From James Shapiro, Shakespeare Scholar in Residence at The Public Theater.
Many leading Elizabethan dramatists ended up in trouble, and some in prison, for writing something politically provocative. While Shakespeare escaped that fate, he is doing something unusually daring at this moment in King Lear: dramatizing a moment when a ruler acknowledges how lacking in empathy he has been, and how oblivious to the suffering of his poor, hungry, and homeless subjects. We can only wonder what King James thought of this scene when Shakespeare’s company performed the play at court in December 1606. In this scene, King Lear—shelterless on the heath in a storm, and losing his wits—realizes for the first time in his long life that has taken “too little care” of the suffering of the needy. This in turn leads him to recognize the injustice of income inequality. When Lear says “Take physic pomp,” he means that the pompous ought to have a taste of this medicine; if they exposed themselves to the suffering of the poor, the rich would surely “shake the superflux to them,” that is, share their surplus and excessive wealth. It is rightly considered one of the most searing and memorable passages in Shakespeare’s works.