Cordelia (King Lear) is depicted as Queen Cordelia. In Shakespeare's "King Lear", Cordelia is briefly on stage during Act 1, scene 1. Her father Lear exiles her as a response to her honesty when he asks for professions of love from his three daughters to determine how to divide the lands of his kingdom between them. Cordelia's sisters, Goneril and Regan, give deceitfully-lavish speeches professing their love, flattering his vanity. Cordelia, seeing right through her sisters' feigned professions of love, refuses to do the same. Lear deems her answer ("Love, and be silent" 1.1.62) as too simple. Lear asks her, "What can you
The History of King Lear altogether, and played Lear from a shortened and rearranged version of Shakespeare's text, with which he was later to tour New York, and which included the Fool and the tragic ending. The production was successful, and marked the end of Tate's reign in the English theatre, though it was not until 1845 that Samuel Phelps restored the complete, original Shakespearean text. In spite of Macready's visit to New York with his production of a restored Shakespeare version, Tate remained the standard version in the United States until 1875, when Edwin Booth became the first notable American actor to play Lear