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, 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, pander, and the son and heir to a mongrel bitch.
– William Shakespeare
King Lear, Act 2, Scene 2. Shakespeare was master without parallel of the stinging insult and poisonous put down. Here Kent picks a fight with Goneril’s steward Oswald and uses colorful language to insult him in a variety of ways. In one of the bard’s best insulting passages, Kent does a demolition job on Osward, branding him a knave and rogue, proud and lily-livered, a "pander" (pimp) and son of a bitch! The Earl’s scalding-hot torrent of invective is also full of references to Oswald’s low social status and social climbing – his servant’s three suits, his filthy worsted stockings and playing the "bawd" (woman in charge of a brothel) to please his masters.
