...suggest was written after Shakespeare learned he had contracted syphilis, in which Lear says of women: Down from the waist they are Centaurs, Though women...the girdle do the Gods inherit, Beneath is all the fiend's: there's hell, there's darkness, There is the sulphurous pit — burning, scalding, Stench,...

...however, extends beyond a general misogyny, given its quintessential Shakespearean expression in Lear's "But to the girdle do the gods inherit / Beneath is...hell, there's darkness, there is the sulphurous pit" (4.6.126-28)18 — in which the female body, with its rapacious desires, figures the antithesis of...

...minces virtue, and does shake the head To hear of pleasure's name; 120 The fitchew nor the soiled horse goes to't With a more riotous appetite. Down from...all above: But to the girdle do the Gods inherit, 125 Beneath is all the fiend's: there's hell, there's darkness, There is the sulphurous pit - burning,...

...Lear's denunciation of womanhood takes on a similar virulence in its nauseous imagery (King Lear 4.6): Down from the waist they are centaurs Though women...sulphurous pit — burning, scalding, Stench, consumption, fie, fie, fie! pah, pah! The line "beneath is all the fiends" is associated with the belief that woman's...

...minces virtue, and does shake the head To hear of pleasure's name; The fitchew nor the soiled horse goes to't With a more riotous appetite. Down from...is all the fiends'; There's hell, there's darkness, there's the sulphurous pit, Burning, scalding, stench, consumption [Lear, IV, vi, 1 16-25]. Othello...

...minces virtue, and does shake the head /To hear of pleasure's name; /The fitchew nor the soiled horse goes to't / With a more riotous appetite. / Down from...the girdle do the Gods inherit, / Beneath is all the fiend's: there's hell, there's darkness, /There is the sulphurous pit-burning, scalding, / Stench,...

...not even "the fitchew nor the soiled horse goes to 't / With a more riotous appetite," adding that "Down from the waist they are Centaurs, / Though women...the girdle do the gods inherit, / Beneath is all the fiend's," and then lapsing into an explosion of sexual nausea that borders on incoherence with "There's...

...minces virtue, and does shake the head To hear of pleasure's name; The fitchew nor the soiled horse goes to't With a more riotous appetite. Down from...Centaurs, Though women all above: But to the girdle to the Gods inherit, Beneath is all the fiend's: there's hell, there's darkness, There is the sulphurous...

...clouds and chubby putti. 19. As old Lear puts it, his imagination far gone with the sense of betrayal: Down from the waist they are Centaurs, Though women...sulphurous pit, burning, scalding, Stench, consumption. Fie, fie, fie! pah, pah! (4.6.124-29) This dualism of the body seems to me a kind of aesthetic Manicheanism...

...besteht. So werden die weiblichen Genitalien in King Lear zur Hölle, d Körperhälfte gegenüberstehen: Down from the waist they are Centaurs, Though women...is all the fiends'; There's hell, there's darkness, there's the sulphurqus pit, Burning, scalding, stench, consumption. (IV .vi. ^25-29) e der idealisierten...