Chapter 5

'they slack their duties,' _O._ IV. iii. 88.

'allowance' (=authorisation), I. iv. 228, is used thus only in _K.L._, _O._ I. i. 128, and two places in _Hamlet_ and _Hen. VIII._

'besort,' vb., I. iv. 272, does not occur elsewhere, but 'besort,' sb., occurs in _O._ I. iii. 239 and nowhere else.

Edmund's 'Look, sir, I bleed,' II. i. 43, sounds like an echo of Iago's 'I bleed, sir, but not killed,' _O._ V. ii. 288.

'potential,' II. i. 78, appears only here, in _O._ I. ii. 13, and in the _Lover's Complaint_ (which, I think, is certainly not an early poem).

'poise' in 'occasions of some poise,' II. i. 122, is exactly like 'poise' in 'full of poise and difficult weight,' _O._ III. iii. 82, and not exactly like 'poise' in the three other places where it occurs.

'conjunct,' used only in II. ii. 125 (Q), V. i. 12, recalls 'conjunctive,' used only in _H_. IV. vii. 14, _O._ I. iii. 374 (F).

'grime,' vb., used only in II. iii. 9, recalls 'begrime,' used only in _O._ III. iii. 387 and _Lucrece_.

'unbonneted,' III. i. 14, appears only here and in _O._ I. ii. 23.

'delicate,' III. iv. 12, IV. iii. 15, IV. vi. 188, is not a rare word with Shakespeare; he uses it about thirty times in his plays. But it is worth notice that it occurs six times in _O._

'commit,' used intr. for 'commit adultery,' appears only in III. iv. 83, but cf. the famous iteration in _O._ IV. ii. 72 f.

'stand in hard cure,' III. vi. 107, seems to have no parallel except _O._ II. i. 51, 'stand in bold cure.'

'secure'=make careless, IV. i. 22, appears only here and in _O._ I. iii. 10 and (not quite the same sense) _Tim._ II. ii. 185.

Albany's 'perforce must wither,' IV. ii. 35, recalls Othello's 'It must needs wither,' V. ii. 15.

'deficient,' IV. vi. 23, occurs only here and in _O._ I. iii. 63.

'the safer sense,' IV. vi. 81, recalls 'my blood begins my safer guides to rules,' _O._ II. iii. 205.

'fitchew,' IV. vi. 124, is used only here, in _O._ IV. i. 150, and in _T.C._ V. i. 67 (where it has not the same significance).

Lear's 'I have seen the day, with my good biting falchion I would have made them skip,' V. iii. 276, recalls Othello's 'I have seen the day, That with this little arm and this good sword,' etc., V. ii. 261.

The fact that more than half of the above occur in the first two Acts of _King Lear_ may possibly be significant: for the farther removed Shakespeare was from the time of the composition of _Othello_, the less likely would be the recurrence of ideas or words used in that play.

NOTE S.

_KING LEAR_ AND _TIMON OF ATHENS_.

That these two plays are near akin in character, and probably in date, is recognised by many critics now; and I will merely add here a few references to the points of resemblance mentioned in the text (p. 246), and a few notes on other points.

(1) The likeness between Timon's curses and some of the speeches of Lear in his madness is, in one respect, curious. It is natural that Timon, speaking to Alcibiades and two courtezans, should inveigh in particular against sexual vices and corruption, as he does in the terrific passage IV. iii. 82-166; but why should Lear refer at length, and with the same loathing, to this particular subject (IV. vi. 112-132)? It almost looks as if Shakespeare were expressing feelings which oppressed him at this period of his life.

The idea may be a mere fancy, but it has seemed to me that this pre-occupation, and sometimes this oppression, are traceable in other plays of the period from about 1602 to 1605 (_Hamlet_, _Measure for Measure_, _Troilus and Cressida_, _All's Well_, _Othello_); while in earlier plays the subject is handled less, and without disgust, and in later plays (e.g. _Antony and Cleopatra_, _The Winter's Tale_, _Cymbeline_) it is also handled, however freely, without this air of repulsion (I omit _Pericles_ because the authorship of the brothel-scenes is doubtful).

