INTRODUCTION

TO

KING LEAR.

1.

The play of King Lear was written by Shakespeare between the end of the year 1605 and Christmas, 1606. It was first acted, before James the First, on the 26th of December, 1606, at Whitehall. It was entered at Stationers' Hall on the 26th of November, 1607; and it was so popular that it ran through three editions in one year. It belongs to the group of plays known as Shakespeare's Later Tragedy. This group lies between the years 1604 and 1608. Othello was written in 1604; Lear in 1605-6; Macbeth in 1606; Antony and Cleopatra in 1607; Coriolanus in 1608; and Timon 0f Athens in 1607-8. Hamlet had appeared in 1602. Shakespeare was forty-one years of age when he wrote Lear.

2. The story of King Lear and His Three Daughters is one of the oldest stories in literature, and is found in many countries. But it probably came into England from a Welsh source. It is told by Geoffrey of Monmouth in his Historia Britonum (2d book, 11-15 cap.); by Layamon in his Brut (i. 123-158); by Holinshed in

his Chronicle (i. 19, 20); by Higgins in The Mirror for Magistrates; by Spenser in his Faerie Queene (ii. 10); by Warner in his Albion's England (iii. 15); and by a ballad-writer, whose poem appears in Percy's Reliques, But it is to Holinshed that Shakespeare is indebted. Holinshed begins his story thus :—

'Leir, the son of Bladud, was admitted Ruler ouer the Britaynes, in the yeere of the world 3105, at what time Joas raigned yet in Juda. 'This Leir was a prince of righte noble demeanor, gouerning his land and subjects in great wealth.*

'Hee made the towne of Caerleir, nowe called Leicester, which standeth upon ye Riuer of Sore.

'When this Leir was come to great yeeres, and beganne to waxe vnweldy through age, he thought to understand the affections of his daughters towards him, and preferre hir whome hee best loued to the succession ouer the kingdome: Therefore he first asked Gonorilla the eldest.' And so on.

The short version of the story given by Spenser was written sixteen years before Shakespeare's play. The poetical merit of Spenser's story is not very high; and the following verse is a fair specimen :—

The wretched man gan then avise too late.
That love is not where most it is profest;
Too truly tried in his extremest state!
At last, resolv'd likewise to prove the rest,
He to Cordelia himself addrest,

Who with entire affection him received,

As for her sire and king her ✝ seemed best;

And after all an army strong she leav'd

To war on those which him had of his realm bereav'd.

In the primary sense = weal. Cf. the prayer for the Queen in Common Prayer-Book, Grant her in health and wealth long to live.'

†The dative.

‡ Levied.