In the fourth Scene of this Act, Lear uses the same expression in answer to the fool, who had asked him if he could "make no use of nothing." For this ancient saying of one of the philosophers, Shakspeare might have been indebted to the following passage in The prayse of nothing, by E. D. 1585, 4to. "The prophane antiquitie therefore, unlesse by casuall meanes, entreated little hereof, as of that which by their rule, that nihil ex nihilo fit, conteined not matter of profit or commendation: for which those philosophers hunted, as ambicious men for dominion and empire."
Scene 4. Page 60.
Fool. That such a king should play bo-peep.
Mr. Steevens remarks that little more of this game than its mere denomination remains. He had forgotten the amusements of his nursery. In Sherwood's Dictionary it is defined, "Jeu d'enfant; ou (plustost) des nourrices aux petits enfans; se cachans le visage et puis se monstrant." The Italians say far bau bau, or baco baco, and bauccare; which shows that there must at some time or other have been a connexion between the nurse's terriculamentum, the boggle or buggy bo, and the present expression. See the note in p. [202]. Minsheu's derivation of bo-peep from the noise which chickens make when they come out of the shell, is more whimsical than just.
Scene 4. Page 65.
Lear. Lear's shadow?
We are told that "the folio has given these words to the fool." And so they certainly should be, without the mark of interrogation. They are of no use whatever in Lear's speech; and without this arrangement, the fool's next words, "which they will make an obedient father," are unintelligible. It will likewise dispose of Mr. Steevens's subsequent charge against Shakspeare, of inattention to the rules of grammar.
ACT II.
Scene 2. Page 92.
Kent. I'll make a sop o' the moonshine of you.