"It is the very error of the moon.
She comes more near the earth than she was wont
And drives men mad,"
is one of the most perfect of all the perfect things in the tragedies.
King Lear.
Written. 1605-6.
Published. 1608.
Source of the Plot. The story of Lear is told in Holinshed's Chronicles, in a play by an unknown hand, The True Chronicle History of King Leir, and in a few stanzas of the tenth canto of the second Book of Spenser's Faerie Queene.
The character of Gloucester seems to have been suggested by the character of a blind king in Sir Philip Sidney's Arcadia.
The Fable. King Lear, in his old age, determines to give up his kingdom to his three daughters. Before he does so, he tries to assure himself of their love for him. The two elder women, Goneril and Regan, vow that they love him intensely; the youngest, Cordelia, can only tell him that she cares for him as a daughter should. He curses and casts off Cordelia, who is taken to wife by the King of France.
Gloucester, deceived by his bastard Edmund, casts off Edgar his son.
King Lear, thwarted and flouted by Goneril and Regan, goes mad, and wanders away with his Fool. Gloucester, trying to comfort him against the wishes of Goneril and Regan, is betrayed by his bastard Edmund, and blinded. He wanders away with Edgar, who has disguised himself as a madman.