(In Otway’s version of this comedy, called The Cheats of Scapin, Léandre is Anglicized into “Leander;” Géronte is called “Gripe;” Zerbinette is “Lucia;” Argante is “Thrifty;” and the sum of money £200).
Léandre, the lover of Lucinde, daughter of Géronte (2 syl.). Being forbidden the house, Lucinde pretended to be dumb, and Léandre, being introduced in the guise of an apothecary, effects a cure by “pills matrimoniac.”—Molière, Le Médecin Malgré Lui (1666).
Lean´dro, a gentleman who wantonly loves Amaranta (the wife of Bar´tolus, a covetous[covetous] lawyer).—Beaumont and Fletcher, The Spanish Curate (1632).
Lean´dro the Fair (The Exploits and Adventures of), part of the series called Le Roman des Romans, pertaining to “Am´adis of Gaul.” This part was added by Pedro de Lujan.
Lear, mythical king of Britain, son of Bladud. He had three daughters, and when four score years old, wishing to retire from the active duties of sovereignty, resolved to divide his kingdom between them in proportion to their love. The two elder said they loved him more than their tongue could express, but Cordelia, the youngest, said she loved him as it became a daughter to love her father. The old king, displeased with her answer, disinherited Cordelia, and divided his kingdom between the other two, with the condition that each alternately, month by month, should give him a home, with a suite of a hundred knights. He spent the first month with his eldest daughter, who showed him scant hospitality. Then going to the second, she refused to entertain so large a suite; whereupon the old man would not enter her house, but spent the night abroad in a storm. When Cordelia, who had married the king of France, heard of this, she brought an army over to dethrone her sisters, but was taken prisoner and died in jail. In the meantime the elder sister (Goneril) first poisoned her younger sister from jealousy, and afterwards put an end to her own life. Lear also died.—Shakespeare, King Lear (1605).
(The stage Lear is a corrupt version by Nahum Tate (Tate and Brady); as the stage Richard III. is Colley Cibber’s travesty.)
⁂ Percy, in his Reliques of Ancient English Poetry, has a ballad about “King Leir and His Three Daughters” (series I. ii.).
The story is given by Geoffrey of Monmouth in his British History. Spenser has introduced the tale in his Faëry Queen (ii. 10.)
Camden tells a similar story of Ina, the king of the West Saxons(Remains, 306).
Lear (King), Shakespeare’s drama, first printed in quarto (1608), is founded on The True Chronicle History of King Leir and His Three Daughters, Gonorill, Ragan, and Cordelia (1605).