(2) For references to the lower animals, similar to those in _King Lear_, see especially _Timon_, I. i. 259; II. ii. 180; III. vi. 103 f.; IV. i. 2, 36; IV. iii. 49 f., 177 ff., 325 ff. (surely a passage written or, at the least, rewritten by Shakespeare), 392, 426 f. I ignore the constant abuse of the dog in the conversations where Apemantus appears.

(3) Further points of resemblance are noted in the text at pp. 246, 247, 310, 326, 327, and many likenesses in word, phrase and idea might be added, of the type of the parallel 'Thine Do comfort and not burn,' _Lear_, II. iv. 176, and 'Thou sun, that comfort'st, burn!' _Timon_, V. i. 134.

(4) The likeness in style and versification (so far as the purely Shakespearean parts of _Timon_ are concerned) is surely unmistakable, but some readers may like to see an example. Lear speaks here (IV. vi. 164 ff.):

Thou rascal beadle, hold thy bloody hand! Why dost thou lash that whore? Strip thine own back; Thou hotly lust'st to use her in that kind For which thou whipp'st her. The usurer hangs the cozener. Through tatter'd clothes small vices do appear; Robes and furr'd gowns hide all. Plate sin with gold, And the strong lance of justice hurtless breaks; Arm it in rags, a pigmy's straw does pierce it. None does offend, none, I say, none; I'll able 'em: Take that of me, my friend, who have the power To seal the accuser's lips. Get thee glass eyes; And, like a scurvy politician, seem To see the things thou dost not.

And Timon speaks here (IV. iii. 1 ff.):

O blessed breeding sun, draw from the earth Rotten humidity; below thy sister's orb Infect the air! Twinn'd brothers of one womb, Whose procreation, residence, and birth, Scarce is dividant, touch them with several fortunes, The greater scorns the lesser: not nature, To whom all sores lay siege, can bear great fortune, But by contempt of nature. Raise me this beggar, and deny't that lord: The senator shall bear contempt hereditary, The beggar native honour. It is the pasture lards the rother's sides, The want that makes him lean. Who dares, who dares. In purity of manhood stand upright And say 'This man's a flatterer'? if one be, So are they all: for every grise of fortune Is smooth'd by that below: the learned pate Ducks to the golden fool: all is oblique; There's nothing level in our cursed natures, But direct villany.

The reader may wish to know whether metrical tests throw any light on the chronological position of _Timon_; and he will find such information as I can give in Note BB. But he will bear in mind that results arrived at by applying these tests to the whole play can have little value, since it is practically certain that Shakespeare did not write the whole play. It seems to consist (1) of parts that are purely Shakespearean (the text, however, being here, as elsewhere, very corrupt); (2) of parts untouched or very slightly touched by him; (3) of parts where a good deal is Shakespeare's but not all (_e.g._, in my opinion, III. v., which I cannot believe, with Mr. Fleay, to be wholly, or almost wholly, by another writer). The tests ought to be applied not only to the whole play but separately to (1), about which there is little difference of opinion. This has not been done: but Dr. Ingram has applied one test, and I have applied another, to the parts assigned by Mr. Fleay to Shakespeare (see Note BB.).[268] The result is to place _Timon_ between _King Lear_ and _Macbeth_ (a result which happens to coincide with that of the application of the main tests to the whole play): and this result corresponds, I believe, with the general impression which we derive from the three dramas in regard to versification.

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 268: These are I. i.; II. i.; II. ii., except 194-204; in III. vi. Timon's verse speech; IV. i.; IV. ii. 1-28; IV. iii., except 292-362, 399-413, 454-543; V. i., except 1-50; V. ii.; V. iv. I am not to be taken as accepting this division throughout.]

NOTE T.

DID SHAKESPEARE SHORTEN _KING LEAR_?

