The man that makes his toe What he his heart should make, And turn his sleep to wake. -for there was never yet fair woman, but she made mouths in a glass. Enter KENT. LEAR. No, I will be the pattern of all patience, I will say nothing". KENT. Who's there? FOOL. Marry, here's grace, and a cod-piece; that's a wise man, and a fool 3. 8 KENT. Alas, sir, are you here?? things that love night, Love not such nights as these; the wrathful skies Gallow the very wanderers of the dark', 5. So beggars marry many.] i. e. A beggar marries a wife and lice. JOHNSON. Rather," So many beggars marry;" meaning, that they marry in the manner he has described, before they have houses to put their heads in. M. MASON. -cry woe,] i. e. be grieved, or pained. So, in King Richard III. : "You live, that shall cry woe for this hereafter." MALONE. 7 No, I will be the pattern of all patience, I will say nothing.] So Perillus, in the old anonymous play, speaking of Leir: 8 "But he, the myrrour of mild patience, "Puts up all wrongs, and never gives reply." STEEVENS. GRACE, and a COD-PIECE; that's a wise man and a fool.] In Shakspeare's time, "the king's grace" was the usual expression. In the latter phrase, the speaker perhaps alludes to an old notion concerning fools, mentioned in King Henry VIII. MALONE. Alluding perhaps to the saying of a contemporary wit; that there is no discretion below the girdle. STEEVENS. 9 - ARE you here?] The quartos read-sit you here?. STEEVENS. GALLOW the very wanderers of the dark,] So, in Venus and Adonis : And make them keep their caves: Since I was man, Such sheets of fire, such bursts of horrid thunder, Such groans of roaring wind and rain, I never Remember to have heard: man's nature cannot carry The affliction, nor the fear 2. LEAR. Let the great gods, That keep this dreadful pother3 o'er our heads, Find out their enemies now. Tremble, thou wretch, That hast within thee undivulged crimes, Unwhipp'd of justice: Hide thee, thou bloody hand; 4 Thou perjur'd, and thou simular man* of virtue 66 *First folio omits man. -'stonish'd as night-wanderers are." MALONE. Gallow, a west-country word, signifies to scare or frighten. WARBURTON. So, the Somersetshire proverb: "The dunder do gally the beans." Beans are vulgarly supposed to shoot up faster after thunder-storms. 2 STEEVENS. fear.] So the folio: the latter editions read, with the quarto, force for fear, less elegantly. JOHNSON. 3 keep this dreadful POTHER] Thus one of the quartos and the folio. The other quarto reads thund'ring. The reading of the text, however, is an expression common to others. So, in The Scornful Lady of Beaumont and Fletcher: faln out with their meat, and kept a pudder." 66 STEEVENS. 4 That under covert and CONVENIENT seeming ] Convenient needs not be understood in any other than its usual and proper sense; accommodate to the present purpose; suitable to a design. Convenient seeming is appearance such as may promote his purpose to destroy. JOHNSON. 5 concealing CONTINENTS,] Continent stands for that which contains or incloses. JOHNSON. Thus in Antony and Cleopatra: 66 Heart, once be stronger than thy continent !" These dreadful summoners grace.-I am a man', More sinn'd against, than sinning. 8 KENT. Some friendship will it lend you 'gainst the tempest; * First folio, More harder than the stones. Again, in Chapman's translation of the twelfth book of Homer's Odyssey: "I told our pilot that past other men "He most must bear firm spirits, since he sway'd The quartos read, concealed centers. 6 and cry These dreadful SUMMONERS grace.] Summoners are here the officers that summon offenders before a proper tribunal. See Chaucer's Sompnour's Tale, v. 625–670. Mr. Tyrwhitt's edit. vol. i. STEEVENS. I find the same expression in a treatise published long before this play was written: "they seem to brag most of the strange events which follow for the most part after blazing starres, as if they were the summoners of God to call princes to the seat of judgment." Defensative Against the Poison of Supposed Prophecies, 1581. MALONE. 7 I am a man,] Oedipus, in Sophocles, represents himself in the same light. Oedip. Colon. v. 270. τα γ' εργά με Πεπονθότ ̓ εσί μᾶλλον ἢ δεδρακότα. ΤYRWHITT. Alack, bare-headed!] Kent's faithful attendance on the old king, as well as that of Perillus, in the old play which preceded Shakspeare's, is founded on an historical fact. Lear, says Geoffrey of Monmouth, "when he betook himself to his youngest daughter in Gaul, waited before the city where she resided, while he sent a messenger to inform her of the misery he was fallen into, and to desire her relief to a father that suffered both hunger and nakedness. Cordeilla was startled at the news, and wept bitterly, and with tears asked him, how many men her father had with him. The messenger answered he had none but one man, who had been his armour-bearer, and was staying with him without the town." MALONE. Denied me to come in,) return, and force LEAR. My wits begin to turn.— Come on, my boy: How dost, my boy? Art cold? I am cold myself. Where is this straw, my fellow ? The art of our necessities is strange, That can make vile things precious. Come, your hovel, 9 Poor fool and knave, I have one part in my heart 9 That's sorry yet for thee'. FOOL. He that has a little tiny wit, With heigh, ho, the wind and the rain', Must make content with his fortunes fit; For the rain it raineth every day. this hovel. LEAR. True, my good boy.-Come, bring us to [Exeunt LEAR and KENT. FOOL. This is a brave night to cool a courtezan 3. -I'll speak a prophecy ere I go: When priests are more in word than matter; 9 -one PART in my heart-] Some editions read: 66 thing in my heart —.” from which Hanmer, and Dr. Warburton after him, have made string, very unnecessarily; but the copies have part. JOHNSON. 1 That's SORRY yet, &c.] The old quartos read: 2 "That sorrows yet for thee." STEEVENS. a little tiny wit, With heigh, ho, &c.] See song at the end of Twelfth Night. STEEVENS, 3 This is a brave night, &c.] This speech is not in the quartos. 4 When nobles are their tailors' tutors;] i. e. STEEVENS. invent fashions 5 No hereticks burn'd, but wenches' suitors :] The disease to When every case in law is right; And bawds and whores do churches build ;- Come to great confusion". Then comes the time', who lives to see't, This prophecy Merlin shall make; for I live before his time. [Exit. which wenches' suitors are particularly exposed, was called, in Shakspeare's time, the brenning or burning. JOHNSON. cer. So, in Isaiah, iii. 24: "—and burning instead of beauty." STEEVENS. 6 Then shall the realm of Albion Come to great confusion.] These lines are taken from ChauPuttenham, in his Art of Poetry, 1589, quotes them as fol lows: “When faith fails in priestes saws, "Then shall the realm of Albion "Be brought to great confusion." STEEVENS. 66 Then comes the time, &c.] This couplet Dr. Warburton transposed, and placed after the fourth line of this prophecy. The four lines, "When priests," &c. according to his notion, are a satirical description of the present manners, as future ;" and the six lines from "When every case"-to "churches build,” “asatirical description of future manners, which the corruption of the present would prevent from ever happening." His conception of the first four lines is, I think, just; but, instead of his far-fetched conceit relative to the other six lines, I should rather call them an ironical, as the preceding are a satirical, description of the time in which our poet lived. The transposition recommended by this critick, and adopted in the late editions, is, in my opinion, as unnecessary as it is unwarrantable. MALONE. |