SCENE V.- A Room in GLOSTER'S Castle. Enter REGAN and OSWALD. Reg. But are my brother's powers set forth? Reg. Himself in person there? Your sister is the better soldier. Ay, madam. Madam, with much ado. Reg. Lord Edmund spake not with your lord at home? Osw. No, madam. Reg. What might import my sister's letter to him? Osw. I know not, lady. Reg. Faith, he is posted hence on serious matter. It was great ignorance, Gloster's eyes being out, All hearts against us: Edmund, I think, is gone, In pity of his misery, to dispatch His nighted life; moreover, to descry The strength o' the enemy. Osw. I must needs after him, madam, with my letter. Reg. Our troops set forth to-morrow: stay with us; The ways are dangerous. Osw. I may not, madam : My lady charged my duty in this business. Reg. Why should she write to Edmund? Might not you Transport her purposes by word? Belike, Something I know not what: I'll love thee much; Let me unseal the letter. Osw. Madam, I had rather Reg. I know your lady does not love her husband; I'm sure of that: and at her late being here She gave strange œilliads1 and most speaking looks Reg. I speak in understanding; you are, I know't: If you do find him, pray you, give him this ;5 And, when your mistress hears thus much from you, So, fare you well. If you do chance to hear of that blind traitor, Preferment falls on him that cuts him off. Osw. Would I could meet him, madam! I would show What party I do follow. Enter GLOSTER, and Edgar dressed like a Peasant. Glos. When shall I come to th' top of that same hill? 1 That is, eye-glances. So in Cotgrave's French Dictionary: "Oeillade: An amorous looke, affectionate wink, wanton aspect, or passionate cast of the eye." 2 In her confidence; or, as we should say, her bosom confidant. 3 ་ Take note, or knowledge, of this." See page 128, note 3. 4 " You may infer more than I have told you." 5 Probably handing him a ring or some token for Edmund. 6 Regan's cold, sharp, penetrating virulence is well shown in this. The meaning, in plain English, is, "Tell her to do her worst, and help herself, if she can." 7 Preferment for promotion or advancement. Repeatedly so. Edg. Why, then your other senses grow imperfect By your eyes' anguish. Glos. So may't be indeed : Methinks thy voice is alter'd; and thou speak'st In better phrase and matter than thou didst. Edg. You're much deceived: in nothing am I changed But in my garments. Glos. Methinks you're better spoken. Edg. Come on, sir; here's the place: stand still. How fearful And dizzy 'tis to cast one's eyes so low! The crows and choughs that wing the midway air 1 In Shakespeare's time the cliffs of Dover were noted for the production of this plant. It is thus spoken of in Smith's History of Waterford, 1774: "Samphire grows in great plenty on most of the sea-cliffs in this country. It is terrible to see how people gather it, hanging by a rope several fathom from the top of the impending rocks, as it were in the air." It was made into a pickle and eaten as a relish. 2 That is, her cock-boat. Hence the term cock-swain. 3 Unnumber'd for innumerable; a frequent usage in old writers, and not without examples now. See page 72, note 10. Cannot be heard so high. I'll look no more; Glos. Set me where you stand. Edg. Give me your hand. You're now within a foot Of th' éxtreme verge: for all beneath the Moon Would I not leap upright.4 Glos. Let go my hand. Here, friend, 's another purse; in it a jewel Well worth a poor man's taking fairies and gods Bid me farewell, and let me hear thee going. Glos. With all my heart. Edg. [Aside.] Why I do trifle thus with his despair Is done to cure it. Glos. [Kneeling.] O you mighty gods! This world I do renounce, and in your sights If I could bear it longer, and not fall To quarrel with your great opposeless wills, Edg. Gone, sir: farewell. [GLOSTER throws himself forward, and falls. [Aside.] And yet I know not how conceit may rob 4 Heath's explanation is probably right: "This expression was purposely intended to heighten the horror of the description, and to affect the reader's imagination the more strongly. The spot is therefore represented as so extremely near the edge of the precipice, that there was the utmost hazard in leaping even upright upon it." The treasury of life, when life itself Yields to the theft.5 Had he been where he thought, By this had thought been past. Alive or dead? Ho you, sir, friend! — Hear you, sir? — speak ! - 6 Edg. Hadst thou been ought but gossamer, feathers, air, So many fathom down precipitating, Thou'dst shiver'd like an egg: but thou dost breathe; Hast heavy substance; bleed'st not; speak'st; art sound. Ten masts at each 7 make not the altitude Which thou hast perpendicularly fell: Thy life's a miracle. Speak yet again. Glos. But have I fall'n, or no? Edg. From the dread summit of this chalky bourn. Look up a-height: the shrill-gorged 8 lark so far 5 Conceit in its old sense of conception or imagination. How must here be taken as equivalent to whether or but that. So that the meaning comes something thus: "When one is thus longing to die, I do not know but that the mere imagination of such a leap, or such a fall, might be the death of him." This accords with what Edgar says a little after: "Thus might he pass indeed." So in the Poet's dedication of his Venus and Adonis to the Earl of Southampton: "I know not how I shall offend in dedicating my unpolished lines to your lordship." 6 The substance called gossamer is formed of the collected webs of spiders. Some think it the down of plants; others the vapour arising from boggy or marshy ground in warm weather. The etymon of this word is said to be summer goose or summer gauze, hence "gauze o' the summer." 7 A strange expression, but meaning, perhaps, ten masts joined each to the other, or drawn out in length. This explanation, it is thought, may be justified by going to the original of each, which is from the Anglo-Saxon eacan, to add, to augment, or lengthen. Eke, sometimes spelt eche, is from the same source: 8 Shrill is loud, as in Julius Cæsar, i. 2: "I hear a tongue, shriller than all the music, cry Cæsar!" "Shrill-gorged" is loud-throated, or loud-voiced. |