Edmund, enkindle all the sparks of nature, Reg. Out, treacherous villain ! Thou call'st on him that hates thee: it was he Glos. O my follies! Then Edgar was abused. - Reg. Go thrust him out at gates, and let him smell Turn out that eyeless villain throw this slave ; Upon the dunghill. - Regan, I bleed apace : -- Servants unbind GLOSTER, and lead him out. 2 Serv. I'll never care what wickedness I do, If this man come to good.15 dead, unmeasured,' to which Lear is chained. Thus the one story of horror serves as a means of approach to the other, and helps us to conceive its magnitude." 13 Quit for requite is very frequent in Shakespeare. 14 Overture, here, is revealment or disclosure. 15 This bit of dialogue serves as sort of chorus on what has just been done. Heraud makes a just comment upon it: "The Poet might have justified the act by the supposed barbarity of the legendary age whose manners he was tracing, and urged that their familiarity with such acts prevented the actors in them from recognizing the horrible. No such thing. By inserting in the group a servant who did recognize its intrinsic horror, and compassionated the sufferer, he converted disgust into pity. The valiant menial revenges on the spot the wrong done to humanity. The other servants also compassionate the blind old man, to lead him out, to help him, to heal his wounds, and to place him in safe custody. The entire 3 Serv. If she live long, And in the end meet the old course of death, Women will all turn monsters. 2 Serv. Let's follow the old Earl, and get the Bedlam To lead him where he would: his roguish madness Allows itself to any thing. 3 Serv. Go thou: I'll fetch T' apply to his bleeding face. some flax and whites of eggs, ACT IV. SCENE I. The Heath. Enter EDGAR. Edg. Yet better thus, unknown, to be contemn'd, Than still contemn'd and flatter'd. To be worst, The lowest and most dejected thing of fortune,1 The worst returns to laughter.3 Welcome, then, The wretch that thou hast blown unto the worst 4 Owes nothing to thy blasts. But who comes here? current of feeling is turned in the direction of pity by the force of sympathy. Thus the horror in the 'horrid act' is mitigated, and reduced to the level of terror." 1 "Dejected thing of fortune" is thing cast down by fortune. 2 Esperance is hope; from the French. Used repeatedly by the Poet. 8 Because, when the worst has come, there can be no further change but for the better. 4 "Is not indebted to thy blasts for any favour shown him: they have done their worst upon him, and so absolved him from all obligations." Enter GLOSTER, led by an old Man. My father, poorly led?- World, world, O world! But that thy strange mutations make us hate thee, Old Man. O my good lord, I have been your tenant, and your father's tenant, these fourscore years. Glos. Away, get thee away; good friend, be gone : Thy comforts can do me no good at all; Thee they may hurt. Old Man. Alack, sir, you cannot see your way. I stumbled when I saw. Full oft 'tis seen, How now! Who's there? Old Man. 'Tis poor mad Tom. Edg. [Aside.] And worse I may be yet: the worst is not, So long as we can say This is the worst.8 5 The meaning seems to be, "Did not thy calamitous reverses make life a burden, old age would never be reconciled or resigned to death." Shakespeare repeatedly has very in the sense of mere : here he has mere in the sense of very. — Maim was often used for any defect, blemish, or imperfection, whether "in mind, body, or estate." So Hooker, Ecclesiastical Polity, Book V., Sect. 65: "If men of so good experience and insight in the maims of our weak flesh, have thought," &c. Also, Sect. 24: "In a minister ignorance and disability to teach is a maim." 7 Abused for deceived or deluded. A frequent usage. 8 Because we must still be living, else we could not speak. Edgar at first Old Man. Fellow, where goest? Glos. Is it a beggar-man ? Old Man. Madman and beggar too. Glos. He has some reason, else he could not beg. I' the last night's storm I such a fellow saw; Which made me think a man a worm: my son Came then into my mind ;9 and yet my mind Was then scarce friends with him: I've heard more since. As flies to wanton boys, are we to th' gods; inst They kill us for their sport. Edg. [Aside.] How should this be? Bad is the trade that must play Fool to sorrow, Glos. Is that the naked fellow? Old Man. Ay, my lord. Glos. Then, pr'ythee, get thee gone: if, for my sake, Old Man. Alack, sir, he is mad. thinks his condition already as bad as it can be: then the sight of his eyeless father adds a further woe; and now he concludes death to be the worst. 9 This remembrance without recognition is a delectable touch of nature. Shakespeare has the same thing in several other cases; particularly the disguised Rosalind in the Forest of Arden, and the disguised Imogen, in Cymbeline, v. 5. 10 Angering in the sense of grieving; a common use of anger in the Poet's time. So in St. Mark, iii. 5: “And when He had looked round about on them with anger, being grieved for the hardness of their hearts." -"Playing the Fool to sorrow" means, apparently, acting the Fool's part, to divert off distressing thoughts, or to turn grief into laughter; which may well be painful to both parties. Any attempt to cheer the despondent by forced or affected mirth is apt to have the opposite effect. Glos. 'Tis the time's plague, when madmen lead the blind. Do as I bid thee, or rather do thy pleasure; Above the rest, be gone.11 Old Man. I'll bring him the best 'parel that I have, come on't what will. Glos. Sirrah, naked fellow. [Exit. Edg. Poor Tom's a-cold. — [Aside.] I cannot daub 12 it further. Glos. Come hither, fellow. Edg. [Aside.] And yet I must. Bless thy sweet eyes, they bleed. Glos. Know'st thou the way to Dover? Edg. Both stile and gate, horse-way and foot-path. Poor Tom hath been scared out of his good wits. Bless thee, good man's son, from the foul fiend! Five fiends have been in poor Tom at once; as Obidicut, of lust; Hobbididance, prince of dumbness; Mahu, of stealing; Modo, of murder; and Flibbertigibbet, of mopping and mowing; who since possesses chambermaids and waitingwomen.13 So, bless thee, master! Glos. Here, take this purse, thou whom the Heaven's plagues Have humbled to all strokes: that I am wretched 11 This is said because Gloster is anxious for the old man's safety. 12 To daub was sometimes used for to disguise. So in King Richard III., iii. 5: "So smooth he daub'd his vice with show of virtue." And in like sort the Poet has daubery for imposture. 13" If she have a little helpe of the mother, epilepsie, or cramp, to teach her roll her eyes, wrie her mouth, gnash her teeth, starte with her body, hold her armes and handes stiffe, make antike faces, grinne, mow and mop like an ape, then no doubt the young girle is owle-blasted, and possessed." So says Harsnet. - To mop is to mock, to chatter; to mow is to make mouths, to grimace. |