“King Lear” of Shakespeare in brief
The scene of action is Britain. The time of action is the 11th century. The powerful King Lear, feeling the approach of old age, decides to shift the burden of power on the shoulders of three daughters: Goneril, Regan and Cordelia, sharing their kingdom between them. The king wants to hear from his daughters how they love him, “so that when we can divvy our generosity.”
The first acts Gonerilia. Spreading flattery, she says that she loves her father, “just as the children did not love / never have their fathers before.” She echoes the sweet-talked Regan: “I do not know the joys of others, besides / my great love for you, sir!” And although the falsity of these words cuts his ear, Lear listens to them favorably. The queue of the younger, beloved Cordelia. She is modest and truthful and does not know how to swear publicly in feelings. “I love you as a debt,” / No more and no less. ” Lear does not believe his ears: “Cordelia,
In blind fury, the king gives the whole kingdom to the sisters of Cordelia, leaving her in her dowry only for her straightforwardness. He himself allocates one hundred guards and the right to live for a month for each of the daughters.
Count Kent, a friend and an approximate king, warns him against such a hasty decision, begs him to cancel it: “Cordelia’s love is no less than theirs Gremit only that is empty from within…” But Lear had already bit a bit. Kent contradicts the king, calls him an eccentric old man – hence, he must leave the kingdom. Kent responds with dignity and regret: “Once at home there is no pride of your pride, / then the link here, and the will in a foreign land.”
One
Count Gloucester, who had served Lyra for many years, is distressed and puzzled that Lear “suddenly, under the influence of the minute” took such a responsible decision. He does not even suspect that Edmund, his illegitimate son, is wandering around him. Edmund conceived to blacken his brother Edgar in the eyes of his father to take possession of his part of the inheritance. He, forging Edgar’s handwriting, writes a letter in which supposedly Edgar is plotting to kill his father, and adjusts everything so that his father reads this letter. Edgar, in turn, assures him that his father is plotting against him something unkind, Edgar suggests that someone slandered him. Edmund himself easily injures himself, but presents the case as if he was trying to arrest Edgar, who was attempting on his father. Edmund is pleased – he skillfully insulted two honest people with slander: “My father believed me, and my brother believed. / So honest he is, above suspicion.
The first month Lear lives at Goneril. She is just looking for an excuse to show her father who is now the boss. Learning that Lyre nailed her jester, Gonerilya decides to “prune” his father. “Himself gave the power, but wants to manage / As before, No, the old people are like children, / And the rigor of the lesson is required.”
Lira, encouraged by the hostess, frankly rude servants Goneril. When the king wants to talk about this with his daughter, she avoids meeting with her father. Jester bitterly ridicules the king: “You have cut off your mind on both sides / And left nothing in the middle.”
Gonerilja comes, her speech is rude and bold. She demands that Lear dissolve half of his retinue, leaving a small number of people who will not be “forgotten and rampaging.” Lear is smitten. He thinks his anger will affect his daughter: “Insatiable kite, / You’re lying, my bodyguards / A tried and tested people of high qualities…” The Duke of Alban, the husband of Gonerilli, tries to stand up for Lear, not finding in his behavior what could cause such a humiliating decision. But neither the wrath of the father, nor the intercession of her husband does not touch the hard-hearted. Dressed Kent did not leave Lear, he came to hire him to serve. He considers it his duty to be with the king, who, obviously, is in trouble. Lear sends Kent with a letter to Regan. But at the same time Gonerilia sends her messenger to her sister.
Lear still hopes – he has a second daughter. She will find understanding, because he gave them everything – “both life and the state.” He orders horses to be saddled and the Gonerylle throws in his heart: “I’ll tell her about you.” She / Will scratch your nails, wolf, / Face to you! Do not think, I’ll return all power to myself / / Which I lost / As you imagined… “
Before the castle of Gloucester, where Regan and her husband came to settle disputes with the king, two messengers collided: Kent-King Lear, and Oswald-Gonerilli. In Oswald, Kent recognizes the court Gonerilli, whom he otuzil for disrespect for Lear. Oswald raises a scream. Regan and her husband, the Duke of Cornwall, go to the noise. They order to put on Kent pads. Kent is enraged at the humiliation of Lear: “May I be even your dog’s dog, and not an ambassador, / Do not need to treat me like that.” Count Gloucester unsuccessfully tries to stand up for Kent.
