...which the deep dread-bolted thunders and the winged lightnings had spent their fury? O never, never! Let him pass! he hates him That would upon the rack of this rough world Stretch him out longer. In the story of King Lear and his three daughters, as it is related in the "delectable and mellifluous"...

...EDGAR He faints! My lord, my lord! KENT Break, heart! I prithee break. EDGAR Look up, my lord. KENT Vex not his ghost: O, let him pass; he hates him, That would upon the rack of this tough world Stretch him out longer. [Lear dies EDGAR He is gone indeed. KENT The wonder is he hath...

...rack. Death, in the world of the play, is a release from torture, as Kent declares when Lear is dying: O, let him pass! he hates him That would upon the rack of this tough world Stretch him out longer. (V.iii.3 12-14) One image, indeed, seems to suggest that the torture...

...slowly, one by one, And the hull dilated and vanished, As a sea-mist in the sun. GHOSTS OF DEAD MEN "Vex not his ghost. O, let him pass! He hates him That would upon the rack of this tough world Stretch him out longer. " WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE, KING LEAS Bridges reminds us of the old...

...profit, compensation 158 Cordelia (fool = term of endearment) 159 ie, Lear feels himself suffocating Kent Vex not his ghost, O let him pass. He hates him, That would upon the rack160 of this tough161 world Stretch him out longer. Edgar He is gone indeed. 290 Kent The wonder...

...it did to the Romantic essayist Charles Lamb, but unnatural as well. In the words of the wise Kent: Vex not his ghost: O, let him pass! He hates him That would upon the rack of this tough world Stretch him out longer. (5.3.315-17) Nothing indeed was left for the old, wounded man but...