KING LEAR.
Act I.
Sc. 1.
"What shall Cordelia do? love and be silent."
For 'do' the folio reads speak.
"Only she comes too short in that I profess."
"Although the last not least."
The folio reads 'our last and least.'
"I crave no more than what your highness offer'd."
So the 4tos; the folio reads 'than hath.'
"It is no vicious blot, murder, or foulness,
No unchaste action, or dishonour'd step."
How could the pure and gentle Cordelia suppose herself to be suspected of murder? which, moreover, accords not with the other charges she enumerates. Collier's folio reads or other for 'murder or.' I feel strongly persuaded that the poet's word was misdeed, which, if a little effaced, might easily be taken for 'murder.'
Sc. 2.
"Shall to the legitimate ... I grow, I prosper."
By pointing thus, as Rowe also did, we obviate the necessity of adopting Edwards' ingenious reading of top for 'to.'
"Though the wisdom of Nature can reason it thus and thus."
We should surely read man. 'Nature' is in the following line, and hence the error.
"Banishment of friends, dissipation of cohorts."
Johnson read courts. 'Cohorts' is not a Shakespearian term.
Sc. 3.
"With checks; as flatteries, when they are seen, are abused."
It is only thus I can make sense.
"Remember what I have said to you.—Well, madam."
"To hold my course.—Prepare for dinner now."
The usual reading is, To hold my very course.
Sc. 4.
"How now our daughter! What makes that frontlet on?"
"As you are old and reverend you should be wise."
"Woe's him that too late repents ...—O sir, are you come?"
So perhaps the poet wrote.
"To the great love I bear you.—Pray you be content."
"Though I condemn it not ... yet under pardon."
Act II.
Sc. 1.
"How in my strength you please. For you, good Edmund."
"Corn. You know not why we came to visit you.
Reg. Thus out of season threading dark-eyed night.
Occasions, noble Gloster, of some poise,
Wherein we must have use of your advice."
It is strange that the editors have not seen that Reg. is out of place. It belongs to the third line. (See on Hen. V. i. 1.) In her usual forward impatient manner she takes, as we say, the words out of Cornwall's mouth. There is evidently a line lost after the fourth. We might read "Have been the cause of this our sudden visit."
Sc. 2.
"Knowing nought else, like dogs, but following."
"Smile you at my speeches, as I were a fool?"
Sc. 4.
"They have travell'd hard to-night. Mere fetches these."
"For the sound man.—Death on my state!
Wherefore should he sit here? This act persuades me."
This is the proper arrangement.
"Thy tender-hefted nature shall not give
Thee o'er to harshness."
Neither hefted nor hested, the other reading, makes sense; the conjecture hearted may, then, be right.
"To wage war against the enmity of the air."
"You heavens, give me that patience [patience] I need."
Malone made the same omission.
"He hath put himself from rest, and must needs taste his folly."
Act III.
Sc. 1.
"Who have—as who have not, that their great stars have?"
Sc. 4.
"Hast thou too given all unto thy daughters?"
"Dolphin, my boy, my boy!
Cessè, let him trot by."
As these seem to be the words of the French King to his son in a ballad quoted by Steevens, I have given the French cesse instead of the Spanish cesa for the cease of the 4tos, sessy of the folio.
"Child Rowland to the dark tower came."
Capell saw that a line was wanting here; for what follows must be the words of the Giant. He would read with the 4tos come; but there was no necessity, for in these ballads the first and third lines rarely rimed. The lost line may have been something like this: "The Giant saw him, and out he ran."
Sc. 6.
"A horse's heels," etc.
The originals read health, which is wrong beyond question, as is proved by the proverb in Fordun and Ray, cited by the critics.
"What store her heart is made of."
'Store' an obvious error for stone.
"This rest might yet have balm'd thy broken sinews."
For 'sinews' Theobald read senses, which has been generally received, but perhaps without necessity.
Act IV.
Sc. 1.
"Might I but live to see thee in my touch I'd say I had eyes again."
The proper word of course is feel, not 'see'; but the text may be right. We have elsewhere, "I see it feelingly." We might also read by for 'in.'
"Sirrah, thou naked fellow!"
Sc. 2.
"It will come that humanity must perforce."
"With plumed helm thy slayer begins his threats."
"But she being widow, and my Gloster with her."
Sc. 3.
"Ay, sir, she took them, read them in my presence."
The original is I so. Theobald made the change.
"Not to a rage; Patience and Sorrow strove."
Pope gave 'strove' for the original streme.
"You might have seen
Sunshine and rain at once ... her smiles and tears
Were like it—a better way."
For 'way' Theobald read May. Warburton proposed wetter May.
"'Tis so they are afoot."
We should, with Warburton, read said not 'so.'
Sc. 6.
"Pull off my boots; pull harder, harder; so!"
"Who by the art of known and feeling sorrow."
We should certainly read knowing.
"Got 'tween the lawful sheets."
We might supply 'were unto me.'
"What! with the case of eyes?"
With Rowe I read this. Case is pair.
"Your eyes are in a heavy case, your purse in a light one."
Sc. 7.
"Madam he sleeps still."
"Be so good, madam, when we do awake him."
The folio has "Madam, be so good."
"Fourscore and upward [not an hour more or less] and to deal plainly with you."
I agree with the 4tos, and with the more judicious critics, in omitting the bracketted words. (See on Ham. iii. 1. v. 2.) The addition seems requisite.
"To make him even go o'er the time he has lost."
The poet's word may not have been go, but a verb is lost. Its place may have been taken by 'even.'
Act V.
Sc. 1.
"Yet I am doubtful that you have been conjunct."
Sc. 3.
"But if it be man's work I'll do it."
"And Fortune led you well. You have them captives."
"Make instruments to plague us * * *"
We might add 'in their time.'
"As he'd burst heaven, threw me on my father."
So all the 4tos—the place is not in the folio. Editors most properly read him for 'me.'