lear+ fool hidden act a "hidden act" from king lear

7/27/2019 Lear+ Fool Hidden Act A "Hidden Act" from King Lear

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Alfie Astor and Shahid Mahdi 18/12/12

Shakespeare 7 Hidden... Act 5 Scene 3 Further afield from the castle of Albany and Gonerill. Enter LEAR, KENT (Disguised), and FOOL.

FOOL That which flutters only butters at the time. Tell me great sir, whadst thou think of my jocose

being? Am I but a shepherd, whose scythe brings in your darker side? P‟hps I am! LEAR What mean you by these kindled words? FOOL Correct me If this fool‟s wrong, but all jesters can‟t be completely sequestered. LEAR From what? Speak you indelible being. This night‟s oddities calls for more knowledge of any sort.

FOOL Here‟s a poem submerged from me To alleviate the perplex‟d state that plagues thee. The storm‟s tears have pounc‟d upon us as a form of decay. Yet the inebriation that sours an elderly man‟s mind hath not been washed away. An apprentice‟s master commands him to do right, Yet „tis only the blackened power struggle that remains in sight. He who‟s doomed hath a mind in conflagration, O, flames of nostalgia‟s perspiration. That which a fool utters is often drowned on this most wet evening, Sweet marjoram, tears as fierce as these - the gods must be seething.

LEAR Dear Fool, your services were never conscripted. I simply offered you sanctuary in the labyrinthine walkways of my kingdom. Amusement‟s a sweet medicine for not only the sour.

Ah, prithee look: a fox and her cubs upon that hill. KENT Kind sir, do not be blinded by the utterances of this pestilence.

His foresight matches that of a blind owl‟s. LEAR [approaching Kent threateningly]

Why say‟st that? What do you know, stranger, You‟ve been simply swept onto my path by these coruscating winds.



This fool‟s not an imbecile, but my companion, he seeks what‟s best for me and the words that fly from his deviousness do not uninterest me.

FOOL That‟s a double negative. Much like two diabolic daughters pillaging their father‟s land. LEAR What? Repeat what you said, fool FOOL But repetition is however perilous what I said the first time doubled.

KENT [To LEAR] Come, princely fellow, the mind‟s insurrection can only be made worse At the hands of a mere fool. {grab‟s Lear‟s hand, Lear shakes it off]

LEAR Don‟t clutch onto a branch that is still growing. Let go fellow. [to FOOL] I entrust you, young squire.

What‟s in that bag of yours? Perhaps all the riches and comforts you‟ve ever known. Your body is embedded in rags, yet your temperament is as protected and armored a skill set I‟ll ever meet. I decree I have the power to make you a follower.

FOOL Ha! The grand old king‟s favor, mine? Hath you not lost your power? Your favor is useless, I‟m more vulpine than the tree that holds the pine, yet I shall stick with you on this most tumultuous night, You be a component of my psyche, and I of thine.

KENT [Aside] Here‟s power‟s ill-fated wrath, consuming the mind of the pale king.

To believe that this man has now descended to conscript a fool? Therefore is he a fool to do so? Make haste, there is no time for woe or sorrow over this matter I‟ll slip out of my guise in order to ascend the king‟s mental ladder. Frail cognition and power go hand-in-hand,

serendipity‟s cruel sword attaches and then disbands. Power‟s lost, ship astray, breath aghast, I must restore the vessel of sense to the forlorn king. Cornwall, Albany, perhaps a fraternal aid could assist me in quelling the lack of sense that who-knows must‟ve made. I pray that good-hearted Lear does not become engulfed in the treachery of the fool, Roaming the depths of madness in the shallowest of pools.

Toil away within the mental cogs of one‟s mind, that power was subsumed by a fools aligned.



Alas, that which the king desires Are infinite, and as his companion, may they transpire. [Exeunt all]

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Act 5 Scene 3

Fool aside. Lear has just perished from grief after contemplating the fallen Cordelia.