But Regan needs to humiliate his father, so he knows who is in power now. She’s from the same test as her sister. This is well understood by Kent, he foresees what awaits Lear at Regan: “You have fallen from the rain and under drops…”
Lear finds his ambassador in the shoes. Who dared! It’s worse than murder. “Your son-in-law and your daughter,” says Kent. Lear does not want to believe, but realizes that it’s true. “I will be strangled by this attack of pain! / My longing, do not torment me, wither away! / Do not come with such strength to your heart!” The jester comments on the situation: “A father in rags on children / blinds.” A rich father is always nice and on a different account. “
Lear wants to talk to his daughter. But she is tired from the road, she can not accept it. Lear cries, resents, rages, wants to break open the door…
Finally, Regan and the Duke of Cornwall come out. The king tries to tell how Gonerilia kicked him out, but Regan, not listening, offers him to return to his sister and ask her for forgiveness. Lear did not have time to recover from the new humiliation, as appears Goneril. Sisters in vain fight their father with their cruelty. One proposes to reduce the retinue by half, the other to twenty-five, and finally, both decide: none is needed.
Lear is crushed: “Do not refer to what you need: beggars and those / In need have something in abundance. / Show the need for a lifetime, / And the person will be equal to the animal…”.
His words seem to be able to squeeze tears from the stone, but not from the daughters of the king… And he begins to realize how unfair he was with Cordelia.
A storm is coming. The wind is howling. Daughters abandon their father to the will of the elements. They close the gate, leaving Lear on the street, “… him a science for the future time.” These words Regan Lyre no longer hears.
Steppe. The storm is raging. From the sky streams of water overflow. Kent in the steppe in search of the king is facing the court of his suite. He trusts him and says that there is no “peace between the Dukes of Cornwall and Alban”, that in France it is known about the cruel treatment “with our good old king.” Kent asks the courtier to hurry to Cordelia and inform her “of the king, / of his terrible fateful mischief,” and as proof that the envoy can be trusted, he, Kent, gives his ring, which Cordelia learns.
Lear wanders with a jester, overcoming the wind. Lear, unable to cope with mental torment, turns to the elements: “Howling, whirlwind, with might and main! Burn the lightning! Lei shower! / Whirlwind, thunder and rain, you are not my daughter, / I do not reproach you for heartlessness. you did not give, did not call children, you did not do anything, so be done / all your evil will be over me. ” In the declining years he lost his illusions, their collapse burns his heart.
Kent goes out to meet Lear. He persuades Lear to take cover in a hut where poor Tom Edgar is already hiding, pretending to be crazy. Tom occupies Lear with conversation. Count Gloucester can not abandon his old master in trouble. The brutality of his sisters is disgusting. He received news that there was a foreign army in the country. While the help will come, it is necessary to hide Lira. He talks about his plans to Edmund. And he decides to once again take advantage of the credulity of Gloucester to get rid of him. He will report the duke to him. “The old man is gone, I will advance forward. / He lived – and enough, my turn.” Gloucester, unaware of Edmund’s betrayal, is looking for Lear. He encounters a hut where the persecuted have taken refuge. He calls Lyre in a haven where there is “fire and food.” Lear does not want to part with the poor philosopher Tom. Tom follows him to the farm at the castle, where his father hides. Gloucester goes briefly to the castle. Lear in a fit of insanity arranges a trial of his daughters, offering Kent, a jester and Edgar to be witnesses, jurymen. He wants Regan to open his chest to see if the heart is stone-hearted… Finally, Lear can manage to rest. Returns to Gloucester, he asks the travelers to go to Dover faster, since he “overheard the plot against the king.”
