Elayna Daniels This cyclical sequence terminates when the two children who Lear and Gloucester believed betrayed them prove themselves loyal to death. At the beginning of the play, Lear was convinced that loyalty was synonymous with the expression of love. Cordelia and Edgar prove instead that actual, unspoken love indicates the greatest loyalty. While Goneril, Regan, and Edgar extol their love and loyalty loudly, it is the understated words of Cordelia and Edgar that endure. Lear chose his daughters’ wealth based on their lavish words of love; a grave mistake, because words, as Shakespeare demonstrates, are superficial. Goneril and Regan’s declarations of love were false and superfluous, tricking Lear into believing their adoration;