In Elizabethan times, the function of a sap, or tribunal fool, was to professionally entertain others, specifically the male monarch. In kernel, saps were hired to do errors. Fools may hold been mentally retarded young persons kept for the tribunal ‘s amusement, or more frequently they were singing, dancing stand up comics. In William Shakespeare ‘s King Lear the sap plays many of import functions. When Cordelia, Lear ‘s lone well-meaning girl, is banished from the land Fool instantly assumes her function as Lear ‘s defender. The sap is the male monarch ‘s advocator, honest and loyal and through his usage of sarcasm irony and temper he is able to indicate out Lear ‘s mistakes. Functioning much as a chorus would in a Grecian calamity, the sap remarks on events in the drama, the male monarch ‘s actions and Acts of the Apostless as Lear ‘s scruples. As he is the lone character who is able to face Lear straight without hazard of penalty, he is able to chair the male monarch ‘s behavior.

King Lear is non the lone one of Shakespeare ‘s dramas to incorporate a amusing whipping boy ; in the Merchant of Venice, Gobbo is used to convey comedy and sarcasm to an otherwise serious drama, although his purportedly amusing development of his male parent ‘s sightlessness in the first act may besides fix us for the subject of inhuman treatment which is apparent in the drama. We may farther propose that the sap ‘s surreal and absurd remarks in King Lear ( “ thy bor’st thine buttocks on thine back o’er the soil ” ) imply the upset within the hierarchy as a whole. However, as Standard in As You Like It is used as a comedic device by Shakespeare, so the sap is sometimes used for amusing consequence, using the Elizabethan/Jacobean inoffensive “ thing ” as a equivalent word for phallus. The sap in King Lear is an illustration of Shakespeare utilizing the sap as a voice to bridge the spread between the audience and the phase. The “ all-licensed sap ” makes many of his epigrams at the disbursal of the male monarch. Due to his function as Lear ‘s diverting buddy, he was able to acquire off with this unlike any other, as is shown in the confrontation between Lear and Kent in act one scene one. Lear is the absolute swayer of the state – what he says is every bit good as God ‘s word – which reflects the Divine Right of Kings, a Medieval philosophy which was still extant in the early 17th century although it was get downing to come under important force per unit area, a procedure which finally culminated in the Civil War of 1642-50. Fool is besides a rational adult male, noticing on Lear and announcing his mistakes, However, characters who in other calamities might incorporate comedic elements – such as the sap in King Lear or the bibulous porter in Macbeth – are finally far removed from comedy as their epigrams serve a serious and frequently black intent. The sap ‘s intent is to do Lear laugh ; yet in world he makes serious comments on the action and points out to Lear what is go oning with his behavior. Fool is paradoxically wise, typical of the Shakespearean ‘fool ‘ .

The Fool frequently sounds barbarous as he criticizes and speaks to Lear with such sarcasm and irony. Oftentimes, it appears that Fool is kicking a adult male when he ‘s down, but as the drama progresses, one senses how much the sap loves his male monarch, and merely how protective he is of his maestro. The Fool makes his first visual aspect in act one scene four where his initial reference to Kent clarifies that he sees Kent to be Lear ‘s ally. Lear, paying Kent says:

Lear: Now my friendly knave I thank thee ; there ‘s earnest of thy service.

Fool: Let me engage him excessively, here ‘s my cockscomb.

In this the sap uses his cockscomb as a metonymic device to exemplify Lear ‘s foolish division of the land and Kent ‘s amentia in his will to follow Lear who is now without a land or place. Fool can sympathize with the trueness felt towards Lear, yet Fool holds one power over Kent – his ability to indicate out the male monarch ‘s mistakes. He serves as an indifferent adviser, supplying Lear with many lessons that a more powerful being would non hold attempted, due to fear of the male monarch ‘s wrath. In scene one, Kent ‘s efforts to keep Lear see him banished ; whereas the sap ‘s more indirect unfavorable judgments avoid penalty. The male monarch may endanger to hold the sap whipped, and although it was non unusual for the male monarch ‘s fool to be beaten in Shakespeare ‘s times, the audience sees such menaces to be empty. Alternatively the sap may truly believe that Kent is being foolish for following Lear and it is surely possible to propose that there is small sympathy between them as Fool ‘s garrulities and asynclitisms contrast markedly with the blunt and direct parlance of Kent, the adult male who will “ eat no fish ” .

Throughout the drama, adult male the sap is paralleled several times with Cordelia. Both assume the function of Lear ‘s defender, and when one is present, the other need non be. As the two characters ne’er appear onstage at the same clip, it is possible that the same male child histrion took on both functions in an early-seventeenth-century public presentation, and therefore the theatrical context had the possible to reenforce and underscore the connexions between the two characters. Fool uses assorted elusive fast ones in order to maintain Cordelia fresh in Lear ‘s and the audience ‘s heads. In the drama ‘s opening scene, “ Lear is irked when Cordelia states merely that she loves ‘your stateliness harmonizing to my bond, no more nor less ‘ as a girl ‘s love for her male parent should be. Angry and humiliated at her supposed deficiency of honor, Lear exiles her from the state. Through ostracism, Lear intends to cut down her to “ nil ” , this being the recompense that she had earned by replying “ Nothing ” to his demand that she show her love for him. ” ( Willeford 210 ) When talking with the sap, Lear is cornered into repeating Cordelia ‘s “ Nothing, my Godhead ” from scene one with his ain “ nil can be made of nil ” . At the stopping point of the scene, the male monarch has realized, through Fool, how ill he has treated his lone deserving girl and admits his error for the first clip, although this manifests itself as autonomous force as he “ round ( s ) at this gate that let thy folly in. ” Subsequently, in Acts of the Apostless four and five, his insight takes less destructive signifiers.

