Page:Stories from Old English Poetry-1899.djvu/198





LONG time ago, when the island of Great Britain was not so large and prosperous a country as now, but was a wild and thinly settled island, divided into several kingdoms, there reigned over one of these dominions an old monarch called Lear. He was one of the mightiest of the British kings, and though he had a kind and generous heart, he was so passionate that when one of his fits of rage possessed him, his bravest and wisest counselors could not dissuade him from any wild or frantic purpose which seized him.

Lear had three children, all of them daughters, and all very beautiful. The eldest was named Goneril; the second, Regan; and the youngest, Cordelia. Goneril and Regan were proud and haughty beauties. They trod the halls of their fathers palace as if they were already queens. When any story of suffering or complaint of wrong arose from the people, they always took