Shakespeare's tragedy of King Lear : illustrated

Preface

This edition of King Lear was first published in 1880. As now revised, it is substantially a new edition on the same general plan as the revised Merchant of Venice, Macbeth, Hamlet, and other plays that have preceded it.

Many of the notes on textual variatiofis have been either omitted or abridged. Those that have been retained are mostly on the passages (particularly numerous in this play) in which different readings from the folio or the quarto have been adopted in the more important modern editions. For further information on this subject Dr. Furness's edition may be consulted. No teacher or critical student can afford to do without his' encyclopedic volumes, in which all the readings and notes of the early and standard modern editions are recorded or epitomized, together with large extracts from the best commentators and much admirable criticism from Dr. Furness himself.

I have also omitted most of the " Critical Comments " from the introduction, as the books from which they were taken are now to be found in public or school libraries. For these extracts I have substituted familiar comments of my own, and have added more of ,the same kind in the Appendix. A concise account of Shakespeare's metre has also been inserted as an introduction to the Notes.

Minor ' changes have been made throughout the Notes. Some have been abridged, some have been

6 Preface

expanded, and new ones have been added, including a considerable number in place of those referring to my editions of other plays. The book is now absolutely complete in itself.

I believe that the new edition will be generally preferred to the old one ; but both can be used, without serious inconvenience, in the same class or club.

Act III 84 Act IV no

Lear's Insanity 285

Cordelia : Her Character and her Fate .... 289

Tate's Version of the Play 293

The Time- Analysis of the Play 295

List of Characters in the Play 296

Index of Words and Phrases explained . . . 299

Country near Dover

Lear (Sir Joshua Reynolds)

Introduction To King Lear

The History of the Play

King Lear was first published in quarto form in 1608, with the following title-page : —

" M. William Shak-speare : His True Chronicle Historic of the life and death of King Lear and his three Daughters. With the vnfortunate life of Edgar, sonne and heire to the Earle of Gloster, and his sullen and assumed humor of Tom of Bedlam : As it was played io King Lear

before the Kings Maiestie at Whitehall vpon S. Stephans night in Christmas Hollidayes. By his Maiesties seruants playing vsually at the Gloabe on the Banckeside. London, Printed for Nathaniel Butter, and are to be sold at his shop in Pauls Church-yard at the signe of the Pide Bull neere St. Austins Gate. 1608."

A second quarto edition was issued by the same publisher in the same year, the title-page of which is similar, except that it omits " and are to be sold ... St. Austins Gate."

The text of the folio of 1623 is generally regarded as better than that of the quartos, and appears to have been printed from an independent manuscript. Each text, however, is valuable as supplying the deficiencies of the other. The quartos, according to Furness, contain about two hundred and twenty lines that are not in the folios, and the folios fifty lines that are not in the quartos. One entire scene (iv. 3) is omitted in the folios. This discrepancy in the texts has been the subject of much investigation and discussion ; and the critics differ widely in their explanations of it.

The date of the play cannot be earlier than 1603 nor later than 1606. The former limit is fixed by the publication of Dr. Harsnet's Declaration of Popish Impostures, from which Shakespeare got the names of some of the devils mentioned by Edgar in iii. 4 ; and the latter by the entry of the play in the Stationers' Registers, dated November 26, 1607, which states that it was performed " before the kinges maiestie at White-

Introduction n

hall vppon Sainct Stephens night at Christmas Last," that is, upon the 26th of December, 1606.

