Note to King Lear, 1.1.116: "barbarous Scythian"


Return
to
King Lear,
Act 1, Scene 1, line 116
     The savagery of the Scythians was the stuff of legend. There were actual Scythians, but the last Scythian king died about 100 BCE and they never developed a written language, so there is very little factual knowledge about their culture, including whether or not they cannibalized their own children.