WORD LISTS

"King Lear" by William Shakespeare, Act 5

Tue Feb 12 12:37:15 EST 2013
By Vocabulary.com (NY)Visual Thesaurus Moderator
In this tragedy, King Lear's plan to divide his kingdom between his three daughters leads to his downfall when he misjudges their true feelings. Read the full text here.

Here are links to our lists for the play: Act 1, Act 2, Act 3, Act 4, Act 5
exasperate
To take the widow
Exasperates, makes mad her sister Goneril,
And hardly shall I carry out my side,
Her husband being alive.
incur
We are not the first
Who with best meaning have incurred the worst.
exalt
Another definition of exalt is "raise in rank, character, or status" — which is what Regan (legitimate daughter and heir of a king, and widow of a duke) did to Edmund (bastard son of an earl) by giving him the powers of her position. To undermine Regan, Goneril argues that Edmund does not need Regan to exalt him because he is already gloriously worth praising.
Not so hot.
In his own grace he doth exalt himself
More than in your addition.
patrimony
Take thou my soldiers, prisoners, patrimony.
Dispose of them, of me; the walls is thine.
heinous
If none appear to prove upon thy person
Thy heinous, manifest, and many treasons,
There is my pledge.
manifest
If none appear to prove upon thy person
Thy heinous, manifest, and many treasons,
There is my pledge.
adversary
Yet am I noble as the adversary
I come to cope.
illustrious
I protest,
Maugre thy strength, place, youth, and eminence,
Despite thy victor-sword and fire-new fortune,
Thy valor, and thy heart, thou art a traitor,
False to thy gods, thy brother, and thy father,
Conspirant ’gainst this high illustrious prince,
And from th’ extremest upward of thy head
To the descent and dust below thy foot,
A most toad-spotted traitor.
vanquish
The definition is for vanquish as a verb, but vanquished is used as an adjective in the example sentence — this makes the meaning the opposite of what is given, since Goneril is arguing that Edmund was not conquered but cheated. This is a desperate attempt to restore honor to a fatally wounded Edmund who is lying at the feet of his opponent.
By th’ law of war, thou wast not bound to answer
An unknown opposite. Thou art not vanquished,
But cozened and beguiled.
cozen
By th’ law of war, thou wast not bound to answer
An unknown opposite. Thou art not vanquished,
But cozened and beguiled.
arraign
Say if I do; the laws are mine, not thine.
Who can arraign me for ’t?
semblance
The bloody proclamation to escape
That followed me so near—O, our lives’ sweetness,
That we the pain of death would hourly die
Rather than die at once!—taught me to shift
Into a madman’s rags, t’ assume a semblance
That very dogs disdained.
piteous
He fastened on my neck and bellowed out
As he’d burst heaven, threw him on my father,
Told the most piteous tale of Lear and him
That ever ear received, which, in recounting,
His grief grew puissant, and the strings of life
Began to crack.
puissant
He fastened on my neck and bellowed out
As he’d burst heaven, threw him on my father,
Told the most piteous tale of Lear and him
That ever ear received, which, in recounting,
His grief grew puissant, and the strings of life
Began to crack.
vex
Vex not his ghost. O, let him pass! He hates him
That would upon the rack of this tough world
Stretch him out longer.

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