The Sources of the Plot

The story of King Lear and his three daughters is one of the oldest in English literature. It is told by Geoffrey of Monmouth in his Historia Britonum, by Layamon in his Brut, by Robert of Gloucester, by Fabyan in his Chronicle, by Spenser in the Faerie Queene, by Holinshed in his Chronicle, by Camden in his Remaines, in the Mirrour for Magistrates, in Warner's Albion's England, and elsewhere in prose and verse. It had also been dramatized in the Chronicle History of King Leir, which is probably the same play that was entered in the Stationers' Register in 1594, and that was reprinted in 1605 — possibly on account of the success of Shakespeare's Lear, then just brought out. The author of this old play probably took the story from Holinshed, and Shakespeare drew either from the same source or from the old play. The portion of the plot in which Gloster figures was derived from Sir Philip Sidney's Arcadia. But the poet's real debt to his predecessors is so insignificant that it is scarce worth tracing or recording. As Furness well says, " the distance is always immeasurable between the hint and the fulfilment; what to our purblind eyes is a bare, naked rock, becomes, when gilded by Shakespeare's heavenly alchemy, encrusted thick all over with jewels. When, after reading one of his tragedies, we turn to what we are pleased to call the 'original of his plot/ I am reminded of those glittering gems, of which Heine speaks, that we see at night in lovely gardens, and think must have been left there by kings' children at play ; but when we look for these jewels by day we see only wretched little worms which crawl painfully away, and which the foot forbears to crush only out of strange pity."

The old play of King Leir is not so poor a thing as some of the critics have represented. Though almost infinitely below Shakespeare's tragedy, it has some features that place it above the average of contemporary dramatic productions. Campbell the poet, who was an excellent critic, calls it " simple and touching." He adds : " There is one scene in it, the meeting of Cordelia with her father in a lonely forest, which, with Shakespeare's Lear in my heart, I could scarcely read with dry eyes." Nevertheless, as Campbell says, Shakespeare " has sublimated the old tragedy into a new one by an entire originality in the spiritual portraiture of its personages. . . . Wherever Shakespeare works on old materials, you will find him, not wiping dusted gold, but extracting gold from dust, where none but himself could have made the golden extraction."

One scene in the old play reminds me of Longfellow's Miles Standish, and Priscilla's " Why don't you speak for yourself, John ? " The King of France and one of his nobles, disguised as pilgrims, fall in with Cordelia

Introduction 13

after her father has cast her off. They tell her that the King, whom she has not seen, is a suitor for her hand. But Cordelia says that she will not have him, adding with characteristic frankness : —

" Then be advised, palmer, what to do : Cease for thy king, seek for thyself to woo.

King. Your birth 's too high for any but a king.

Cordelia. My mind is low enough to love a palmer."

The King soon reveals himself, and Cordelia gets a royal husband after all.

General Comments on the Play

If Lear was an historical character, he is supposed to have lived in the eighth century, and that may well be the time of the dramatic action. Shakespeare appears to have purposely taken us back into heathen and barbarous times. The whole atmosphere is pagan. There is not a single deliberate reference to Christianity or its institutions. Occasionally, as in the Roman plays, we meet with a careless or accidental allusion to something associated with Christian times — like the mention of a "godson" — but this is simply an illustration of the poet's unscholarly habits, which lead him into anachronisms. They do not make the play Christian any more than the allusion to " holy churchyards " in Coriolanus or to nunneries in the Midsummer- Night J s Dream. Lear himself is a barbarian monarch ; Goneril,

Regan, and Edmund are savages. The plucking out of Gloster's eyes is a piece of savagery in keeping with the times. Even the better characters, like Kent, have a certain uncivilized impetuosity about them. The gods of the play are heathen gods. Astrology, though Edmund sneers at it, being an atheist, is a part of the general faith. As Kent says, —

" It is the stars, The stars above us, govern our conditions."

Lear swears by —

" the sacred radiance of the sun, The mysteries of Hecate and the night, By all the operation of the orbs, From whom we do exist and cease to be."

It is also the Celtic race that we have to deal with, not the Saxon — a race " highly inflammable, headstrong, flushed with sudden angers, and breaking out into wild violences, but also, in its better children at least, of a deep tenderness and sincerity ; in short, a highly emotional race, quickly stirred to good and to evil ; swift to love, swift to hate ; blessing and cursing with the same breath ; with eyes, now full of a gentle solicitude and regard, now flashing into an intolerable frenzy of detestation ; a blind, hysterical race, if not wisely counselled and judiciously led ; but under good auspices springing forward with a splendid vivacity to the highjest prizes of glory and honour." Lear himself is the /very type of this race : so is Kent ; so is Cornwall : —

Introduction 15

" You know the fiery quality of the duke, How unremovable and fix'd he is In his own course."

And in Cordelia we see the same Celtic impulsiveness. She cannot control the indignation kindled in her soul by the false protestations of her sisters.

