21-Lear’s Last Speech
When people ask me who my heroes as a writer are, I always mention Shakespeare. Most people don’t realize that Shakespeare wrote and produced his plays for people who threw rotten vegetables at his actors if they got bored. Shakespeare didn’t invent slapstick humor, sex and violence, soap opera plots, or the sound bite, but he used them as well as anyone to attract and hold the attention of his audiences. He did this while producing one of the most profound and insightful bodies of work in all human history.
Once I understood this, I realized that the dichotomy between commercial writing and serious writing is a fallacy. You can do both. Commercial just means that a whole lot of people like it. If you could tell your deepest thoughts and insights in a way that also entertains, why wouldn’t you? Sure, it’s hard, but that’s a cop out. You have to try.
For me, King Lear is Shakespeare’s greatest play. It’s a tragedy, which means it’s more than just sad. It would take a book to tell all I find in that play. For those of you not familiar with King Lear, it’s about a king during the Middle Ages (way before Shakespeare’s time) who has three daughters. He is very old and wants to give up being king and just enjoy retirement. Unfortunately, he is also losing his reason and becoming childish and vain. In the opening scene he intends to divide his kingdom into three parts, one part for each of his three daughters and their husbands.
He makes up a contest and asks his daughters to compete with each other in telling how much they love him in order to get the best parts of the kingdom. The two eldest daughters speak absurd flights of flattery, and he practically giggles in delight. Then he comes to his youngest daughter, Cordelia, who is his favorite, and she refuses to play the game. She loves him as her father, no less, no more. “Why have my sisters husbands if they say They love you all?”
He becomes petulant and angry and disowns her. She leaves the kingdom with nothing from her father. A lot happens after that. It’s fast moving, action-filled, and impossible to explain in a few sentences.
One of the ways to understand the structure of a play is to identify the protagonist, the main character (Lear in this case), and then observe how each of the other characters compliment or reflect different parts of the personality of the protagonist. One of the most important of these other characters is Lear’s Fool, who, because he is a simple-minded joker and not taken seriously, can say anything to the king. He represents Lear’s sanity, which Lear is quickly losing. Early in the play he berates the king for “being old before his time”. When Lear asks what he means, the Fool says, “Thou shouldst not have been old till thou hadst been wise.”
In the middle of the play, the Fool has his last scene and just doesn’t appear anymore. There is no explanation. This is unusual for a main character dramatically, but structurally it makes perfect sense because Lear as he is going mad is actually becoming wiser about what is happening around him. He takes on the characteristics of the fool, both simpleminded and straightforward, so the Fool has no more reason to be in the play. Lear has assimilated him.
At the end of the play, as is common with Shakespearean tragedies, there are lots of bodies lying around. The two older sisters have effectively killed each other, and Cordelia has been hung at the order of the villain, Edmund, after Lear and Cordelia have reconciled.
Lear enters carrying the body of Cordelia. He is crushed by her death so soon after understanding that her love for him, which he had discounted, was far more than that of her sisters and exactly what he needed from her. Here is his last speech which I regard as one of the richest, most deeply packed, and most profoundly moving passages in all of English writing.
Lear: And my poor fool is hanged! No, no, no life.
Why should a dog, a horse, a rat have life
And thou no breath at all. Thou’lt come no more
Never, never, never, never, never
Pray you undo this button. Thank you, sir
Do you see this? Look on her, look, her lips
Look there! Look there! [Lear dies]
The first line has multiple meanings. The actual Fool from earlier in the play having literally been hanged is NOT one of them, though that hangs in the air metaphorically. Even though the 2008 Ian McClellan television production, which is brilliant in everything else, took this easy way out, this is clearly not what Lear means.
Lear’s previous line a little earlier comes after he is told that his other daughters are dead. He says dismissively, “Ay, so I think.”
Those around him take it to mean he is in his madness and doesn’t understand. Instead, he is completely clearheaded for the first time in the play. It’s that the deaths of his daughters who betrayed him pale beside the death of his one true daughter whom he mistreated.
Shakespeare gives us a strong clue to this interpretation immediately. A message comes that Edmund, the villain, is dead. The response is “That’s but a trifle here.” When death is everywhere, there are priorities in grieving, and they are chosen for you.
Lear’s final speech really begins with the earlier line, “Ay, so I think”, then directly in Lear’s mind to “And my poor fool is hanged.” He has paid no attention to the interposed conversation. He goes directly from the deaths of his older daughters to the death of his youngest.
The fool is Cordelia. She was hanged and is lying dead in his arms. Nothing else matters to him now.
So, why is Cordelia a fool? The surface explanation, which is completely valid, is that it is a term of endearment, like playfully calling a child silly.
A deeper meaning comes from the paradoxical relationship of wisdom and foolishness that is a major theme throughout the play. The Fool is the one who consistently tells Lear the truth. Cordelia tells her father the truth and dies for it. This makes the use of “fool” referring to Cordelia deeply poignant. It directs us to the understanding that truth and wisdom can be incompatible with life in this world, and so, foolish. This is the tragedy of King Lear that touches all of us.
The rest of the speech is beautifully constructed to complete the portrait of human dignity that Lear has at last recognized. The 2nd, 3rd, and 4th lines give voice to his grief. It is the universally understandable cry of a parent who has lost a child. “…Why should a dog, a horse, a rat have life And thou no breath at all….”
The 5th line looks like a throwaway, “Pray you undo this button. Thank you, sir.”
It is a break, a brief release from grief literally too deep to bear. The button is constricting his breath. The grief is constricting his life. More importantly though is how he makes the request, and that it is a request at all. Lear is the king. The old Lear didn’t request; he commanded. He would never have said “Pray you” or “thank you”. The new Lear has found kinship with all humanity and all life. He now respects life simply because it is alive, precious, and too short. He is, finally, at the end of his life a whole person. Tragedy is tragedy not because it is sad, but because it is transformative. May we all be granted such a revelation, hopefully a little earlier in our lives than in Lear’s.
The last lines point him irrevocably away from this world and towards the next.
Do you see this? Look on her, look, her lips
Look there! Look there! [Lear dies]
In a vision, he sees life in Cordelia’s face as he dies.
Hugh Moffatt
Nashville, Tennessee
October 10, 2025