King Lear Poem.

DaneScott

When I was much younger, in school, I wrote a poem to help me understand King Lear, but since I've come to like it and the message it rehashes. It borrows on a number of statements from Lear when he's going all loopy.

Is this essentially stealing work, or is it like a lot of other things I see and more drawing inspiration and reitterating a point I agree with?

Reason In Madness

Plate sin with gold, wrap it in silk, furred robes
And the trembling hand of justice shall leave it alone.
Clothe it in rags and a starved broken spirit
And a pygmys straw, with ease, could pierce it.

Official justice is, necessarily, divorced from morality.
No part, or presence, in its operations has equality.
The rich can buy immunity from punishment for their crimes.
While the poor must pay for theirs in full, must serve their time.

So, surely, this means
There is no moral distinction between
The common thief and his abuser from the bench,
the 'justice of the peace'.
Since on payment of a bribe, justice will acquit thief.
Perverting his title to 'injustice of the peace'.

The lustful judge observes the whore for offences,
which, on his day off, he sees as services.
Acts he gladly undertakes in ecstasy.
Then he keeps her from speech by setting her free.

Plate sin with gold, wrap it in silk, furred robes
And the trembling hand of justice shall leave it alone.
Clothe it in rags and a starved broken spirit
And a pygmy's straw, at ease, could pierce it.

pickarooney

It's been ages since I read King Lear and none of that sounds familiar. Then again, apart from "How sharper than a serpent's tooth it is to have a thankless child" and the immortal "Out, vile jelly!" I don't remember a lot.

So, ignoring that I found this excellent. Maybe 60% of it is "borrowed", I don't know, but the bard would be the last one in a position to cry plagiarist.

DaneScott

Ha. Yea quite sometime since i read it too, and i'm not gonna lie i've not read any other shakespeare. I had a skim over it on wikicommons or whatever it is and found a couple similarish statements in act 4. I can definitely see where it came from but not much else. Thanks for the kind words too.