Scene I, II. That the duke of Cornwall was so slain? Kent. Most certain, sir. The bastard son of Gloster. Gent. They say, Edgar, His banished son, is with the earl of Kent 3 SCENE 1.-The camp of the British forces, In honour'd love. Edm. That thought abuses you. Reg. never shall endure her: Dear my lord, Edm. Fear me not: She, and the duke her husband, Enter Albany, Goneril, and Soldiers. Gon. I had rather lose the battle, than that sister Should loosen him and me. [Aside. Alb. Our very loving sister, well be met.- Are not to question here. Alb. Let us then determine With the ancient of war on our proceedings. Gon. No. Reg. 'Tis most convenient; pray you, go with us. I'll overtake you.-Speak. Edg. Before you fight the battle, ope this letter. [Exit. Alb. Why, fare thee well; I will o'erlook thy paper. Re-enter Edmund. Edm. The enemy's in view, draw up your powers. Alb. [Exrt. Edg. Here, father, take the shadow of this tree Grace go with you, sir! Alarums; afterwards a retreat. Re-enter Edgar. Glo. No further, sir; a man may rot even here. Their going hence, even as their coming hither: 882 Edm. Some officers take them away: good guard; Cor. Sir, by your patience, Reg. Not so hot: We two alone will sing like birds i'the cage: Take them away. He, that parts us, shall bring a brand from heaven, Come. [Exe. Lear and Cor. guarded. One step I have advanc'd thee; if thou dost Does not become a sword:-Thy great employment Offi. Edm. About it; and write happy, when thou hast done. Mark,-I say, instantly; and carry it so, Ofi. I cannot draw a cart, nor eat dried oats; Flourish. Enter Albany, Goneril, Regan, Offi- Alb. Sir, you have shown to-day your valiant And fortune led you well: You have the captives Edm. Sir, I thought it fit (1) Pass judgment on them. (2) The French disease. (4) Admit of debate. (3) Skin. 5) To be discoursed of in greater privacy. In my rights, you. Reg. Jesters do oft prove prophets. Gon. Half-blooded fellow, yes. On capital treason; and, in thy arrest, I bar it in the interest of my wife; Gon. An interlude! Alb. Thou art arm'd, Gloster:-Let the trumpet If none appear to prove upon thy person, Ere I taste bread, thou art in nothing less Sick, O, sick! Gon. If not, I'll ne'er trust poison. [Aside. That names me traitor, villain-like he lies: (6) Authority to act on his own judgment. (8) The hindrance. Alb. A herald, ho! A herald, ho, a herald ! Gon. This is mere practice, Gloster: This sickness grows upon me. Or with this paper shall I stop it:-Hold, sir :- Enter a Herald. Edm. Sound. [Gives the letter to Edmund. Gon. Say, if I do; the laws are mine, not thine : And more, much more: the time will bring it out; 'Tis past, and so am I: But what art thou, [1 Trumpet. That hast this fortune on me? If thou art noble, [2 Trumpet. I do forgive thee. [3 Trumpet. Edg. Let's exchange charity. [Trumpet answers within. I am no less in blood than thou art, Edmund; Enter Edgar, armed, preceded by a trumpet. Alb. Ask him his purposes, why he appears Upon this call o'the trumpet. Her. What are you? Know, my name is lost; Alb. Edm. Himself;-What say'st thou to him? Alb. Worthy prince, Where have you hid yourself? This sword, this arm, and my best spirits, are Never (Ó fault!) reveal'd myself unto him, bent To prove upon thy heart, whereto I speak, Edm. In wisdom, I should ask thy name;" Alb. O save him, save him! (1) i. e. Valour. (2) Notwithstanding. (3) Because if his adversary was not of equal rank, Edmund might have declined the combat. Until some half-hour past, when I was arm'd, Whilst I was big in clamour, came there a man, And there I left him tranc'd. Alb. But who was this? To lay the blame upon her own despair, Alb. The gods defend her! Bear him hence a while. [Edinund is borne off. Enter Lear, with Cordelia dead in his arms; Edgar, Officer, and others. Lear. Howl, howl, howl, howl!-0, you are Had I your tongues and eyes, I'd use them so Edg. Kent, sir, the banish'd Kent; who in dis-I know when one is dead, and when one lives; Follow'd his enemy king, and did him service Kent. Is this the promis'd end?' What kind of help? Speak, man. Kent. O my good master! {Kneeling. Lear. Pr'ythee, away. Edg. What means that bloody knife? It came even from the heart of Alb. Edm. I was contracted to them both; all three Alb. Produce their bodies, be they alive or dead! This judgment of the heavens, that makes us tremble, Touches us not with pity. Enter Kent. [Exit Gentleman. I Edg. 'Tis noble Kent, your friend. Lear. A plague upon you, murderers, traitors all! might have sav'd her; now she's gone for ever!— Did I not, fellow? Here comes Kent, sir. And these same crosses spoil me.-Who are you? Speak, Edmund, where's the king? and where's He'll strike, and quickly too:-He's dead and Great thing of us forgot! Kent. No, my good lord; I am the very man ;- Kent. That, from your first of difference and Yet Edmund was belov'd; Have follow'd your sad steps. Lear. Your eldest daughters have fore-doom'd themselves, Lear. Ay, so I think. Alb. He knows not what he says; and vain it is That we present us to him. Edg. Very bootless.