SCENE III. A Room in GLOSTER'S Castle. Enter GLOSTER and Edmund. GLO. Alack, alack, Edmund, I like not this unnatural dealing: When I desired their leave that I might pity him, they took from me the use of mine own house; charged me, on pain of their perpetual displeasure, neither to speak of him, entreat for him, nor any way sustain him. EDM. Most savage, and unnatural! GLO. Go to; say you nothing: There is division between the dukes; and a worse matter than that: I have received a letter this night;-'tis dangerous to be spoken ;-I have locked the letter in my closet: these injuries the king now bears will be revenged home; there is part of a power already footed *: we must incline to the king. I will seek him, and privily relieve him: go you, and maintain talk with the duke, that my charity be not of him perceived: If he ask for me, I am ill, and gone to bed. If I die for it, as no less is threatened me, the king my old master must be relieved. There is some strange thing toward, Edmund; pray you, be careful. [Exit. EDM. This courtesy, forbid thee, shall the duke Instantly know; and of that letter too :This seems a fair deserving, and must draw me That which my father loses; no less than all; The younger rises, when the old doth fall. [Exit. * Quartos, landed. SCENE IV. A Part of the Heath, with a Hovel. Enter LEAR, KENT, and Fool. KENT. Here is the place, my lord; good my lord, enter: The tyranny of the open night's too rough For nature to endure. Lear. [Storm still. Let me alone. KENT. Good my lord, enter here. Wilt break my heart? KENT. I'd rather break mine own: Good my lord, enter. LEAR. Thou think'st 'tis much, that this contentious storm Invades us to the skin: so 'tis to thee; The lesser is scarce felt. Thou'dst shun a bear: * Quartos, crulentious. 8 Wilt break my heart ?] I believe that Lear does not address this question to Kent, but to his own bosom. Perhaps, therefore, we should point the passage thus: "Wilt break, my heart?' The tenderness of Kent indeed induces him to reply, as to an interrogation that seemed to reflect on his own humanity. 9 But where the greater malady is fix'd, STEEVENS. The lesser is scarce felt.] That of two concomitant pains, the greater obscures or relieves the less, is an aphorism of HippoSee Disquisitions, Metaphysical and Literary, by F. Sayers, M. D. 1793, p. 68. crates. So, in Spenser's Fairy Queen, b. i. c. vi. : "He lesser pangs can bear who hath endur'd the chief." STEEVENS. RAGING sea,] Such is the reading of that which appears Thou'dst meet the bear i̇' the mouth. When the mind's free, The body's delicate: the tempest in my mind all 3, O, that way madness lies; let me shun that; KENT. Good my lord, enter here. LEAR. Pr'ythee, go in thyself; seek thine own ease; This tempest will not give me leave to ponder to be the elder of the two quartos. The other, with the folio, reads,-roaring sea. STEEVENS. Quartos A and B read raging; quarto C, roring. BOSWELL. 2 In such a night To shut me out!-Pour on; I will endure:] Omitted in the quartos. STEEVENS. 3 Your old kind father, whose frank heart gave you all,] I have already observed that the words, father, brother, rather, and many of a similar sound, were sometimes used by Shakspeare as monosyllables. The editor of the folio, supposing the metre to be defective, omitted the word you, which is found in the quartos. MALONE. That our author's versification, to modern ears, (I mean to such as have been tuned by the melody of an exact writer like Mr. Pope) may occasionally appear overloaded with syllables, I cannot deny; but when I am told that he used the words-father, brother, and rather, as monosyllables, I must withhold my assent in the most decided manner. STEEVENS. See the Essay on Shakspeare's Versification for a full answer to Mr. Steevens's objections to Mr. Malone's notion on this subject. BOSWELL. In, boy; go first *.-[To the Fool.] You houseless poverty, Nay, get thee in. I'll pray, and then I'll sleep. [Fool goes in. Poor naked wretches, wheresoe'er you are, That bide the pelting of this pitiless storm *, * Quartos, night. In, boy; go first, &c.] These two lines were added in the author's revision, and are only in the folio. They are very judiciously intended to represent that humility, or tenderness, or neglect of forms, which affliction forces on the mind. JOHNSON. 5 - loop'd and WINDOW'D raggedness,] So, in The Amorous War, 1648: 66 spare me a doublet which "Hath linings in't, and no glass windows." This allusion is as old as the time of Plautus, in one of whose plays it is found. Again, in the comedy already quoted: 66 this jerkin "Is wholly made of doors." STEEVENS. Loop'd is full of small apertures, such as were made in ancient castles, for firing ordnance, or spying the enemy. These were wider without than within, and were called loops or loop-holes: which Coles, in his Latin Dictionary, 1679, renders by the word fenestella. MALONE. 66 Loops, as Mr. Henley observes, particularly in castles and towers, were often designed for the admission of light, where windows would have been incommodious." Shakspeare, he adds, “in Othello, and other places, has alluded to them." To discharge ordnance, however, from loop-holes, according to Mr. Malone's supposition, was, I believe, never attempted, because almost impossible; although such outlets were sufficiently adapted to the use of arrows. Many also of these loops, still existing, were contrived before fire arms had been introduced. STEEVENS. Mr. Warton, in his excellent edition of Milton's Juvenile Poems, (p. 511,) quotes the foregoing line as explanatory of a passage in that poet's verses In Quintum Novembris: Tarda fenestratis figens vestigia calceis. Talis, uti fama est, vasta Franciscus eremo But, from the succeeding, in Buchanan's Franciscanus et From seasons such as these? O, I have ta'en EDG. [Within.] Fathom and half, fathom and half! Poor Tom! [The Fool runs out from the Hovel. FOOL. Come not in here, nuncle, here's a spirit. Help me, help me! KENT. Give me thy hand.-Who's there? Fooz. A spirit, a spirit; he says his name's poor Tom. KENT. What art thou that dost grumble there i' the straw? Come forth. Enter EDGAR, disguised as a Madman. EDG. Away! the foul fiend follows me !Through the sharp hawthorn blows the cold wind *. * First folio, blow the winds. Fratres, these shoes or buskins with windows on them appear to have composed a part of the habit of the Franciscan order: Atque fenestratum soleas captare cothurnum. The Parish Clerk, in Chaucer, (Canterbury Tales, v. 3318, edit. 1775,) has "Poulis windows corven on his shoos." 6 Take physick, pomp ; Expose thyself to feel what wretches feel; HOLT WHITE. That thou may'st shake the superflux to them, And show the heavens more just.] A kindred thought occurs in Pericles, Prince of Tyre : 66 Ó let those cities that of plenty's cup "And her prosperities so largely taste, "With their superfluous riots,-hear these tears; "The misery of Tharsus may be theirs." MALONE. 7 Fathom, &c.] This speech of Edgar is omitted in the quartos. He gives the sign used by those who are sounding the depth at sea. STEEVENS. |