There is naught that can undo the wrongs I have done you, I know. I can only hope your heart cherishes that love for your father you once demonstrated so honestly, that it still remains there untouched. Your forgiveness, now that I am mad, is all I ask. Perhaps 'tis the gods repaying my own pride and ignorance that I am mad, for well you know I was terribly wrong, and I suffer dearly for my mistake.
O but now I can see that I am but a human, like you, like your sisters, like the beggar. The worms and the earth care not for who we are in life once we are taken in once more. The storms, they beat on me like they would any other-"this tempest will not give me leave to ponder on things that would hurt me more." Rather, dear one, lowering me to the common level. I see now-all their lives, entrenched at the bottom, never to rise. I can see their hopelessness and sorrows and despair and defeat, and I am so very sorry for them, that I have remained ignorant of it. The "unaccommodated man is no more but a poor, bare, forked animal," and I have become He. Oh, but Cordelia, you must rule France with regard to all. Help the poor, I pray you!
Of course, I had forgotten. Your forces arrive, in great numbers. But "I fear I am not in my perfect mind," I fear I may have lost it somewhere along the way. I am without my knights, without my servants. Your sisters, cruel and cold, turn me away, I who did make them! What Ho! Say you, that they are wrong, then that is so, but they are not so without bounds they will believe only their own, testaments to their will but not to their morality and judgment. True, I thought you loved me least, and your sisters most, but they gave but the basest flattery, and I, taken in, the great fool, lost his daughter, his crown, his life. Said I, "I loved you most and thought to set my rest on your kind nursery," and am most ashamed of it that I could not see your honest truth and your sisters' conceived contrived flattery. They never loved me.
For truth and truthful words and lines, your voice I do seek. But that I may take life's last breath before that day to come, be you content to rule France, and do what you will to help England from afar. I fear not to survive these coming days. But that the days are numbered, but that I know not the one who shall claim me, but that I shall find that a-one. Find thyself, Cordelia, bow not to your sisters, bow not to their petty weaknesses. No matter your situation, you must remain you, Cordelia, always and forever the most deserving of my daughters. I am sorry it took so long for me to see this simple truth, but the deeds are done. Of course I am repentant, but that in itself will not bring me peace. First I must pay for what I have done, for my ignorance and pride. And lo! the "tempest in my mind doth from my senses all feeling else save what beats there"-the storm without stokes the fire of my storms within, but cannot reach further than a candle flame. I am done, Cordelia, done, dead in all but body. I am cast without, and worms they soon will take me. But you will endure. Yes, you must! That a father should ever outlive his child-even if for a second-is a terrible fate, and one that should never happen to us. You have a long full life ahead, certainly greater than mine, if not the one you expected, yes, by my woeful idiocy. But I see that may not be, but I can do naught but hope. Cordelia, forgive me my pride!
With love in the deepest regard,
Your Father, King Lear
--As I'll be in college next year, I welcome any opportunity to
practice my writing. I'm going to be an English major, and I hope to be a
novelist one day.
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