But to presume to comment upon Lear seems little short of profanity. One cannot but agree with Hazlitt, who says, in his Characters of Shakespeare'' s Plays: " We wish that we could pass this play over and say nothing about it. All that we can say must fall far short of the subject, or even of what we ourselves conceive of it. To attempt to give a description of the play itself, or of its effect upon the mind, is mere im- \ pertinence ; yet we must say something. It is, then, 'the best of all Shakespeare's plays, for it is the one in which he was the most in earnest. He was here fairly caught in the web of his own imagination. The passion which he has taken as his subject is that which strikes its root deepest into the human heart, of which the bond is the hardest to be unloosed, and the cancelling and tearing to pieces of which gives the greatest revulsion to the frame. This depth of nature, this force of passion, this tug and war of the elements of our being, this firm faith in filial piety, and the giddy anarchy and whirling tumult of the thoughts at finding the prop failing it ; the contrast between the fixed, immovable basis of natural affection and the rapid, irregular starts of imagination, suddenly wrenched from all its accustomed holds and resting-places in the soul — this is what Shakespeare has given, and what nobody else but he could give."

Coleridge remarks : "In the Shakespearian drama there is a vitality which grows and evolves itself from within, a key-note which guides and controls the harmonies throughout. What is Lear ? It is storm and tempest — the thunder at first grumbling in the far horizon, then gathering around us, and at length bursting in fury over our heads — succeeded by a breaking of the clouds for a while, a last flash of lightning, the closing-in of night, and the single hope of darkness."

KING LEAR — 2 I J.

DRAMATIS PERSONS

Lear, king of Britain.

King of France.

Duke of Burgundy.

Duke of Cornwall.

Duke of Albany.

Earl of Kent.

Earl of Gloster.

Edgar, son to Gloster.

Edmund, bastard son to Gloster.

Curan, a courtier.

Oswald, steward to Goneril.

Old Man, tenant to Gloster.

Doctor.

Fool.

A Captain employed by Edmund*

Gentleman attendant on Cordelia.

A Herald.

Servants to Cornwall.

Goneril, )

Regan, > daughters to Lear.

Cordelia, )

Knights of Lear's train, Captains, Messengers, Soldiers, and Attendants.

Scene: Britain.

iS

Scene I. King Lear's Palace Enter Kent, Gloster, and Edmund

Kent. I thought the king had more affected the Duke of Albany than Cornwall.

Gloster. It did always seem so to us ; but now, in the division of the kingdom, it appears not which of the dukes he values most, for qualities are so weighed that curiosity in neither can make choice of either's moiety.

Kent. Is not this your son, my lord ?

Gloster. His breeding, sir, hath been at my charge ; I have so often blushed to acknowledge him that now 10 I am brazed to 't. Do you smell a fault ?

Kent. I cannot wish the fault undone, the issue of it being so proper.

Gloster. But I have a son, sir, by order of law, some year elder than this, who yet is no dearer in my account ; though this knave came something saucily into the world before he was sent for, yet was his mother fair, and the whoreson must be acknowledged. — Do you know this noble gentleman, Edmund ? 20

Edmund. No, my lord.

Gloster. My lord of Kent. Remember him hereafter as my honourable friend.

Edmund. My services to your lordship.

Kent. I must love you, and sue to know you better.

Edmund. Sir, I shall study deserving.

Gloster. He hath been out nine years, and away he shall again. — The king is coming. [Sennet within.

Enter one bearing a coronet, King Lear, Cornwall, Albany, Goneril, Regan, Cordelia, and Attendants

Lear. Attend the lords of France and Burgundy, Gloster.

Scene I] King Lear ai

Gloster. I shall, my liege. 30

[Exeunt Gloster and Edmund.

Lear. Meantime we shall express our darker purpose. — Give me the map there. — Know that we have

divided In three our kingdom ; and 't is our fast intent To shake all cares and business from our age, Conferring them on younger strengths, while we Unburthen'd crawl toward death. — Our son of Cornwall, — And you, our no less loving son of Albany, We have this hour a constant will to publish Our daughters' several dowers, that future strife May be prevented now. The princes, France and Burgundy, 4°

Great rivals in our youngest daughter's love, Long in our court have made their amorous sojourn, And here are to be answer 'd. — Tell me, my daughters, Since now we will divest us both of rule, Interest of territory, cares of state, Which of you shall we say doth love us most ? That we our largest bounty may extend Where nature doth with merit challenge. — Goneril, Our eldest-born, speak first.

