Monologue

Edgar Monologue from King Lear

From King Lear by William Shakespeare

male · anguished · 1:27 min

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Worthy prince, I know’t. (ALBANY: Where have you hid yourself? How have you known the miseries of your father?) By nursing them, my lord. List a brief tale; And when ’tis told, O that my heart would burst! The bloody proclamation to escape That follow’d me so near,—O, our lives’ sweetness! That with the pain of death we’d hourly die Rather than die at once!—taught me to shift Into a madman’s rags; t’assume a semblance That very dogs disdain’d; and in this habit Met I my father with his bleeding rings, Their precious stones new lost; became his guide, Led him, begg’d for him, sav’d him from despair; Never,—O fault!—reveal’d myself unto him Until some half hour past, when I was arm’d; Not sure, though hoping of this good success, I ask’d his blessing, and from first to last Told him my pilgrimage. But his flaw’d heart, Alack, too weak the conflict to support! ’Twixt two extremes of passion, joy and grief, Burst smilingly.

About this piece

Edgar reflects on his experiences of disguise and survival while caring for his father, revealing deep emotional conflict and the burden of his secret identity.

20s · sadness · family · madness · redemption · identity

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