And when I've stol'n upon these sons-in-law, Enter a Gentleman, with Attendants. Gent. O, here he is: lay hands upon him. — Sir, Your most dear daughter Lear. No rescue? What, a prisoner? I am even The natural fool of fortune. You shall have ransom. I'm cut to th' brains. Gent. - Use me well; Let me have a surgeon; You shall have any thing. Lear. No seconds? All myself? 26 Why, this would make a man a man of salt,2 Ay, and for laying Autumn's dust. Good sir, Gent. Lear. I will die bravely, like a smug 27 bridegroom. What! I will be jovial. Come, come; I am a king, My masters: know you that? Gent. You are a royal one, and we obey you. leaste the noyse of his feete might discover his goinge."- When Lear goes to preaching he takes off his hat and holds it in his hand, as preachers were wont to do in the Poet's time. "Tis a good block" doubtless refers to the shape or form of the hat. As he is holding the hat in his hand, or perhaps moulding it into some new shape, the thought strikes him what the hat is made of, and he starts off upon the stratagem of shoeing a troop of horses with felt. This use of block is well illustrated by a passage in Dekker's Gull's Hornbook, 1609: "That cannot observe the tune of his hatband, nor know what fashioned block is most kin to his head; for in my opinion the brain cannot chuse his felt well." 25 This was the cry formerly in the English army when an onset was made on the enemy. 26 Would turn a man all to brine; that is, to tears. 27 Smug is spruce, trim, fine. So in The Merchant of Venice, iii. 1: “A beggar, that was used to come so smug upon the mart." Lear. Then there's life in't.28 Nay, an you get it, you shall get it by running. Sa, sa, sa, sa.2 29 [Exit, running; Attendants follow. Gent. A sight most pitiful in the meanest wretch; Past speaking of in a king! - Thou hast one daughter, Which twain have brought her to. Edg. Hail, gentle sir! Sir, speed you: what's your will? Gent. Edg. How near's the other army? But, by your favour, Gent. Near, and on speedy foot; the main descry Stands on the hourly thought.31 Edg. I thank you, sir: that's all. Gent. Though that the Queen on special cause is here, Her army is moved on. Edg. I thank you, sir. [Exit Gent. Glos. You ever-gentle gods, take my breath from me; Let not my worser spirit tempt me again To die before you please! Edg. Well pray you, father.32 Glos. Now, good sir, what are you? 28 There is hope in it yet; the case is not desperate. 29 These syllables are probably meant for Lear's panting as he runs. 30 Vulgar in its old sense of common. A frequent usage. 31 The main body is expected to be descried every hour.-"On speedy foot" is marching rapidly, or footing it fast. 32 It was customary for young people to address an aged person as father or mother. Hence Edgar keeps addressing Gloster so without being recognized as his son. Edg. A most poor man, made tame to fortune's blows; Who, by the art of known and feeling sorrows, Am pregnant 33 to good pity. Give me your hand; That eyeless head of thine was first framed flesh Darest thou support a publish'd traitor? Hence ; Lest that th' infection of his fortune take Like hold on thee. Let go his arm. 33 Pregnant, here, is quick, prompt, ready. Repeatedly so.- Biding, in the next line, is lodging, or abiding-place. 34 Edgar, the champion of right, ever active in opposing evil and advancing the good cause, discovers that the gods are upon the side of right, are unceasingly at work in the vindication of truth, and the execution of justice. His faith lives through trial and disaster, a flame which will not be quenched. And he buoys up, by virtue of his own energy of soul, the spirit of his father, which, unprepared for calamity, is staggering blindly, stunned from its power to think, and ready to sink into darkness, and welter in chaotic disbelief. Gloster, in his first confusion, exclaims bitterly against the divine government: "As flies to wanton boys are we to the gods; they kill us for their sport." But, before the end has come, he "shakes patiently his great affliction off"; he will not quarrel with the "great opposeless will" of the gods; nay, more than this, he can identify his will with theirs, he can accept life contentedly at their hands, or death. - DOWDEN. 35 "Quickly call to mind thy past offences, and repent." Edg. Ch'ill not let go, zir, without vurther 'casion. 36 Nay, come not Edg. Good gentleman, go your gait, and let poor volk pass. An ch'ud ha' been zwagger'd out of my life, 'twould not ha' been zo long as 'tis by a vortnight.3 near th' old man; keep out, che vor'ye, or your costard or my ballow be the harder.37 with you. Osw. Out, dunghill ! ise try whether Ch'ill be plain Edg. Ch'ill pick your teeth, zir: come; no matter for your foins.38 [They fight; EDGAR knocks him down. Osw. Slave, thou hast slain me. Villain, take my purse: If ever thou wilt thrive, bury my body; And give the letters which thou find'st about me To Edmund Earl of Gloster: seek him out Upon the British party. O, untimely death! Edg. I know thee well: a serviceable villain; As duteous to the vices of thy mistress As badness would desire. Glos. What, is he dead? Edg. Sit you down, father; rest you. Let's see his pockets: these letters that he speaks of Leave, gentle wax; and, manners, blame us not: [Dies. 36" If I could have been swaggered out of my life, 'twould not have been so long as it is by a fortnight." 87 "Keep out, I warn you, or I'll try whether your head or my cudgel be the harder." Edgar here speaks the Somersetshire dialect. 38 Foins are thrusts, or passes in fencing. The Poet has the verb to foin. You [Reads.] Let our reciprocal vows be remember'd. have many opportunities to cut him off: if you will want not, time and place will be fruitfully offer'd. There is nothing done, if he return the conqueror: then am I the prisoner, and his bed my jail; from the loathed warmth whereof deliver me, and supply the place for your labour. Your (wife, so I would say) O undistinguish'd space of woman's will !39 GONERIL. Here, in the sands, Thee I'll rake up,40 the post unsanctified Of the death-practised Duke: for him 'tis well Glos. The King is mad: how stiff is my vile sense, Edg. 42 [Drum afar off. Give me your hand: 39 Undistinguish'd for indistinguishable, as, before, unnumber'd for innumerable. The meaning probably is, that woman's will has no distinguishable bounds, or no assignable limits; there is no telling what she will do, or where she will stop. 40 That is, "cover thee up." fire is to cover it for the night. 41 Ingenious is intelligent, lively, acute. Warburton says, "Ingenious feeling signifies a feeling from an understanding not disturbed or disordered, but which, representing things as they are, makes the sense of pain the more exquisite." Singer says that in Staffordshire to rake the 42 As the woes or sufferings of madmen are lost in imaginary felicities. |