Lear begins his diatribe with the proclamation, "Ay, every inch a king!"(4.6.107), which means, in every respect he is a king. He then goes on to defend adultery, by stating that other animals in nature commit this act, from the wren to the small golden fly. His point in this is that Gloucester's bastard son, Edmund, was "kinder" to his father than his daughters, of legitimate birth, were to him. Of course, this ironic argument is flawed, since Edmund was definitely not kinder to his father than Lear's daughters were to him, the daughters who were conceived in wedlock, or " 'tween the lawful sheets"(116).
             Next in this tirade he talks of the "simp'ring dame, Whose face between her forks presages snow;"(118-119), meaning that the "face" on her genitals is a warning of frigidity. It, the female genitals, "minces virtue" or puts on the air of virtuousness, while not really being virtuous, and shakes its head, as if to say no way, when it hears of any sexual pleasure. Yet he states, that "the fitchew nor the soiled horse goes to't With a more riotous appetite"(122-123). Lear thinks that women put on this false air of virtuousness, but actually are like animals when it comes to their sexual appetite. He continues this thought with the comparison that women below the waist are like "centaurs" or animals or beasts, yet "women all above"(125). This line of reasoning continues with a rant on how beneath the "fiends'", or women, there is hell, the female genitals, which are in darkness, or are evil. He compares the female genitals to the "sulphurous pit, burning, scalding, Stench, consumption"(128-129), of Hell. According to Lear, women, or more appropriately, his daughters, are like the devil. Of course, Lear is wrong. Cordelia, in no way could be described as a "simp'ring dame". She is t...