I have remarked in the text (pp. 256 ff.) on the unusual number of improbabilities, inconsistencies, etc., in _King Lear_. The list of examples given might easily be lengthened. Thus (_a_) in IV. iii. Kent refers to a letter which he confided to the Gentleman for Cordelia; but in III. i. he had given to the Gentleman not a letter but a message. (_b_) In III. i. again he says Cordelia will inform the Gentleman who the sender of the message was; but from IV. iii. it is evident that she has done no such thing, nor does the Gentleman show any curiosity on the subject. (_c_) In the same scene (III. i.) Kent and the Gentleman arrange that whichever finds the King first shall halloo to the other; but when Kent finds the King he does not halloo. These are all examples of mere carelessness as to matters which would escape attention in the theatre,--matters introduced not because they are essential to the plot, but in order to give an air of verisimilitude to the conversation. And here is perhaps another instance. When Lear determines to leave Goneril and go to Regan he says, 'call my train together' (I. iv. 275). When he arrives at Gloster's house Kent asks why he comes with so small a train, and the Fool gives a reply which intimates that the rest have deserted him (II. iv. 63 ff.). He and his daughters, however, seem unaware of any diminution; and, when Lear 'calls to horse' and leaves Gloster's house, the doors are shut against him partly on the excuse that he is 'attended with a desperate train' (308). Nevertheless in the storm he has no knights with him, and in III. vii. 15 ff. we hear that 'some five or six and thirty of his knights'[269] are 'hot questrists after him,' as though the real reason of his leaving Goneril with so small a train was that he had hurried away so quickly that many of his knights were unaware of his departure.

This prevalence of vagueness or inconsistency is probably due to carelessness; but it may possibly be due to another cause. There are, it has sometimes struck me, slight indications that the details of the plot were originally more full and more clearly imagined than one would suppose from the play as we have it; and some of the defects to which I have drawn attention might have arisen if Shakespeare, finding his matter too bulky, had (_a_) omitted to write some things originally intended, and (_b_), after finishing his play, had reduced it by excision, and had not, in these omissions and excisions, taken sufficient pains to remove the obscurities and inconsistencies occasioned by them.

Thus, to take examples of (_b_), Lear's 'What, fifty of my followers at a clap!' (I. iv. 315) is very easily explained if we suppose that in the preceding conversation, as originally written, Goneril had mentioned the number. Again the curious absence of any indication why Burgundy should have the first choice of Cordelia's hand might easily be due to the same cause. So might the ignorance in which we are left as to the fate of the Fool, and several more of the defects noticed in the text.

To illustrate the other point (_a_), that Shakespeare may have omitted to write some things which he had originally intended, the play would obviously gain something if it appeared that, at a time shortly before that of the action, Gloster had encouraged the King in his idea of dividing the kingdom, while Kent had tried to dissuade him. And there are one or two passages which suggest that this is what Shakespeare imagined. If it were so, there would be additional point in the Fool's reference to the lord who counselled Lear to give away his land (I. iv. 154), and in Gloster's reflection (III. iv. 168),

His daughters seek his death: ah, that good Kent! He said it would be thus:

('said,' of course, not to the King but to Gloster and perhaps others of the council). Thus too the plots would be still more closely joined. Then also we should at once understand the opening of the play. To Kent's words, 'I thought the King had more affected the Duke of Albany than Cornwall,' Gloster answers, 'It did always seem so to us.' Who are the 'us' from whom Kent is excluded? I do not know, for there is no sign that Kent has been absent. But if Kent, in consequence of his opposition, had fallen out of favour and absented himself from the council, it would be clear. So, besides, would be the strange suddenness with which, after Gloster's answer, Kent changes the subject; he would be avoiding, in presence of Gloster's son, any further reference to a subject on which he and Gloster had differed. That Kent, I may add, had already the strongest opinion about Goneril and Regan is clear from his extremely bold words (I. i. 165),

Kill thy physician, and the fee bestow Upon thy foul disease.

Did Lear remember this phrase when he called Goneril 'a disease that's in my flesh' (II. iv. 225)?

Again, the observant reader may have noticed that Goneril is not only represented as the fiercer and more determined of the two sisters but also strikes one as the more sensual. And with this may be connected one or two somewhat curious points: Kent's comparison of Goneril to the figure of Vanity in the Morality plays (II. ii. 38); the Fool's apparently quite irrelevant remark (though his remarks are scarcely ever so), 'For there was never yet fair woman but she made mouths in a glass' (III. ii. 35); Kent's reference to Oswald (long before there is any sign of Goneril's intrigue with Edmund) as 'one that would be a bawd in way of good service' (II. ii. 20); and Edgar's words to the corpse of Oswald (IV. vi. 257), also spoken before he knew anything of the intrigue with Edmund,

I know thee well: a serviceable villain; As duteous to the vices of thy mistress As badness would desire.

