To lay the blame upon her own despair,

That she fordid herself.

Alb. The gods defend her! Bear him hence awhile. [Edmund is borne off.

Re-enter LEAR, with CORDELIA dead in his arms; EDGAR, Captain, and others following.

Lear. Howl, howl, howl, howl! O, you are men of

stones:

261

Had I your tongues and eyes, I'ld use them so
That heaven's vault should crack. She's gone for ever!
I know when one is dead, and when one lives;
She's dead as earth. Lend me a looking-glass;
If that her breath will mist or stain the stone,
Why, then she lives.

Kent.

Is this the promised end? Edg. Or image of that horror?

Alb.

Fall and cease!

Lear. This feather stirs; she lives! if it be so, It is a chance which does redeem all sorrows

That ever I have felt.

Kent.

[Kneeling] O my good master!

'Tis noble Kent, your friend.

270

Lear. Prithee, away.
Edg.

Lear. A plague upon you, murderers, traitors all!
I might have saved her; now she's gone for ever!
Cordelia, Cordelia! stay a little. Ha!

What is 't thou say'st? Her voice was ever soft,
Gentle, and low, an excellent thing in woman.

I kill'd the slave that was a-hanging thee.

Capt. 'Tis true, my lords, he did.

Lear.

Did I not, fellow?
I have seen the day, with my good biting falchion
I would have made them skip: I am old now,
And these same crosses spoil me. Who are you?
Mine eyes are not o' the best: I'll tell you straight.

280

Kent. If fortune brag of two she loved and hated, One of them we behold.

Lear. This is a dull sight. Are you not Kent?

Kent.

The same,

Your servant Kent. Where is your servant Caius ?
Lear. He's a good fellow, I can tell you that;
He'll strike, and quickly too: he's dead and rotten.
Kent. No, my good lord; I am the very man,-
Lear. I'll see that straight.

Kent. That from your first of difference and decay
Have follow'd your sad steps-

Lear.

You are welcome hither.

Kent. Nor no man else all's cheerless, dark, and

deadly.

Your eldest daughters have fordone themselves,

And desperately are dead.

Lear.

Ay, so I think.

Alb. He knows not what he says: and vain it is That we present us to him.

291

You lords and noble friends, know our intent.
What comfort to this great decay may come
Shall be applied: for us, we will resign,

During the life of this old majesty,

300

To him our absolute power: [To Edgar and Kent] you, to

your rights;

With boot, and such addition as your honours

Have more than merited. All friends shall taste

The wages of their virtue, and all foes

The cup of their deservings. O, see, see!

Lear. And my poor fool is hang'd! No, no, no life!

Why should a dog, a horse, a rat, have life,

And thou no breath at all? Thou 'lt come no more,
Never, never, never, never, never!

Pray you, undo this button: thank you, sir.

Do you see this? Look on her, look, her lips,
Look there, look there!

Edg.

310

[Dies.

He faints! My lord, my lord!

Kent. Break, heart; I prithee, break!

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 longer.

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

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

you twain

Rule in this realm, and the gored state sustain.

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

My master calls me, I must not say no.

Alb. 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.

320

[Exeunt, with a dead march.

NOTES.

THE Acts and Scenes are marked throughout in the folios but not in the quartos.

ACT I.
Scene I.

It would appear from these opening sentences that Lear had only communicated to Kent and Gloucester his general intention of dividing his kingdom among his children. His 'darker purpose' developes itself in the course of the scene.

1. affected. To 'affect' (Lat. affectare) is literally to aim at or desire, and hence to prefer, or be inclined to. It is used both transitively and intransitively. Compare Antony and Cleopatra, i. 3. 71:

'I go from hence

Thy soldier, servant; making peace or war
As thou affect'st.'

And Much Ado about Nothing, i. 1. 298:

'No child but Hero; she's his only heir.

Dost thou affect her, Claudio?'

Again, in Ben Jonson's Alchemist, iii. 4: Pray him aloud to name what dish he affects.'

2. Albany. See the extract from Holinshed in the Preface. The following account is given by the same writer of the origin of the name. Speaking of the division of the land by Brutus among his three sons, Locrine, Camber, and Albanact, he says: The third and last part of the Island he allotted vnto Albanacte hys youngest sonne . . . . . This later parcel at the first, toke the name of Albanactus, who called it Albania. But now a small portion onely of the Region (beyng vnder the regiment of a Duke) reteyneth the sayd denomination, the reast beyng called Scotlande, of certayne Scottes that came ouer from Ireland to inhabite in those quarters. It is deuided from Loegres also by the Humber, so that Albania as Brute left it, conteyned all the north part of the Island that is to be found beyond the aforesayd streame, vnto the point of Cathenesse.' (Chron. vol. i. fol. 39 b, ed. 1577-)

5. equalities, equal conditions. The reading of the first two quartos. The folios have qualities.'

Ib. weighed, balanced. Compare The Tempest, ii. 1. 8 :
Then wisely, good sir, weigh

Our sorrow with our comfort,'

that is, balance one against the other.

Ib. curiosity in neither, no nicety or critical scrutiny in regard to either. Compare i. 2. 4. In the sense of critical, scrupulous, 'curious' occurs in Romeo and Juliet, i. 4. 31:

'What care I

6. moiety, share, literally half, from Lat. medietas; but the word is used loosely of other divisions. See 1 Henry IV, iii. 1. 96:

'Methinks my moiety, north from Burton here,

In quantity equals not one of yours.'

It may be that in the present passage the word is used in its literal sense, for it is not clear that Gloucester knew anything of Lear's intention to include Cordelia in the distribution of his kingdom.

9. brazed, hardened, made insensible, like brass. Compare Hamlet, iii. 4. 37 where the folio has :

'If damned Custome haue not braz'd it so,
That it is proofe and bulwarke against Sense.'

IO. some year, a year or so. ii. 1. 22: For some hour before was my sister drowned.'

See i. 2. 5, and compare Twelfth Night, you took me from the breach of the sea

11. account, reckoning, estimation. Compare 1 Henry IV, v. 1. 37 :
'When yet you were in place and in account
Nothing so strong and fortunate as I'

12. something, somewhat, as the third and fourth folios read. See Abbott, Shakespeare Grammar, § 68, and The Merchant of Venice, ii. 2. 28: For, indeed, my father did something smack, something grow to, he had a kind of taste.' Again, 2 Henry IV, i. 2. 212: My lord, I was born about three of the clock in the afternoon, with a white head, and something a round belly.'

22. out, seeking his fortune abroad, there being no career for him at home in consequence of his illegitimate birth.

·

23. Stage direction. Sennet. So the folios. The first and second quartos have Sound a sennet,' which in the third quarto is oddly corrupted into 'Sunday a Cornet.' The word occurs again in the stage directions to Henry VIII, ii. 4, and Julius Cæsar, i. 2. 24, 214, Antony and Cleopatra, ii. 7. 16, Coriolanus, ii. 1. 178, 3 Henry VI, i. 1. 205. In the first part of Jeronimo (Dodsley's Old Plays, ed. Hazlitt, vol. iv. 349) it is in the form 'signet' (signate, ed. 1605), and Steevens in his note gives other varieties, ‘senet, cynet, sinet, signate, synnet,' all of which he regards as corruptions of the Italian sonata. In Marlowe's Doctor Faustus (ed. Dyce, p. 91), we find