The Duke of Cornwall learns about the landing of French troops. He sends with this news to the Duke of Albanian Goneril with Edmund. Oswald, who was spying on Gloucester, reports that he helped escape the king and his followers to Dover. The Duke orders to grab Gloucester. He is seized, tied up, mocked. Regan asks the count, why he sent the king to Dover, contrary to the order. “Then, so as not to see, / How to rip you off the old man’s eyes / Claws of the predator, like the tusk of boar / Vonzit your fierce sister / In the anointed body.” But he is sure that he will see “how thunder will incinerate such children.” At these words, the Duke of Cornwall snatches the eyes of the helpless old man. The Count’s servant, unable to endure the spectacle of mockery at the old man, strips the sword and mortally wounded the Duke of Cornwall, but he himself gets wounded. The servant wants to console Gloucester a little and calls him with his remaining eye to see how he is avenged. The Duke of Cornwales, before dying in a fit of anger, tears out the second eye. Gloucester calls Edmund’s son to revenge and finds out that he betrayed his father. He understands that Edgar was slandered. Blinded, grief-stricken Gloucester is pushed out into the street. Regan accompanies him with the words: “Ride your neck!” / With a nasal let him find his way to Dover. “
Gloucester sees off the old servant. The Count asks to leave him, so as not to incur anger. When asked how he would find the way, Gloucester replied bitterly: “I do not have a way, / I do not need an eye.” I stumbled, when I saw. My poor Edgar, unhappy target / blind anger / father deceived… “Edgar hears it. He is called to become the leader of the blind. Gloucester asks him to take him to the cliff “a big one, hanging over the abyss” to settle accounts with life.
In the palace of the Duke of Albania, Gonerilla and Edmund returned, she was surprised that the “peacemaker-husband” had not met her. Oswald talks about the strange reaction of the Duke to his story about the landing of troops, the treachery of Gloucester: “What is unpleasant, then it’s funny, / What should please, then grieve.” Gonerilia, calling her husband “a coward and a nonentity” sends Edmund back to Cornwall – to lead the troops. Saying goodbye, they swear to each other in love.
The Duke of Alban, having learned how the sisters and their royal father acted inhumanly, greets Goneril with contempt: “Do not stand the dust, / That the wind blew you… All the root knows its own, and if not, / That perishes like a dry branch without juices. ” But the one that hides “the beast’s face under the guise of a woman”, is deaf to her husband’s words: “Enough! Pitiful nonsense!” The Duke of Albania continues to cry out to her conscience: “What did you do, / Did not daughters, but the real tigresses.” / Father in the years, whose feet / Bear would lick reverently / To the insanity brought! / Satan’s monstrosity / Nothing before the evil women ugliness… “He interrupts the messenger, who reports the death of Cornwall from the hand of a servant who stood up for the protection of Gloucester. The Duke is shocked by the new brutality of the sisters and Cornwall. He swears to thank Gloucester for his loyalty to Lear. Gonerilia is concerned: her sister is a widow, and Edmund stayed with her. This threatens her own plans.
Edgar leads his father. Count, thinking that before him the edge of the cliff, rushes and falls in the same place. Comes to itself. Edgar convinces him that he jumped off the cliff and miraculously survived. Gloucester now submits to fate, while she herself does not say: “Go away.” Appears Oswald, he is instructed to remove the old man of Gloucester. Edgar fights with him, kills, and in the pocket of “the flatterer of a servile spiteful mistress” finds a letter to Gonerilja Edmund, in which she proposes to kill her husband to take his place.
In the forest, they meet Lyra, quaintly decorated with wildflowers. His mind left him. His speech is a mixture of “nonsense and meaning.” Appeared courtier calls Lear, but Lear escapes.
Cordelia, learning about the misfortunes of her father, the hardness of her sisters, hurries to his aid. The French camp. Lear in bed. The doctors put him to sleep. Cordelia prays the gods “fallen into the infancy of his father” to regain the mind. Lyra in a dream is again dressed in a royal vestment. And here he is awakened. He sees the crying Cordelia. He kneels before her and says: “Do not be strict with me / Forgive me / Forget I’m old and reckless.”
Edmund and Regan – at the head of the British troops. Regan tries to find out from Edmund whether he has a love affair with his sister. He swears in love to Regan. The Duke of Alban and Gonerilla enter with a drumbeat. Gonerilja, seeing the sister-rival next to Edmund, decides to poison her. The Duke proposes to convene a council in order to draw up an offensive plan. He finds Edgar disguised and hands him the letter of Gonerilia, found at Oswald. And he asks him: in case of victory “let the herald to you call me a pipe.” The Duke reads the letter and learns of treason.
The French are defeated. Edmund, who escaped with his army, captures King Lear and Cordelia. Lear is happy that he regained Cordelia. From now on they are inseparable. Edmund orders them to be taken to prison. Lyra does not fear the imprisonment: “We will survive in a stone prison / All the false teachings, of all the great worlds, / All their shifts, their rush and ebb As birds in the cage we sing. You will be under my blessing, / I kneel before you, forgiveness. “
Edmund gives a secret order to kill them both.
