The third act begins with a scene set outside in the country. The storm is still raging. The Earl of Kent is looking for Lear, but he instead finds the gentleman who was one of Lear’s followers. The gentleman informs Kent that Lear has rushed out madly into the storm. The gentleman also emphasizes the severity of the storm by explaining that even bears, lions, and wolves are seeking shelter. The reader should keep in mind that Renaissance audiences would be watching this play on a pleasant day in an open-air theater. The wild storm would be presented by musicians who could bang on large drums for thunder effects, but the dialogue and actions of the actors would also be necessary to make the idea of the storm convincing. The gentleman also uses a pun when he describes Lear as running through the storm “unbonneted” (14). The word – literally meaning without a bonnet – indicates that Lear is both (1) hatless and (2) crownless. The gentleman is implying that Lear is not wearing sufficient clothing to protect himself from the elements and that Lear no longer wields power or has anyone to serve him (or help him).
Kent responds by asking if Lear, then, is completely alone. The gentleman responds with the following:
None but the fool, who labors to out-jest
His heart-struck injuries. (16-17)
The pronoun “his” refers to Lear. Lear has been injured to the heart by the ingratitude and betrayal of his daughters; and the Fool, who is Lear’s only companion, labors or struggles to make jests to keep Lear in a positive frame of mind. However, the line suggests that the Fool is not being very successful in his efforts.
Kent then informs the gentleman of some extremely important news: (1) a conflict has developed between Albany and Cornwall. (2) Servants in the courts of both Albany and Cornwall are actually spies for France and have been supplying France with information about the conflicts occurring in England. And (3) an army from France is on its way to England. Kent then instructs the gentleman to go to Dover (in the south of England) and inform Cordelia (who is Queen of France) about what has happened to her father. Kent also gives the gentleman his ring as assurance that he is an aristocrat of high estate. He tells the gentleman that Cordelia will recognize the ring and know then who has sent him.
The scene ends with both Kent and the gentleman then searching for Lear.
The second scene opens with Lear and the
Fool out in the storm. Lear calls upon the powers of the storm to strike him down. He is mad now, but he is also correct in suggesting that the torments of the storm are far less harmful to him than are the torments of his daughters. The mad king is accepting his fate.
The Fool, though, is still trying to out-jest the torments felt by Lear. He begins with a pun: “He that has a house to put’s head in has a good head-piece” (24-25). The word head-piece means both hat and brain. A hat is, in a manner of speaking, a house for the head. But the line also implies that a man who has a house or shelter from the storm has a brain – he is wise enough to protect himself from the elements. The Fool, then, is not-so-dryly commenting upon the lack of wisdom that both he and the king are exhibiting.
The Fool then proceeds with an eight-line comic poem that also comments on the lack of wisdom in man. The first part of the poem involves a sexual reference that plays upon the word head-piece used in the previous line:
The cod-piece that will house Before the head has any,
The head and he shall louse;
So beggars marry many. (26-29)
During the Renaissance a cod-piece was a pouch-like piece of cloth that was attached to the pants and used to cover the male genitals. The costumes of jesters and fools often had such attachments, but for a time even the clothing of gentlemen including codpieces. Lear’s Fool is lewdly implying that a man who is more concerned with covering his penis before he covers his head (meaning before he seeks the basic necessities of shelter or protection) will end up poorly. There is also a pun with the word louse. Louse is the singular form of lice, and a man without a hat could end up with his hair infested with lice. But the word is pronounced similarly to the word lose, and a man without shelter is one who has lost out in life and ends up in poverty. In the last line the word many refers to lice: beggars end up married to (or attached to) many lice.
The second part of the comic poem also suggests that man often foolishly gets his priorities wrong – that man is more worried about or concerned with minor matters and neglects the major ones:
The man that makes his toe
What he his heart should make
Shall of a corn cry woe
And turn his sleep to wake. (30-33)
A man should concern himself with his heart far more so than his toe, for a man can live without a toe but not without his heart. All men should get their priorities straight, and this especially applies to Lear. The poem is symbolic: Goneril and Regan are toes, but Cordelia is the heart. In fact, as noted earlier, Cordelia’s name even means heart (from the Latin cordis). Now Lear is crying about the woes of his toes – of his two oldest daughters – and literally has no place to sleep.
