“There she stands”
The Princes of France and Burgundy, who had been summoned, now made their appearance. King Lear first addressed Burgundy, asking him what dowry he required with his youngest daughter. Burgundy replied that he craved no more than what King Lear had already offered with her, and he supposed King Lear would not tender less.
Lear replied that when Cordelia was dear to him he held her at that value, but now her price was fallen. If Burgundy liked to take her, just as she was, with only the King’s displeasure added, she was his.
“There she stands. Take her or leave her,” he ended curtly.
Burgundy was not inclined to take Cordelia on these terms, and tried civilly to express his refusal. Lear then turned to the King of France, but to him he said he would not do him so much wrong as to offer him a thing which Lear himself hated—a wretch whom nature was almost ashamed to acknowledge as hers.
The King of France replied that it was very strange that she who had been the object of Lear’s praise, the comfort of his age—his best, his dearest—should in a trice of time so absolutely forfeit his favour. Surely she must have committed some terrible offence to lose his affection, and this, without a miracle, he would never believe of her.
The King’s manly and chivalrous words fell like balm on the poor young girl’s wounded heart, and she begged her father to tell him that it was no base or unworthy action on her part that had deprived her of his grace and favour, but only the want of a glib tongue and an ever-avaricious eye.
“Better thou hadst not been born than not to have pleased me better,” was Lear’s resentful answer to this appeal.