In a kingly nutshell.
In King Lear's Wife (see below), Lear is hot for Gormflaith, one of his dying wife's nurses. Not just hot for her, they're having an affair. In one scene, as the Queen lies dying -- and unconscious Lear believes--he sits in the room with the nurse on his knee. There is kissing, cuddling, and at one point Gormflaith takes the queen's crown off the peg and puts it on. Ouch! The Queen sees this has a relapse and soon dies. But not before she has a long conversation with Goneril.
Goneril corners Gormflaith, ushers her out of her mother's room, and whacks her.
With her hunting knife.
Last but not least, we find out Cordelia was not a love child, the Queen only had her to keep Lear from chasing other women. Clearly, it did not stop him.
Plenty of adultery and mental cruelty to go around. All this sets the stage for Shakespeare's Lear - which ( I think Ciardi once called) the story of a man going sane. How perfect is that?
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