SEARCH TEXTS  

Plays  +  Sonnets  +  Poems  +  Concordance  +  Advanced Search  +  About OSS

Speeches (Lines) for Doctor
in "King Lear"

Total: 8

---
# Act, Scene, Line
(Click to see in context)
Speech text

1

IV,4,2527

Cordelia. Alack, 'tis he! Why, he was met even now
As mad as the vex'd sea, singing aloud,
Crown'd with rank fumiter and furrow weeds,
With harlocks, hemlock, nettles, cuckoo flow'rs,
Darnel, and all the idle weeds that grow
In our sustaining corn. A century send forth.
Search every acre in the high-grown field
And bring him to our eye. [Exit an Officer.] What can man's
wisdom
In the restoring his bereaved sense?
He that helps him take all my outward worth.

Doctor. There is means, madam.
Our foster nurse of nature is repose,
The which he lacks. That to provoke in him
Are many simples operative, whose power
Will close the eye of anguish.


2

IV,7,2924

Cordelia. Then be't so, my good lord. [To the Doctor] How, does the King?

Doctor. Madam, sleeps still.


3

IV,7,2929

Cordelia. O you kind gods,
Cure this great breach in his abused nature!
Th' untun'd and jarring senses, O, wind up
Of this child-changed father!

Doctor. So please your Majesty
That we may wake the King? He hath slept long.


4

IV,7,2936

Gentleman. Ay, madam. In the heaviness of sleep
We put fresh garments on him.

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


5

IV,7,2940

(stage directions). Music.

Doctor. Please you draw near. Louder the music there!


6

IV,7,2959

Cordelia. Had you not been their father, these white flakes
Had challeng'd pity of them. Was this a face
To be oppos'd against the warring winds?
To stand against the deep dread-bolted thunder?
In the most terrible and nimble stroke
Of quick cross lightning? to watch- poor perdu!-
With this thin helm? Mine enemy's dog,
Though he had bit me, should have stood that night
Against my fire; and wast thou fain, poor father,
To hovel thee with swine and rogues forlorn,
In short and musty straw? Alack, alack!
'Tis wonder that thy life and wits at once
Had not concluded all.- He wakes. Speak to him.

Doctor. Madam, do you; 'tis fittest.


7

IV,7,2968

Cordelia. Still, still, far wide!

Doctor. He's scarce awake. Let him alone awhile.


8

IV,7,3000

Lear. Do not abuse me.

Doctor. Be comforted, good madam. The great rage
You see is kill'd in him; and yet it is danger
To make him even o'er the time he has lost.
Desire him to go in. Trouble him no more
Till further settling.


Return to the "King Lear" menu