This feather stirs. She lives. If it be so,
It is a chance which does redeem all sorrows
That ever I have felt.

– William Shakespeare

King Lear, Act 5, Scene 3. Lear holds a feather to his daughter Cordelia’s lips and imagines that it is moving. Holding out the hope that she is alive, he says that it would make up for the suffering he has gone through. In his deranged state, Lear is unwilling to accept his daughter’s death. He yearns for a chance to atone for all the wrongs that he has done her, but it is too late.