King Lear Regan Quotes

I am made of that self mettle as my sister
And prize me at her worth. In my true heart
I find she names my very deed of love;
Only she comes too short, that I profess
Myself an enemy to all other joys
Which the most precious square of sense possesses,
And find I am alone felicitate
In your dear Highness’ love.

– William Shakespeare

King Lear, Act 1, Scene 1. Regan, not to be outdone by Goneril’s exaggerated declaration of love for Lear, tries to "one up" her sister. A hypocritical Regan suggests that Goneril’s love "comes too short" compared to hers, and that the only thing that makes her truly happy is Lear’s love. This highlights the competition between the pair, a rivalry that will climax in destructive violence in the final act, so foreshadowing the murder-suicide to come. Regan talks of having the same "mettle" as her sister, her pun on the word "metal" conveying dramatic irony. For the sisters are very much alike and both have the hardness of metal. As with Goneril, Lear rewards Regan with a large share of his kingdom, unable to distinguish between her empty flattery and the truth. Both sisters are simply trying to gain as much of his power and wealth as possible but he doesn’t see.

Good my lord,
You have begot me, bred me, loved me.
I return those duties back as are right fit:
Obey you, love you, and most honour you.
Why have my sisters husbands if they say
They love you all? Haply, when I shall wed,
That lord whose hand must take my plight shall carry
Half my love with him, half my care and duty.
Sure I shall never marry like my sisters,
To love my father all.

– William Shakespeare

King Lear, Act 1, Scene 1. Cordelia speaks candidly here about her loyalty and bond to Lear. She says that Lear fathered, raised and loved her, and in return she will obey, love and honor him. But hopefully when she gets married, she will give half her love and duty to her husband. She questions how her married sisters can claim to love their father only when they have husbands to love. She is suggesting that Regan and Goneril are being disloyal to their husbands. Cordelia vows that she will never marry like them to "love my father all" and leave no love for her husband.

With my two daughters’ dowers digest the third.
Let pride, which she calls plainness, marry her.
I do invest you jointly with my power,
Preeminence, and all the large effects
That troop with majesty. Ourself, by monthly course,
With reservation of an hundred knights
By you to be sustained, shall our abode
Make with you by due turns. Only we still retain
The name, and all the additions to a king.
The sway, revenue, execution of the rest,
Belovèd sons, be yours, which to confirm,
This coronet part betwixt you.

– William Shakespeare

King Lear, Act 1, Scene 1. In this opening scene King Lear bestows his entire kingdom upon Regan and Goneril and their husbands, the Duke of Cornwall and Duke of Albany. There is a tragic irony in Lear’s blind trust and love for these two daughters whom he abdicates his kingly role to. For they prove not to love him at all and they end up betraying him completely. Lear does wish to hold onto some power for himself, however, and will retain one hundred knights. As far as Cordelia is concerned, he says she can marry her "pride." This is also ironic as it is Lear’s pride that stops him from seeing the virtue of Cordelia’s plain honesty.

The jewels of our father, with wash’d eyes
Cordelia leaves you. I know you what you are,
And like a sister am most loath to call
Your faults as they are named.

– William Shakespeare

King Lear, Act 1, Scene 1. Bidding farewell to her sisters Regana and Goneril, Cordelia refers to them as "The jewels of our father." Ordinarily this metaphor would be a flattering term, but here it is used ironically to express contempt. While Cordelia also says that as a sister she won’t name their faults, she makes clear that is well aware of their true intentions and game they are playing in kissing up to Lear.

Use well our father.

– William Shakespeare

King Lear, Act 1, Scene 1. As Cordelia prepares to leave court with the King of France, she expresses her concern to Regan and Goneril at how they will treat her father. She warns them to treat him well. This shows that Cordelia still cares for Lear, despite his cruel treatment of her. Cordelia is never afraid to speak the truth.

Prescribe not us our duties.

– William Shakespeare

King Lear, Act 1, Scene 1. Regan reacts angrily to Cordelia’s warning to treat her father well. Don’t tell us what our duty is, she snaps. It’s clear that Lear’s family is not the typical close and caring family, and there is no love lost between Cordelia and her sisters.

‘Tis the infirmity of his age: yet he hath ever
but slenderly known himself.

– William Shakespeare

King Lear, Act 1, Scene 1. Regan attributes her father Lear’s changed personality and poor judgment in banishing Cordelia to the senility of old age. She also hits the nail on the head when she pinpoints Lear’s fatal flaw: he has no self-knowledge. While he developers self-knowledge later in the play, it comes too late to save him from his tragic fate.

Then they for sudden joy did weep,
And I for sorrow sung,
That such a king should play bo-peep
And go the fools among.

– William Shakespeare

King Lear, Act 1, Scene 4. The Fools sings a song about how Lear’s daughters Regan and Goneril wept in happiness, while the Fool wept in sadness at seeing the King become a child and a fool by handing over authority to his daughters.

Thou hast pared thy wit o’ both sides and left nothing i’ th’ middle.