Perhaps Shakespeare had conceived Goneril as a woman who before her marriage had shown signs of sensual vice; but the distinct indications of this idea were crowded out of his exposition when he came to write it, or, being inserted, were afterwards excised. I will not go on to hint that Edgar had Oswald in his mind when (III. iv. 87) he described the serving-man who 'served the lust of his mistress' heart, and did the act of darkness with her'; and still less that Lear can have had Goneril in his mind in the declamation against lechery referred to in Note S.

I do not mean to imply, by writing this note, that I believe in the hypotheses suggested in it. On the contrary I think it more probable that the defects referred to arose from carelessness and other causes. But this is not, to me, certain; and the reader who rejects the hypotheses may be glad to have his attention called to the points which suggested them.

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 269: It has been suggested that 'his' means 'Gloster's'; but 'him' all through the speech evidently means Lear.]

NOTE U.

MOVEMENTS OF THE DRAMATIS PERSONÆ IN ACT II. OF _KING LEAR_.

I have referred in the text to the obscurity of the play on this subject, and I will set out the movements here.

When Lear is ill-treated by Goneril his first thought is to seek refuge with Regan (I. iv. 274 f., 327 f.). Goneril, accordingly, who had foreseen this, and, even before the quarrel, had determined to write to Regan (I. iii. 25), now sends Oswald off to her, telling her not to receive Lear and his hundred knights (I. iv. 354 f.). In consequence of this letter Regan and Cornwall immediately leave their home and ride by night to Gloster's house, sending word on that they are coming (II. i. 1 ff., 81, 120 ff.). Lear, on his part, just before leaving Goneril's house, sends Kent with a letter to Regan, and tells him to be quick, or Lear will be there before him. And we find that Kent reaches Regan and delivers his letter before Oswald, Goneril's messenger. Both the messengers are taken on by Cornwall and Regan to Gloster's house.

In II. iv. Lear arrives at Gloster's house, having, it would seem, failed to find Regan at her own home. And, later, Goneril arrives at Gloster's house, in accordance with an intimation which she had sent in her letter to Regan (II. iv. 186 f.).

Thus all the principal persons except Cordelia and Albany are brought together; and the crises of the double action--the expulsion of Lear and the blinding and expulsion of Gloster--are reached in Act III. And this is what was required.

But it needs the closest attention to follow these movements. And, apart from this, difficulties remain.

1. Goneril, in despatching Oswald with the letter to Regan, tells him to hasten his return (I. iv. 363). Lear again is surprised to find that _his_ messenger has not been sent back (II. iv. 1 f., 36 f.). Yet apparently both Goneril and Lear themselves start at once, so that their messengers _could_ not return in time. It may be said that they expected to meet them coming back, but there is no indication of this in the text.

2. Lear, in despatching Kent, says (I. v. 1):

Go you before to Gloster with these letters. Acquaint my daughter no further with anything you know than comes from her demand out of the letter.

This would seem to imply that Lear knew that Regan and Cornwall were at Gloster's house, and meant either to go there (so Koppel) or to summon her back to her own home to receive him. Yet this is clearly not so, for Kent goes straight to Regan's house (II. i. 124, II. iv. 1, 27 ff., 114 ff.).

Hence it is generally supposed that by 'Gloster,' in the passage just quoted, Lear means not the Earl but the _place_; that Regan's home was there; and that Gloster's castle was somewhere not very far off. This is to some extent confirmed by the fact that Cornwall is the 'arch' or patron of Gloster (II. i. 60 f., 112 ff.). But Gloster's home or house must not be imagined quite close to Cornwall's, for it takes a night to ride from the one to the other, and Gloster's house is in the middle of a solitary heath with scarce a bush for many miles about (II. iv. 304).

The plural 'these letters' in the passage quoted need give no trouble, for the plural is often used by Shakespeare for a single letter; and the natural conjecture that Lear sent one letter to Regan and another to Gloster is not confirmed by anything in the text.

