King Lear - Passage for Analysis

Act 2 Scene 4 (215 - 328)
KING LEAR
    Who stock'd my servant? Regan, I have good hope
    Thou didst not know on't. Who comes here? O heavens,
                                                                                                  Enter GONERIL
    If you do love old men, if your sweet sway
    Allow obedience, if yourselves are old,
    Make it your cause; send down, and take my part!
                                                                                                  To GONERIL
    Art not ashamed to look upon this beard?
    O Regan, wilt thou take her by the hand?

GONERIL
    Why not by the hand, sir? How have I offended?
    All's not offence that indiscretion finds
    And dotage terms so.

KING LEAR
    O sides, you are too tough;
    Will you yet hold? How came my man i' the stocks?

CORNWALL
    I set him there, sir: but his own disorders
    Deserved much less advancement.

KING LEAR
    You! did you?

REGAN
    I pray you, father, being weak, seem so.
    If, till the expiration of your month,
    You will return and sojourn with my sister,
    Dismissing half your train, come then to me:
    I am now from home, and out of that provision
    Which shall be needful for your entertainment.

KING LEAR
    Return to her, and fifty men dismiss'd?
    No, rather I abjure all roofs, and choose
    To wage against the enmity o' the air;
    To be a comrade with the wolf and owl,--
    Necessity's sharp pinch! Return with her?
    Why, the hot-blooded France, that dowerless took
    Our youngest born, I could as well be brought
    To knee his throne, and, squire-like; pension beg
    To keep base life afoot. Return with her?
    Persuade me rather to be slave and sumpter
    To this detested groom.
                                                                                         Pointing at OSWALD

GONERIL
    At your choice, sir.

KING LEAR
    I prithee, daughter, do not make me mad:
    I will not trouble thee, my child; farewell:
    We'll no more meet, no more see one another:
    But yet thou art my flesh, my blood, my daughter;
    Or rather a disease that's in my flesh,
    Which I must needs call mine: thou art a boil,
    A plague-sore, an embossed carbuncle,
    In my corrupted blood. But I'll not chide thee;
    Let shame come when it will, I do not call it:
    I do not bid the thunder-bearer shoot,
    Nor tell tales of thee to high-judging Jove:
    Mend when thou canst; be better at thy leisure:
    I can be patient; I can stay with Regan,
    I and my hundred knights.

REGAN
    Not altogether so:
    I look'd not for you yet, nor am provided
    For your fit welcome. Give ear, sir, to my sister;
    For those that mingle reason with your passion
    Must be content to think you old, and so--
    But she knows what she does.

KING LEAR
    Is this well spoken?

REGAN
    I dare avouch it, sir: what, fifty followers?
    Is it not well? What should you need of more?
    Yea, or so many, sith that both charge and danger
    Speak 'gainst so great a number? How, in one house,
    Should many people, under two commands,
    Hold amity? 'Tis hard; almost impossible.

GONERIL
    Why might not you, my lord, receive attendance
    From those that she calls servants or from mine?

REGAN
    Why not, my lord? If then they chanced to slack you,
    We could control them. If you will come to me,--
    For now I spy a danger,--I entreat you
    To bring but five and twenty: to no more
    Will I give place or notice.

KING LEAR
    I gave you all--

REGAN
    And in good time you gave it.

KING LEAR
    Made you my guardians, my depositaries;
    But kept a reservation to be follow'd
    With such a number. What, must I come to you
    With five and twenty, Regan? said you so?

REGAN
    And speak't again, my lord; no more with me.

KING LEAR
    Those wicked creatures yet do look well-favour'd,
    When others are more wicked: not being the worst
    Stands in some rank of praise.
                                                                                              To GONERIL
    I'll go with thee:
    Thy fifty yet doth double five and twenty,
    And thou art twice her love.

GONERIL
    Hear me, my lord;
    What need you five and twenty, ten, or five,
    To follow in a house where twice so many
    Have a command to tend you?

REGAN
    What need one?

KING LEAR
    O, reason not the need: our basest beggars
    Are in the poorest thing superfluous:
    Allow not nature more than nature needs,
    Man's life's as cheap as beast's: thou art a lady;
    If only to go warm were gorgeous,
    Why, nature needs not what thou gorgeous wear'st,
    Which scarcely keeps thee warm. But, for true need,--
    You heavens, give me that patience, patience I need!
    You see me here, you gods, a poor old man,
    As full of grief as age; wretched in both!
    If it be you that stir these daughters' hearts
    Against their father, fool me not so much
    To bear it tamely; touch me with noble anger,
    And let not women's weapons, water-drops,
    Stain my man's cheeks! No, you unnatural hags,
    I will have such revenges on you both,
    That all the world shall--I will do such things,--
    What they are, yet I know not: but they shall be
    The terrors of the earth. You think I'll weep
    No, I'll not weep:
    I have full cause of weeping; but this heart
    Shall break into a hundred thousand flaws,
    Or ere I'll weep. O fool, I shall go mad! 


I think this passage is really important because it kind of shows how Regan and Goneril are manipulative and greedy. Neither one thinks about their father in an endearing way, and in fact find him to be a large burden. I know that this passage was long, but I thought it was really important to the progression of the plot, and Lear's madness. It also includes many allusions to nature and what it means throughout the play.