King Lear Act Three & Four Vocab List for Mastery

The lamentable change is from the best;
The worst returns to laughter. Welcome, then,
Thou unsubstantial air that I embrace.

As flies to wanton boys are we to th’ gods;
They kill us for their sport.

My fool usurps my body.

Milk-livered man,
That bear’st a cheek for blows, a head for wrongs;
Who hast not in thy brows an eye discerning
Thine honor from thy suffering; that not know’st
Fools do those villains pity who are punished
Ere they have done their mischief.

A sovereign shame so elbows him—his own unkindness,
That stripped her from his benediction, turned her
To foreign casualties, gave her dear rights
To his dog-hearted daughters—these things sting
His mind so venomously that burning shame
Detains him from Cordelia.

All blest secrets,
All you unpublished virtues of the earth,
Spring with my tears. Be aidant and remediate
In the good man’s distress. Seek, seek for him,
Lest his ungoverned rage dissolve the life
That wants the means to lead it.
Remediate is an adjective here meaning "restorative, healing." Cordelia wants to bring Lear peace of mind so that he doesn't end up killing himself. To remediate Lear's distress, Cordelia calls upon a doctor, the earth, and a French army.

It was great ignorance, Gloucester’s eyes being out,
To let him live. Where he arrives he moves
All hearts against us. Edmund, I think, is gone,
In pity of his misery, to dispatch
His nighted life; moreover to descry
The strength o’ th’ enemy.

It was great ignorance, Gloucester’s eyes being out,
To let him live. Where he arrives he moves
All hearts against us. Edmund, I think, is gone,
In pity of his misery, to dispatch
His nighted life; moreover to descry
The strength o’ th’ enemy.

The murmuring surge
That on th’ unnumbered idle pebble chafes
Cannot be heard so high. I’ll look no more
Lest my brain turn and the deficient sight
Topple down headlong.

Hadst thou been aught but gossamer, feathers, air,
So many fathom down precipitating,
Thou ’dst shivered like an egg; but thou dost breathe,
Hast heavy substance, bleed’st not, speak’st, art sound.

’Twas yet some comfort
When misery could beguile the tyrant’s rage
And frustrate his proud will.

I am not ague-proof.

Behold yond simp’ring dame...

What, art mad? A man may see how this world goes with no eyes. Look with thine ears. See how yond justice rails upon yond simple thief. Hark in thine ear.

When we are born, we cry that we are come
To this great stage of fools.—This’ a good block.
It were a delicate stratagem to shoe
A troop of horse with felt. I’ll put ’t in proof,
And when I have stol’n upon these son-in-laws,
Then kill, kill, kill, kill, kill, kill!

Be by, good madam, when we do awake him.
I doubt not of his temperance.

And wast thou fain, poor father,
To hovel thee with swine and rogues forlorn
In short and musty straw?