Wisdom and goodness to the vile seem vile: Filths savour but themselves. What have you done? Tigers, not daughters, what have you perform’d? A father, and a gracious aged man, Whose reverence even the head-lugg’d bear would lick, Most barbarous, most degenerate! have you madded. Could my good brother suffer you to do it? A man, a prince, by him so benefited! If that the heavens do not their visible spirits Send quickly down to tame these vile offences, It will come, Humanity must perforce prey on itself, Like monsters of the deep.
Wisdom and goodness seem vile to the vile: The filthy can only appreciate filth. What have you done? You act like tigers, not daughters. What have you done? A father, a kind old man, So respected that even a brutal bear would show him mercy, You’ve driven him mad, you barbaric, ungrateful creatures! Could my noble brother allow this? A man, a prince, who treated him so well! If the heavens don’t send their angels Soon to curb these horrible acts, It will happen That humans will destroy each other, Like monsters of the sea.
Duke of Albany · Act 4, Scene 2
Albany has just learned that Goneril and Regan have brutally abused their father, and he turns on them with fury and moral clarity. The line matters because it names the play's central paradox: the wicked cannot recognize goodness, and evil consumes itself like beasts. It shows us that Albany understands what Lear has only begun to learn—that human cruelty is a kind of madness that demands divine punishment.
