Glos. In, fellow, there, into the hovel; keep thee warm. Lear. Come, let's in all. Kent. Lear. This way, my lord. With him; I will keep still with my philosopher. Kent. Good my lord, soothe him; let him take the fellow. Glos. Take him you on. Kent. Sirrah, come on; go along with us. Lear. Come, good Athenian. Glos. No words, no words: hush. Corn. I will have my revenge ere I depart his house. Edm. How, my lord, I may be censured, that nature thus gives way to loyalty, something fears me to think of. Corn. I now perceive, it was not altogether your brother's evil disposition made him seek his death; but a provoking merit, set a-work by reprovable badness in himself.1 29 Child Roland, that is, Knight Orlando, was reputed to be the youngest son of King Arthur. Edgar, it seems, purposely disjoints his quotations, or leaves their sense incomplete. In the ballad of Jack and the Giants, which, if not older than the play, may have been compiled from something that was so, a giant lets off this: 1 Fee, faw, fum, I smell the blood of an Englishman: Be he alive, or be he dead, I'll grind his bones to make my bread. By a "provoking merit " Cornwall means, apparently, a virtue apt to be provoked, or stirred into act; which virtue was set to work by some flagrant evil in Gloster himself; and it was this, and not altogether a bad disposition Edm. How malicious is my fortune, that I must repent to be just! 2 This is the letter he spoke of, which approves him an intelligent party to the advantages of France. O Heavens! that this treason were not, or not I the detector! Corn. Go with me to the duchess. Edm. If the matter of this paper be certain, you have mighty business in hand.3 Corn. True or false, it hath made thee Earl of Gloster. Seek out where thy father is, that he may be ready for our apprehension. Edm. [Aside.] If I find him comforting the King, it will stuff his suspicion more fully.- [To CORN.] I will persevere in my course of loyalty, though the conflict be sore between that and my blood. Corn. I will lay trust upon thee; and thou shalt find a dearer father in my love. [Exeunt. in Edgar, that made Edgar seek the old man's life. Provoking for provocable; the active form with the passive sense. The Poet has a great many instances of such usage. Mr. Crosby, however, gives me a different inter- \ pretation; taking merit in the neutral sense of desert, as the word is sometimes so used. "It was not altogether your brother Edgar's evil disposition that made him seek his father's death: it was the old man's desert that provoked him to it; that is, the old man deserved it." Cornwall then attempts to soften his remark by saying that this "provoking merit" was set at work by a reprovable badness in Edgar himself; using the mild term reprovable in connection with the unfilial badness of a son in seeking his father's death, even though the father deserved it. 2" To be just" is another instance of the infinitive used gerundively, and is equivalent to of being just. See page 68, note 16. 8 The " mighty business in hand" is a war; as the "paper" in question is a letter informing Gloster that an army had landed from France. kornerall bloodthing &enior -ind SCENE VI.A Chamber in a Farmhouse adjoining GLOSTER'S Castle. Enter GLOSTER, LEAR, KENT, the Fool, and EDGAR. Glos. Here is better than the open air; take it thankfully. I will piece out the comfort with what addition I can: I will not be long from you. Kent. All the power of his wits have given way to his impatience. The gods reward your kindness! [Exit GLOSTER. Edg. Frateretto calls me, and tells me Nero is an angler in the lake of darkness. — Pray, innocent,1 and beware the foul fiend. Fool. Pr'ythee, nuncle, tell me whether a madman be a gentleman or a yoeman? Lear. A king, a king! Fool. No, he's a yoeman that has a gentleman to his son; for he's a mad yeoman that sees his son a gentleman before him.2 Lear. To have a thousand with red burning spits Come hizzing in upon 'em, — Edg. The foul fiend bites my back. Fool. He's mad that trusts in the tameness of a wolf, a horse's health, a boy's love, or a whore's oath. Lear. It shall be done; I will arraign them straight. [To EDGAR.] Come, sit thou here, most learnèd justicer ; 3. 