– William Shakespeare

King Lear, Act 1, Scene 4. The Fool comments on Lear’s irrational actions, saying that he has lost his mind and his intelligence. His "wit" or intelligence has been sliced off on "both sides." The sides represent Lear’s daughters Goneril and Regan to whom he has handed his kingdom. And the "nothing" in the middle is Lear, who has no power or land and so is left with nothing.

They will make an obedient father.

– William Shakespeare

King Lear, Act 1, Scene 4. The Fool is angry at Goneril and Regan’s treatment of their father Lear. He comments here to Lear on how the natural family order has been reversed. Instead of being obedient daughters, they will turn Lear into an obedient father, as they now hold all the power.

Shalt see thy other daughter will use thee kindly, for, though she’s as like this as a crab’s like an apple, yet I can tell what I can tell.

– William Shakespeare

King Lear, Act 1, Scene 5. The Fool uses a simile to say that Lear’s daughters Regan and Goneril are as similiar as two crab apples. At this time Lear is negotiating his accommodations with his daughters and the negotiations are not going well.

Why, madam, if I were your father’s dog,
You should not use me so.

– William Shakespeare

King Lear, Act 2, Scene 2. Kent says this to Regan after she says that Kent should be left sit in the stocks all night, and not just till noon as Cornwall has ordered. Regan outdoes her husband Cornwall in cruelty.

Fathers that wear rags
Do make their children blind,
But fathers that bear bags
Shall see their children kind.
Fortune, that arrant whore,
Ne’er turns the key to th’ poor.

– William Shakespeare

King Lear, Act 2, Scene 4. When Lear arrives at Gloucester’s palace he is shocked to find Kent placed in stocks by Lear’s daughter Regan and Cornwall. The wise Fool attributes the humiliation of the King’s messenger to Lear’s reversal in fortune. Using rhyme and metaphor he satirizes Lear’s act of folly in giving away "bags" of money to daughters Regan and Goneril. When fathers are poor and "wear rags" their children are blind to their needs, the Fool says. But if their fathers are rich, then the children are nice to them. Fortune is a fickle whore who never opens her door to the poor, the Fool warns. Lear is now "poor" after giving away his kingdom to Regan and Goneril.

O, sir! You are old;
Nature in you stands on the very verge
Of her confine. You should be rul’d and led
By some discretion that discerns your state
Better than you yourself. Therefore, I pray you
That to our sister you do make return.
Say you have wronged her.

– William Shakespeare

King Lear, Act 2, Scene 4. Regan doesn’t mince her words here and shows her disrespect for Lear, after he curses his other daughter Goneril because of her unkindness to him. Regan bluntly tells Lear that he is old and is at the very edge of his natural lifespan. She suggests that Lear, who has handed over his kingdom to his daughters, is too old to even govern himself. He should let others take care of him who understand him better than he understands himself. And he should go back to Goneril’s house and admit that he was wrong. In this speech Regan is patronizing and exerts her power by holding up Lear’s impotence before him.

I pray you, father, being weak, seem so.
If till the expiration of your month
You will return and sojourn with my sister,
Dismissing half your train, come then to me.

– William Shakespeare

King Lear, Act 2, Scene 4. The fundamental shift in power is again shown here when Regan tells Lear that since he is weak to act like it. She instructs him to get rid of half his knights, return to spend the rest of the month with Goneril, then he can come back to stay with her.

LEAR: I gave you all –
REGAN: And in good time you gave it.

– William Shakespeare

King Lear, Act 2, Scene 4. Lear still holds onto the idea that a child’s love is a commodity that can be bought, pleading with Regan and Goneril that he gave them all, including making them his guardians and depositaries. Regan’s response shows her as mean-spirited and vicious as ever.

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?

– William Shakespeare

King Lear, Act 2, Scene 4. Lear starts off his retirement with an entourage of one hundred knights to attend him. Daughters Goneril and Regan first demand that he get rid of fifty, then in this passage they go so far as to suggest that he doesn’t need any at all. They are conspiring against Lear because they fear that he might use the knights against them to assert his authority again as King. Any power Lear may think he has left is rapidly disappearing. He is King without a kingdom, he may soon be a master without servants.

Thou art a lady;
If only to go warm were gorgeous,
Why, nature needs not what thou gorgeous wear’st,
Which scarcely keeps thee warm.

– William Shakespeare

King Lear, Act 2, Scene 4. Lear tells Regan that she is a fashionable lady. If she dressed only to stay warm (what "nature needs"), she wouldn’t need the gorgeous clothes she is wearing, as they barely keep her warm. Lear is fighting against his daughters’ demand that he doesn’t need his knights.

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!

– William Shakespeare

King Lear, Act 2, Scene 4. Lear expresses deep hatred of his two daughters Gonerel and Regan, denouncing them as "unnatural hags," thus adding them to Shakespeare’s list of evil women. He vows "The terrors of the Earth!" and revenge for their betrayal of him. But despite his pain he will not weep even though he has good reason to. His heart will break into a hundred thousand pieces before he will weep, he says. In his final line to the Fool he foreshadows his own descent into madness, which happens shortly after this. Lear vents his rage here as his daughters strip away his knights and attendants, his dignity amd power. But all he can do is vent, for when he tries to assert his authority he find that he is powerless.

