Notes to Shakespeare, Volume III: The Tragedies

IV.ii.50 (436,3) Like monsters of the deep] Fishes are the only animals that are known to prey upon their own species.

IV.ii.62 (437,5) Thou changed, and self-cover'd thing] Of these lines there is but one copy, and the editors are forced open conjecture. They have published this line thus;

Thou chang'd, and self-converted thing;

but I cannot but think that by self-cover'd the author meant, thou that hast disguised nature by wickedness; thou that hast hid the woman under the fiend.

IV.ii.83 (438,6) One way, I like this well] Gonerill is well pleased that Cornwall is destroyed, who was preparing war against her and her husband, but is afraid of losing Edmund to the widow.

IV.iii (439,1) The French camp, near Dover. Enter Kent, and a Gentleman] This scene seems to have been left out only to shorten the play, and is necessary to continue the action. It is extant only in the quarto, being omitted in the first folio. I have therefore put it between crotchets.

IV.iii (439,2) a Gentleman] The gentleman whom he sent in the foregoing act with letters to Cordelia.

IV.iii.26 (440,4) Made she no verbal question?] I do not see the impropriety of verbal question; such pleonasms are common. So we say, my ears have heard, my eyes have beheld. Besides, where is the word quest [Warburton's emendation] to be found?

IV.iii.33 (440,6) And clamour-moisten'd] Clamour moisten'd her; that is, her out-cries were accompanied with tears.

IV.iii.36 (441,7) one self-mate and mate] The same husband and the same wife.

IV.iii.51 (441,9) 'Tis so they are a-foot] Dr. Warburton thinks it necessary to read, 'tis said; but the sense is plain, So it is that they are on foot.

IV.iv.4 (442,1) With bur-docks, hemlock] I do not remember any such plant as a hardock, but one of the most common weeds is a burdock, which I believe should be read here; and so Hanmer reads.

IV.iv.20 (443,2) the means to lead it] The reason which should guide it.

IV.iv.26 (443,3) My mourning and important tears hath pitied] In other places of this author for importunate.

IV.iv.27 (443,4) No blown embition] No inflated, no swelling pride. Beza on the Spanish Armada:

"Quem bene te ambitio mersit vanissima, ventus,
Et tumidos tumidae voa superastis aquae."

IV.v.4 (444,1) Reg. Lord Edmund spake not with your lady at home?] The folio reads, your lord; but lady is the first and better reading.

IV.v.22 (444,3) Let me unseal the letter./Stew. Madam, I had rather] I know not well why Shakespeare gives the steward, who is a mere factor of wickedness, so much fidelity. He now refuses the letter; and afterwards, when he is dying, thinks only how it may be safely delivered.

IV.v.29 (445,5) I do advise you, take this note] Note means in this place not a letter but a remark. Therefore observe what I am saying.

IV.v.32 (446,6) You may gather more] You may infer more than I have directly told you.

IV.vi (446,1) The country near Dover. Enter Glo'ster, and Edgar as a peasant] This scene, and the stratagem by which Glo'ster is cured of his desperation, are wholly borrowed from Sidney's Arcadia.

IV.vi.7 (447,2) thy voice is alter'd] Edgar alters his voice in order to pass afterwards for a malignant spirit.

IV.vi.11 (447,5) How fearful/And dizzy 'tis, to cast one's eyes so low!] This description has been much admired since the time of Addison, who has remarked, with a poor attempt at pleasantry, that "he who can read it without being giddy, has a very good head, or a very bad one." The description is certainly not mean, but I am far from thinking it wrought to the utmost excellence of poetry. He that looks from a precipice finds himself assailed by one great and dreadful image of irresistible destruction. But this overwhelming idea is dissipated and enfeebled from the instant that the mind can restore itself to the observation of particulars, and diffuse its attention to distinct objects. The enumeration of the choughs and crows, the samphire-man, and the fishers, counteracts the great effect of the prospect, as it peoples the desert of intermediate vacuity, and stops the mind in the rapidity of its descent through emptiness and horror.

IV.vi.19 (447,4) her cock] Her cock-boat.

IV.vi.43 (448,6) when life itself/Yields to the theft] When life is willing to be destroyed.

IV.vi.47 (449,7) Thus might he pass, indeed] Thus he might die in reality. We still use the word passing bell.

IV.vi.53 (449,9) Ten masts at each make not the altitude] [Pope: attacht] Mr. Pope's conjecture may stand if the word which he uses were known in our author's time, but I think it is of later introduction. He may say,

Ten masts on end—

IV.vi.57 (449,1) chalky bourn] Bourn seems here to signify a hill. Its common signification is a brook. Milton in Comus uses bosky bourn in the same sense perhaps with Shakespeare. But in both authors it may mean only a boundary.

IV.vi.73 (450,2) the clearest gods] The purest; the most free from evil.

IV.vi.80 (450,3) Bear free and patient thoughts] To be melancholy is to have the mind chained down to one painful idea; there is therefore great propriety in exhorting Glo'ster to free thoughts, to an emancipation of his soul from grief and despair.

IV.vi.81 (450,4) The safer sense will ne'er accommodate/His master thus] [W: sober sense] I read rather,

The saner sense will ne'er accoomodate
His master thus.

"Here is Lear, but he must be mad: his sound or sane senses would never suffer him to be thus disguised."

IV.vi.87 (451,5) That fellow handles his bow like a crow-keeper] This crow-keeper was so common in the author's time, that it is one of the few peculiarities mentioned by Ortelius in his account of our island.

IV.vi.93 (451,8) Give the word] Lear supposes himself in a garrison, and before he lets Edgar pass, requires the watch-word.

IV.vi.97 (452,7) Ha! Gonerill!—with a white beard!] So reads the folio, properly; the quarto, whom the later editors have followed, has, Ha! Gonerill, ha! Regan! they flattered me, &c. which is not so forcible.

IV.vi.98 (452,8) They flattered me like a dog] They played the spaniel to me.

IV.vi.121 (453,2) Whose face between her forks] I believe that the forks were two prominences of the ruff rising on each side of the face.

IV.vi.124 (453,4) nor the soyled horse] Soiled horse is probably the same as pampered horse, un cheval soûlé.

IV.vi.169 (454.5) Robes and furr'd gowns hide all] From hide all to accuser's lips, the whole passage is wanting in the first edition, being added, I suppose, at his revisal.

IV.vi.187 (455,8) This a good block!] I do not see how this block corresponds either with his foregoing or following train of thoughts. Madmen think not wholly at random. I would read thus, a good flock. Flocks are wool moulded together. The sentence then follows properly:

It were a delicate stratagem to shoe
A troop of horse with felt;—

i.e. with flocks kneaded to a mass, a practice I believe sometimes used in former ages, for it is mentioned in Ariosto:

"—Fece nel cader strepito quanto
Avesse avuto sotto i piedi il feltro."

It is very common for madmen to catch an accidental hint, and strain it to the purpose predominant in their minds. Lear picks up a flock, and immediately thinks to surprize his enemies by a troop of horse shod with flocks or felt. Yet block may stand, if we suppose that the sight of a block put him in mind of mounting his horse.

IV.vi.199 (457,1) Why, this would make a man, a man of salt] Would make a man melt away like salt in wet weather.

IV.vi.206 (457,2) Then there's life in't] The case is not yet desperate.