54 27 function, profession. Othello ironically pretends to take Emilia for a professional bawd. 30 mystery, trade; an old word derived from Latin ministerium, office. Not connected with the familiar modern word. 47 Why] Q; om. F. 48 they, referring to 'heaven', which is thought of 62 gender, engender, multiply. 63 cherubin, really a plural form, cherubs, but not so intended by the poet. 64 there] Capell; here Q F. 91 Saint Peter, who kept the gate of heaven. 92 keep] Rowe; keeps Q F. 104 go by water, express themselves in tears. 117 As.. bear] Q; That . . . bear it F. 119 says] Q; said F. ... 121 callet, a coarse woman; literally, a little quail. 132 cogging, deceiving; cozening has the same meaning. 144 within door, so as not to be heard out of doors, quietly. 148 0 good] Q; Alas F. 154 that, used in sense of 'if.' 156 Or that I do not yet, etc., 'If I do not yet love him dearly, and ever did, and ever will... may I never enjoy comfort.' 144 such another world, another world like this. 145 chrysolite, a precious stone of a green color. 147 told me] Q; told me on her F. | 177 apt. See note on II. i. 296. 183 charm your tongue, silence it immediately, as if by magic. A favorite trick of magicians was to charm speakers dumb. 192 I thought so then. See IV. ii. 130-133. For 'stays' as 209 reprobance, reprobation of God. 163 addition. See note on II. ii. 6. iii. 12 incontinent, immediately. 13 He] Q; And F. 21 in them] om. F. 23 Good faith] Q; good Father F. 28 a song of 'willow,' an old song of which one 31, 32 I have much to do, But to go hang, it is as 41 sighing] Q 1630; singing F. 55-57 call'd. moe men] om. Q. .. 57 moe, more, other. 63 kind, manner. 212 a thousand times committed. See note on III. 214 recognizance, token; a legal word. 220 as liberal as the north, as freely as the north 234 stones in heaven. Thunder was supposed to be associated with the falling of stones from the sky. See Julius Cæsar I. iii. 49 and note. 251 I die, I die] Q; alas, I die F. 286 I look down toward his feet, to see the cloven hoof that marks the devil. 292 practice, fraud. 73 joint-ring, ring made in separate halves, which 327 cast, dismissed. See I. i. 150. would join together. 75 exhibition. See note on I. iii. 238. 92 having, allowance. in despite, maliciously. 347 Indian] Q; Judean F. There has been much discussion of the respective claims of the two words. No particular Indian seems to be meant. 351 medicinable. Pronounce 'med'cinable.' KING LEAR Of all the themes selected by Shakespeare for | nize Shakespeare's conception of Kent, protests treatment in tragedy, that of King Lear was most against this injustice, but is silenced. Cordella, familiar to the reading public of his day. Originally, disinherited and driven from court, is met by the doubtless, an old wives' tale, it became a part of king of Gallia in disguise, and is wooed and won by the popular history of early Britain by Geoffrey him. On the day of her wedding her sisters are marof Monmouth (1135), and was accepted as truth ried to the Dukes of Cornwall and Cambria. until the time of John Milton. All the impor- Counseled by Skalliger, Gonorill decides to limit tant chronicles gave full space to it, notably that her father's allowances, and the distressed Leir scof Raphael Holinshed (1577, second edition, 1587). cretly departs to dwell with Ragan. Ragan, set Its popularity is proved by versions of the tale in on by Gonorill, then plots the assassination of her the Gesta Romanorum, the chief story-book of the father; but the assassin is frightened away by the later Middle Ages. In Elizabethan poetry it had al- divine interposition of a terrifying thunder storm. ready found a secure place, in The Mirror for Mag-Leir and his faithful Perillus escape to Brittany and istrates (1574), Albion's England, by William War- meet Cordella, who is in disguise and is not recogner (1586), and notably in The Faerie Queene, by nized by the old king. The dialogue which follows Edmund Spenser (1590). Of these later versions contains a hint of the pathos which distinguishes of the story only the poem last named seems to the like scene in Shakespeare's play. have been used by Shakespeare; from it he adopted the name Cordelia for his heroine. In Holinshed it was Cordilla. King Lear is also unique among the tragedies of Shakespeare in being based, for the greater part of its story, upon an earlier play which has survived, The True Chronicle History of King Leir, printed in 1605, but written earlier. In this play, however, we have, as the title suggests, a mere dramatization -with some ability, it is true-of the pseudo-historical narrative. A brief summary of the plot will indicate Shakespeare's indebtedness to the earlier play. King Leir announces to his court that his daughters are to be married and to inherit his kingdom. One of his counselors, Skalliger, proposes the question of love as a scale in which to weigh their dowries. The two older sisters then plot to flatter the father, and Cordella replies in words which recall Shakespeare's: "I cannot paint my duty forth in words, I hope my deeds shall make report for me: She kneels. He kneels, Cor. But look, dear father, look, behold, and see He riseth. He kneels. Shortly after, the Gallian king sails to Britain, and after an interchange of abuse by the three sisters, puts the Dukes of Cornwall and Cambria to flight and reinstates Leir in his kingdom. Such, briefly, is the main outline of the historical comedy upon which the mightiest of tragedies was founded. It is a curious fact that the chief claim of this play as literature lies in the portrait of Cordelia, the Leir in anger, then divides his kingdom between one