1 Rabelais says that Nero was a fiddler in Hell, and Trajan an angler. The history of Gargantua appeared in English before 1575. Fools were anciently termed innocents. 2 A rather curious commentary on some of the Poet's own doings; who obtained from the Heralds' College a coat-of-arms in his father's name; thus getting his yeoman father dubbed a gentleman, in order, no doubt, that himself might inherit the rank. 3 Justicer is the older and better word for what we now call a justice. [To the Fool.] Thou, sapient sir, sit here. Now, you she foxes! Edg. Look, where he stands and glares! Wantest thou eyes at trial, madam?4 Fool. Come o'er the bourn, Bessy, to me. Her boat hath a leak, And she must not speak Why she dares not come over to thee.5 Edg. The foul fiend haunts poor Tom in the voice of a nightingale. Hoppedance cries in Tom's belly for two white herring. - - Croak not, black angel; I have no food for thee. Kent. How do you, sir? Stand you not so amazed: Will you lie down and rest upon the cushions? Lear. I'll see their trial first.—Bring in the evidence. [To EDGAR.] Thou robèd man of justice, take thy place; [To the Fool.] And thou, his yoke-fellow of equity, Bench by his side. mission, Sit you too. [To KENT.] You are o' the com Edg. Let us deal justly. · Sleepest or wakest thou, jolly shepherd? 4 When Edgar says, "Look, where he stands and glares!" he seems to be speaking in the character of a madman, who thinks he sees the fiend. "Wantest thou eyes at trial, madam?" is addressed to some visionary person who is supposed, apparently, to be on trial, but does not see the spectre. 5 Bourn here means a brook or rivulet, as streams of all sorts were apt to be taken for boundaries. These four lines are probably from an old song, which was imitated by Birch in his Dialogue between Elizabeth and England; the imitation beginning thus: Come over the bourn, Bessy, come over the bourn, Bessy, Sweet Bessy, come over to me; And I shall thee take, and my dear lady make Before all that ever I see. And for one blast of thy minikin mouth Pur! the cat is gray.7 Lear. Arraign her first; 'tis Goneril. I here take my oath before this honourable assembly, she kick'd the poor King her father. Fool. Come hither, mistress. Lear. She cannot deny it. Is your name Goneril? Fool. Cry you mercy, I took you for a joint-stool.8 Lear. And here's another, whose warp'd looks proclaim What store her heart is made on. Stop her there ! Arms, arms, sword, fire! Corruption in the place! False justicer, why hast thou let her 'scape? 9 Edg. Bless thy five wits! Kent. O pity! Sir, where is the patience now That you so oft have boasted to retain? Edg. [Aside.] My tears begin to take his part so much, They'll mar my counterfeiting. Lear. The little dogs and all, Tray, Blanch, and Sweetheart, see, they bark at me. 6 Minikin was a term of fondness or endearment. Baret's Alvearie has 'neate, fresh, pretie, fine, minikin, tricke and trimme." 7 The meaning of Pur is any thing but obvious. But Purre is the name of a devil in Harsnet. So perhaps the name suggests the purring of a cat, and of a cat too old to sing. 8 This appears to have been a proverbial expression. It occurs again, somewhat modified, in 1 King Henry IV., ii. 4: "Thy state is taken for a joint-stool." It is also met with in various other old writings. It was the name of what we call a folding-chair; a chair with a joint in it. 9 It does not seem probable that Shakespeare wished to represent Lear as the subject of so extreme an hallucination as that his daughters were present, in their own figure and appearance, and that one of them escaped. It is more probable that he wished to represent them, personified by the excited imagination, in the form of stools; and that Kent or Edgar, seeing the bad effects which this vivid personification was working, snatched away one of the stools; and this produces the passionate explosion on Regan's supposed escape. — DR. BUCKNILL. |