The only difficulty is that, as Koppel points out, 'Gloster' is nowhere else used in the play for the place (except in the phrase 'Earl of Gloster' or 'my lord of Gloster'); and--what is more important--that it would unquestionably be taken by the audience to stand in this passage for the Earl, especially as there has been no previous indication that Cornwall lived at Gloster. One can only suppose that Shakespeare forgot that he had given no such indication, and so wrote what was sure to be misunderstood,--unless we suppose that 'Gloster' is a mere slip of the pen, or even a misprint, for 'Regan.' But, apart from other considerations, Lear would hardly have spoken to a servant of 'Regan,' and, if he had, the next words would have run 'Acquaint her,' not 'Acquaint my daughter.'

NOTE V.

SUSPECTED INTERPOLATIONS IN _KING LEAR_.

There are three passages in _King Lear_ which have been held to be additions made by 'the players.'

The first consists of the two lines of indecent doggerel spoken by the Fool at the end of Act I.; the second, of the Fool's prophecy in rhyme at the end of III. ii.; the third, of Edgar's soliloquy at the end of III. vi.

It is suspicious (1) that all three passages occur at the ends of scenes, the place where an addition is most easily made; and (2) that in each case the speaker remains behind alone to utter the words after the other persons have gone off.

I postpone discussion of the several passages until I have called attention to the fact that, if these passages are genuine, the number of scenes which end with a soliloquy is larger in _King Lear_ than in any other undoubted tragedy. Thus, taking the tragedies in their probable chronological order (and ignoring the very short scenes into which a battle is sometimes divided),[270] I find that there are in _Romeo and Juliet_ four such scenes, in _Julius Cæsar_ two, in _Hamlet_ six, in _Othello_ four,[271] in _King Lear_ seven,[272] in _Macbeth_ two,[273] in _Antony and Cleopatra_ three, in _Coriolanus_ one. The difference between _King Lear_ and the plays that come nearest to it is really much greater than it appears from this list, for in _Hamlet_ four of the six soliloquies, and in _Othello_ three of the four, are long speeches, while most of those in _King Lear_ are quite short.

Of course I do not attach any great importance to the fact just noticed, but it should not be left entirely out of account in forming an opinion as to the genuineness of the three doubted passages.

(_a_) The first of these, I. v. 54-5, I decidedly believe to be spurious. (1) The scene ends quite in Shakespeare's manner without it. (2) It does not seem likely that at the _end_ of the scene Shakespeare would have introduced anything _violently_ incongruous with the immediately preceding words,

Oh let me not be mad, not mad, sweet heaven! Keep me in temper: I would not be mad!

(3) Even if he had done so, it is very unlikely that the incongruous words would have been grossly indecent. (4) Even if they had been, surely they would not have been _irrelevantly_ indecent and evidently addressed to the audience, two faults which are not in Shakespeare's way. (5) The lines are doggerel. Doggerel is not uncommon in the earliest plays; there are a few lines even in the _Merchant of Venice_, a line and a half, perhaps, in _As You Like It_; but I do not think it occurs later, not even where, in an early play, it would certainly have been found, _e.g._ in the mouth of the Clown in _All's Well_. The best that can be said for these lines is that they appear in the Quartos, _i.e._ in reports, however vile, of the play as performed within two or three years of its composition.

(_b_) I believe, almost as decidedly, that the second passage, III. ii. 79 ff., is spurious. (1) The scene ends characteristically without the lines. (2) They are addressed directly to the audience. (3) They destroy the pathetic and beautiful effect of the immediately preceding words of the Fool, and also of Lear's solicitude for him. (4) They involve the absurdity that the shivering timid Fool would allow his master and protector, Lear and Kent, to go away into the storm and darkness, leaving him alone. (5) It is also somewhat against them that they do not appear in the Quartos. At the same time I do not think one would hesitate to accept them if they occurred at any natural place _within_ the dialogue.

