The tradition of court jesters is universal and it is not limited only to the Western

world as the human mind everywhere in the world thinks and works in a very similar
manner and India also had a very rich historical tradition of the court jesters who
were very witty, clever and intelligent. There are several examples of court jesters
throughout the history of India starting from Vidur in Maharshi Vedvyas'
Mahabharata to Vanechar of ancient Indian Sanskrit playwright Bhasya to Birbal in
the court of great Mughal emperor Akbar to Tenali Rama in the court of great Indian
king Krishnadeo Ray of Vijayanagar empire, to Gonu Jha of the princely state of
Darbhanga.The aim of the present paper is to compare the role of Fool in
Shakespeare's King Lear with the character of Vidur in Mahabharata.

The fool of King Lear is the perfect cocktail of wit and wisdom and it is he from
whose mouth comes the real pearls of wisdom. The fool had been loyal, and honest
to King Lear as it is he who acts as the protector and well-wisher of King Lear. So is
the case of Vidur who happens to be half brother and the prime minister of
Dhritrashtra the King of Hastinapur. The fool's criticism of the decision of King Lear
for dividing his kingdom is such an example in which the fool questions king Lear to
make him understand that he has committed a mistake by dividing his kingdom
among his incompetent
" ......... daughters
I have cut Goneril
the eggand
i' th'Regan.
middle and eat up

the meat—the two crowns of the egg. When thou

clovest thy crown i' th' middle, and gavest away

both

parts ....... "

Fool : That lord that counseled thee

To give away thy land,

Come place him here by me.

- King Lear (Act I, Scene IV, Lines 125-127)

Similarly Vidur also questions the actions of King Dhritrashtra for giving his kingdom
to incompetent people like Duryodhan, Dussasan, Shakuni and Karna who is indeed
a competent person but can't act properly because of his favour to Duryodhan in all
his deeds and that is why Vidur says

The actions of the fool resembles with the chorus of Greek plays in which the chorus
used to question and criticise the actions of the king and also used to act as the
foretellers and made predictions about what is going to happen next or what we're
going to see in the drama which is being enacted on the stage. So is the case with
Vidur as he also acts as the guide and philosopher of King Dhritrashtra.

The fool had been loyal, and honest to the king and he acts as the protector and
well-wisher of King Lear when he finds Cordelia being banished and disowned by
King Lear when she is unable to make her father happy by doing flattery like her
elder sisters Goneril and Regan.

The fool is licensed to say anything as he is a fool, so he utilise this liberty to show
the mirror of truth to king Lear and criticizes him whenever he finds that he has
committed something wrong. The fool acts as the moral and spiritual alter ego of
the King Lear and it is the fool who always questions his actions and anyone who
questions or criticises the actions of King Lear in the play is banished from the
kingdom whether she is Cordelia or Kent but it is the fool who is never questioned
whatever he says and at the end it is he who remains with the king till the end after
King Lear is betrayed and banished from his own kingdom by his own daughters
Goneril and Reagan. The fool who himself appears to be insane is guiding King Lear
in the play from his insanity towards sanity.

Throughout the play the fool appears in some six scenes. When the fool appears for
the first time in the IV th scene of the Ist act in the play King Lear then we see that
King Lear has already awarded Goneril and Regan with his kingdom for their flatter
and has banished and disowned Cordelia for her virtuous and outspoken attitude.
Due to this the fool harshly criticises King Lear for disowning and banishing Cordelia
and the dividing his kingdom among the two flattering daughters when he had
gained enough experience from life and would have ruled the kingdom in a way
better manner than his daughters are going to rule and the anger of the fool can be
easily noticed from his following utterance :

"....... I have cut the egg i' th' middle and eat up the
meat, the two crowns of the egg. When thou clovest thy crown i'......"

But at same time the fool is also predicting the future of King Lear like a foreteller
when he says to Kent :

" Prithee, tell him so much the rent of his land comes to...."
From the above utterance made by the fool we can see that the fool is trying to say
that now King Lear is no more the same old powerful king as he himself has
curtailed his powers by dividing his kingdom among his daughters and now he is no
more the most powerful person of the state. The fool further adds that King Lear is
not going to believe my words as I am his fool so Kent you tell him that now he
owns nothing and because he owns nothing no revenue is generated from that
nothing. As the play proceeds further in the same scene the fool utters the following
lines :

"............. Nuncle, ever since thou mad'st thy daughters

thy mother; for when thou gav'st them the rod, and put'st down....."

These lines present before us the far fetched vision of the fool who is able to see
what is going to happen with King Lear after his division of power among the two
daughters and that's why he says that My Lord now you've made yourself a child
and your daughters your mother and they're going to control you and this prediction
of the fool becomes correct when the Goneril curtails the power of her own father
by decreasing the train of hundred knights of King Lear to only fifty which Regan
decreases upto twenty five and ultimately leading to none as at last only 2 people
remain with the king and they are the fool and Caius the Earl of Kent in disguise who
have always remained loyal to King Lear.

