I've always been interested in Shakespeare...
When I was in Primary 4, mom bought me this book that 'recreated' Shakespeare's top 10 classics...
You can see Miranda's Diary in Story 7: The Tempest, Puck tells it all in Story 10: A Midsummer's Night Dream, the Montagues and the Capulets fight it out in Story 5: Romeo and Juliet, and Portia gets a Blind Date in Story 6: The Merchant of Venice, along with lots of other Tudor-Shakespeare fun facts for you...
Shakespeare Stories
by Terry Deary
ISBN 0 590 19124 1
First published in the UK by Scholastic Publications Ltd, 1998
Purchased in December 2003
DISCLAIMER: I do not own any of the text below, and just to clarify, the text below is not the original text of Shakespeare's King Lear...
Story 9: King Lear
Lear today, gone tomorrow
CAST
- KING LEAR
Ancient British king. Gradually loses his daughters (and his marbles) as the play goes on, till he has none left by the end (daughters or marbles).
- CORDELIA
Lear's youngest and nicest daughter. Practically a saint and, like a saint, comes to a sticky end.
- GONERIL
Lear's nasty, evil, cruel, greedy, selfish, jealous and ungrateful daughter. Her only good point is being able to hide any good point.
- REGAN
Lear's other evil daughter. To have one evil daughter is unlucky, to have two looks like carelessness.
- DUKE OF GLOUCESTER
Ancient British lord. Loses his eyes as the play goes on. Gloucester has one bad child and like Lear, one good child...
- EDMUND
Gloucester's wicked son. A real trouble-maker. Hates, his dad, his brother, King Lear... but loves the evil Goneril, of course.
- EDGAR
Gloucester's goody-goody son and a rather goody actor who diguises himself as all sorts of things in order to help the weak and suffering. Creep. (Not a good part to play. Edgar is one of the few left alive at the end so he doesn't get a good dramatic death scene... and he probably has the job of burying the others.)
- SERVANT/THE FOOL
A servant./Tells the story and tries to keep out of the way of the eye-gouging, stabbing and poisoning, otherwise the play will never end. He's no fool!
(Important note: All the characters' words in italics in the following play were written by William Shakespeare)
SCENE 1
SERVANT/THE FOOL: The scene is ancient Britain and here we are in Lear's windswept castle. It is a dark night... as nights often are. The great old king is planning to retire and share out his kingdom. When the play starts he is surrounded by his three daughters...
LEAR: Give me the map there. Know that we have divided in three our kingdom... Tell me, my daughters... which of you shall we say doth love us most?
SERVANT/THE FOOL: First Goneril stepped forward.
GONERIL: Sir, I love you... dearer than eyesight... than life, with grace, health, beauty, honour. As much as a child ever loved. (Lear rips off one third of the map and gives it to her.)
LEAR: What a wonderful daughter. Obviously takes after her father! We make thee queen of all the land from this line to his.
GONERIL: Thanks, dad-your-highness. You'll not regret this... (aside) much!
LEAR: Our dearest Regan... speak!
REGAN: I am made of that self-metal as my sister.
LEAR: What a lovely girl! I've made a right good job of bringing up these two. To thee and thine hereditary ever remain this ample third of our fair kingdom.
REGAN: Thanks, dad-your-highness. A generous, loving parent... (aside) and a right mug if you ask me!
SERVANT/THE FOOL: But little Cordelia loved him more than words can say! So when he turned to her and said...
LEAR: Speak!
SERVANT/THE FOOL: She said...
CORDELIA: Nothing, my lord.
LEAR: Nothing!
CORDELIA: Nothing.
LEAR: Nothing will come of nothing. Speak again.
CORDELIA: I cannot heave my heart into my mouth.
SERVANT/THE FOOL: This meant she couldn't speak her heart - not that she couldn't vomit. Anyway, the king was furious...
LEAR: Hence, and avoid my sight! Obviously YOU take after your mother, not me. She didn't know which side her bread was buttered on either.
CORDELIA: Cordelia leaves you.
(Cordelia leaves as the king rips her part of the map in two and gives a piece each to Goneril and Regan. They grasp it greedily and follow. Lear leaves shaking his head.)
SERVANT/THE FOOL: Lear had given his kingdom away. But if he expected Goneril and Regan to look after him, he had other think coming...
SCENE 2
SERVANT/THE FOOL: First the old king went to stay with Goneril. She soon grew tired of him and his followers.
GONERIL: Look here, dad-your-ex-highness. Here do you keep a hundred knights and squires, men so disordered... that this our court is like a riotous inn... more like a tavern than a palace. You strike my people!
LEAR: Darkness and devils! Saddle my horses; call my train together. I'll not trouble thee... Detested kite! How about giving me by land back?
GONERIL: No chance, you senile goat.
LEAR: Let it be so: I have another daughter. I'll bet she's not such a rotten little ratbag!
SERVANT/THE FOOL: And so he stomped off in a huff to stay with daughter Regan...
LEAR: Good morrow to you.
REGAN: I am glad to see your highness.
LEAR: Regan, I think you are.
REGAN: The only problem is, dad-your-ex-highness, I don't have a lot of room in my castles for you and your knights. So, I've had a great idea. Return you to my sister.
LEAR: Return to her?... Never, Regan... Daughter, do not make me mad. I will not trouble thee, my child; farewell.
(He stomps off and she calls after him...)
REGAN: Please yourself. I never could stand ranting wrinklies!
SERVANT/THE FOOL: As a storm broke the old king went into the wild night. Ahhhh!
REGAN: Shut up the doors, it is a wild night.
SERVANT/THE FOOL: It's a bit wet and windy for the old bloke, your highness.
REGAN: Tough.
SERVANT/THE FOOL: Have you no heart?
REGAN: Yes... but I keep it in the freezer.
(She leaves the stage. The servant follows, muttering.)
SERVANT/THE FOOL: Cor! Regan's not half ruthless.
SERVANT/THE FOOL: But old King Lear was roof-less. He wandered onto the moors, moaning...
SCENE 3
LEAR: Moan! Moan! Moan! oh, moaney, moaney, moaney! Such a night to shut me out!... O Regan, Goneril! Your old kind father.
SERVANT/THE FOOL: And there he met Edgar, son of the Duke of Gloucester, disguised as a madman. The disguise was so his evil brother Edmund couldn't find him and kill him.
EDGAR: Pillicock sat on a Pillicock-hill: Halloo, halloo, loo, loo!... Tom's a-cold... Poor Tom; that eats the swimming frog, the toad, the tadpole, eats cow-dung... swallows the old rat and the ditch-dog... Fie, foh, and fum, I smell the blood of a British man. (Yes, I know it's hard to believe but Will Shakespeare really did write those lines too.)
SERVANT/THE FOOL: It was a very good act! Then the Duke of Gloucester arrived. He didn't recognize his son, Edgar, but he did offer to rescue the king...
GLOUCESTER: Hoy! You over there! Yes, you with the bowl of porridge for a brain. Where is the king, my master?
EDGAR: Here, sir.
(He points to Lear on the ground.)
GLOUCESTER: Take up thy master and follow me.
(As Edgar picks up Lear in a fireman's lift he turns to audience.)
EDGAR: That's a nice way to talk to someone - even someone pretending to be a porridge-brain! If he wasn't me dad I'd probably smack him in the mouth.
(if you liked the above excerpt, you know what to do... ... ...)
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