(_c_) On the other hand I see no sufficient reason for doubting the genuineness of Edgar's soliloquy at the end of III. vi. (1) Those who doubt it appear not to perceive that _some_ words of soliloquy are wanted; for it is evidently intended that, when Kent and Gloster bear the King away, they should leave the Bedlam behind. Naturally they do so. He is only accidentally connected with the King; he was taken to shelter with him merely to gratify his whim, and as the King is now asleep there is no occasion to retain the Bedlam; Kent, we know, shrank from him, 'shunn'd [his] abhorr'd society' (V. iii. 210). So he is left to return to the hovel where he was first found. When the others depart, then, he must be left behind, and surely would not go off without a word. (2) If his speech is spurious, therefore, it has been substituted for some genuine speech; and surely that is a supposition not to be entertained except under compulsion. (3) There is no such compulsion in the speech. It is not very good, no doubt; but the use of rhymed and somewhat antithetic lines in a gnomic passage is quite in Shakespeare's manner, _more_ in his manner than, for example, the rhymed passages in I. i. 183-190, 257-269, 281-4, which nobody doubts; quite like many places in _All's Well_, or the concluding lines of _King Lear_ itself. (4) The lines are in spirit of one kind with Edgar's fine lines at the beginning of Act IV. (5) Some of them, as Delius observes, emphasize the parallelism between the stories of Lear and Gloster. (6) The fact that the Folio omits the lines is, of course, nothing against them.

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 270: I ignore them partly because they are not significant for the present purpose, but mainly because it is impossible to accept the division of battle-scenes in our modern texts, while to depart from it is to introduce intolerable inconvenience in reference. The only proper plan in Elizabethan drama is to consider a scene ended as soon as no person is left on the stage, and to pay no regard to the question of locality,--a question theatrically insignificant and undetermined in most scenes of an Elizabethan play, in consequence of the absence of movable scenery. In dealing with battles the modern editors seem to have gone on the principle (which they could not possibly apply generally) that, so long as the place is not changed, you have only one scene. Hence in _Macbeth_, Act V., they have included in their Scene vii. three distinct scenes; yet in _Antony and Cleopatra_, Act III., following the right division for a wrong reason, they have two scenes (viii. and ix.), each less than four lines long.]

[Footnote 271: One of these (V. i.) is not marked as such, but it is evident that the last line and a half form a soliloquy of one remaining character, just as much as some of the soliloquies marked as such in other plays.]

[Footnote 272: According to modern editions, eight, Act II., scene ii., being an instance. But it is quite ridiculous to reckon as three scenes what are marked as scenes ii., iii., iv. Kent is on the lower stage the whole time, Edgar in the so-called scene iii. being on the upper stage or balcony. The editors were misled by their ignorance of the stage arrangements.]

[Footnote 273: Perhaps three, for V. iii. is perhaps an instance, though not so marked.]

NOTE W.

THE STAGING OF THE SCENE OF LEAR'S REUNION WITH CORDELIA.

As Koppel has shown, the usual modern stage-directions[274] for this scene (IV. vii.) are utterly wrong and do what they can to defeat the poet's purpose.

It is evident from the text that the scene shows the _first_ meeting of Cordelia and Kent, and _first_ meeting of Cordelia and Lear, since they parted in I. i. Kent and Cordelia indeed are doubtless supposed to have exchanged a few words before they come on the stage; but Cordelia has not seen her father at all until the moment before she begins (line 26), 'O my dear father!' Hence the tone of the first part of the scene, that between Cordelia and Kent, is kept low, in order that the latter part, between Cordelia and Lear, may have its full effect.

The modern stage-direction at the beginning of the scene, as found, for example, in the Cambridge and Globe editions, is as follows:

'SCENE vii.--A tent in the French camp. LEAR on a bed asleep, soft music playing; _Gentleman_, and others attending.

Enter CORDELIA, KENT, and _Doctor_.'

At line 25, where the Doctor says 'Please you, draw near,' Cordelia is supposed to approach the bed, which is imagined by some editors visible throughout at the back of the stage, by others as behind a curtain at the back, this curtain being drawn open at line 25.