FOOL A snakeskin swindler once hissed, “That which you trade me from the curtailed lands of Venice - If I „twere not to appreciate it, I‟d be remiss.” Hold on to the worldly belongings even when one‟s mentally bereft, Fadeness of ephemeral deft, one‟s morals and rights have long gone and left. [Looks down at his bag] I hath no gifts for me to bear unto the good king, yet perhaps the comfort of moral support, a bulwark for his madness, If that is truly what I am. Curing my psychotic side is too quixotic a goal, Futility‟s claws digging into the innocent flank of a well bred, venerated foal. In exchanges with my counterpart I uttered poems, swansongs, rhyming nonsense, In the aim that p‟haps the scent of rationality would sting the nostrils of thee. I‟m but a jester, a pestilence in Aristotle or Socrates‟ minds, for with my labyrinthine cause

I‟d have even the greatest of philosophers divagate from the fates the gods placed upon them. Was decrepit Lear alone in his journey? Was I but a flea on his wall crumbling with the stones of sanity,

Argh - how else must one qualitatively measure this parity? P‟haps I shouldn‟t have fled the gallows, now I‟m here to watch the

foundations of one‟s mind go from fallowéd to hollow with sorrow. And so the veil I‟ve put on to serve the good king

placed a jocose front, but ultimately camouflaged me from

the beast I was meant to tame, the beast I was meant to confront and assuage.



Now he cradles his beloved Cordelia, the sole being that could massage out the porous delusion, the sole femme who could drag him from the hellish circular vortex he forever spun in.

Alas, what‟s a fool to know when the truth is blinded by the past, the past by our deeds, and our deeds washed by the shores of failed goodwill, and I‟m drowning. What‟s a fool to know about the matter, however preposterous he may be To imagine that even this fellow could‟ve grabbed ahold of Lear for him to see.

Reflection:

Probably the most crucial decision in this creative project was the placement of the dialogue. We

choose to insert the return of the Fool at the very end of t he play, to provide a perspective of Lear‟s full

mental journey, and the differences between the initial and transformed King. The strange disappearance

of the Fool, much like the Soothsayer of Julius Caesar, presents a gap that we looked to fill. The Fool is

both a constant confirmation of Lear‟s insanity but also an opportunity for Lear to prove his reasoning for

his actions. The Fool exists as a form of mirror to Lear, and when he is absent that tertiary perspective is

lost. The audience sympathizes with the Fool, despite his apparent crazed, jester-like demeanor, in the

sense that we believe him to be logical and aware of Lear‟s multiple characters. For this reason we feel

lost without the Fool overlooking the action in the play. There is no clear indication as to the Fool‟s

location or thoughts after Act 3 Scene 6, a puzzling choice by Shakespeare.

The first scene we‟ve created reflects the dynamism and compatibility between Lear and the Fool.

Although Kent, one of Lear‟s dear compadres and advisors, advises him aganst listening to the rabble-

rousing musings of the Fool, Lear becomes insistent on keeping the Fool by his side - a sort of bulwark for his thoughts. Amidst a time when Lear feels that all his close subjects have abandoned his side, the

Fool serves as the close subject that Lear never had - a single, auxiliary figure removed from any previous

bias or loyalty to, say, one of the devious wives. Kent seeks to disband the alarming rapport that the Fool

and Lear start to slowly build, yet Lear fiercely defends the Fool for no apparent reason. Perhaps he,

within the space of barely two scenes, has already felt a degree of comfort and confidence with this zany

character.

The second soliloquy truly exposes the dimension of the Fool that we‟ve not really seen thus far.

We were keen to explore whether the Fool ever had a sort of sympathetic approach towards Lear. As he

watches the fallen monarch descend into death before the corpse of his beloved Cordelia, we see the Fool

exposing a yet undiscovered side. From a nonsensical supplement to the play to the voice of rationality,

we‟ve made the Fool complete a transformation almost as grand of that of Lear‟s. The intrigue of King

Lear knows no boundaries - likewise, the true nature of the Fool and King Lear can never be truly

defined.

lear+ fool hidden act a "hidden act" from king lear

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