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Cordelia and her rebel forces have defeated the armies of Lear鈥檚 daughters, and captured Fontanelle. After being delivered to the prison, Fontanelle is executed with a shot to the back of the head, and then a prison doctor (identified as Fourth Prisoner in the text) immediately begins a routine autopsy on her corpse in order to complete the prison records. Lear, also imprisoned, looks on as his daughter is sliced open. In this gruesome but strangely poetic scene, Lear wonders where in
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FOURTH PRISONER (efficiently). I鈥檓 the prison medical doctor. We met in less happy times. I said I was in good standing with the government. My papers confirmed that. I鈥檓 just waiting for more papers and then I鈥檒l be given a post of more obvious trust and importance. We鈥檙e ready to begin.
LEAR. What are you doing?
FOURTH PRISONER. A little autopsy. Not a big one. We know what she died of.
[... 鈥
LEAR. She sleeps inside like a lion and a lamb and a child. The things are so beautiful. I am astonished. I have never seen anything so beautiful. If I had known she was so beautiful ... Her body was made by the hand of a child, so sure and nothing unclean ... If I had known this beauty and patience and care, how I would have loved her. Did I make this 鈥� and destroy it?
For full scene, please see: Bond, Edward. Lear. Methuen Drama. 1983.
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