Read King Lear’s Unhappy That Am I, I Cannot Heave soliloquy below with modern English translation & analysis
Spoken by Cordelia, King Lear, Act 1, Scene 1
Unhappy that I am, I cannot heave
My heart into my mouth. I love your Majesty
According to my bond; no more nor less.
Good my lord,
You have begot me, bred me, lov’d me; I
Return those duties back as are right fit,
Obey you, love you, and most honour you.
Why have my sisters husbands, if they say
They love you all? Haply, when I shall wed,
That lord whose hand must take my plight shall carry
Half my love with him, half my care and duty.
Sure I shall never marry like my sisters,
To love my father all.
“Unhappy That Am I, I Cannot Heave” Soliloquy Translation:
Unhappy as I am, I can’t express in words the things that are in my heart. I love your Majesty according to my duty as a daughter. No more, no less. My dear lord, you have conceived me, brought me up and loved me. I return those duties accordingly – obey you, love you, and honour you entirely. Why do my sisters have husbands if they say they love you exclusively? If it happens that I should marry, that man who has my hand in marriage will have half my love, half my care and duty. Certainly, I’ll never marry like my sisters to love my father totally.
See other King Lear soliloquies >>
Read King Lear in modern English >>
The conspirary that Shakespeare didn’t write his plays exists in some circles, which leads to the question who wrote Shakespeare’s plays and sonnets? We address the William Shakespeare authorship controversy... more »
As the summer-spanning Shakespeare extravaganza that is the World Shakespeare Festival comes to an end in the UK we’ve flicked through the NoSweatShakespeare facebook page to pull together a selection of... more »
Though rumors (and conspiracy theories!) abound, not too many concrete facts are known about Shakespeare. We have a page on Shakespeare facts, detailing the bog standard Shakespeare info, but... more »
We’ve been trawling the internet of late for some comedy takes on Shakespeare to share on the NoSweatShakespeare facebook page, and slowly but surely have stumbled across the internet sub-culture of “memes”. Warning:... more »
The Hatwalk event – commissioned by the Mayor of London as part of the London 2012 festival - started before dawn on July 30th when 21 of London’s best known statues were... more »
In spite of experiencing the worst summer weather since records began London is more crowded this summer than it has ever been. There was the Wimbledon tennis tournament earlier... more »
Who knew that Shakespeare’s sonnets and mathematics were so linked? In the super-interesting video below, Professor Roger Bowley talks about the tight constraints – and shape – that numbers... more »
As I look around at the Shakespeare scene in England at the moment I’m struck by how many young people take to the stage. Actors have flooded in from... more »
When the young William Shakespeare went to London, almost a hundred miles away from his hometown of Stratford Upon Avon, to look for work, he was doing something unusual.... more »
This year, 2012, is probably the biggest year for William Shakespeare in England since his death. Two of the UK’s biggest cultural institutions, the BBC and the Royal Shakespeare Company, have... more »