This famous quote from the play comes in Act I scene 4
just after Lear has been insulted by Goneril, who has asked him to reduce the numbers of
people in his train and to make sure that they are of a similar age to Lear himself. Of
course, let us not forget that Lear has just chosen to divide his kingdom up between
Goneril and Regan, his two daughters, on the condition that they alternately will host
him and his train of followers. Note the full speech that Lear utters as he reflects on
ingratitude and how Goneril has treated him:
Ingratitude, thou marble-hearted
fiend,
Mroe hideous when thou show'st thee in a
child
Than the sea
monster!
Lear, in this
apostrophe, addresses ingratitude, describing it as a "marble-hearted fiend," perhaps
referring to the way that its heart is coated in marble and so no one can penetrate it
so that it has no conscience or feelings of remorse. Of course, seeing ingratitude in
your own child is far more worse than seeing it in a monster that you expect to show
ingratitude. Perhaps Lear is here beginning to understand and reflect on his mistake in
banishing Cordelia so rapidly.
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