The Fool concludes his humorous rhyme with a line in prose: “For there was never yet fair woman but she made mouths in a glass” (34-35). In other words, all beautiful women look at themselves in mirrors and practice making beautiful (or deceitful) faces. The Fool is implying that one should not be fooled by the practiced and often insincere appearances of women. Such advice, though, is too late for Lear: the King has already been fooled by Goneril and Regan.
The Earl of Kent then comes onstage at this
time and sees the others on the other side of the stage. Because the night is dark and stormy, Kent calls out and asks who is there. The Fool responds by telling Kent that they are “grace and a cod-piece; that’s a wise-man and a fool” (38). The word grace is a respectful way of referring to a king, and the word cod-piece refers to a fool (the fool’s costume). The words of the fool, though, are ironic; for he has just declared Lear to be the fool in his comic poem.
Kent approaches Lear and the Fool in the storm and comments about the severity of the weather (lines 40-47). Lear, still shouting at the skies in his maddened rage, views the storm from another perspective:
Tremble, thou wretch,
That hast within thee undivulged crimes,
Unwhipped of justice. (49-51)
Lear sees the storm as a symbol of justice. He is predicting that the storm is an omen of the justice that will soon come to England and will punish the wretches (the evil and despicable people) who have committed crimes and atrocities against the state and its king. He is, of course, referring specifically to Goneril and Regan and Cornwall. Such a line, though, should also include Edmund. Lear’s speech thus also serves as foreshadowing in the play.
Kent convinces Lear to take shelter in a nearby hovel (a hut or shack). Lear, calming down for the moment, realizes that both he and his Fool are cold. So, Lear allows Kent to lead them toward the hovel. As they proceed, the Fool sings a song about misfortune coming every day (suggested by the line, “the rain it raineth every day” at line 75). This same song, incidentally, is sung by the fool Feste in Shakespeare’s comedy Twelfth Night.
The Fool also makes a prophecy in poetry. The Fool predicts that England (“the realm of Albion”) shall come to great confusion and destruction when a number of odd events start to occur. For example, the Fool predicts that the destruction will come when “every case in law” is just (line 83). Lear’s Fool is thus commenting on the present state in England when there is a great deal of injustice occurring in the land. The Fool also suggests that the present time in England is one full of pickpockets, usurers, slanderers, and prostitutes. However, the Fool is also speaking ironically; for even though the pickpockets and usurers continue to flourish, England is already in great confusion and on the brink of war, on the path of its own possible destruction.
The scene ends with the Fool then declaring the following:
This prophecy Merlin shall make; for I live
before his time. (93)
Merlin was the name of the wizard who befriended and aided King Arthur, and the Fool’s prophecy is a parody of a medieval poem entitled “Merlin’s Prophecy” (see Appendix C). Although some editors interpret this line as suggesting that the story of Lear is set before the time of King Arthur, a more likely interpretation is that the Fool is speaking ironically or nonsensically. The Fool could be suggesting that events in England are happening in a backwards or topsy-turvy manner.
In a brief scene the Earl of Gloucester speaks to his bastard son Edmund about Cornwall and Regan. Gloucester complains that the Duke and his wife have taken over his house for their own pleasure and have commanded him not to help Lear in any way.
Edmund responds in a cool and unemotional manner, and Gloucester believes that his son does not understand the importance of what is happening. So Gloucester foolishly reveals too much information to Edmund. Gloucester tells his son that there is a conflict growing between the Duke of Albany and the Duke of Cornwall. And, more importantly, Gloucester reveals that he has received a letter concerning an army coming to take revenge against those who have injured Lear. Then Gloucester asks Edmund to go and play host to Cornwall and Regan while he (Gloucester) secretly goes out into the countryside to seek and help Lear. Gloucester is acting directly against Cornwall’s orders, but Gloucester trusts Edmund to keep that secret to himself.
As soon as Gloucester exits, Edmund delivers a brief soliloquy. Edmund intends to tell Cornwall everything that Gloucester had just told him. In return Edmund hopes to receive from Cornwall “a fair deserving” (20). That is, Edmund hopes to receive a large reward; and he believes this reward will be everything that his father loses: the property and title of Gloucester.
Act III, Scene 4: Is Man No More Than This?