For the second time the fool appears in the V th Scene of the Ist act in the play King
Lear then the fool laughs at the decision of King Lear to visit Regan after his
disrespect from the Duke of Cornwall and Goneril as both Regan and Goneril are not
different from one another they are just the two faces of the same coin and that's
why the fool says to King Lear that if you're my fool then I would have beaten you
for getting old before time to which King Lear asks why then the fool replies :

" Thou shouldst not have been old till thou hadst been wise."

In this appearance of the fool we see that the fool is again acting like a person who
knows everything and is trying to guide King Lear in the correct direction like a true
guide, philosopher and well wisher.

In the third appearance of the fool in the IV th scene of the IInd act there is no long
conversation between King Lear and the fool instead this time the fool tasks with
Kent and gives him indirectly an advice through his song to leave King Lear by
giving an example of those people who take the help of a wheel which is heading
towards the mountain to reach the top and leave that wheel which is coming down
the hill otherwise they suffer as you do currently in the stocks.

In the IInd act of the IIIrd scene the fool appears for the fourth time in the play and we
see that the fool is with King Lear on his horse where both King Lear and the fool are
suffering the wrath of nature in the form of storm and at the same time King Lear is
angry with his daughters Regan and Goneril as both of the daughters have betrayed
King Lear and none of them are ready to give him shelter even in this stormy night
until or unless he dismisses all his knights who had always served throughout their
life. King Lear has become mad and he is shouting against the house for making his
daughter against him. King Lear denies to the suggestion of the fool to take shelter
from Regan and Goneril when he says that the wrath of nature is same for the King
and the fool as everyone suffer :

" ....... Good nuncle, in, and ask thy daughters blessing. Here’s a night pities
neither wise man nor fool."

In the IVth scene of the play the fool appears for the fifth time in the play but this
time the role of the foolish very limited. At this particular juncture time Kent has
found a hut nearby and all three including King Lear, the fool and Kent himself have
reached outside the hut and Kent requests the King to take shelter in the gut to
which king replies I'll enter the hut after my prayer but you both enter the hut
especially the fool first. When the fool enters inside the hut then he discovers that
there is someone inside the hut who calls himself poor Tom and that someone is
Edgar in the disguise of a begger.

For the last time in the play the fool appears in the VI th scene of the IIIrd act. In that
scene we see that king Lear is heading towards becoming a complete mad man
because he was unable to tackle the sorrow and stress caused by the treachery of
his two daughters Regan and Goneril whom he gave his entire kingdom. In this
scene King Lear helds a fake trail of Regan and Goneril in which he makes Edmund,
Fool and Kent the jury members. In this scene we see that the fool makes a very
noteworthy comment when he says :

' He's mad that trusts in the tamness of a wolf, a horse's health, a boy's
love, or a whore's oath. '

From these lines we can see that the fool is trying to make King Lear understand
what mistake he has committed by trusting his two treacherous daughters Goneril
and Regan by calling those people mad who trust a wolf, or the health of a horse or
a boy's love or a whore's oath. In these lines the fool has compared King Lear with a
mad man who trusts Goneril and Regan two woolves in the face of his daughters.

After the last appearance of the Fool in VI th scene of the IIIrd act the fool mysteriously
disappears from the play and no one knows anything about him i.e. what has
happened to him? The only possible reference to the Fool in the play after that
sudden mysterious disappearance is in the IIIrd scene of the Vth act, when King Lear
says :

"And my poor fool is hanged"

The above quoted lines uttered by King Lear in the last scene of the V th act indicates
to us that perhaps the first knight of Edgar may have hanged both the fool and
Cordelia together. Some critics are also of the opinion that the same actor played
the roles of the fool and Cordelia in the play and that may be the reason of the
sudden mysterious disappearance of the fool. There is one more possibility that
when the fool was acknowledged about that the execution of Cordelia whom he had
loved like his own daughter by the first knight following the orders of his
commander Edmund then the fool may have hanged himself out of despair.

As in many of Shakespeare's plays, the Fool is actually really smart—and the only
person who tells it like it is. Compare Lear's Fool, for example, to Feste in Twelfth
Night – neither one of them are afraid to call their misguided masters "foolish" and
they both function as characters that provide a lot of social commentary.

 Fool's use of irony, sarcasm, and humor help to ease the truth, and allows
him to moderate Lear's behavior. The Fool shares his master's fate, and this
reinforces the impression that the Fool's purpose is to protect Lear until
Cordelia can arrive to help her father. Both Cordelia and the Fool are
caretakers for Lear, and when one is present, the other need not be.