At the opening of the play Lear is a very old man. Moved by some secret premonition of failing reason or decay, he is about to abdicate his crown. He is seen to be an imperial spirit throned in an enfeebled nature, a power girdled with weakness. An exacting and unbridled spirit of authority, a splenetic assertion of his kingly will, with the incessant worries and frictions to which such a habit always gives rise, have undermined his poise and lowered his strength, and brought his mind into that state of unstable equilibrium which is the condition of an explosive irritability fated to issue in madness. He himself, in the organic strata below his free intelligence, has obscure premonitions of his crumbling state; but every intimation of it which reaches his consciousness fills him with an angry resentment that seeks some instant vent.
The task to indicate all this, so clearly, with such moving force, with such combination of overtopping power and piteous weakness, as to fix it all in the apprehending sympathies of the audience, was marvellously accomplished by Forrest in the opening scene. The vast frame whose motions were alternately ponderous and fretful, the pale massive face, the restless wild eyes, the rich deep voice magnificent in oratoric phrase and breaking in querulous anger,—these, skilfully managed, revealed at once the ruining greatness of the royal nature, dowered with imposing and gracious qualities but fatally cored with irritable self-love.
“Know that we have divided
In three our kingdom; and ’tis our fast intent
To shake all cares and business from our age;
Conferring them on younger strengths, while we,
Unburthened, crawl toward death. Tell me, my daughters,
(Since now we will divest us, both of rule,
Interest of territory, cares of state,)
Which of you, shall we say, doth love us most?