To be a Fool

The Ultimate Cosmic Irony!

So what's the catch?  The fool is the only one that has foresight!  He can see things as they really are, he forecasts the storm in Lear's family, tells that Lear is past hope that he is in his last season, and that Kent is fighting for a lost cause.  I also agree that he acts as a teacher in this regard. (See Act 2, scene 2 comments).

The fool clearly tells the character of the kings two daughters: Fathers that wear rags/ Do make their children blind,/ But fathers that bear bags/ Shall see their children kind./ Fortune, that arrant whore,/ Ne'er turns the key to the poor.  His daughters were kind to their father only when he had power to give them things that they wanted.  Now that they have received his riches, they have no need for him.  They consider him poor and a pest, they think he should reap his pestilent reward, 'Tis his own blame, hath put himself from rest, And must needs taste his folly.  

The fool forecasts the storm of Lear's family by stating: That sir which serves and seeks for gain,/ And follows but for form,/ Will pack when it begins to rain,/ and leave thee in the storm./  But i will tarry, the fool will stay,/ And let the wise man fly./ The knave turns fool that runs away,/ The fool no knave, perdy.  The fool tells Kent that the kings daughters were only servants in form, they were only daughters in form.  They stayed as long as they got gain.  Now that a storm has come: they have gained their inheritance and literally a storm has come.  They pack there bags and run!  They have stripped their father of everything and care not for him.  They leave him out in the storm, both literally and figuratively.  Ragan: I'll receive him gladly, But not one follower.  [During the storm with Lear abroad] Shut up your doors...   

The fool telling Kent of Lear's condition and Kent's folly, yet his grace.  We'll set thee to school to an ant, to teach thee there's no laboring i' the winter.  All that follow their noses are led by their eyes but blind men, and there's not a nose among twenty but can smell him that's stinking.  Let go they hold when a great wheel runs down a hill, lest it break thy neck with following it .  The king is in his winter he is past all hope of saving, like food is to be gathered in the summer--the winter is too late.  Kent in trying to save the king that is dead and already stinketh, is attempting to catch a wheel that is running down hill--he wont catch it but will break himself in the attempt.  

Kent fullfills his role of the man chacing the wheel by being, like the fool, one of the only characters that speaks truthfuly.  But Kent unlike the fool just gets punished for his truth where the fool is just laughed at and not taken seriously.  This point is hit home when Kent bluntly fleshes out the servent Oswald, No marvel, you have so bestirred your valor. You cowardly rascal, Nature disclaims in thee.  A tailor made thee.  A stone cutter or painter could not have made him so ill, though he had been but two hours at the trade.  Here basically calls the servant a soulless shell, he is a empty and as worthless as clothing, there is nothing in him.  By trade Kent also is accusing Cornwall, Gloucester, and Ragan with this same treason.  In his passion to correct the demons he employs blunt speech he also atempts blunt speech on the king, each time his reward is punishment.  He is cast out by the king and Fetch forth the stocks! by Cornwall.

Who's the fool? All in all the irony is the one who see's is the fool, the one who attempts to save is branded a traitor and the ones who are trators are given everything.  Why cosmic because this still happens today--it's ubiquitous!