The Duke of Alban enters with the army, he demands to give him the king and Cordelia, to dispose of their fate “in accordance with honor and prudence.” Edmund answers to the duke that Lear and Cordelia are taken prisoner and sent to prison, but they refuse to give them away. The Duke of Alban, interrupting the obscene bickering of sisters over Edmund, accuses all three of treason. He shows Gonerilya her letter to Edmund and declares that if no one comes to the call of the trumpet, he will fight Edmund himself. On the third call of the pipe goes to the fight Edgar. The duke asks him to open his name, but he says that as long as it is “contaminated with slander.” Brothers are fighting. Edgar mortally wound Edmund and reveals to him who the avenger is. Edmund understands: “The wheel of fate has made / its turn, I am here and defeated.” Edgar tells the Duke of Albania that he shared wanderings with his father. But before this fight he opened and asked to bless. During his story comes the courtier and reports that Gonerilia was stabbed, before poisoning her sister. Edmund, dying, announces his secret order and asks everyone to hurry. But it’s too late, the villainy has been committed. Enter Lear, carrying the dead Cordelia. So much grief he endured, and with the loss of Cordelia can not reconcile. “My poor little girl has been struck! / No, she’s not breathing!” / A horse, a dog, a rat, you can live, / But not to you. Edgar tries to call the king. Kent stops him: “Do not torment, leave his spirit alone. / Let him walk away. / Who should be, to throw him / her back on the rack of life for torment?” But before this fight he opened and asked to bless. During his story comes the courtier and reports that Gonerilia was stabbed, before poisoning her sister. Edmund, dying, announces his secret order and asks everyone to hurry. But it’s too late, the villainy has been committed. Enter Lear, carrying the dead Cordelia. So much grief he endured, and with the loss of Cordelia can not reconcile. “My poor little girl has been struck! / No, she’s not breathing!” / A horse, a dog, a rat, you can live, / But not to you. Edgar tries to call the king. Kent stops him: “Do not torment, leave his spirit alone. / Let him walk away. / Who should be, to throw him / her back on the rack of life for torment?” But before this fight he opened and asked to bless. During his story comes the courtier and reports that Gonerilia was stabbed, before poisoning her sister. Edmund, dying, announces his secret order and asks everyone to hurry. But it’s too late, the villainy has been committed. Enter Lear, carrying the dead Cordelia. So much grief he endured, and with the loss of Cordelia can not reconcile. “My poor little girl has been struck! / No, she’s not breathing!” / A horse, a dog, a rat, you can live, / But not to you. Edgar tries to call the king. Kent stops him: “Do not torment, leave his spirit alone. / Let him walk away. / Who should be, to throw him / her back on the rack of life for torment?” announces his secret order and asks everyone to hurry. But it’s too late, the villainy has been committed. Enter Lear, carrying the dead Cordelia. So much grief he endured, and with the loss of Cordelia can not reconcile. “My poor little girl has been struck! / No, she’s not breathing!” / A horse, a dog, a rat, you can live, / But not to you. Edgar tries to call the king. Kent stops him: “Do not torment, leave his spirit alone. / Let him walk away. / Who should be, to throw him / her back on the rack of life for torment?” announces his secret order and asks everyone to hurry. But it’s too late, the villainy has been committed. Enter Lear, carrying the dead Cordelia. So much grief he endured, and with the loss of Cordelia can not reconcile. “My poor little girl has been struck! / No, she’s not breathing!” / A horse, a dog, a rat, you can live, / But not to you. Edgar tries to call the king. Kent stops him: “Do not torment, leave his spirit alone. / Let him walk away. / Who should be, to throw him / her back on the rack of life for torment?” Edgar tries to call the king. Kent stops him: “Do not torment, leave his spirit alone. / Let him walk away. / Who should be, to throw him / her back on the rack of life for torment?” Edgar tries to call the king. Kent stops him: “Do not torment, leave his spirit alone. / Let him walk away. / Who should be, to throw him / her back on the rack of life for torment?”
“What a longing for the soul is not smitten, / To be persistent make the times” – the final chord sounds the words of the Duke of Alban.
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