Page 16 - FEN1(2)C01 LITERATURES IN ENGLISH PAPER I: From Chaucer to the Present

2. The barbarous scythian
Or he hat makes his generation messes
To gorge his appetite, shall to my bossom
Be as well neighboured, pitied and relieved,
As thou my sometime daughter

These angry words are said by King Lear to his daughter
Cordelia in the opening scene of the play. The foolish king
wanted to test his daughters’ love for him and the two elder
daughters Goneril and Regan praised their father lavishly
knowing that he loved flattery. But Cordelia did not flatter her
father. Lear is greatly infuriated at the curt reply of Cordelia.

The king denounces his relationship with Cordelia by the name
of the Sun, by the underworld demons and the heavenly
bodies who are responsible for the life and death of everyone
on the earth. He denounces her as a stranger for ever. The king
angrily says that he would rather welcome the warlike people
(Scythian) who eats his own children to satisfy his hunger than
keeping Cordelia to his heart. The whole speech of King Lear
shows that he lost his senses and he is on the verge of insanity.