King Lear Act Three - "When the mind's free, The body's delicate."

King Lear Act Three – “When the mind's free,
The body's delicate.”

As the storm continues to rage, Kent comes across one of Lear’s thirty odd remaining knights and he reveals that he is no servant and tells the knight of the feud between Albany and Cornwall. He then asks the knight to go to Dover where there will be friends of Lear and he gives the knight his own ring and tells him to give it to Cordellia when he sees her so that she will know who it was who sent the knight. Kent then leaves to find Lear.

Lear confronts the storm and the elements:

“Blow, winds, and crack your cheeks! rage! blow!

You cataracts and hurricanoes, spout

Till you have drench'd our steeples, drown'd the cocks!

You sulphurous and thought-executing fires,

Vaunt-couriers to oak-cleaving thunderbolts,

Singe my white head! And thou, all-shaking thunder,

Smite flat the thick rotundity o' the world!

Crack nature's moulds, an germens spill at once,

That make ingrateful man!”

Lear’s thoughts wander and as he curses his daughters, we see that he is on the edge of sanity. The Fool seems the sane one and he suggests that Lear makes peace with his daughters so they can shelter indoors. Lear does not respond and continues to rage and rant. When Kent arrives, he urges them all to take shelter in a nearby hovel and when Lear agrees to go with him, The Fool leaves us with a prophecy before he too goes.

We switch to Gloucester’s castle where he is speaking to his bastard son Edmund about Regan, Goneril, and the fact that Cornwall left Lear out in the storm. Gloucester reveals that he will go out in the storm to search for and help Lear. Gloucester also reveals to Edmund that he is well aware of the feud between Albany and Cornwall and that the French are going to invade England  and have already landed at Dover. He tells Edmund of a secret letter with news of the French army which is locked in his room. He asks Edmund to cover for him and distract Cornwall while he searches for Lear. Gloucester leaves and Edmund reveals how he will tell Cornwall all about Gloucester’s plans to help Lear and about the letter from the French:

“This courtesy, forbid thee, shall the duke

Instantly know; and of that letter too:

This seems a fair deserving, and must draw me

That which my father loses; no less than all:

The younger rises when the old doth fall.”

We then travel across to the heath where Kent is braving the storm with Lear and he finally arrives at the hovel. Lear will not enter the hovel so Kent sends The Fool in first. The Fool quickly runs out of the hovel saying that there is a mad spirit in there. Of course the mad spirit is Edgar disguised as Tom O’Bedlam. Edgar acts like a madman and makes out that he is chased by the devil and that fiends possess his flesh. Lear thinks that Tom makes perfect sense and he connects to Edgar seeing his own plight with his daughters in this madness. Lear asks Tom what he was like before he went mad and Tom/Edgar quickly reveals a story that he was a wealthy courtier who spent his days by having sex with multiple women and drinking.

Gloucester then enters, carrying a torch wanting to bring Lear to his castle to get out of the storm. Eventually, Kent and Gloucester get Lear to come with them but only after he insists that Tom (Edgar in disguise) goes with them.

We cross back to Edmund who has betrayed his father by showing Cornwall Gloucester's letter which shows Gloucester has communicated with the French.  Edmund fakes horror at this treason but has now allied himself with Cornwall. Cornwall gives Edmund the title of Earl of Gloucester and even sends Edmund to get his father, Gloucester.

Back in an outhouse or farmhouse on Gloucester's estate, Kent, Lear, the Fool and Mad Tom (Edgar) take shelter from the storm. Gloucester exits to get supplies. Lear, starts a mock trial of his daughters Regan and Goneril using Mad Tom (Edgar), The Fool and a reluctant Kent as the judges. When Gloucester returns, he tells Kent of a plot to kill Lear and he urges Kent to quickly take Lear to Dover where friends and allies await him. Mad Tom (Edgar) does not leave with Lear's party and briefly turning back into Edgar, he muses to the audience over how small his worries are compared to those of Lear.

We switch back to Gloucester’s castle, where Cornwall and Goneril are debating about what to do about the French arriving at Dover. Cornwall wants Goneril to take the letter to her husband Albany and see what he thinks. Servants are sent to bring Gloucester to Cornwall for punishment and Edmund is ordered to go with Goneril to Albany’s palace. Edmund and Goneril leave.

Gloucester is brought before Cornwall and Regan. He is tied up, insulted, berated and his beard is pulled but that is nothing compared to what follows next. When Gloucester admits to sheltering Lear and helping him to escape. Then Cornwall stabs out one of Gloucester's eyes, throwing it to the ground and stomping on it. Regan demands that Gloucester's other eye comes out as well. Just then, one of Gloucester's ex-servants intervenes and stands up for Gloucester. Cornwall then draws his sword and the servant and Cornwall fight until Cornwall is hurt. At this point, Regan grabs a sword from another servant and thrusts it into the first servant killing him. Overcome with pain and anger, Cornwall gouges out Gloucester’s other eye. Gloucester calls out for his son Edmund to help him, but Regan triumphantly tells him:

“Out, treacherous villain!

Thou call'st on him that hates thee: it was he

That made the overture of thy treasons to us;

Who is too good to pity thee.”

Gloucester realizes immediately that Edmund has tricked him and that Edgar really loved him. Gloucester is thrown out by Regan and Cornwall to “… smell ‘is way to Dover…” Then, Cornwall, realizes that he is bleeding heavily and with Regan’s help, he exits, while some of Gloucester's ex-servants (who are shocked at the events), decide to treat Gloucester’s wounds and to give him into the care of Mad Tom (who happens to be Gloucester's real dutiful son Edgar).