Goneril. Sir, I love you more than word can wield the matter ; 5°

Dearer than eyesight, space, and liberty ; Beyond what can be valued, rich or rare ;

No less than life, with grace, health, beauty, honour ; As much as child e'er lov'd or father found ; A love that makes breath poor and speech unable ; Beyond all manner of so much I love you.

Cordelia. [Aside] What shall Cordelia speak ? Love, and be silent.

Lear. Of all these bounds, even from this line to this, With shadowy forests and with champaigns rich'd, With plenteous rivers and wide-skirted meads, 60

We make thee lady. To thine and Albany's issue Be this perpetual. — What says our second daughter, Our dearest Regan, wife of Cornwall?

Regan. I am made of that self metal as my sister, And prize me at her worth. In my true heart I find she names my very deed of love, Only she comes too short ; that I profess Myself an enemy to all other joys Which the most precious square of sense professes, And find I am alone felicitate 70

In your dear highness' love.

Cordelia. [Aside] Then poor Cordelia !

And yet not so, since I am sure my love's More ponderous than my tongue.

Lear. To thee and thine hereditary ever Remain this ample third of our fair kingdom, No less in space, validity, and pleasure, Than that conferr'd on Goneril. — Now, our joy, Although our last and least, to whose young love The vines of France and milk of Burgundy

Strive to be interess'd, what can you say to draw 80

A third more opulent than your sisters ? Speak.

Cordelia. Nothing, my lord.

Lear. Nothing?

Cordelia. Nothing.

Lear. Nothing will come of nothing ; speak again.

Cordelia. Unhappy that I am, I cannot heave My heart into my mouth. I love your majesty According to my bond, no more nor less.

Lear. How, how, Cordelia ! mend your speech a little, Lest it may mar your fortunes.

Cordelia. ' Good my lord, 90

You have begot me, bred me, lov'd me ; I Return those duties back as are right fit, Obey you, love you, and most honour you.

Why have my sisters husbands, if they say They love you all ? Haply, when I shall wed, That lord whose hand must take my plight shall carry Half my love with him, half my care and duty. Sure, I shall never marry like my sisters, To love my father all.

Lear.' But goes thy heart with this ?

Cordelia. Ay, my good lord.

Lear. So young, and so untender ? 101

Cordelia. So young, my lord, and true.

Lear. Let it be so ; thy truth then be thy dower ! For, by the sacred radiance of the sun, The mysteries of Hecate and the night, By all the operation of the orbs

From whom we do exist and cease to be,

Here I disclaim all my paternal care,

Propinquity and property of blood,

And as a stranger to my heart and me no

Hold thee from this for ever. The barbarous Scythian,

Or he that makes his generation messes

To gorge his appetite, shall to my bosom

Be as well neighbour'd, pitied, and reliev'd,

As thou my sometime daughter.

Kent. Good my liege, —

Lear. Peace, Kent !

Come not between the dragon and his wrath. I lov'd her most, and thought to set my rest On her kind nursery. — Hence, and avoid my sight ! — So be my grave my peace, as here I give 120

Her father's heart from her ! — Call France. Who stirs ? Call Burgundy. — Cornwall and Albany, With my two daughters' dowers digest the third. Let pride, which she calls plainness, marry her. I do invest you jointly with my power, Pre-eminence, and all the large effects That troop with majesty. Ourself, by monthly course, With reservation of an hundred knights, By you to be sustain 'd, shall our abode Make with you by due turn. Only we shall retain 130 The name and all the addition to a king ; The sway, revenue, execution of the rest, Beloved sons, be yours, — which to confirm, This coronet part between you.

Kent. Royal Lear,

Whom I have ever honour 'd as my king, Lov'd as my father, as my master follow'd, As my great patron thought on in my prayers, —

Lear. The bow is bent and drawn ; make from the shaft.

