In applying, then, this general view of the court fool to the present case we must avoid two opposite errors. We must not pass over all his utterances as unmeaning folly, nor, on the other hand, must we insist upon seeing a meaning in everything that he says: what truth he speaks must be expected to make its appearance amidst a cloud of nonsense. The function of the Fool in Lear is to keep before us the original problem:Making this proviso we may lay down that the function of the Fool in King Lear is to keep vividly before the minds of the audience (as well as of his master) the idea at the root of the main plot—that unstable moral equilibrium, that unnatural distribution of power which Lear has set up, and of which the whole tragedy is the rebound. i. iv.In the first scene in which he appears before us he is, amid all his nonsense, harping upon the idea that Lear has committed the folly of trusting to the gratitude of the ungrateful, and is reaping the inevitable consequences. As he enters he hands his coxcomb, the symbol of folly, to the King, and to Kent for taking the King's part. His first jingling song,
Have more than thou showest,
Speak less than thou knowest,
Lend less than thou owest, &c.,
is an expansion of the maxim, Trust nobody. And however irrelevant he becomes, he can in a moment get back to this root idea. They tell him his song is nothing:
Fool. Then 'tis like the breath of an unfee'd lawyer; you gave me
nothing for 't. Can you make no use of nothing, nuncle?
Lear. Why, no, boy; nothing can be made out of nothing.
Fool [to Kent]. Prithee, tell him, so much the rent of his land comes to: he will not believe a fool.
i. i. 92.