Ironically, the sap and the male monarch Begin to trade topographic points. Fool has ever been speedy to allow Lear helpful apprehension of his determinations ; this establishes the inquiry of which of the two is now the existent sap. Lear asks, “ Dost 1000 call me a sap, male child? ” to which Fool answers, “ All thy other rubrics thou hast given off ; that 1000 wast born with ” . The “ male monarch has been openly debased to the degree of the sap ” ( Willeford 218 )

In the brief scene five, the sap efforts to deflect Lear with cockamamie comments, but as per usual, their content ironically mirrors Lear ‘s actions. He continues to remind the male monarch of the errors he has made and of the unstable place in which he now finds himself. Lear feels great compunction for his intervention of Cordelia and for the first clip – a foreboding – a concern for his saneness:

Lear: O allow me non be huffy, non huffy sweet Eden:

Keep me in pique, I would non be huffy.

The sap ‘s parting remark shows one time once more his trueness, every bit good as offering a lighter terminal to an otherwise heavy scene. He warns those virgins in the audience who found the state of affairs diverting that they are idiots and – doing the audience laugh – wo n’t stay virgins unless phalluss are cut shorter:

Fool: She that ‘s a amah now, and laughs at my going,

Shall non be a amah long, unless things be cut shorter.

In act three scene one, Kent learns that Lear and his Fool are out in the storm. The audience besides learns that the sap is to portion his maestro ‘s destiny – whatever that may be. In the sap ‘s old visual aspects, his primary map was to inform. He pointed out Lear ‘s errors and commented on the action and events of the drama to the audience. Fool ‘s new occupation becomes apparent in this act, his intent is to protect Lear from the elements, enemies, and possibly most significantly, himself. Scene two is when Lear Begins to recognize his saneness is stealing, but for the first clip excessively, he shows unselfish concern:

Lear: My marbless begin to turn.

Come on my male child. How dost my male child? Art cold?

This is a cardinal minute in the development of Lear ‘s character and it is important that the sap is the receiver of his new found generousness of spirit ; it introduces a new function for the sap, that of a facilitator in Lear ‘s ocean trip of self-discovery. The sap tries to do visible radiation of the state of affairs, for Lear ‘s interest, singing that one should be satisfied with what one has:

Fool: He that has and a small, bantam humor,

With heigh-ho, the air current and the rain,

Must do content with his lucks tantrum,

Though the rain it raineth every twenty-four hours.

The sap finishes his vocal and as Lear exists the phase, he turns to the audience to proclaim his prognostication:

Fool: … When priests are more in word, than affair ;

When beer makers mar their malt with H2O ;

When Lords are their seamsters ‘ coachs,

No misbelievers burn ‘d, but dames ‘ suers ;

When in every instance in Law, is right…

His address contrasts the world of the universe which Lear and himself are sing – where faith is hypocrisy, concern is crooked, blue bloods are conceited, genital disease is prevailing and the judicial system is corrupt – to an ideal universe where good conquers evil. The challenge for Lear is to acknowledge that the highest wisdom frequently comes in the humblest of signifiers. The sap represents this low signifier of wisdom precisely.

With the reaching of Edgar disguised as Poor Tom – who may be read as a three dimensional representation of the male monarch ‘s ruin ( Lear repeatedly articulates Poor Tom ‘s predicament in footings of his ain ) – the sap becomes fearful and exclaims:

Fool: Come non in here, nuncle, here ‘s a spirit, assist me, assist me.

A spirit, a spirit, he says his name ‘s Poor Tom

The male monarch is joined in his existent lunacy by Edgar ‘s feigned insanity and mirrored with Poor Tom ‘s poorness as he is now stripped of all royal pretenses ; he unwittingly additions wisdom by being reduced to his bare humanity.

Indeed, Lear reaches the extremum of his insanity in this act, and carries forth a mock test of Regan and Goneril in act three scene six. This is perchance the most helter-skelter of all Shakespeare ‘s scenes – onstage we physically see Lear, who is now utterly mad, Edgar who is disguised and likely to be huffy, Kent in camouflage and Fool who speaks as a lunatic – Regan and Goneril are arraigned but so, within Lear ‘s morbid imaginativeness, they escape, showing that world punctures even this, the most phantasmagoric of Lear ‘s phantasies to day of the month. The sap ‘s going from the drama at the crest of Lear ‘s lunacy may propose that he is now otiose in the context of a land in which the male monarch is a crazed madman. Lear has so many unreciprocated inquiries in this scene, he has n’t to the full understood why all this has happened to him. If he can happen the truth as to why his girls treated him so cruelly, possibly he will be able to recover saneness. The male monarch appoints his sap as one of the Judgess of the test, where he implores the Judgess to “ anatomise Regan: see what breeds about her bosom. ” Lear ‘s words are so cold and angry that even Fool is unable to do any remark.

The Fool ne’er reappears after this scene. The universe has been turned inverted, his maestro has now slipped into absolute lunacy and is beyond the sap ‘s aid. He no longer serves a intent to the male monarch, and predicts both his, and – as he has shared his destiny to this point – Lear ‘s decease with his concluding line in the drama:

Fool: And I ‘ll travel to bed at midday.

It is ne’er clear whether the sap really dies, but the lines spoken of Cordelia ‘s decease:

Lear: And my hapless sap is hang ‘d: no, no, no life?

Once once more parallel Cordelia with the sap.

It would be impossible to label all the functions that Fool plays to his male monarch. His lone assigned brief – an entertainer of the tribunal – is most likely the sap ‘s least of import. Fool acted far more significantly than a mere beginning of amusement, being Lear ‘s enlightening defender and friend. By far his most important function was that of a moral teacher to his male monarch. Fool Teachs Lear that worlds are unable to cognize themselves wholly.