Kent. Let it fall rather, though the fork invade The region of my heart ! Be Kent unmannerly 140

When Lear is mad. What wouldst thou do, old

man ?

Think'st thou that duty shall have dread to speak When power to flattery bows ? To plainness honour 's

bound When majesty falls to folly. Reserve thy state, And in thy best consideration check This hideous rashness. Answer my life my judgment, Thy youngest daughter does not love thee least ; Nor are those empty-hearted whose low sound Reverbs no hollowness.

Lear. Kent, on thy life, no more !

Kent. My life I never held but as a pawn 150

To wage against thy enemies, nor fear to lose it, Thy safety being the motive.

Lear. Out of my sight !

Kent. See better, Lear, and let me still remain The true blank of thine eye.

Lear. Now, by Apollo, —

Kent. Now, by Apollo, king.

Thou swear'st thy gods in vain.

iG King Lear [Act I

Lear. O, vassal ! miscreant!

[Laying his hand on his sword.

Albany. \ Dear ^ forbear

Cornwall. )

Kent. Kill thy physician, and the fee bestow Upon the foul disease. Revoke thy gift ; Or, whilst I can vent clamour from my throat, 160

I '11 tell thee thou dost evil.

Lear. Hear me, recreant !

On thine allegiance, hear me !

That thou hast sought to make us break our vow, Which we durst never yet, and with strain'd pride To come betwixt our sentence and our power, Which nor our nature nor our place can bear, Our potency made good, take thy reward.

Five days we do allot thee, for provision To shield thee from diseases of the world, And on the sixth to turn thy hated back 170

Upon our kingdom ; if on the tenth day following Thy banish'd trunk be found in our dominions, The moment is thy death. Away ! By Jupiter, This shall not be revok'd. ' Kent. ' Fare thee well, king ; sith thus thou, wilt appear, Freedom lives hence, and banishment is here. — The gods to their dear shelter take thee, maid, That justly think'st and hast most rightly said ! — And your large speeches may your deeds approve, That good effects may spring from words of love. — 180

Thus Kent, O princes, bids you all adieu ;

He '11 shape his old course in a country new. [Exit.

Flourish. Re-enter Gloster, with France, Burgundy, and Attendants.

Gloster. Here 's France and Burgundy, my noble lord.

Lear. My lord of Burgundy, We first address toward you, who with this king Hath rivalPd for our daughter ; what, in the least, Will you require in present dower with her, Or cease your quest of love ?

Burgundy. Most royal majesty,

I crave no more than hath your highness offer'd, Nor will you tender less.

Lear. Right noble Burgundy, 190

When she was dear to us we did hold her so, But now her price is fallen. Sir, there she stands. If aught within that little-seeming substance, Or all of it, with our displeasure piec'd, And nothing more, may fitly like your grace, She 's there, and she is yours.

Burgundy. I know no answer.

Lear. Will you, with those infirmities she owes, Unfriended, new-adopted to our hate, Dower'd with our curse and stranger'd with our oath, Take her or leave her ?

Burgundy. Pardon me, royal sir ; 200

Election makes not up on such conditions.

Lear. Then leave her, sir; for, by the power that made me, I tell you all her wealth. — [To France] For you,

great king, I would not from your love make such a stray To match you where I hate, therefore beseech you To avert your liking a more worthier way Than on a wretch whom nature is asham'd Almost to acknowledge hers.

France. This is most strange,

That she who even but now was your best object, The argument of your praise, balm of your age, 210

The best, the dearest, should in this trice of time Commit a thing so monstrous to dismantle So many folds of favour. Sure, her offence Must be of such unnatural degree That monsters it, or your fore-vouch'd affection Fallen into taint ; which to believe of her Must be a faith that reason without miracle Should never plant in me.

Cordelia. I yet beseech your majesty, —

If for I want that glib and oily art

To speak and purpose not, since what I well intend 220 I '11 do 't before I speak, — that you make known It is no vicious blot, nor other foulness, No unchaste action, or dishonour'd step, That hath depriv'd me of your grace and favour ; But even for want of that for which I am richer, — A still-soliciting eye, and such a tongue

That I am glad I have not, though not to have it Hath lost me in your liking.

Lear. Better thou

Hadst not been born than not to have pleas 'd me better.

