moored to the shore, King Lear set foot on the land of the Franks. He was ashamed to appear in front of his daughter, whom he had once unjustly offended, and Lear sent his squire to Cordale with the news that her father, poor and homeless, was waiting outside the city and appealing to her mercy.

Cordeila, having listened to the squire, wept bitterly and ordered the courtiers to escort his father to the nearest castle, wash, feed and drink, dress him in rich clothes and place at his disposal a retinue of forty people, and then, when he had rested and acquired the appearance befitting of a king, declare to her husband Aganippus about the arrival of her father-in-law.

And so King Lear, in magnificent clothes, accompanied by a brilliant retinue, appeared before Cordeila and the king of the Franks. He told how his treacherous daughters had insidiously deprived him of power, but asked Aganippus not for shelter, but for support in order to regain his kingdom.

Aganippus sent messengers throughout the land of the Franks to gather well-armed warriors, and soon King Lear crossed over to Britain in several ships and stood at the head of a strong army.

There was a battle. Lear defeated the troops sent against him by his treacherous daughters and regained his lost power.

Soon Cordeila became a widow and, leaving the land of the Franks, settled in Britain with her father.

Old Lear lived for three more years and then died, bequeathing the kingdom to his youngest daughter.

Cordeila became Queen of Britain. She ruled the state for five years, and all these years peace and prosperity reigned in the country.

But during this time, the sons of Honorilla and Regau, the nephews of Cordeila, and the grandchildren of King Lear grew up. Annoyed that the power that could have belonged to them belonged to their aunt, they rebelled and began a war with the queen. In one of the battles, Cordeila was captured. Unable to accept defeat, she took her own life.

The nephews divided the kingdom among themselves, but then the elder killed the younger and became the sole ruler of Britain.

The tale of King Lear and his three daughters is currently known mainly from Shakespeare's tragedy. Shakespeare borrowed the plot of King Lear from Geoffrey of Monmouth's History of the Britons. But if in most cases Geoffrey of Monmouth was based on folk legends, then the story of Lear, according to many researchers, is his own fiction. Nevertheless, later this story was perceived as a folk tale.

In addition to the "History of the Britons", King Lear is mentioned in the British epic tale, recorded in the 16th century, in which Lear, with the help of his wizard brother, saves Britain from the "Three Deaths": from the invasion of strange creatures endowed with magical powers, from a terrible scream that kills everyone who heard him, and from the mysterious disappearance of food and drink.

At the end of this tale, the plot of Geoffrey of Monmouth is briefly recounted and it is added: “This is only a fairy tale, composed many centuries after the reign of King Lear.”

Sometimes the legendary King Lear is identified with a real king of the same name, who ruled Britain in the 1st century BC. e., but nothing is known about him except his name.