King Lear Act Two – “Let not women's weapons, water-drops, Stain my man's cheeks!”

King Lear Act Two –  “Let not women's weapons, water-drops,
Stain my man's cheeks!”

We then skip two days ahead to Gloucester’s castle, where it is early in the evening and a servant tells Edmund (the bastard son of Gloucester) that Cornwall and Regan (his wife and Lear’s daughter) are coming to visit Gloucester tonight. It is also mentioned that rumors are afoot that the kingdom may be in trouble already because Cornwall and Albany (Goneril’s husband) seem at loggerheads and things will get worse. Edmund is not stupid. He straight away sees how he can used this quarrel and Cornwall’s visit as part of his scheme to get Edgar.

Calling Edgar out of where he is hiding, Edmund tells Edgar that Cornwall is after him Edgar because he has heard that Edgar is on Albany’s side in their dispute. Edgar is rightly confused and Edmund adds to this confusion by telling Edgar that Gloucester has found out where Edgar is, is railing and that the only course is for Edgar to leave the house tonight. Then when Gloucester’s arrival seems imminent, Edmund gets Edgar to leave, draws his own sword and pretends that he is fighting with Edgar and then he cuts his arm with his own sword and pretends that he is hurt. Edmund then tells his father, Gloucester, that Edgar tried to convince Edmund to join a plot to kill Gloucester, their own father and that when he refused and stood up for their father, Edgar tried to kill him. Gloucester thanks Edmund and men are sent out to find the traitor Edgar.

Then Cornwall and Regan enter and are taken in by Edmund’s story of bravery. Regan then tries to tie Edgar to the disorderly knights of Lear’s that Goneril wrote to her about and Regan surmises that Edgar and other rebel knights were trying to kill Gloucester for his fortune. Edmund seems to agree to this explanation. The reason for Regan coming becomes clear as she Gloucester to help her answer rival letters she has received from Lear and Goneril and obviously wants help to negotiate and respond.

Later that night, outside Gloucester’s castle, Kent (still pretending to be a lowly servant, comes across Oswald (Goneril’s chief steward) again and Kent abuses him:

“A knave; a rascal; an eater of broken meats; a

base, proud, shallow, beggarly, three-suited,

hundred-pound, filthy, worsted-stocking knave; a

lily-livered, action-taking knave, a whoreson,

glass-gazing, super-serviceable finical rogue;

one-trunk-inheriting slave; one that wouldst be a

bawd, in way of good service, and art nothing but

the composition of a knave, beggar, coward, pandar,

and the son and heir of a mongrel bitch: one whom I

will beat into clamorous whining, if thou deniest

the least syllable of thy addition.”

Oswald is taken back and screams for help when Kent then attacks him with a sword.

Cornwall, Regan, and Gloucester enter and when Cornwall is not stified with Kent’s explanation, he puts Kent in arm and leg stocks. Gloucester objects stating that treating Lear’s servant this way is disrespectful to Lear himself but Cornwall and Regan reinforce they think it is a fit punishment. Kent is left alone in the stocks and before he falls asleep, he manages to somehow take out and read a secret letter that has arrived from Lear’s youngest exiled daughter, Cordelia:

“Who hath most fortunately been inform'd

Of my obscured course; and shall find time

From this enormous state, seeking to give

Losses their remedies.”

As Kent sleeps outside Gloucester’s castle in the stocks, Edgar sneaks out having not been gound by Gloucester’s me. Thinking that he will soon be found, Edgar takes off his noble clothes, covers himself with dirt and assumes the disguise and persona of the mad recently freed insane asylum inmate and homeless beggar, Poor Tom.

It is now the next day and Lear, accompanied by the Fool and a knight, is coming to Gloucester’s castle when he hears a voice and is shocked to see his messenger and servant in the stocks. Kent then tells Lear that Regan and Cornwall put him there and Lear sends word that he demands to speak to them but they send word that they cannot because they are sick and weary from traveling. Lear is livid and when Regan and Cornwall eventually appear, Lear complains to them about Goneril’s “sharp-toothed unkindness” only to have Regan maintain that Goneril is being reasonable and that Lear is being old and unreasonable. She also suggests that he should return to stay with Goneril.

Lear is taken back and continues to bag Goneril when, low and behold who should enter and take Regan by the hand but Goneril. Regan, having already received letter from her sister Goneril has already aligned herself with Goneril against her father Lear. Lear is told that he is old and should give up his entourage if he want to stay with his daughters:

GONERIL

Hear me, my lord;

What need you five and twenty, ten, or five,

To follow in a house where twice so many

Have a command to tend you?

REGAN

What need one?

Lear is outraged and curses his daughters before he storms out:

O, reason not the need: our basest beggars

Are in the poorest thing superfluous:

Allow not nature more than nature needs,

Man's life's as cheap as beast's…

You see me here, you gods, a poor old man,

As full of grief as age; wretched in both!

If it be you that stir these daughters' hearts

Against their father, fool me not so much

To bear it tamely; touch me with noble anger,

And let not women's weapons, water-drops,

Stain my man's cheeks! No, you unnatural hags,

I will have such revenges on you both,

That all the world shall--I will do such things,--

What they are, yet I know not: but they shall be

The terrors of the earth. You think I'll weep

No, I'll not weep:

I have full cause of weeping; but this heart

Shall break into a hundred thousand flaws,

Or ere I'll weep. O fool, I shall go mad!

Lear does not know how much his speech foreshadows his coming fate and as Lear, the Fool and Kent exit, nature’s cruel metaphoric overkill punctuates the moment with the fateful approach of a storm. Gloucester begs Goneril and Regan to shelter Lear at least for the night but they insists that Lear will do whatever he does. Regan orders that the doors be shut up and locked and Goneril warns Gloucester not to offer refuge to Lear as the storm is about to break – a storm filled with further cruelty, betrayal, and madness.