Now, to pass by the fact that these arrangements are in flat contradiction with the stage-directions of the Quartos and the Folio, consider their effect upon the scene. In the first place, the reader at once assumes that Cordelia has already seen her father; for otherwise it is inconceivable that she would quietly talk with Kent while he was within a few yards of her. The edge of the later passage where she addresses him is therefore blunted. In the second place, through Lear's presence the reader's interest in Lear and his meeting with Cordelia is at once excited so strongly that he hardly attends at all to the conversation of Cordelia and Kent; and so this effect is blunted too. Thirdly, at line 57, where Cordelia says,

O, look upon me, sir, And hold your hands in benediction o'er me! No, sir, you must not kneel,

the poor old King must be supposed either to try to get out of bed, or actually to do so, or to kneel, or to try to kneel, on the bed. Fourthly, consider what happens at line 81.

_Doctor._ Desire him to _go in_; trouble him no more Till further settling.

_Cor._ Will't please your highness _walk?_

_Lear._ You must bear with me; Pray you now, forget and forgive; I am old and foolish. [_Exeunt all but Kent and Gentleman_.

If Lear is in a tent containing his bed, why in the world, when the doctor thinks he can bear no more emotion, is he made to walk out of the tent? A pretty doctor!

But turn now to the original texts. Of course they say nothing about the place. The stage-direction at the beginning runs, in the Quartos, 'Enter Cordelia, Kent, and Doctor;' in the Folio, 'Enter Cordelia, Kent, and Gentleman.' They differ about the Gentleman and the Doctor, and the Folio later wrongly gives to the Gentleman the Doctor's speeches as well as his own. This is a minor matter. But they agree in _making no mention of Lear_. He is not on the stage at all. Thus Cordelia, and the reader, can give their whole attention to Kent.

Her conversation with Kent finished, she turns (line 12) to the Doctor and asks 'How does the King?'[275] The Doctor tells her that Lear is still asleep, and asks leave to wake him. Cordelia assents and asks if he is 'arrayed,' which does not mean whether he has a night-gown on, but whether they have taken away his crown of furrow-weeds, and tended him duly after his mad wanderings in the fields. The Gentleman says that in his sleep 'fresh garments' (not a night-gown) have been put on him. The Doctor then asks Cordelia to be present when her father is waked. She assents, and the Doctor says, 'Please you, draw near. Louder the music there.' The next words are Cordelia's, 'O my dear father!'

What has happened? At the words 'is he arrayed?' according to the Folio, '_Enter Lear in a chair carried by Servants._' The moment of this entrance, as so often in the original editions, is doubtless too soon. It should probably come at the words 'Please you, draw near,' which _may_, as Koppel suggests, be addressed to the bearers. But that the stage-direction is otherwise right there cannot be a doubt (and that the Quartos omit it is no argument against it, seeing that, according to their directions, Lear never enters at all).

This arrangement (1) allows Kent his proper place in the scene, (2) makes it clear that Cordelia has not seen her father before, (3) makes her first sight of him a theatrical crisis in the best sense, (4) makes it quite natural that he should kneel, (5) makes it obvious why he should leave the stage again when he shows signs of exhaustion, and (6) is the only arrangement which has the slightest authority, for 'Lear on a bed asleep' was never heard of till Capell proposed it. The ruinous change of the staging was probably suggested by the version of that unhappy Tate.

Of course the chair arrangement is primitive, but the Elizabethans did not care about such things. What they cared for was dramatic effect.

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 274: There are exceptions: _e.g._, in the editions of Delius and Mr. W.J. Craig.]

[Footnote 275: And it is possible that, as Koppel suggests, the Doctor should properly enter at this point; for if Kent, as he says, wishes to remain unknown, it seems strange that he and Cordelia should talk as they do before a third person. This change however is not necessary, for the Doctor might naturally stand out of hearing till he was addressed; and it is better not to go against the stage-direction without necessity.]

NOTE X.

THE BATTLE IN _KING LEAR_.

I found my impression of the extraordinary ineffectiveness of this battle (p. 255) confirmed by a paper of James Spedding (_New Shakspere Society Transactions_, 1877, or Furness's _King Lear_, p. 312 f.); but his opinion that this is the one technical defect in _King Lear_ seems certainly incorrect, and his view that this defect is not due to Shakespeare himself will not, I think, bear scrutiny.

To make Spedding's view quite clear I may remind the reader that in the preceding scene the two British armies, that of Edmund and Regan, and that of Albany and Goneril, have entered with drum and colours, and have departed. Scene ii. is as follows (Globe):