Edg.

Look up, my lord.

Kent. Vex not his ghost: O, let him pass! he hates him much

That would upon the rack of this tough world
Stretch him out lpnger.

Edg.

He is gone, indeed.

Kent. The wonder is, he hath endured so long: He but usurp'd his life.

Alb. Bear them from hence. Our present business

315

Is general woe. [To Kent and Edgar] Friends of my soul, you twain

Rule in this realm, and the gored state sustain.

320

Kent. I have a journey, sir, shortly to go;

My master calls me, I must not say no.

Edg. The weight of this sad time we must obey;
Speak what we feel, not what we ought to say.
The oldest hath borne most: we that are young
Shall never see so much, nor live so long.

325

[Exeunt, with a dead march

NOTES

Abbott........

Abbott's Shakespearian Grammar.

Kellner....... Kellner's Historical Outlines of English Syntax.

This list is not in the Quartos (1608) It was first given by Rowe (1709). acts and scenes is not marked in the

Dramatis Personæ. or Folios (1623, &c.). The division into Quartos.

Act I—Scene 1

The first scene of King Lear is of unusual importance. It both enacts the events on which the whole play is founded and brings out prominently the characters of all the principal actors. As a general rule the first scene is confined to giving information necessary for the understanding of the story; or it may, as in Macbeth, symbolize the drama. /But in King Lear we are introduced at once, without any preparation, to the circumstance on which the story turns. The play as a whole is the representation of the effects of its opening incidents. Goethe considered this scene "irrational in its want of preparation.

1. affected, had affection for, favoured: the common meaning in Shakespeare. Cf. Twelfth Night, ii. 5. 28, "Maria once told me she did affect me

5. equalities are so weighed, &c.; their shares are so balanced that close scrutiny will not show one to be better, than the other. For curiosity see Glossary.

10. brazed, hardened. Cf. 'brazen-faced'.

12. proper, handsome: as frequently in E. E.
13. some year, a year or so, about a year.
24. deserving, i.e. to be better known by you.

See i. 2. 5.

25. out, abroad, in foreign lands. Cf. Two Gentlemen of Verona, i. 3. 7, "Put forth their sons to seek preferment out". 29. our darker purpose, our more secret design. Lear makes a full statement of what is already known by Kent and Gloucester.

31. fast intent, fixed intention: synonymous with 'constant will' in 1. 36.

33-38. while we . . . now. Omitted in the Quartos.

46. challenge, claim as due: "where there are both the claims of nature (i.e. of birth) and merit". Cf. iv. 7. 31.

48. wield the matter, express.

57. shadowy, shady.

62. self, i.e. same. This adjectival use of 'self', which is a survival from O. E., was still common in Shakespeare's time. Cf. iv. 3. 34.

64. names my very deed of love, states exactly my love, expresses my love in very deed.

67. the most precious square of sense, the most exquisitely sensitive part of our nature.

68. felicitate, made happy.

Regan's protestations are as forced as Goneril's. Her stilted phraseology betokens her insincerity. It is in ominous contrast to the simplicity of all that Cordelia can bring herself to say.

71. more ponderous. So the Folios. The Quartos read more richer. The double comparative and superlative (e.g. 1. 210) were commonly used in E. E. to give emphasis.

74. validity, value, worth; not in the modern sense of 'good title'.

76. Although the last, not least. This phrase occurs also in Julius Cæsar, iii. 1. 189, "Though last, not least in love"; and there are several other instances of it in Elizabethan literature.

The Folios read "Our last and least", which is preferred by some editors; while the Quartos have "Although the last, not least in our dear love", but omit from to whose young love to interess'd. The usual reading of this passage is therefore founded on both texts.

77. milk; referring to the rich pasture land of Burgundy. 78. interess'd. See Glossary.

83. Nothing will come of nothing. Cf. i. 4. 125, and the proverb, Ex nihilo nihil fit.

86. bond, bounden duty, obligation.

38. Good my lord, a common form of transposition when the possessive is unemphatic. Cf. l. 113 and iii. 2. 56. The transposition occurs most commonly when the address begins a sentence: contrast ii. 1. 109, iv. 2. 70 and 90.

93. all, exclusively, only. So also 1. 97.

100. All that Cordelia says has the sincerity and abrupt simplicity inevitable on being goaded to give expression to feelings too heart-felt for words. It has been remarked by some critics that Cordelia's conduct bears traces in its tactless obstinacy of her father's headstrong nature. Coleridge, for instance, says: "There is something of disgust at the ruthless hypocrisy of her sisters, and some little faulty admixture of pride and sullenness in Cordelia's 'Nothing'; and her tone is well contrived, indeed, to lessen the glaring absurdity of Lear's conduct". But the prevailing note of her character is simplicity and truth. She felt so deeply that she was unable to frame a formal statement of her love for her father, and she was the less able to do so from her abhorrence of her sisters' rank insincerity.

101. Wounded vanity is the cause of Lear's anger. He had already determined on a division of his kingdom among his three daughters. He says definitely, on his very entrance, we have divided in three our kingdom", and Kent and Gloucester have already discussed two of the shares. But that his vanity may be ministered unto he wishes to hear the professions of his daughters' love. "The trial is but a trick," says Coleridge; "the grossness of the old king's rage is in part the natural result of a silly trick suddenly and most unexpectedly baffled and disappointed."

103. Hecate, the goddess in classical mythology of enchantments and sorcery. In the Middle Ages she was regarded as the queen of witches. Cf. Macbeth, ii. 1. 52 and iii. 5. The word is pronounced as a dissyllable in Shakespeare.

It

107. property, equivalent to 'identity'. Cf. proper, iv. 2. 60. 11o. generation, generally said to mean 'offspring', as in the phrase "generation of vipers", S. Matthew, iii. 7, &c. is plausibly suggested by Mr. W. J. Craig, however, that generation may here mean 'parents', as progeny does in Coriolanus, i. 8. 12. Though Purchas in his Pilgrimes has a curious passage mentioning different kinds of cannibalism, he does not mention eating of children by their parents, nor do I know any reference to it. On the other hand, Herodotus tells us that the Scythians ate their aged and impotent relations, and Chapman in Byron's Tragedy, iv. 1, has the following