character to which Shakespeare gave the briefest Gonorill and Ragan. Perillus, in whom we recog-possible space. Of one or two details in language we catch possible reminiscences in Shakespeare's lines, mund makes reference in Act I, Scene ii. It is likely chiefly in two or three figures of speech, such as the also, that a play selected for Christmas performance reference to the pelican (III. iv. 71). Of the various before the king must be of recent appearance. Metplays utilized by Shakespeare, one feels that King rical tests confirm this evidence, and place the play Leir approaches closest to genuine interest as com- between Othello and Macbeth. edy; and it is a proof of the complete dramatiza- TEXT-King Lear was printed in 1608 in a quarto tion which has taken place in Shakespeare's work, which, for the sake of distinction, has been called that hardly an echo of this romantic comedy re- "The Pied Bull" edition from the sign of the shop mains. The setting, from beginning to end, is re- at which it was first sold. This edition was relentlessly tragic. printed in 1619 by Thomas Pavier and his associates, The underplot of Lear, the story of Gloucester and who, however, to give their reprint the appearance his two sons, used by Shakespeare as commentary of authority, repeated the date of 1608 falsely upon upon the main theme, was taken from Sir Philip Sid- their title-page. The quarto thus printed formed one' ney's "Arcadia" (1590); there the story is told of of nine Shakespearean quartos which were bound as the blind prince of the country of Paphlagonia, who a single volume in 1619. The only other edition of is abused by his unkind, illegitimate son to the very the play is that of the folio of 1623, which has been verge of self-destruction, and rescued by his kind taken as the basis of the present edition. The first and true son as the father is about to leap over the quarto contains at least 300 lines which do not apprecipice. In Sidney's tale the story occupies but a pear in the folio; the folio, on the other hand, confew pages, as a mere episode in a pastoral romance, tains at least 100 lines that are not in the quartos. and the characters are wholly undeveloped. Shake- It is difficult to say whether either version represents speare's devoted labors in interweaving this story the form of the play which was really acted, but with the tale of Lear and Cordelia show, perhaps it is not improbable that the play was performed more clearly than any other single contrivance of with some cuts, such as these omissions indicate. his, his genuine interest in problems of dramatic con- Some scholars have thought that the omissions in struction. the folio are the work of the poet himself, and it All else in this tragedy may safely be concluded is certain that these omissions involve little which is to have been original with Shakespeare. The mad- indispensable to the play as a whole. The passages ness of Lear; the disguise of Tom of Bedlam; the villainy of Edmund; and the supremely tragic scenes with the Fool are all additions to the story for which no source has been found. The great dramatist's most original contribution is, however, the atmosphere of poetic tragedy with which the whole story is invested. found only in the quarto have been marked with a dagger wherever they occur, an asterisk indicating the place where the folio text resumes. CRITICAL COMMENT-Most readers of the play have confirmed Dr. Johnson's comment: "The tragedy of Lear is deservedly celebrated among the dramas of Shakespeare. There is, perhaps, no play THE DATE-The play may be dated with fair which keeps the attention so strongly fixed; which so certainty between the years 1603 and 1606. The Dec- much agitates our passions and interests our curilaration of Egregious Popish Impostures by Dr. Hars-osity." Hazlitt called it "the best of Shakespeare's nett, was published in 1603. From this book Shake- plays, for it is the one in which he was the most speare apparently derived the names of the devils in earnest. He was here fairly caught in the web and some other ravings of Edgar's Tom of Bed- of his own imagination." From the time of the lam. This, therefore, probably gives the earliest earliest critics, however, King Lear has been praised possible date. An entry in the Stationers' Registers, as poetry rather than as drama. Addison was alone November 26, 1607, states that King Lear had been in his day in preferring Shakespeare's ending to acted by the King's players before James I on De- Tate's; Dr. Johnson sided with the public in desiring cember 26 of the previous year. This gives the lat- Cordelia to retire "with victory and felicity." Lamb est possible date. Some, however, have suggested considered Lear "impossible to be represented on a still closer limits. King Leir, the old play, was pub-stage." The highest praise of the play has come lished in 1605; its appearance has been thought to be from poets. Keats loved "the bitter-sweet of this due to the popularity of Shakespeare's tragedy. In Shakespearean fruit." Shelley, with but a single the same year, October, 1605, occurred eclipses of qualification, considered it "the most perfect specithe sun and moon, to which it is believed that Ed- men of the dramatic art existing in the world." The judgments of the present support him. Maeterlinck the version which was to hold the stage for a hunsays: "It surpasses all (Prometheus, Edipus Tyran- dred and sixty years. His alterations were in strict nus, Orestes) in the mass, the rarity, the density, accord with the best opinion of his time. A happy the strange mobility, the prodigious bulk of the tragic device, as he thought, was the invention