Be to content your lord, who hath received you Cor. Time shall unfold what plighted cunning hides; 273. prefer] perfer F 274. both.] both? Q. 275. Reg....Gon.] Gonorill.... Regan. Qq. not'] Ed. not QqFf et cet. duty.] Ff (dutie F1) +, Coll. Del. Dyce i, Wh. Sch. duties? Q. duties. Q2 et cet. 275-277. Let...scanted,] Three lines, ending Lord,...almes,...fcanted, Qq. 277. At] As Cap. Ec. Hal. 278. worth...wanted] worth the worth that you haue wanted Qq. worthy to want that you have wanted Han. 279. plighted] pleated QQ, plected plaited Pope ii +, Cap. Jen. Steev. Ec. Var. Glo.+, Mob. Q 273. prefer] SCHMIDT: That is, address, direct, or, better, recommend. 275. not' us] In the belief that the to, in the full phrase 'prescribe not to us,' is absorbed in the final 7 of 'not' I have printed the text as above. See II, ii, 116.—Ed. 278. worth... wanted] THEOBALD: You well deserve to meet with that want of love from your husband, which you have profess'd to want for our Father.' WARBURTON: This nonsense must be corrected thus: worth.... vaunted, i. e. that disherison, which you so much glory in, you deserve. HEATH: Sh. might have written the want that you have wasted, i, e. you will deserve to want that which you have yourself so wastefully and unnecessarily thrown away. TOLLET: You are well deserving of the want of dower that you are without.' JENNENS: The old reading is not elegant, indeed, but it is intelligible,-it is like 'seeding seed '-Gen. i. 29. CAPELL: The Qq reading, with this addition, viz: are worth to want the worth that you have wanted' has a plain sense, and one worthy the utterer, and gives a roundness to the jingle. ECCLES: It might be read: worth to want that you have wanted,''that' taken demonstratively, and not relatively, or else, the want of that you've wanted.' WRIGHT: Dr. Badham combined the texts of Ff and Qq thus: And well are worthy want that worth have wanted.' The difficulty seems to arise from the imperfect connection of the relative with its antecedent. The use of the word want has, apparently, the effect of always making Shakespeare's constructions obscure. See line 229. Goneril says, 'you have come short in your obedience, and well deserve the want of that affection in which you yourself have been wanting. Otherwise [with Jennens], we must regard the want that you have wanted' as an instance of the combination of a verb with its cognate accusative [which is the view SCHMIDT takes]. MOBERLY: The text of the Qq might be emended thus: Which well were worth the word that you have wanted,' i. e. yet obedience might have claimed from you the one word which you would not say. 279. plighted] THEOBALD (Sh. Rest., p. 171) suggested pleached, i. e. twisted, entangled, but preferred plaited, i. e. wrapt in folds, which Pope adopted in his ed. 2. MALONE once thought it should be plated, as in IV, vi, 169, but was afterwards con Who cover faults, at last shame them derides. Well may you prosper! France. 280 Come, my fair Cordelia. [Exeunt France and Cordelia. Gon. Sister, it is not little I have to say of what most nearly appertains to us both. I think our father will hence to-night. 280. cover] Jen. couers QqFf+, Ec. Knt, Del. i, Ktly, Sch. cover'd Han. Cap. shame them derides] with fhame derides Ff+, Cap. Ec. Knt, Del. i, Sing. ii, Sch. their shame derides Anon.* 281. my] Om. Qq. [Exeunt...] Exit...QqF,F2. 282. SCENE V. Pope +, Jen. 282-284. Sister........to-night.] Cap. Three lines, ending fay,...both,..to-night, QqFf+, Jen. 282. little I have] a little I have Qq, Cap. Jen. Steev. Ec. Var. Sing. Ktly, Glo. +, Huds. Mob. little I've Pope +. 283. hence] go hence Rowe +. vinced, by the word 'unfold,' that plaited of the Qq was the true reading. KNIGHT: To 'plight and to plait equally mean to fold.' In Milton's Hist. of England, Boadicea wears a plighted garment of divers colours.' In the exquisite passage in Comus: I took it for a fairy vision Of some gay creatures of the element, That in the colours of the rainbow live, And play i' th' plighted clouds'—the epithet has the same meaning. STAUNTON: Plighted' means involved, complicated. WRIGHT: For the Folio spelling, see Spenser, Faery Queene, ii, 3, § 26: All in a silken Camus lilly whight, Purfled upon with many a folded plight.' Cotgrave gives, 'Pli: m. A plait, fould, lay; bought; wrinkle, crumple.' 280. cover] MASON: The Ff are right, with the change of a single letter: covert instead of covers.' Thus, Who covert faults at last with shame derides.' 'Who' referring to time.' [This reading was followed by RANN.] HENLEY: Cordelia alludes to Prov. xxviii, 13: He that covereth his sins shall not prosper,' &c. SINGER (ed. 2): I have no doubt we should read cover-faults, i. e. dissemblers, and that the meaning is: Time shall unfold what cunning duplicity hides, who (Time) at last derides such dissemblers with shame, by unmasking them.' [And this compound Singer adopted into the text of Sh., for whose purity, as against Collier's (MS) emendations, he had contended so vehemently, and, it should be added, so intemperately. ED.] DYCE: I adhere to the Qq, because I feel convinced that Who' refers to people in general,- Those who,' &c. As to the with of the Folio (which, by the by, Mr. Collier's (MS) changes to them), I can no more account for it, than for hundreds of other strange things which the Folio exhibits. SCHMIDT refers Who' to 'time,' and says that faults' is the object of both covers' and 'derides.' [I cannot but agree with Dyce's interpretation.-ED.] 282. most] CAPELL thinks that this word is crept into Goneril's speech out of her sister's that follows, which makes a part of it verse: "most," therefore, should be discarded.' 283. hence] ECCLES: There is not, I think, throughout the play, the least hint given as to the particular part of the realm in which any scene lies, till we are introduced towards the conclusion into the neighborhood of Dover; nor are we informed whether it be intended that either of the sisters should make the palace of Lear her Reg. That's most certain, and with you; next month 285 with us. Gon. You see how full of changes his age is; the observation we have made of it hath not been little; he always loved our sister most; and with what poor judgement he hath now cast her off appears too grossly. Reg. 'Tis the infirmity of his age; yet he hath ever but slenderly known himself. 290 Gon. The best and soundest of his time hath been but rash; then must we look from his age to receive, not alone the imperfections of long-ingraffed condition, but therewithal 295 the unruly waywardness that infirm and choleric years bring with them. Reg. Such unconstant starts are we like to have from him as this of Kent's banishment. Gon. There is further compliment of leave-taking be- 300 285. most] Om. Pope +. 287. is; the] is the Q,. 288. hath not been] hath beene Ff, Rowe, Knt, Del. i, Sch. 290. too] too too FFF, Rowe. grossly groffe Qq. 294. from his age to receive] Ff+ Jen. Knt, Wh. Sch. to receive from his age Qq et cet. 295. imperfections] imperfection Qq. 295. long-ingraffed] Hyphen, Pope. ingraffed] engraffed FF. Knt, 296. the] Om. Qq. 300. There is] Then his Anon.* QqFf. future residence. All we know is, that he was to abide alternately with them in whatsoever part they held their court. For ellipsis of the verb of motion after will and is, see ABBOTT, § 405. 288. hath not been] DYCE says that the reading of the Ff defies common sense. SCHMIDT, while acknowledging that the 'not' may have dropped by mischance from the line of the Ff, thinks that a good sense may yet be extracted from that line by making 'have' emphatic. Thus: All our observation in the past is little in comparison with what we may expect in the future, to judge from Lear's treatment of Cordelia. 291. age] MOBERLY: These women come of themselves, and at once, to the feeling which it requires all Iago's art to instil into Othello; on whom it is at length urged that Desdemona must be irregular in mind, or she would not have preferred him to the curled darlings' of Venice. 293. time] WRIGHT: That is, his best and soundest years. See I, ii, 46. 295. ingraffed] WRIGHT: This spelling, and that in the Qq, are both used by Sh., though the former is the more correct, the word being derived from the Fr. greffer. In Lucrece, 1062, we find the substantive 'graff.' 295. condition] MALONE: That is, the qualities of mind, confirmed by long habit. tween France and him. Pray you, let us hit together; if 301 our father carry authority with such disposition as he bears, this last surrender of his will but offend us. Reg. We shall further think of it. Gon. We must do something, and i' th' heat. [Exeunt. 305 301. hit] STEEVENS: That is, let us agree. HUDSON: The meaning of what follows probably is, if the king continue in the same rash, headstrong, and inconstant temper, as he has just shown, in snatching back his authority the moment his will is crossed, we shall be the worse off for his surrender of the kingdom to us. SCHMIDT (Zur Textkritik, p. 15) earnestly contends, but I am afraid in vain, for 'sit' of the Ff. To strike together,' he says, ' or to act in harmony, as it is expressed by "to hit together," is not a matter of free will, but proceeds directly from the nature of things, and is not something to which one can be invited. . . . Whereas, the phrase "sit together," has the plain and manifest meaning-to hold a session, to take counsel together. Goneril would forthwith see a common plan agreed upon, and to Regan's dilatory answer: We shall think further of it," replies: "We must do something, and i' th' heat," and for this an agreement is of course essential, and an agreement she demands in the words "let us sit together.": Schmidt then adduces the folHam. V, i, 4; Hen. V: V, ii. 66 lowing instances in proof: Twelfth Night, I, v, 143; 80; Rich. III: III, i, 173; Cor. V, ii, 74; Ib. V, iii, 131; Per. II, iii, 92. But in all these instances, except, perhaps, the last, there is reference to a judicial assembly or a session more or less formal and solemn, and a meaning is conveyed which I cannot but think strained when applied to an agreement between two sisters.-Ed. 302. disposition] DYCE: As to 'dispositions' or disposition,—either reading may stand; we have afterwards both forms from the mouth of the present speaker. See I, iv, 215 and 286. 305. heat] STEEVENS: That is, we must strike while the iron is hot. 4* SCENE II. The Earl of Gloucester's castle. Enter EDMUND, with a letter. Edm. Thou, Nature, art my goddess; to thy law My services are bound. SCENE II.] Om. Rowe. SCENE vi. Pope +, Jen. The...castle.] A Castle belonging to the Earl of Glo'ster. Pope. A Hall in the Earl of Gloster's Castle. Cap. I Enter...letter.] Rowe (subs.). Enter Baftard folus. Qq (felas Q3.) Enter Baftard. Ff. 1-26. Thou...news?] Prose, Qq. ECCLES disapproves of this order of the scenes; in his judgement the accusation of Edgar by Edmund labours under a weight of improbability, which is increased the longer that Edgar remains concealed without taking any steps to vindicate himself; that he should lie thus quiet, during all the time that passes from the opening day of the tragedy to Lear's stormy departure for Gloster's castle, is an outrage upon common sense too gross to be admitted,' thinks Eccles, who, therefore, transposes this scene to the beginning of Act II, bringing it immediately before the scene where Edmund persuades Edgar to fly, and pretends that he has been wounded. Thus, the two scenes are brought within the compass of the same day, and a few hours only, or less, may be conceived to intervene between them.' This consummation, however, is not attained without loss; for Sh. clearly intended that this scene should be where he put it, as the second of the tragedy: Gloster enters sadly, mut tering: Kent banished thus, And France in choler parted? And the king gone tonight? subscribed his power? Confined to exhibition? All this done upon the gad!' (lines 23-26). But Eccles says that Sh. was liable to unhappy oversights' of dramatic probability, and this must be one; these obnoxious lines,' therefore, he cuts out and degrades' to the bottom of the page, begging forgiveness for the act, on the ground that he is in pursuit of a favorite object which is essential to the reasonableness and consistency of this admirable drama; more especially as the lines in themselves are of small importance, and the only ones so treated' by him. 6 1. Nature] WARBURTON: Sh, makes this bastard an atheist. Italian atheism had much infected the English court. STEEVENS: Edmund speaks of nature' in opposition to custom,' and not to the existence of a God. Edmund means only, that as he came not into the world as 'custom' or law had prescribed, so he had nothing to do but to follow nature' and her laws, which make no difference between legitimacy and illegitimacy, between the eldest and the youngest. To contradict Warburton's assertion yet more strongly, Edmund concludes this very speech by an invocation to heaven. MASON: Edmund calls nature' his 'goddess' for the same reason that we call a bastard a natural son,-one who, according to the law of nature, is the child of his father, but according to that of civil society is nullius filius. COLERIDGE: In this speech of Edmund you see as soon as a man cannot reconcile himself to reason, how his conscience flies off by way of appeal to Nature, who is sure upon such occasions never to find fault, and also how shame sharpens a predisposition in the heart to evil. For it is a profound moral, that shame will naturally generate guilt; the oppressed will be vindictive, like Shylock, and in the anguish of undeserved ignominy the delusion secretly springs up, of getting over the moral quality of an action by fixing the mind on the mere physical act alone. |