If they say they love you all (1.1.95-104)

CORDELIA

Good my lord, You have begot me, bred me, loved me: I Return those duties back as are right fit, Obey you, love you, and most honour you. Why have my sisters husbands, if they say They love you all? Haply, when I shall wed, That lord whose hand must take my plight shall carry Half my love with him, half my care and duty: Sure, I shall never marry like my sisters, To love my father all.

Cordelia explains her love to her father. She - like her sisters - upholds formality with her father by calling him “my lord”, and using the pronoun “you”. Perhaps this is her submitting to the natural order by acknowledging her father’s place above her. She expresses how Lear has raised her with a rule of three: “begot me, bred me, loved me”, creating an ephemeral flow of time; notice that all of these verbs are in the past tense: these are verbs that Lear has done. The epistrophe here also emphasises these, perhaps showing how much Cordelia values these aspects of him. Cordelia wants to “return these duties back as are right fit”, and - to describe this - she mirrors what Lear did for her with her own rule of three: “obey you, love you, and most honour you”. However, this one is in the present tense; this gives us some perspective on her goals as a character throughout the play: to love and help Lear as he did for her. Once again the use of epistrophe emphasises her point, but it also balances the “me” of before; this creates equality in love that the natural order wants them to. These lines are very important for showing that despite her standing against her father’s wishes (something that would be considered unwomanly at the time), she has the right of the situation. Cordelia’s obedience to the natural order makes Lear’s lack of acknowledgement towards it all the more obvious. The use of “most” highlights that she is “honour[ing]“ Lear, making his reaction unreasonable and making Goneril and Regan’s flattery seem even more verbose. She directs her focus to her sisters’ lies, asking the rhetorical question: “why have my sisters husbands, if they say they love you all?”. “My sisters” is oddly impersonal, and perhaps displays a certain difference between them. It divides the two parties further with the unfamiliarity but could also suggest that the sisters grew up in different ways (although there is very little evidence to support this besides the way Goneril is berated in comparison to Regan). The isocolon in this question serves to make Cordelia look balanced and logical, whilst also drawing a connection between two rather obvious contradictions that Lear is ignoring: spelling out the lies to Lear and the audience beyond a point which either party can deny them. Cordelia next talks of the future - yet again switching tense. Cordelia comes off as an individual with foresight for her speculations in all tenses. She also shows awareness of what is to come, a trait that she surprisingly shares with Goneril and Regan - who both show concern about their futures with Lear’s rash decisions. The metaphor of her future husband carrying her love in his hands ties this love test back to the marriage plans, whilst also explaining Cordelia’s view of love. The repetition of “half” emphasises the fact that she will, in fact, split her “love”, “care”, and “duty”. Interestingly, it is her decision to make this division of these traits known to Lear, that splits the country in half rather than in three. Following this, she once again compares herself to her sisters using a simile to show how they represent the opposite of what she believes. It is clear from the outset that they will be on opposing sides throughout the story. To finish off this speech she almost repeats “They love you all?”, by saying: “To love my father all.”. When Cordelia refers to her own love, there is no question: it is a fact. Whereas her sisters’ love is questioned. This once again foreshadows the conflict between them and their attitudes throughout the rest of the play.