of love bebeauties which it contains." John Masefield writes: tween Edgar and Cordelia; scarcely less satisfying "No image in the world is so fierce with imaginative was the heightening of intrigue between Edmund energy." And he vehemently defends the tragic ca- and the other sisters. Edgar's love and virtue detastrophe of Shakespeare: "He gave to every soul manded a happy ending, and Lear was restored to in this play an excessive and terrible vitality. On his kingdom, excepting Albany's share. Stage dethe excessive terrible soul of Lear he poured such corum, finally, required the expulsion of the Fool. misery that the cracking of the great heart is a thing The play was now "correct." Ludicrous to us, but of joy, a relief so fierce that the audience should go highly pleasing in its day, was the prison-scene of out in exultation singingTate's version, where the sleeping Lear, with his head pillowed in Cordelia's lap, fights in his dreams old wars again. 'O, our lives' sweetness! That we the pain of death would hourly die Rather than die at once!" " Betterton made Tate's Lear one of his most admired parts, and the play was constantly on the Of the cooler, more searching criticism by unim- stage throughout the eighteenth century. David Garpassioned students, King Lear has been less pro- rick's Lear shared the honors with his Richard III ductive than some of the other tragedies. Most crit- in his first London season in 1741-2. Dr. Johnson ics have agreed with Hazlitt: "All that we can say resolved not to see it a second time, lest the terrific must fall far short of the subject." So far as ana- effect of the impersonation might be impaired. In lytic criticism has been attempted, the chief points 1755-6, Spranger Barry at Covent Garden rivaled of nineteenth century discussion have been the un- Garrick's performances at Drury Lane. After this naturalness of the daughters and the villainy of time the play languished for want of a great actor. Edmund; the nature and extent of Lear's insanity, Colman's version (1768) did not succeed in supplantand its reflection in the Fool. It is only of iate ing Tate's, and John Kemble's cold impersonation years that the interest has been transferred to the aroused no favor. In 1820 Junius Brutus Booth, general theme. Professor Bradley sees in the play with Macready as Edmund, gave a notable performthe redemption of Lear, the rescue of an aged man ance. Three years later Edmund Kean, at Drury through suffering from the effects of a selfish life. Lane, restored Shakespeare's catastrophe, but not the Professor Brooke, more recently, has emphasized the Fool's part. Macready acted this version in 1833-4; aspect of the play as a "domestic tragedy," in which but in 1838, under his own management, he gave through the first half of the action the force of the complete Shakespearean form, which has since intense poetry alone maintains sympathy with the held the stage. Of the tragedians of the mid-cenutterly wrong-headed father, while reason sides tury, Phelps and McCullough were the most noted. rather with the elder daughters. "Not only has he Two Americans, Edwin Forrest (1827) and Edwin chosen to present under the tattered veil of myth- Booth (1875), were famous in the title-rôle. Forical royalty a bourgeois family group; he has even rest's vehement declamation won high praise from dethroned all the conventional tragic passions, and Longfellow and Leigh Hunt; Booth's rendering was ... petty domestic discord is raised to the white heat of tragedy." finely restrained but no less powerful. Most noted of later English Lears was Sir Henry Irving (1892). STAGE HISTORY-The first recorded perform- He was much praised by some critics, but was cenance is that mentioned on the title-page of the sured by many for the overemphasis of age, infirst quarto, St. Stephen's night in Christmas holi- firmity, and inarticulateness. His conception of the days, Dec. 26, 1606. Richard Burbage, the great part, however, was continued by Robert Mantragedian of Shakespeare's company, must then have tell. In 1909 a more original impersonation was given assumed the rôle. Shakespeare's play held the stage by Norman McKinnel at the Haymarket, in which for a time after the Restoration, and Thomas Bet- pathos and restraint were the ruling tones. terton is supposed to have appeared as Lear. But in At least three famous Italian tragedians, Signor an age incapable of tragedy the return of the comedy Rossi, T. Salvini, and E. Novelli, have played Lear form was inevitable. Nahum Tate, in 1681, provided in Italian with English support, in England and America. The play is a favorite in Germany, but its interpreter is too manifest. Meritorious performhas seldom been praised in France. Maeterlinck in ances were given at the "Old Vic," London, in 1922, 1905 defended Antoine's production of Loti's trans- and at the Earl Carroll Theatre, New York, in 1923, lation, but the violence of the action offended most but they were confessedly inadequate. An interestParisian critics. Upon the whole, although great ac-ing experiment was that made in 1922 by the Pasadena tors have delighted in the fine opportunities afforded Community Players, who presented the tragedy as it by the majesty, infirmity, and passion of King Lear, was given in 1606, without intermissions between the tragedy is conceived on too tremendous a scale scenes or acts, five different levels being used. The to win popularity on the stage without the coöpera- scenery was expressionistic, being chiefly suggested tion of a great actor. With a tragedian of ordinary by ingenious combinations of lighting. ability the disproportion between the conception and M. |