France. Is it but this ? a tardiness in nature, 230

Which often leaves the history unspoke That it intends to do ? — My lord of Burgundy, What say you to the lady ? Love 's not love When it is mingled with regards that stands Aloof from the entire point. Will you have her ? She is herself a dowry.

Burgundy. Royal Lear,

Give but that portion which yourself propos'd, And here I take Cordelia by the hand, Duchess of Burgundy.

Lear. Nothing. I have sworn ; I am firm. 240

Burgundy. I am sorry then you have so lost a father That you must lose a husband.

Cordelia. Peace be with Burgundy !

Since that respects of fortune are his love, I shall not be his wife.

France. Fairest Cordelia, that art most rich being poor, Most choice forsaken, and most lov'd despis'd, Thee and thy virtues here I seize upon ; Be it lawful I take up what 's cast away. Gods, gods ! 't is strange that from their cold'st neglect My love should kindle to inflam'd respect. — 250

Thy dowerless daughter, king, thrown to my chance,

Is queen of us, of ours, and our fair France. Not all the dukes of waterish Burgundy Can buy this unpriz'd precious maid of me. — Bid them farewell, Cordelia, though unkind ; Thou losest here, a better where to find. f> y Lear. Thou hast her, France ; let her be thine, for we Have no such daughter, nor shall ever see That face of hers again. — Therefore be gone Without our grace, our love, our benison. — 260

Come, noble Burgundy.

[Flourish. Exeunt all but France, Goneril, Regan, and Cordelia.

France. Bid farewell to your sisters.

Cordelia. Ye jewels of our father, with wash'd eyes Cordelia leaves you. I know you what you are, And, like a sister, am most loath to call Your faults as they are nam'd. Love well our father. To your professed bosoms I commit him ; But yet, alas ! stood I within his grace, I would prefer him to a better place.

So farewell to you both. • 270

Regan. Prescribe not us our duty.

Goneril. Let your study

Be to content your lord, who hath receiv'd you At fortune's alms. You have obedience scanted, And well are worth the want that you have wanted.

Cordelia. Time shall unfold what plighted cunning hides ;

Who cover faults, at last shame them derides. Well may you prosper !

France. Come, my fair Cordelia.

[Exeunt France and Cordelia.

Goneril. Sister, it is not little I have to say of what most nearly appertains to us both. I think our father will hence to-night. 280

Regan. That 's most certain, and with you ; next month with us.

Goneril. You see how full of changes his age is ; the observation we have made of it hath not been little. He always loved our sister most ; and with what poor judgment he hath now cast her off appears too grossly.

Regan. 'T is the infirmity of his age ; yet he hath ever but slenderly known himself.

Goneril. The best and soundest of his time hath 290 been but rash ; then must we look from his age to receive, not alone the imperfections of long-ingraffed condition, but therewithal the unruly waywardness that infirm and choleric years bring with them.

Regan. Such unconstant starts are we like to have from him as this of Kent's banishment.

Goneril. There is further compliment of leavetaking between France and him. Pray you, let us hit together ; if our father carry, authority with such 300 disposition as he bears, this last surrender of his will but offend us.

Rega7i. We shall further think of it.

Goneril. We must do something, and i' th' heat.

[Exeunt.

Scene II. The Earl of Gloster's Castle Enter Edmund, with a letter

Edmund. Thou, Nature, art my goddess ; to thy law My services are bound. Wherefore should I Stand in the plague of custom, and permit The curiosity of nations to deprive me, For that I am some twelve or fourteen moonshines Lag of a brother ? Why bastard ? wherefore base ? When my dimensions are as well compact, My mind as generous and my shape as true, As honest madam's issue ? Why brand they us With base ? with baseness ? bastardy ? base, base ? 10 Legitimate Edgar, I must have your land.

Our father's love is to the bastard Edmund As to the legitimate ; fine word, ' legitimate ' ! Well, my legitimate, if this letter speed And my invention thrive, Edmund the base Shall top the legitimate. I grow, I prosper ; — Now, gods, stand up for bastards !

Enter Gloster

Gloster. Kent banish 'd thus I and France in choler parted !

And the king gone to-night ! subscrib'd his power !