Which bewept to the grave did go,
With true-love showers.”[78:1]
The King’s voice seems here to divert the broken current of her thoughts and she wanders again. Then, returning to the tragic theme with the most piteous of cries: “We must be patient; but I cannot choose but weep, to think they should lay him i’ the cold ground,”[78:2] she goes out.
Before long Lærtes returns, furious with rage at his father’s violent end and eager to be revenged “most throughly” on his enemies. He has not heard of his sister’s affliction and is dumbfounded, as at this moment she returns. Then he realises what has taken place and all his anger melts into a terrible grief:
“O heat, dry up my brains! tears seven times salt
Burn out the sense and virtue of mine eye . . .
O heavens! is’t possible a young maid’s wits
Should be as mortal as an old man’s life?”[78:3]
Her pitiful condition soon reinforces his determination to be revenged: “This nothing’s more than matter,”[78:4] he exclaims, and the spectator re-echoes the cry as he gazes on the enraged brother and the afflicted girl whose
sorrows have been more than she can bear. In her madness there is not a jot of the maniacal frenzy which is the great characteristic of Lear. Her nature was ever too gentle: