350

Pr'ythee, nuncle, keep a fchool-mafter that can teach thy fool to lye; I would fain learn to lye.

Lear. If you lye, firrah, we'll have you whipt.

Fool. I marvel, what kin thou and thy daughters are: they'll have me whipt for fpeaking true, thou'lt have me whipt for lying; and, fometimes, I am whipt I had rather be any kind for holding my peace. o'thing than a fool: and yet I would not be thee, nuncle; thou haft pared thy wit o'both fides, and left nothing i' the middle; here comes one o' th' parings.

Enter Gonerill.

Lear. How now, daughter, what makes that frontlet? Methinks you are too much of late i' the frown.

Fool. Thou waft a pretty fellow, when thou hadst no need to care for her frowning; now thou art an O I without a figure: I am better than thou art now : am a fool, thou art nothing.-Yes, forfooth, I will hold my tongue [To Gonerill]; fo your face bids me, tho' you fay nothing. Mum, mum,

He that keeps nor cruft nor crum,
Weary of all, shall want fome.

5 That's a fheal'd peafcod.

[Singing.

[Pointing to Lear. Gon. Not only, Sir, this your all-licens'd fool, But others of your infolent retinue,

-

that frontlet ?-] A frontlet was anciently one of the ornaments of an altar; I fuppofe of the front of it. In the inventory of the wardrobe belonging to Salisbury cathedral, in 1536, are the following particulars: "A red cloth of gold, "and a frontlet of the fame fuit." Again,-" A purpure "cloth, with a divers frontlet." Again,-"A cloth white "with trefoils, &c. and a frontlet of the fame." The word is here ufed figuratively. STEEVENS.

5 That's a fheal'd peafcod.] i. e. Now a mere husk, which contains nothing. The outfide of a king remains, but all the intrinfic parts of royalty are gone: he has nothing to give.

JOHNSON.

Do

Do hourly carp and quarrel; breaking forth
In rank and not to be endured riots. Sir,

I had thought, by making this well known unto you,
To have found a fafe redrefs; but now grow fearful,
By what yourself too late have spoke and done,
That you protect his course, and 6 put it on
By your allowance; if you fhould, the fault
Would not 'fcape cenfure, nor the redreffes fleep;
Which, in the tender of a wholesome weal,
Might in their working do you that offence,
Which else were fhame, that then necessity
Will call discreet proceeding.

Fool. For you know, nuncle,

The hedge Sparrow fed the cuckoo so long,
That it had its head bit off by its young.

So, out went the candle, and we 7 were left darkling.
Lear. Are you our daughter?

Gon. Come, Sir,-

I would you would make use of that good wisdom, Whereof I know you are fraught; and put away Thefe difpofitions, which of late transform you From what you rightly are.

Fool. May not an afs know when the cart draws the horse? 8 Whoop, Jug, I love thee.

Lear. Does any here know me? Why this is not Lear.

Does Lear walk thus? fpeak thus? Where are his eyes? Either his notion weakens, his difcernings

7

-put it on] i. e. promote, pufh it forward. So Macbeth,

the pow'rs

"Put on their inftruments.".

STEEVENS.

were left darkling.] This word is afed by Milton, Paradife Loft, book i.

8

- as the wakeful bird

Whoop, fag, &c.] There are in the fool's fpeeches feveral paffages which feem to be proverbial allufions, perhaps not now to be underflood. JoHNSON.

Whoop, Jug, I love thee.] This, as I am informed, is a quotation from the burthen of an old fong. STEEVENS.

Are

Are lethargy'd-Ha! waking?-'tis not fo.
Who is it that can tell me who I am?

Fool. Lear's fhadow.

Lear. I would learn that; 9 for by the marks
Of fov'reignty, of knowledge, and reafon,
I fhould be falfe perfuaded I had daughters.--
Fool. Which they will make an obedient father.
Lear. Your name, fair gentlewoman.

9

for by the marks

Gon.

Of fovereignty, of knowledge, and of reafon.] His daughters prove fo unnatural, that, if he were only to judge by the reafon of things, he must conclude, they cannot be his daughters. This is the thought. But how does his kingship or fovereignty enable him to judge of this matter? The line, by being false pointed, has loft its fenfe. We fhould read,

Of fovereignty of knowledge.

i. e. the understanding. He calls it, by an equally fine phrase, in Hamlet, Sov'reignty of reafon. And it is remarkable that the editors had depraved it there too. See note, act i. fcene 7. of that play. WARBURTON.

Which they will make an obedient father.] This line I have reftored from the quarto. Which, in the fool's answer, is used with two deviations from the prefent language. It is referred, contrary to the rules of grammarians, to the particle I, and is ufed, according to a mode now obfolete, for the perfonal pronoun whom. To this note I have fubjoined the following remark from the Objervations and Conjectures on fome Paffages in Shakespeare, printed at Oxford, 1766.

"The difficulty, which muft occur to every reader, is, to conceive how the marks of fovereignty, of knowledge, and of reason, fhould be of any use to perfuade Lear that he had, or had not, daughters. No logic, I apprehend, could draw fuch a conclufion from fuch premifes. This difficulty, however, may be entirely removed, by only pointing the paffage thus:

for by the marks

Of fovereignty, of knowledge, and of reafon,
I fhould be falfe perfuaded.-I had daughters.-
Your name, fair gentlewoman ?-

The chain of Lear's fpeech being thus untangled, we can clearly
trace the fucceffion and connection of his ideas. The undutiful
behaviour of his daughter fo difconcerts him, that he doubts,
by turns, whether he is Gonerill, and whether he himself is
Lear. Upon her firft fpeech, he only exclaims,

Are your our daughter?

Upon

Gon. This admiration, Sir, is much o' the favour
Of other your new pranks. I do befeech you
To understand my purposes aright.

As you are old and reverend, you should be wise.
Here do you keep a hundred knights and squires;
Men fo disorder'd, so debauch'd, and bold,
That this our court, infected with their manners,
Shews like a riotous inn: epicurism and lust
Make it more like a tavern or a brothel,

Than 2 a grac'd palace. The fhame itself doth speak
For inftant remedy. Be then defir'd

By her, that elfe will take the thing fhe begs,

3 A little to difquantity your train;

And

Upon her going on in the fame ftyle, he begins to question his own fanity of mind, and even his perfonal identity. He appeals to the by-standers,

1

Who is it that can tell me who I am?

I fhould be glad to be told. For (if I was to judge myself) by the marks of fovereignty, of knowledge, and of reason, which once diftinguished Lear, but which I have now loft) I should be falfe (against my own confcioufnefs) perfuaded (that I am not Lear). He then flides to the examination of another distinguishing mark of Lear:

I had daughters.

But not able, as it should seem, to dwell upon fo tender a fubject, he haftily recurs to his firft doubt concerning Gonerill,Your name, fair gentlewoman. STEEVENS.

This note is written with confidence difproportionate to the conviction which it can bring. Lear might as well know by the marks and tokens arifing from fovereignty, knowledge, and reason, that he had or had not daughters, as he could know by any thing elfe. But, fays he, if I judge by these tokens, I find the perfuafion falfe by which I long thought myself the father of daughters. JOHNSON.

2

a grac'd palace.-] A palace grac'd by the presence of a fovereign. WARBURTON.

3 A little to difquantity your train;] A little is the reading; but it appears, from what Lear fays in the next fcene, that this number fifty was required to be cut off, which (as the editions flood) is no where fpecified by Gonerill. POPE.

Of fifty to difquantity your train;] If Mr. Pope had examined the old copies as accurately as he pretended to have done, he VOL. IX.

Z

would

And the remainder, 4 that shall still depend,
To be fuch men as may befort your age,
And know themselves and you.

Lear. Darkness and devils!--
Saddle my horfes; call my train together.
Degenerate baftard! I'll not trouble thee;
Yet have I left a daughter.

Gon. You ftrike my people, and your rabble

Make fervants of their betters.

Enter Albany.

diforder'd

Lear. Woe! that too late repents-O, Sir, are you

come?

Is it your will? Speak, Sir.-Prepare my horses.— [To Albany. More hideous, when thou fhew'ft thee in a child, 5 Than the fea-monster!

Ingratitude! thou marble-hearted fiend,

Alb. Pray, Sir, be patient.

would have found, in the first folio, that Lear had an exit marked for him after these words,

To have a thanklefs child-go, go, my people; and goes out while Albany and Gonerill have a fhort conference of two fpeeches; and then returns in a fill greater paffion, having been informed (as it should feem) of the express number without.

What? fifty of my followers at a clap!

This renders all change needlefs; and away, away, being reftored, prevents the repetition of go, go, my people; which, as the text flood before this regulation, concluded both that and the foregoing speech. Gonerill, with great art, is made to avoid mentioning the limited number; and leaves her father to be informed of it by accident, which the knew would be the cafe as foon as he left her prefence. STEEVENS.

that shall still defind,] Depend, for continue in fervice. WARBURTON.

5 Than the Jea-monfler!] Mr. Upton obferves, that the feamoniter is the Hippopotamus, the hieroglyphical fymbol of impiety and ingratitude. Sandys, in his travels, fays" that he killeth his fire, and ravisheth his own dam." STEEVENS.

Lear.