[139] It is pointed out in [Note V]. that what modern editors call Scenes ii., iii., iv. of Act ii. are really one scene, for Kent is on the stage through them all.
[140] [On the locality of Act i., Sc. ii., see Modern Language Review for Oct., 1908, and Jan., 1909.]
[141] This effect of the double action seems to have been pointed out first by Schlegel.
[142] How prevalent these are is not recognised by readers familiar only with English poetry. See Simpson's Introduction to the Philosophy of Shakespeare's Sonnets (1868) and Mr. Wyndham's edition of Shakespeare's Poems. Perhaps both writers overstate, and Simpson's interpretations are often forced or arbitrary, but his book is valuable and ought not to remain out of print.
[143] The monstrosity here is a being with a woman's body and a fiend's soul. For the interpretation of the lines see [Note Y].
[144] Since this paragraph was written I have found that the abundance of these references has been pointed out and commented on by J. Kirkman, New Shaks. Soc. Trans., 1877.
[145] E.g. in As You Like It, iii. ii. 187, 'I was never so berhymed since Pythagoras' time, that I was an Irish rat, which I can hardly remember'; Twelfth Night, iv. ii. 55, 'Clown. What is the opinion of Pythagoras concerning wild fowl? Mal. That the soul of our grandam might haply inhabit a bird. Clown. What thinkest thou of his opinion? Mal. I think nobly of the soul, and no way approve his opinion,' etc. But earlier comes a passage which reminds us of King Lear, Merchant of Venice, iv. i. 128:
O be thou damn'd, inexecrable dog!
And for thy life let justice be accused.
Thou almost makest me waver in my faith
To hold opinion with Pythagoras,
That souls of animals infuse themselves
Into the trunks of men: thy currish spirit
Govern'd a wolf, who, hang'd for human slaughter,
Even from the gallows did his fell soul fleet,
And, whilst thou lay'st in thy unhallow'd dam,
Infused itself in thee; for thy desires
Are wolvish, bloody, starved and ravenous.
[146] I fear it is not possible, however, to refute, on the whole, one charge,—that the dog is a snob, in the sense that he respects power and prosperity, and objects to the poor and despised. It is curious that Shakespeare refers to this trait three times in King Lear, as if he were feeling a peculiar disgust at it. See iii. vi. 65, 'The little dogs and all,' etc.: iv. vi. 159, 'Thou hast seen a farmer's dog bark at a beggar ... and the creature run from the cur? There thou mightst behold the great image of authority': v. iii. 186, 'taught me to shift Into a madman's rags; to assume a semblance That very dogs disdain'd.' Cf. Oxford Lectures, p. 341.
[147] With this compare the following lines in the great speech on 'degree' in Troilus and Cressida, i. iii.: