" Such good success for a few words soon
uttered was ample instruction to Regan, the second daughter, what
to say. She therefore to the same question replied that "she loved
him more than all the world beside;" and so received an equal
reward with her sister. But Cordelia, the youngest, and hitherto
the best beloved, though having before her eyes the reward of a
little easy soothing, and the loss likely to attend plain-
dealing, yet was not moved from the solid purpose of a sincere and
virtuous answer, and replied: "Father, my love towards you is as
my duty bids. They who pretend beyond this flatter." When the old
man, sorry to hear this, and wishing her to recall these words,
persisted in asking, she still restrained her expressions so as to
say rather less than more than the truth. Then Leir, all in a
passion, burst forth: "Since thou hast not reverenced thy aged
father like thy sisters, think not to have any part in my kingdom
or what else I have;"--and without delay, giving in marriage his
other daughters, Goneril to the Duke of Albany, and Regan to the
Duke of Cornwall, he divides his kingdom between them, and goes to
reside with his eldest daughter, attended only by a hundred
knights. But in a short time his attendants, being complained of
as too numerous and disorderly, are reduced to thirty. Resenting
that affront, the old king betakes him to his second daughter; but
she, instead of soothing his wounded pride, takes part with her
sister, and refuses to admit a retinue of more than five.
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