...answered Regan's question: "What need one?" by insisting on the precedence of culture over nature: O, reason not the need! Our basest beggars Are in...than nature needs, Man's life is cheap as beast's. (2.2.453-56) But now, in act 3, contenancing the naked beggar Tom, the hierarchy is reversed. Culture,...

...five, To follow in a house, where twice so many Have a command to tend you? Reg. What need one'Lear. O! reason not the need; our basest beggars Are in...than nature needs, Man's life is cheap as beast's. Act ii Sc iv 132 Lear defies the storm Blow, winds, and crack your cheeks! rage! blow! You cataracts...

...he has for twenty-five, ten, five, or even one man to assist in his retinue, to which Lear replies, O reason not the need! Our basest beggars Are in the...than nature needs, Man's life is cheap as beast's. (2.4) Lear's great problem, of course, is that for him, love is quantifiable; and its quantity can...

...his courtiers were functionally unnecessary, a luxury, Lear rightly, though in vain, entreated: Oh, reason not the need. Our basest beggars Are in the...superfluous. Allow not nature more than nature needs, Man's life's as cheap as beast's. Turning directly to Regan, Lear averred: Thou art a lady. If only to go...

...play. Lear looks with sympathy at the concept of human need, and shows some insight and growth. Lear Oh reason not the need.' Our basest beggars Are in the...nature more than nature needs Man's life is cheap as beast's.2 Thou art a lady; 265 If only to go warm were gorgeous, Why, nature needs not what thou gorgeous...

...Lear's need for even a single knight, he cries out in one of the most oftquoted speeches of the play, O reason not the need! Our basest beggars Are in the...than nature needs, Man's life is cheap as beast's. (2.4.263-66) Human nature, stripped of all but the barest necessities, is reduced to the bestial. Man...