Kent leads Lear and the Fool to the hovel that he had spoken of, and inside they find Edgar. Edgar is now disguised as the madman, poor Tom. The lines he speaks are mostly nonsense – snatches of songs and tidbits of common expressions or popular rhymes. Dressed in nothing but a loin cloth and covered with dirt, Edgar is a raw, bare man, exposed to the elements. The mad Lear immediately sees something of himself in the pretending-to-be-mad Edgar. In fact, Lear even wonders if poor Tom was driven to his impoverished and extreme state by “unkind daughters” of his own (68). Witnessing the madness of his once great king, the Fool makes the following comment:
This cold night will turn us all to fools and
madmen. (75)
The Fool of course realizes that he himself has been acting foolishly and even madly by following and serving a crownless king into a wild and savage countryside at night. The Fool is implying that there is not much difference between being foolish and being mad.
Despite the discomfort of his situation, the king turns his difficult situation into a topic of philosophical discourse. Lear wonders about the nature of man:
Lear is pondering the purpose and meaning of existence. He is wondering if man is essentially any different from the other animals that walk the earth. Reason is the one quality that separates man from beast, yet a madman is without reason. Lear contrasts poor Tom to Kent, the Fool, and himself. The three of them are “sophisticated” (98). Lear is suggesting that they are civilized, or at least wear the trappings (the clothing) of civilization. Lear may even be suggesting that the three of them have reason. But then Lear comments about poor Tom:
Thou art the thing itself; unaccommodated man is no more but such a poor, bare, forked animal as thou art. (98-100)
The word unaccommodated means both naked and uncivilized. The word forked in this instance simply means having two legs. Lear is, in his mad way, perhaps questioning the importance or the significance or the value of reason and civilization. He may be wondering whether such aspects of man really contribute to his superiority. In any event, the mad and former king sees something of value or high regard in poor Tom; for Lear begins to rip off his own clothes so that he can be exactly like the wretched inhabitant of the hovel.
When the Earl of Gloucester enters the hovel, Edgar (still disguised as poor Tom and completely unrecognized by his father), refers to him as “Flibbertigibbet” (106). This is the name of a devil in folklore, and Edgar describes this fiend as a night devil who brings all manner of ills to mankind: cataracts (“web and pin”), squinted eyes, and harelips. The night devil also ruins wheat with mildew and causes other problems as well. Edgar may be subtly referring to his father as the cause of his own ills and discomfort, but more likely he is broadly referring to the ills suffered by all mankind. Fate is often cruel and harmful to man without any apparent reason. Lacking any scientific explanation, people in earlier times often ascribed these problems as coming from some evil or malicious supernatural force, from some devil. The problems that Edgar suggests here are listed as a startling contrast to the problems of the aristocrats, who haggle over power and money and property.
Edgar ends his short but mad discourse on folklore devils with a rhyme about St. Withold (beginning at line 110). The saint travels the countryside and encounters a group of nine devils led by another folklore devil referred to as “night-mare” (which does not necessarily imply that this female devil is in the shape of a horse). To this devil St. Withold says “aroint thee, witch” (116). The saint is telling Night-Mare to go away and leave the inhabitants alone. This seemingly crazy rhyme seems to imply that only someone gifted with holy or supernatural powers can drive away the multitude of demons and devils that beset mankind. However, the common folk can find no remedy to relieve them from their wretched condition.
In a following passage Edgar contrasts his present condition (being naked and resorting to eating nothing better than frogs and mice) to the condition of aristocrats: the wealthy nobleman has “three suits to his back, six shirts to his body, horse to ride, and weapon to wear” yet still finds reason to whip or punish those commoners who wear rags and have nothing (lines 123-26). Shakespeare was well aware of the differences between the classes and the unjust laws in which those who had much mistreated those who had little or nothing. And so the playwright subtly infused his plays with many comments about the ills of the lower classes.
The gentle Gloucester, worried about his former king’s health, asks Lear to join him to a more comfortable lodging. But the mad king replies with
…
First let me talk with this philosopher.
What is the cause of thunder? (142-43)
The philosopher he is referring to is Edgar. The mad king understands the truth and sense behind poor Tom’s mad discourse and wishes to hear more. The second line could be understood just on a literal level. However, the word thunder can also be a metaphor for all of the noise and craziness and confusion that Lear is experiencing.
Kent and Gloucester then comment on Lear’s madness, and Gloucester admits that he also is “almost mad” (154). Gloucester thinks about his son Edgar. Although Gloucester still believes that Edgar had wanted to kill him, he cannot forget how much he had loved and still loves his son. In terms of plot, the reader should note that Edgar hears Gloucester’s declaration. However Edgar still cannot reveal himself to his father since his father still thinks that Edgar is guilty of attempting patricide.