Birds, Birds, Birds!

I have noticed so many bird references in King Lear. Seriously it's nuts! There's at least 2 references in every Act! Anyways I posted once on a bird reference already, but I just want to put up a few more. I mean its interesting to see them scattered in the play, but I also really like the meaning behind each of them!

Act One

• "The hedge-sparrow fed the cuckoo so long,/That it had it head bit off by it young." - This one I actually already went into great depth talking about already (see above link), so...yeah.

• "Detested kite!" - The kite being spoken of here is not the children's toy. No a kite is actually a bird that is found in many parts of the world. What you many not know is that kite's typically eat carrion, so in many ways they can be compared to vultures. This line is also addressed to Goneril, after Lear has discovered part of her sinister nature. Just another way Shakespeare portrays the relationship on a deeper level!

Act Two

• "Renegade, affirm, and turn their halcyon beaks/With every gale and vary of their masters." - Now I actually got more insight on this one from my Dover Thrift Edition of the play. In the footnotes it told me that a halcyon is another name for a kingfisher. See it was a common belief that if a kingfisher had a cord tied around it's neck and was then suspended, that it's beak would face the direction that the wind is coming from. I honestly have no idea how this could have come about because there is no scientific proof to support this but it does make an interesting point. By using this comparison Kent is talking about how those people around him are very flaky and easily persuaded by anyone who comes their way! They simply want to follow and support those who will bring them the most profit in the end, even if it means betraying their current employers.

• "Winter's not gone yet if wild geese fly that way."

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    "Oh Regan, she hath tied/Sharp-tooth'd unkindness, like a vulture here." - In the script it has Lear point to his heart right after this line. In some ways I wonder if Lear is trying to say that after discovering his daughter's true natures that his heart has died and they are mercilessly feeding on it. They are showing no mercy to his aching soul, and instead they keep battering it. (Just a thought)

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• "To be a comrade with with wolf and owl."

Act Three

• "Judicious punishment! 't was this flesh begot/Those pelican daughters." - Not going to lie, when I read this one I was really confused. I couldn't figure out what this meant. But once again my footnotes helped me out. According to Medieval legends and myths, the pelican would stab itself when food was scare and thus allow its young to drink its blood. Some other sources say that the pelican young would stab the mother with there own beaks. However this is only a myth. Pelicans do not in fact drink the blood of their parents, but once again this common misconception adds much to Lear's new view of his daughters. I think is is one point where he finally sees just how little his daughters care for him and just how much have been using him. He sees the reality of their nature and how they are like the cuckoo and the pelican. They only want him for what he has to materially give them, and if he dies in the process they could care less.

• "The foul fiend haunts poor Tom in the voice of a nightingale." - I don't understand this one at all simply because the song of nightingale is actually quite beautiful! Any ideas?

Well there you go! All the bird references I have found so far in King Lear! I'll admit I love them. I think in general they really add to the vibrancy of the story. But it might just be the nature lover in me. It also makes me really excited for my Ornithology class this upcoming semester!

Parasitic Families

Hopefully your parents don't consider you to be a parasite. But this what the Fool seems to be insinuating about Goneril, and frankly he's right. (This is one of the first glimpses at what we will see in King Lear about parent-child relationships.)

The hedge-sparrow fed the cuckoo so long,

That it had it head bit off by it young. (Act 1 scene 4)

Now, I don't know how much you know about a cuckoo, that is the bird, and so I would like to enlighten you because I think this analogy really illuminates what Fool is trying to illustrate to Lear. It also really demonstrates the first glance at family relationships in this play.

The common cuckoo lays its eggs in the nests of other birds. The birds don't recognize the egg as one that is not their own. The cuckoo eggs develops a lot faster than other birds and so generally it hatches before the other bird. The newly hatched cuckoo chick then proceeds to push the other eggs out of the nest and eliminates the other competition. As it grows the other adult birds feed the cuckoo chick for 16 hours everyday. See one cuckoo chick is usually about the equivalent of feeding

10 of the regular bird's chick. This is an enormous task!! This is so much work for the birds that end up being smaller than their chick that they are unable to produce another nest full of their own chicks! The cuckoo literally takes all and gives back nothing. (And just for your enjoyment here is a video so you can see that this is real life! Sorry its a link but it decided not to embed....)

Once you know and see this, you can see why choosing to compare Goneril to a cuckoo is such a vivid description, and why it should have snapped Lear back to the reality of his relationship right away.

See, Goneril is only using Lear and is unwilling to give back anything in return. Her whole life she has been fed, protected, and cared for by Lear and the wealth that he has to supply. And much like the cuckoo chick, which has no love or concern for its providers, she has no concern for her father. She just demands, takes, demands more and then schemes to take more! She doesn't even truly love him and wants him totally out of her castle! She is treacherous, and I am sure would have taken out her other siblings, like the cuckoo does the other eggs, if a chance had been given to her before!

Like the other birds, I cannot believe Lear has not seen this before. He is so blinded by pride that he doesn't want to see what is really missing from his life and the many flaws that he has. He doesn't want to truly understand that his daughter is manipulative, cunning, smooth tongued and is planning his downfall. He is being worked over by his daughter and yet he keeps allowing it to happen, until he finally comes to see the truth. But even then he is still blinded as he decides to go see his daughter Regan, who is also like the cuckoo but he has yet to believe that. The only child who is true to him is Cordelia, and he pushed her out of his nest by himself.