She'll flay thy wolfish visage. Thou shalt find, Gon. Do mark that, my lord? Alb. I cannot be so partial, Goneril, To the great love I bear you, Gon. 'Pray you, content.-What, Oswald, ho! You, sir, more knave than fool, after your master. [To the Fool. Fool. Nuncle Lear, nuncle Lear, tarry, and take the fool with thee. A fox, when one has caught her, Should sure to the slaughter, If my cap would buy a halter; So the fool follows after. [Exit. Gon. 37 [This man hath had good counsel:-A hundred knights! "Tis politick, and safe, to let him keep At point 38, a hundred knights. Yes, that on every dream, Each buz, each fancy, each complaint, dislike, Gon. Not fear still to be taken. I know his heart: 26 This speech is gleaned partly from the folios and partly from the quartos. The omissions in the one and the other are not of sufficient importance to trouble the reader with a separate ⚫ notice of each. 37 All within brackets is omitted in the quartos. 38 At point probably means completely armed, and consequently ready at appointment on the slightest notice. If she sustain him and his hundred knights, Oswald? Enter Steward. What, have you writ that letter to my sister? Gon. Take you some company, and away to horse: Inform her full of my particular fear; And thereto add such reasons of your own, As may compact it more. Get you gone; And hasten your return. [Exit Stew.] No, no, my lord, This milky gentleness, and course of yours, Though I condemn it not, yet, under pardon, You are much more attask'd 39 for want of wisdom, Than prais'd for harmful mildness. Alb. How far your eyes may pierce, I cannot tell; Striving to better, oft we mar what's well 40. Gon. Nay, then— Alb. Well, well; the event. [Exeunt. SCENE V. Court before the same. Enter LEAR, KENT, and Fool. Lear. Go you before to Gloster with these letters: acquaint my daughter no further with any thing you know, than comes from her demand out of the letter: If your diligence be not speedy, I shall be there before you1. 39 The word task is frequently used by Shakspeare and his cotemporaries in the sense of tax. Goneril means to say, that he was more taxed for want of wisdom, than praised for mildness. So in The Island Princess of Beaumont and Fletcher, Quisana says to Ruy Dias: 40 You are too saucy, too impudent, To task me with these errors.' 'Were it not sinful then, striving to mend, To mar the subject that before was well?' The word there in this speech shows that when the king Kent. I will not sleep, my lord, till I have delivered your letter. [Exit. Fool. If a man's brains were in his heels, were't not in danger of kibes? Lear. Ay, boy. Fool. Then, I pr'ythee, be merry; thy wit shall not go slip-shod. Lear. Ha, ha, ha! Fool. Shalt see, thy other daughter will use thee kindly; for though she's as like this as a crab is like an apple, yet I can tell what I can tell. Lear. Why, what canst thou tell, my boy? Fool. She will taste as like this, as a crab does to a crab. Thou canst tell, why one's nose stands i'the middle of his face? Lear. No. Fool. Why, to keep his eyes on either side his nose; that what a man cannot smell out, he may spy into. Lear. I did her wrong 3: Fool. Can'st tell how an oyster makes his shell? Fool. Nor I neither; but I can tell why a snail has a house. Lear. Why? Fool. Why, to put his head in; not to give it away to his daughters, and leave his horns without a case. says, Go you before to Gloster,' he means the town of Gloster, which Shakspeare chose to make the residence of the Duke of Cornwall, to increase the probability of their setting out late from thence on a visit to the Earl of Gloster. Our old English earls usually resided in the counties from whence they took their titles. Lear, not finding his son-in-law and his wife at home, follows them to the Earl of Gloster's castle. 2 The Fool quibbles, using the word kindly in two senses; as it means affectionately, and like the rest of her kind, or after their nature. 3 He is musing on Cordelia. Lear. I will forget my nature. So kind a father! -Be my horses ready? Fool. Thy asses are gone about 'em. The reason why the seven stars are no more than seven, is a pretty reason. Lear. Because they are not eight? Fool. Yes, indeed: Thou wouldest make a good fool. Lear. To take it again perforce!-Monster ingratitude! Fool. If thou wert my fool, nuncle, I'd have thee beaten for being old before thy time. Lear. How's that? Fool. Thou should'st not have been old, before thou hadst been wise. Lear. O let me not be mad, not mad, sweet heaven! Keep me in temper; I would not be mad! Enter Gentleman. How now! Are the horses ready? Gent. Ready, my lord. Lear. Come, boy. Fool. She that is maid now, and laughs at parture, my de Shall not be a maid long, unless things be cut shorter 5. [Exeunt. 4 The subject of Lear's meditation is the resumption of that moiety of the kingdom he had bestowed on Goneril. This was what Albany apprehended, when he replied to the upbraidings of his wife-Well, well; the event.' What Lear himself projected when he left Goneril to go to Regan:— -Thou shalt find That I'll resume the shape, which thou dost think I have cast off for ever; thou shalt, I warrant thee.' And what Curan afterwards refers to, when he asks Edmund :— 'Have you heard of no likely wars toward, 'twixt the Dukes of Cornwall and Albany?' 5 This idle couplet (apparently addressed to the females ACT II. SCENE I. A Court within the Castle of the Earl of Gloster. Enter EDMUND and CURAN, meeting. Edm. Save thee, Curan. Cur. And you, sir. I have been with your father; and given him notice, that the Duke of Cornwall, and Regan his duchess, will be here with him tonight. Edm. How comes that? Cur. Nay, I know not: You have heard of the news abroad; I mean, the whispered ones, for they are yet but ear-kissing arguments 1? Edm. Not I; 'Pray you, what are they? Cur. Have you heard of no likely wars toward2, 'twixt the Dukes of Cornwall and Albany? Edm. Not a word. Cur. You may then, in time. Fare you well, sir. 6 [Exit. present at the representation of the play) most probably crept into the playhouse copy from the mouth of some buffoon actor, who spoke more than was set down for him.' The severity with which the poet animadverts upon the mummeries and jokes of the clowns of his time (see Hamlet, Act iii. Sc. 2) manifests that he had suffered by their indiscretion. Indecent jokes, which the applause of the groundlings occasioned to be repeated, would at last find their way into the prompter's books, &c. Such liberties were indeed exercised by the authors of Locrine, &c. but such another offensive and extraneous address to the audience cannot be pointed out among all the dramas of Shakspeare. 1 Ear-kissing arguments means that they are yet in reality only whispered ones. 2 This and the following speech are omitted in the quarto B. VOL. IX. |