My oath, and my profession; I protest, A most toad-spotted traitor. Say thou, "No," Edm. In wisdom I should ask thy name: But since thy outside looks so fair and warlike, And that thy tongue some 'say of breeding breathes, What safe and nicely I might well delay Alb. Methought thy very gait did prophecy Edg. Worthy prince, I know it. Where have you hid yourself? How have you known the miseries of your father? Edg. By nursing them, my lord. List a brief tale: And when 't is told, O that my heart would burst!The bloody proclamation t' escape That followed me so near, (O our lives' sweetness! That with the pain of death we'd hourly die, Edm. This speech of yours hath moved me, And shall, perchance, do good. But speak you on: You look as you had something more to say. Alb. If there be more, more woful, hold it in; For I am almost ready to dissolve, Hearing of this. Edg. This would have seemed a period Whilst I was big in clamour, came there a man Edg. What means that bloody knife? 'Tis hot, it smokes : It came even from the heart of— Alb. Who, man? speak. Gent. Your lady, sir, your lady:—and her sister By her is poisoned; she confesses it. Edm. I was contracted to them both: all three Now marry in an instant. Alb. Produce their bodies, be they alive or dead! This judgment of the heavens, that makes us tremble, Touches us not with pity. [Exit Gentleman. Give it the captain. Alb. Haste thee, for thy life. [Exit EDGAR. To hang Cordelia in the prison, and Alb. The gods defend her! Bear him hence awhile. [EDMUND is borne off. Enter LEAR, with CORDELIA dead in his arms : EDGAR, Officers, and others. Lear. Howl, howl, howl, howl!—O, you are men of stone! Had I your tongues and eyes, I'd use them so 'Tis noble Kent, your friend. Lear. A plague upon you, murderous traitors all! I might have saved her: now she's gone for ever! Cordelia, Cordelia, stay a little. Ha! Lear. I have seen the day, with my good biting faulchion I would have made them skip: I am old now, And these same crosses spoil me.--Who are you? Mine eyes are none o' the best:-I'll tell you straight. Kent. If fortune brag of two she loved and hated, One of them we behold. Lear. This is a dull sight: are you not Kent? Your servant Kent. Where is your servant Caius? Kent. That, from your first of difference and decay, Have followed your sad steps. Lear Your are welcome hither. Kent. Nor no man else: all's cheerless, dark, What comfort to this great decay may come, To him our absolute power:-You, to your rights; Lear. And my poor fool is hanged! No, no, no life: Why should a dog, a horse, a rat, have life, Kent. The wonder is he hath endured so long: He but usurped his life.! Alb. Bear them from hence.-Our present business Is general woe.-Friends of my soul, you twain [TO KENT and EDGAR. Rule in this realm, and the gored state sustain. Kent. I have a journey, sir, shortly to go: My master calls, and I must not say, no. Alb. The weight of this sad time we must obey; Speak what we feel, not what we ought to say. The oldest hath borne most: we that are young Shall never see so much, nor live so long. [Exeunt, with a dead march. NOTES. "Meantime we shall express our darker purpose." Act I., Scene 1. That is, "We have already made known our desire of parting the kingdom: we will now discover, what has not been told before, the reasons by which we shall regulate the partition." "Which of you shall we say doth love us most? That we our largest bounty may extend Where merit doth most challenge it."-Act I., Scene 1. In Holinshed this incident is thus related:-" He first asked Gonorilla, the eldest, how well she loved him; who, calling her gods to record, protested that she loved him more than her own life, which by right and reason should be most dear unto her. With which answer the father being well pleased, turned to the second, and demanded of her how well she loved him; who answered (confirming her saying with great oaths) that she loved him more than tongue could express, and far above all other creatures of the world. "Then called he his youngest daughter Cordeilla before him, and asked her what account she made of him: unto whom she made this answer as followeth :-Knowing the great love and fatherly zeal that you have always borne towards me (for the which I may not answer you otherwise than I think and as my conscience leadeth me), I protest unto you that I have loved you ever, and will continually, while I live, love you as my natural father. And if you would more understand of the love I bear you, ascertain yourself that so much as you have so much you are worth; and so much I love you, and no more." "I am made of that self metal as my sister, And prize me at her worth."-Act I., Scene 1. That is, "Estimate me at her value; my love has at least equal claim to your favour: only she comes short of me in this, that I profess myself an enemy to all other joys which the most precious aggregation of sense can bestow."The word "square" is here used for the whole complement, as "circle" is now sometimes used. "O, these eclipses do portend these divisions! fa, sol, la, mi." Act I., Scene 2. Shakspere shews by the context that he was well acquainted with the property of these syllables (fa, sol, la, mi), in solmisation; which imply a series of sounds so unnatural that ancient musicians prohibited their use. The monkish writers on music say, mi contra fa, est diabolus: the interval fa mi, including a tritonus or sharp fourth, consisting of three tones without the intervention of a semi-tone, expressed in the modern scale by the letters F, G, A, B, would form a musical phrase extremely disagreeable to the ear.