* Enter an Officer. Offi. Edmund is dead, my lord. (4) i. e. Die; Albany speaks to Lear. With boot,' and such addition as your honours Lear. And my poor fool' is hang'd! No, no, no Why should a dog, a horse, a rat, have life, nicely discriminates, and so minutely describes the characters of men, he commonly neglects and confounds the characters of ages, by mingling customs ancient and modern, English and foreign. My learned friend Mr. Warton, who has in The Adventurer very minutely criticised this play, remarks, that the instances of cruelty are too savage And thou no breath at all? O, thou wilt come no and shocking, and that the intervention of Edmund destroys the simplicity of the story. These objections may, I think, be answered by repeating, that the cruelty of the daughters is an historical fact, to But I am Pray you, undo this button: Thank you, sir.Do you see this? Look on her,-look,-her lips,-which the poet has added little, having only drawn Look there, look there![He dies. it into a series by dialogue and action. Edg. He faints!-My lord, my lord,- not able to apologize with equal plausibility for the Kent. Break, heart; I pr'ythee, break! extrusion of Gloster's eyes, which seems an act too Edg. Look up, my lord. horrid to be endured in dramatic exhibition, and Kent. Vex not his ghost:-0, let him pass! he such as must always compel the mind to relieve its hates him, distress by incredulity. Yet let it be remembered that our author well knew what would please the audience for which he wrote. That would upon the rack of this tough world Edg. O, he is gone, indeed. Kent. The wonder is, he hath endur'd so long: He but usurp'd his life. Alb. Bear them from hence.-Our present busi ness Is general wo. Friends of my soul, you twain [To Kent and Edgar. Speak what we feel, not what we ought to say. The injury done by Edmund to the simplicity of the action is abundantly recompensed by the addition of variety, by the art with which he is made to co-operate with the chief design, and the opportunity which he gives the poet of combining perfidy with perfidy, and connecting the wicked son with the wicked daughters, to impress this important moral, that villany is never at a stop, that crimes lead to crimes, and at last terminate in ruin. vation of justice makes a play worse; or that, if other excellencies are equal, the audience will not always rise better pleased from the final triumph of persecuted virtue. But though this moral be incidentally enforced, Shakspeare has suffered the virtue of Cordelia to perish in a just cause, contrary to the natural ideas of justice, to the hope of the reader, and what is yet more strange, to the faith of chronicles. Yet this conduct is justified by The Spectator, who blames Tate for giving Cordelia success and happiness in his alteration, and declares, that in his opinion, the tragedy has lost half its beauty. Dennis has remarked, whether justly or not, that, to secure the favourable reception of Cato, the town was poisoned with much false and abominable The tragedy of Lear is deservedly celebrated criticism, and that endeavours had been used to among the dramas of Shakspeare. There is perhaps discredit and decry poetical justice. A play in no play which keeps the attention so strongly fixed; which the wicked prosper, and the virtuous miswhich so much agitates our passions, and interests carry, may doubtless be good, because it is a just our curiosity. The artful involutions of distinct in- representation of the common events of human life: terests, the striking oppositions of contrary charac- but since all reasonable beings naturally love justers, the sudden changes of fortune, and the quick tice, I cannot easily be persuaded, that the obsersuccession of events, fill the mind with a perpetual tumult of indignation, pity, and hope. There is no scene which does not contribute to the aggravation of the distress or conduct to the action, and scarce a line which does not conduce to the progress of the In the present case the public has decided. Corscene. So powerful is the current of the poet's delia, from the time of Tate, has always retired imagination, that the mind, which once ventures with victory and felicity. And, if my sensations within it, is hurried irresistibly along. could add any thing to the general suffrage, I might On the seeming improbability of Lear's conduct, relate, I was many years ago so shocked by Corit may be observed, that he is represented accord-delia's death, that I know not whether I ever ening to histories at that time vulgarly received as dured to read again the last scenes of the play, till true. And, perhaps, if we turn our thoughts upon I undertook to revise them as an editor. the barbarity and ignorance of the age to which There is another controversy among the critics this story is referred, it will appear not so unlikely concerning this play. It is disputed whether the as while we estimate Lear's manners by our own. prominent image in Lear's disordered mind be the Such preference of one daughter to another, or re- loss of his kingdom or the cruelty of his daughters. signation of dominion on such conditions, would Mr. Murphy, a very judicious critic, has evinced be yet credible, if told of a petty prince of Guinea by induction of particular passages, that the cruelor Madagascar. Shakspeare, indeed, by the men- ty of his daughters is the primary source of his distion of his earls and dukes, has given us the idea tress, and that the loss of rovalty affects him only of times more civilized, and of life regulated by as a secondary and subordinate evil. He observes, softer manners; and the truth is, that though he so with great justness, that Lear would move our compassion but little, did we not rather consider the (2) Titles. injured father than the degraded king. (1) Benefit. (3) Poor fool in the time of Shakspeare, was an expression of endearment. |