REGAN: O, sir, to wilful men,
The injuries that they themselves procure
Must be their schoolmasters. Shut up your doors:
He is attended with a desperate train,
And what they may incense him to, being apt
To have his ear abused, wisdom bids fear.
CORNWALL: Shut up your doors, my lord. ‘Tis a wild night.
My Regan counsels well. Come out o’ th’ storm.

– William Shakespeare

King Lear, Act 2, Scene 4. There is a total lack of compassion from daughter Regan for her father Lear’s welfare and safety. Having driven the old man out of the house and into the storm, she cold-heartedly says that the injuries Lear gets from his foolishness will be his "schoolmasters" (metaphor meaning to teach him a lesson). Both she and her husband Cornwall command Gloucester to shut up his doors, effectively locking Lear out in the storm. Any bond that may have existed in the past between Lear’s older daughters and their father has now completely disappeared.

For there was never yet fair woman but she made mouths in a glass.

– William Shakespeare

King Lear, Act 3, Scene 2. The Fool tells Lear that any beautiful woman will spend time looking at herself in a mirror and checking out her beauty. He is referring to Goneril and Regan and how they fooled Lear with their practised flattery and rehearsed professions of love.

To have a thousand with red burning spits
Come hissing in upon ’em!

– William Shakespeare

King Lear, Act 3, Scene 6. Lear wishes vengeance on his daughters Goneril and Regan and devises some diabolical punishments for them. He wishes that a thousand hissing devils would strike them with red burning roasting spits.

Is there any cause in nature that make these hard hearts?

– William Shakespeare

King Lear, Act 3, Scene 6. A troubled King Lear wonders is there any reason why nature should provide such hard hearts lacking in kindness and compassion to Regan and Goneril. In a mock trial of his daughters, with Edgar and the Fool and Kent as judges, Lear is questioning whether evil is natural and a part of human nature, or whether it comes from somewhere else. In the sentences before this quote, Lear speaks of dissecting Regan to examine her heart: "Then let them anatomise Regan; see what breeds about her heart."

REGAN: Hang him instantly.
GONERIL: Pluck out his eyes.

– William Shakespeare

King Lear, Act 3, Scene 7. When Regan suggests that they kill Gloucester, Goneril outdoes her sister in viciousness and cruelty by coming up with the idea of torturing him by taking out his eyeballs. This vicious pair haven’t an ounce of compassion between them.

Because I would not see thy cruel nails
Pluck out his poor old eyes, nor thy fierce sister
In his anointed flesh stick boarish fangs.

– William Shakespeare

King Lear, Act 3, Scene 7. Gloucester tells Regan why he supports Lear. He says that he wants to protect Lear from the evil intentions of Regan and her sister Goneril, using animal imagery to describe their predatory and violent nature. Gloucester’s unfortunate words "pluck out his poor old eyes" foreshadows his own blinding, which happens moments after he speaks them. His words also reflect Lear’s metaphorical blindness.

I shall see
The wingèd vengeance overtake such children.

– William Shakespeare

King Lear, Act 3, Scene 7. Gloucester believes that divine vengeance will eventually be served on Lear’s children Goneril and Regan for their cruelty, foreshadowing their punishment later in the play. A defiant Gloucester says this just moments before he is blinded in a particularly brutal act by Regan’s husband Cornwall.

Give me thy sword. A peasant stand up thus?

– William Shakespeare

King Lear, Act 3, Scene 7. Regan assumes the traditional male role here as she grabs a sword from an attendant. Running at Cornwall’s servant with the sword she kills him because the servant had tried to stop Cornwall plucking out Gloucester’s second eye. Here Regan challenges gender roles, as women were not known to engage in acts of combat during this era.

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.

– William Shakespeare

King Lear, Act 3, Scene 7. As Gloucester calls to his son Edmund for help, Regan reveals to Gloucester in this passage that it was actually Edmund who betrayed him (by disclosing that Gloucester was aiding Lear). She delights in telling Gloucester that Edmund hates him.

Go thrust him out at gates, and let him smell
His way to Dover.

– William Shakespeare

King Lear, Act 3, Scene 7. Regan continues to be spiteful and tells her servants to throw the blinded Gloucester out the gate and he can smell his way to Dover.

Wisdom and goodness to the vile seem vile.
Filths savour but themselves. What have you done?
Tigers, not daughters, what have you performed?
A father, and a gracious agèd man,
Whose reverence even the head-lugged bear would lick,
Most barbarous, most degenerate, have you madded.
Could my good brother suffer you to do it?

– William Shakespeare

King Lear, Act 4, Scene 2. Albany has had enough of his wife Goneril and her sister Regan. Using an apt animal metaphor, he says they have behaved like tigers and not daughters in their barbaric mistreatment of King Lear. He accuses them of driving insane their kindly old father, whom even an angry bear would have been gentle with.

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