The Fool's wise words

Even though much of what we hear from the Fool is his signature “Nuncleee!!” (short for “mine uncle”?) cry for Lear, he actually has quite a lot to say and much of what he says is surprisingly insightful (and sometimes a bit mocking if he’s directing it towards a character who doesn’t quite understand what he’s saying but just dismisses it anyway since they see him as just the king’s ”fool”). For example, when he first comes in, in Act I Sc. IV right after Lear has finished giving all his kingdom to his two daughters and banishing his third one, the Fool tells him, “Have more than thou showest, Speak less than thou knowest, Lend less than thou owest, Ride more than thou trowest, Learn more than thou trowest (don’t mistake guesses for facts), Set less than thou throwest (don’t stake all your winnings on the next throw of dice); Leave thy drink and thy whore, And keep in-a-door, And thou shalt have more Than two tens to a score.” (King Lear I.IV.116).  The Fool’s advice to Lear, about what he should have done when he was thinking about how to divide up his kingdom amongst his daughters (and what I puzzled over a little bit in my last, last post about Lear’s  decisions and why he didn’t hold a challenge or secret observation of each daughter’s actions in determining how to bequeath his possessions) shows how the Fool is, in a way, predicting how King Lear’s fate will turn out—that because of his decision to be so openly trusting of his daughters’ words and rashness in not planning at least a back-up plan (ex: withhold some of his land until each daughter proves her worthiness through caring for him and benevolently managing the land he has given them) if his daughters were to completely bail on him (as Reagan & Goneril do), rather than gaining “more Than two tens to a score,” he will have to suffer the consequences of his foolish actions (which we are seeing now in Act III because once his daughters both bail on him, even his own knights start leaving as they see that he’s beginning to fall out of favor, out of power—they no longer see him as the regal king he still thinks he is).  I also liked the Fool’s metaphor comparing Lear’s foolish actions to splitting an egg into two crowns because, unfortunately for Lear, the image of cutting an egg, eating the yolk, and being left with the two white “crowns” seems to aptly portray Lear’s current situation—being cast out /abandoned into the thunderstorm by his “two crowns” or two daughters.  And later on in Act III Sc. III ln. 84, the Fool gives a parody of “Merlin’s Prophecy” when he conveys his “fears” of what will result from the King not being rightly on his throne, rightly in power (aka: seen as Nature out of balance back then? Because the government was always based on the traditions of obeying an absolute (and hopefully but only sometimes just) monarch.  He describes many paradoxical occurrences to show how things will go bad when the rightful monarch is not in power (although I don’t think it would be necessarily bad if the nobles help out there tailors- though I guess back then education was reserved exclusively for the elite).