—Edmund, speaking of eclipses as portents and prodigies, compares the dislocation of events, the times being out of joint, to the unnatural and offensive sounds, fa, sol, la, mi.-DR. BURNEY. "There, take my coxcomb."-Act I, Scene 4. By "coxcomb" the fool means his cap; called so, because on the top of it was sewed a piece of red cloth, resembling the comb of a cock. The word has been since used to denote a vain, conceited, meddling fellow. "That's a shealed peascod."-Act I., Scene 4. These words, addressed to Lear, signify that he is now a mere husk that contains nothing. The robing of the effigy of Richard II., in Westminster Abbey, is wrought with peascods open and the peas out: perhaps in allusion to his being once in full possession of sovereignty, but reduced to an empty title. "So out went the candle, and we were left darkling." Act I., Scene 4. Shakspere's fools are certainly copied from the life. The originals whom he copied were, no doubt, men of quick parts, lively and sarcastic. Though they were licensed to say anything, it was still necessary, to prevent giving offence, that everything they said should have a playful air. We may suppose, therefore, that they had a custom of taking off the edge of too sharp a speech, by covering it hastily with the end of an old song, or any glib nonsense that came into their mind.-SIR JOSHUA REYNOLDS. In a very old dramatic piece, called "THE LONGER THOU LIVEST THE MORE FOOL THOU ART," there is this stage direction:" Entereth Moros, counterfeiting a vain gesture and a foolish countenance, singing the foot of many songs, as fools were wont." It is but justice to the poet to state that the most offensive passages delivered by the fool in this play occur in the form of tags (as they are technically called); that is, phrases or lines spoken in conclusion or on making an exit. Those alluded to were probably interpolations in the first instance and gradually became incorporated with the text of the prompter's book. "Some blood drawn on me would beget opinion Of my more fierce endeavour: I have seen drunkards Do more than this in sport."-Act II., Scene 1. These drunken feats are mentioned in Marston's "DUTCH COURTEZAN:"-"Have I not been drunk for your health; eat glasses, drunk wine, stabbed arms, and done all offices of protested gallantry for your sake?" "If I had thee in Lipsbury pinfold, I would make thee care for me."-Act II., Scene 2. "Lipsbury pinfold" may, perhaps, like "Lob's pond," be a coined name, but with what allusion does not appear. "Goose, if I had you upon Sarum plain, I'd drive ye cackling home to Camelot."-Act II., Scene 2. In Somersetshire, near Camelot, are many large moors, where are bred great quantities of geese. It was the place where, according to the romances, King Arthur kept his court in the west. "Good king, that must approve the common saw; To the warm sun."-Act II., Scene 2. That is, from good to worse. Kent is thinking of the King being likely to receive a worse reception from Regan than that which he had already experienced from Goneril. The "common saw" is found in Heywood's "DIALOGUES ON PROVERBS:" "In your running from him to me, ye run "The country gives me proof and precedent Of Bedlam beggars, who, with roaring voices, Strike in their numbed and mortified bare arms, Pins, wooden pricks, nails, sprigs of rosemary." Act II., Scene 3. In Decker's "BELL-MAN OF LONDON" (1640), there is an account of a character of this description, under the title of" Abraham Man:" "He swears he hath been in Bedlam, and will talk franticly of purpose. You see pins stuck in sundry places of his naked flesh, especially in his arms: which pain he gladly puts him to, only to make you believe he is out of his wits. He calls himself by the name of 'Poor Tom;' and, coming near anybody, cries out 'Poor Tom is a-cold.' Of these Abraham-men some be exceeding merry, and do nothing but sing songs fashioned out of their own brains. Some will dance, others will do nothing but either laugh or weep: others are dogged, and so sullen both in look and speech, that, spying but a small company in a house, they boldly and bluntly enter, compelling the servants through fear to give them what they demand." The cant term, to "sham Abraham," is probably derived from this source. "Poor Turlygood! poor Tom."-Act II., Scene 3. "Turlygood" is supposed to be a corruption of "Turlupin." The Turlupins were a fantastical sect, who appeared on the continent in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, calling themselves Beghards or Beghins. Their menaces and appearance exhibited the strongest indications of lunacy and distraction; and their popular name, Turlupins, was probably derived from the wolfish howlings they made in their fits of religious raving. "Let go thy hold when a great wheel runs down a hill," &c. Act II., Scene 4. One cannot too much commend the caution which our moral poet uses on all occasions to prevent his sentiment from being perversely taken. So here, having given an ironical commendation of perfidy and base desertion of the unfortunate, for fear it should be understood seriously, though delivered by his buffoon or jester, he has the precaution to add this beautiful corrective, full of fine sense :-" I would have none but knaves follow it, since a fool gives it." -WARBURTON. "Who gives anything to poor Tom? 