King Lear quotes (in translation!)

LEAR RETIRES & DIVIDES HIS KINGDOM

Right lads, time for me to retire – sure I’m bound to pop me clogs any day now! “Tis our fast intent/ To shake all cares and business from our age, Conferring them on younger strengths/ While we unburthen’d crawl towards death”

Why am I sortin out me Kingdom? So ye’re not fightin over who rules the universe when I do die… “That future strife may be prevented now”

Who loves the Daddy? “Which of you shall we say doth love us most?”

I ain’t givin you nuttin til you tell me how great I am! “Nothing will come of nothing, speak again”

We are done bitch! “My sometime daughter”

Stuck up cow, let’s see her try to find a hubby now! “Let pride which she calls plainness marry her”

Feck this lads, I’m givin up the day job but I ain’t givin up the glory! “We shall retain /The name and all th’ addition to a king”

What sort of yoke is she at all? “A wretch whom Nature is asham’d/ Almost t’acknowledge hers”

LEAR REALISES WHAT AN EEJIT HE’S BEEN (Act 1, scene 4)

I do NOT feel like a King anymore “Does any here know me?…. Who is it that can tell me who I am?”

Hold on, yer wan I treated like crap might help me? “Yet have I left a daughter”

Hideous evil ungrateful bitches those daughters of mine “Ingratitude, thou marble-hearted fiend/ More hideous when thou shows’t thee in a child”

Feck it, I’m an awful eejit “O Lear, Lear, Lear. Beat at this gate, that let thy folly in And thy dear judgement out”

Jaysis there’s nothing worse than havin kids who don’t appreciate what you’ve done for them “How sharper than a serpent’s tooth it is/ To have a thankless child”

Cop on and don’t be cryin like a baby – I’d rather poke me own eyes out “Old fond eyes, Beweep this cause again, I’ll pluck ye out”

Feck this lads, I’m gettin me old job back – and the feckers won’t even see me comin! “Thou shalt find /That I’ll resume the shape which thou dost think /I have cast off forever”

LEAR’S REGRET (Act 1, scene 5)

Shite anyways “I did her wrong”

I’m losing me shit here “O let me not be mad, not mad, sweet heaven!”

LEAR ARGUES WITH HIS DAUGHTERS (Act 2, scene 4)

Lassies, have ye no respect for yere oul Dad? “Tis worse than murder,/ To do upon respect such violent outrage”

Jaysis, I’m havin some kinda panic attack or somethin “O how this mother swells up toward my heart! Hysterica passio, down, thou climbing sorrow”

Fuckin bitches “I gave you all”

It’s not much but it’s better than what your sister’s offerin “Thy fifty yet doth double five-and-twenty/ And thou art twice her love”

Christ, do I have to justify how many sheets of toilet paper I use to wipe me arse?

“O reason not the need! Our basest beggars/ Are in the poorest thing superfluous/
Allow not nature more than nature needs, Man’s life is cheap as beast’s”

I can’t feckin cope with this shite at all! “O Fool, I shall go mad”

LEAR RAGES AGAINST THE STORM (Act 3, scene 2)

Feck you wind, give it your worst! “Blow, winds, and crack your cheeks! Rage, blow!…”

Poor me “A poor, infirm, weak and despis’d old man”

Things can only get better… “No, I will be the pattern of all patience/I will say nothing”

I don’t deserve this shite “I am a man more sinned against than sinning”

I am definitely losing it now! “My wits begin to turn”

Poor fecker out in this weather with me “I have one part in my heart that’s sorry yet for thee”

LEAR RAGES AGAINST THE STORM PART 2 (Act 3, scene 4)

Dunno which is worse – the weather or my bitchy daughters “This tempest in my mind/ Doth from my senses take all feeling else/ Save what beats there – filial ingratitude”

Stop thinking that way now or it’ll drive me mental “O that way madness lies: let me shun that”

Feck, I never realised how hard up some people were until I was down in the shite with them “Poor naked wretches, That bide the pelting of this pitiless storm…O I have ta’en /Too little care of this”

Yer man looks like he’s in the same boat as me… “Didst thou give all to thy daughters? And art thou come to this?” (to Edgar disguised as Poor Tom)

Maybe I feckin deserve it, sure I fathered the bitches “Judicious punishment! ‘Twas this flesh begot / Those pelican daughters”

Take everything away from me and I’m nothing but an animal “Thou art the thing itself! Unaccomodated man is no more but such a poor, bare forked animal as thou art” (he tears off his clothes)

LEAR’S DISBELIEF (Act 3, scene 6)

Jaysis how can anyone be this cruel? “Is there any cause in nature that make these hard hearts?”

LEAR’S DAWNING WISDOM (Act 4, scene 6)

Bitches lied, said nothing could hurt me but I got chills “They told me I was every thing/ Tis a lie: I am not ague proof”

Better wipe me hand – it smells like death “Let me wipe it first; it smells of mortality”

Yes men everywhere – until you’re no longer in power “Behold the great image of authority: a dog’s obeyed in office”

No wonder we’re born squealin; the world’s full of eejits “When we are born, we cry that we are come to this great stage of fools”

LEAR APOLOGISES TO CORDELIA (Act 4, scene 7)

Feck it, just let me die “You do me wrong to take me out o’ the grave”

I’m an awful eejit “I am a very foolish fond old man”

If you feel like killin me, fair enough “If you have poison for me, I will drink it. I know you do not love me, for your sisters / Have, as I remember, done me wrong / You have some cause, they have not”

Can you forgive me for being a stupid oul gobsite? “Pray you now, forget and forgive. I am old and foolish”

LEAR’S HOPES DASHED – HIS DAUGHTER IS DEAD (Act 5, scene 3)

Prison is nothin as long as we’re together “We too alone will sing like birds I’ the cage”

She’s dead? No, she can’t be! Is she breathing at all? “She’s gone forever. Lend me a looking glass; If that her breath will mist or stain the stone, Why then she lives!”
It’s all my fault “I might have saved her! Now she’s gone forever!”
Life fucking stinks “Why should a dog, a horse, a rat have life, And thou no breath at all?“