Silence: When Words match the Deeds in King Lear

          Cordelia’s first line in King Lear reveals her concern about the division between the spoken word and action as it relates to her sisters’ love for their father. Her initial question, “What shall Cordelia do?” appears in Shakespeare’s First Quarto, and it highlights her indecision regarding action: how is she to flatter the king in the same fashion her older sisters do? In the play’s First Folio, however, a small change to the line adds new meaning to Cordelia’s predicament, “What shall Cordelia speak?” (I.i.62). Although the change seems minor, the difference between do and speak—deeds and words—is significant in terms of the characters’ desires to either reveal or conceal the truth throughout the play—a character is truthful when his/her speech correlates with the character’s deeds. The choice of either do or speak in Cordelia’s question depends on whether the editor believes Cordelia is worried about how to act—that is, to perform for her father—or whether she is unsure of how to convey her thoughts into words.

          Editor Stephen Orgel chooses speak for his conflated text, and I would do the same:  In a play where characters like Edmund and Lear’s older daughters use speech to profess insincere flattery and lies, Cordelia instead is determined to correlate her actions with her words. She is not undecided about whether she loves her father or not—Cordelia knows what to do—to love Lear “according to [her] bond, no more, no less.” (I.i.93). However, she does not know how to decorate her speech with flattery as Goneril and Regan do, since saying she loves her father “all” like a husband would contradict her genuine filial love. Speak is the more appropriate word in light of her verbal indecision. When speak is substituted for do, “What shall Cordelia speak? Love, and be silent,” the answer she provides matches the question, since it is speech she chooses to restrain, and not the act of loving her father.

          However, it is interesting to note why do was the original word for her question. One uncommon definition for do is “something done in a set or formal manner; a performance; esp. an entertainment or show” (OED 2nd ed. s.v. “do” 2b). Indeed, a formal performance is exactly what the king is demanding when he asks his daughters how much they love him, but Cordelia refuses to play the part because of her honesty. She lacks the “glib and oily art to speak and purpose not” that her sisters use to declare their overwhelmingly flattering love for Lear (I.i.229-30). If do were included in the place of speak in the question, though, the line would ignore an aspect of Cordelia’s character: that she only speaks what she believes. In a play laden with polar opposites—best/worst, all/nothing, most/least—Cordelia represents one of the few characters who does not wish to divide speech from intention and action. What shall Cordelia speak?—the truth!