'whom the foul fiend hath led through fire and through flame, through ford and whirlpool, over bog and quagmire: that hath laid knives under his pillow, and hallers in his pew."-Act III., Scene 4. It is a frequent charge against the fiend that he tempts to self-destruction. In "DR. FAUSTUS" (1604), we find :"Swords, poisons, halters, and envenomed steel, Are laid before me, to despatch myself." In Harsenet's "DECLARATION" (a curious work which is more particularly mentioned in a note on act iv., scene 1), there is a passage which it is probable the poet had especially in view when writing the quoted passage:-"This examinant further saith, that one Alexander, an apothecary, having brought with him from London to Denham, on a time, a new halter and two blades of knives, did leave the same upon the gallery floor, in her master's house. A great search was made in the house to know how the said halter and knife-blades came thither, till Ma. Mainy, in his next fit, said, it was reported that the devil laid them in the gallery, that some of those that were possessed might either hang themselves with the halter, or kill themselves with the blades." "The foul fiend bites my back."-Act III, Scene 6. All the fine matter commencing with this line, and ending "False justicer, why hast thou let her 'scape?" appears in the quartos, but is wanting in the folio editions. This is the case, also, with the whole of scene 3, act iv. (in which Cordelia's demeanour, on hearing of Lear's sufferings, is so beautifully painted); it is found only in the quartos. Many other interesting passages have been restored by the commentators from these editions. In the first folio (which was published by the players), the tragedy was probably abridged to some extent, in order to make it more available for stage purposes; but by whom it is now impossible to ascertain. The additional matter in this copy is of very small amount. "Poor Tom, thy horn is dry."-Act III., Scene 6. The allusion here is to the horn which a "Tom of Bedlam" was in the habit of carrying, to contain such drink as was given him in charity. See "A PLEASANT DISPUTE BETWEEN A COACH AND A SEDAN" (1636):—“I have observed when a coach is appendant to but two or three hundred pounds a year, mark it, the dogs are as lean as rakes; you may tell all their ribs lying by the fire; and Tom of Bedlam may sooner eat his horn than get it filled with small drink." "See it shalt thou never.-Fellows, hold the chair.— Upon these eyes of thine I'll set my foot." Act III., Scene 7. In the original copies of "LEAR," there are no indications as to the manner in which Gloster's eyes are supposed to be extruded; and those stage directions which have been affixed by the commentators give an air of shocking reality to the deed which was probably avoided in representation: we have therefore simply adhered to the text, and left the mode of operation in that obscurity which best befits the appalling incident.-Tieck, an eminent German critic, thus comments on the subject, in reference to the construction of the old theatres: "The chair (or seat) in which Gloster is bound is the same which stood somewhere elevated in the middle of the scene, and from which Lear delivered his first speech. This little theatre, in the midst, was, when not in use, concealed by a curtain, which was again withdrawn when necessary. Shakspere has, therefore, like all the dramatists of his age, frequently two scenes at one and the same time. In "HENRY VIII.," the nobles stand in the ante-chamber; the curtain is withdrawn, and we are in the chamber of the King. Thus, also, when Cranmer waits in the ante-chamber, the curtain then opens to the council-chamber. We have here this advantage, that, by the pillars which divided this little central theatre from the proscenium or proper stage, not only could a double group be presented, but it could be partially concealed; and thus two scenes might be played, which would be wholly comprehended, although not everything in the smaller frame was expressly and evidently seen. Thus Gloster sat 'probably concealed, and Cornwall, near him, is visible. Regan stands below, on the fore-stage, but close to Cornwall: and on this fore-stage also stand the servants. Cornwall, horribly enough, tears Gloster's eye out with his hand; but we do not directly see it, for some of the servants who hold the chair stand around, and the curtain is only half-withdrawn (for it divided on each side). The expression which Cornwall uses is only figurative, and it is certainly not meant that the act of treading on the eye is actually done. "During the scornful speeches of Cornwall and Regan, one of the servants runs up to the upper stage, and wounds Cornwall. Regan, who is below, seizes a sword from another of the vassals, and stabs him from behind while he is yet fighting. The groups are all in motion, and become more concealed; and while the attention is strongly attracted to the bloody scene, Gloster loses his second eye. We hear Gloster's complainings, but we see him no more. Thus he goes off; for this minor stage had also its place of exit. Cornwall and Regan come again upon the proscenium, and go off on the side. The servants conclude the scene with some reflections. |