The Fool is licensed to say what no one else may. From his first appearance he hammers Lear with the truth: “Thou hadst little wit in thy bald crown when thou gav’st thy golden one away.” “Thou wast a pretty fellow when thou hadst no need to care for her frowning; now thou art an O without a figure: I am better than thou art now; I am a Fool, thou art nothing.” “Can you make no use of nothing, nuncle?”
He goes with Lear into the storm, shivering, and is the first person Lear thinks of when compassion finally comes (“Come on, my boy. How dost, my boy? art cold?”). Then, in Act 3 Scene 6, he says “And I’ll go to bed at noon” — and is never seen again.
Why does he disappear? Perhaps because the same boy actor played Cordelia (who returns in Act 4) — Lear’s last line, “And my poor fool is hanged”, may fuse the two. Perhaps because, as Lear goes truly mad, the Fool’s role — madness speaking wisdom — passes to the king himself.
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Betrayed by Edmund, Gloucester is tied to a chair and blinded by Cornwall while Regan watches — and learns in the same instant that Edgar was innocent.
King Lear
The proud old king who divides his kingdom by a love test, banishes the daughter who loves him, and is stripped of everything until he learns, too late, what love and suffering are.
The Storm on the Heath
Shut out by his daughters, Lear rages at the storm, prays for the poor, and meets “unaccommodated man” in the naked Poor Tom.
Śūnyatā (Emptiness)
Emptiness — the Mahāyāna teaching that all things lack intrinsic, independent existence (svabhāva), because they arise in dependence on causes, parts and concepts. Not nothingness, but the openness that makes change and freedom possible.
Cordelia
Lear’s youngest daughter, who will not flatter, is disinherited, returns to rescue him, forgives him with “No cause, no cause” — and is hanged.
Lear Wakes: "No Cause, No Cause"
Lear wakes from madness to find Cordelia beside him, thinks he is in hell, begs her forgiveness — and she answers with two words that undo the whole tragedy.