My old heart is cracked; it’s cracked.
– William Shakespeare
King Lear, Act 2, Scene 1. Gloucester tells Regan that his heart is broken. With Edgar fled from Gloucester’s castle, the Earl believes that his son betrayed him by plotting to kill him. But the plot is a fabrication by his illigitimate son Edmund, who has been plotting to discredit Edgar and become Gloucester’s heir. Like Lear, Gloucester hasn’t the wisdom to distinguish between reality and fiction and he lashes out at the honest child and rewards the deceitful one.