should properly enter at this point; for if Kent, as he says, wishes to
remain unknown, it seems strange that he and Cordelia should talk as
they do before a third person. This change however is not necessary, for
the Doctor might naturally stand out of hearing till he was addressed;
and it is better not to go against the stage-direction without
necessity.]
NOTE X.
THE BATTLE IN _KING LEAR_.
I found my impression of the extraordinary ineffectiveness of this
battle (p. 255) confirmed by a paper of James Spedding (_New Shakspere
Society Transactions_, 1877, or Furness's _King Lear_, p. 312 f.); but
his opinion that this is the one technical defect in _King Lear_ seems
certainly incorrect, and his view that this defect is not due to
Shakespeare himself will not, I think, bear scrutiny.
To make Spedding's view quite clear I may remind the reader that in the
preceding scene the two British armies, that of Edmund and Regan, and
that of Albany and Goneril, have entered with drum and colours, and have
departed. Scene ii. is as follows (Globe):
SCENE II.--_A field between the two camps.
Alarum within. Enter, with drum and colours_, LEAR, CORDELIA,
_and_ Soldiers, _over the stage; and exeunt._ _Enter_ EDGAR
_and_ GLOSTER.
_Edg._ Here, father, take the shadow of this tree
For your good host; pray that the right may thrive:
If ever I return to you again,
I'll bring you comfort.
_Glo._ Grace go with you, sir!
[_Exit_ Edgar
_Alarum and retreat within._ _Re-enter_ EDGAR.
_Edg._ Away, old man; give me thy hand; away!
King Lear hath lost, he and his daughter ta'en:
Give me thy hand; come on.
_Glo._ No farther, sir; a man may rot even here.
_Edg._ What, in ill thoughts again? Men must endure
Their going hence, even as their coming hither:
Ripeness is all: come on.
_Glo._ And that's true too. [_Exeunt_.
The battle, it will be seen, is represented only by military music
within the tiring-house, which formed the back of the stage. 'The
scene,' says Spedding, 'does not change; but 'alarums' are heard, and
afterwards a 'retreat,' and on the same field over which that great army
has this moment passed, fresh and full of hope, re-appears, with tidings
that all is lost, the same man who last left the stage to follow and
fight in it.[276] That Shakespeare meant the scene to stand thus, no one
who has the true faith will believe.'
Spedding's suggestion is that things are here run together which
Shakespeare meant to keep apart. Shakespeare, he thinks, continued Act
IV. to the '_exit_ Edgar' after l. 4 of the above passage. Thus, just
before the close of the Act, the two British armies and the French army
had passed across the stage, and the interest of the audience in the
battle about to be fought was raised to a high pitch. Then, after a
short interval, Act V. opened with the noise of battle in the distance,
followed by the entrance of Edgar to announce the defeat of Cordelia's
army. The battle, thus, though not fought on the stage, was shown and
felt to be an event of the greatest importance.
Apart from the main objection of the entire want of evidence of so great
a change having been made, there are other objections to this idea and
to the reasoning on which it is based. (1) The pause at the end of the
present Fourth Act is far from 'faulty,' as Spedding alleges it to be;
that Act ends with the most melting scene Shakespeare ever wrote; and a
pause after it, and before the business of the battle, was perfectly
right. (2) The Fourth Act is already much longer than the Fifth (about
fourteen columns of the Globe edition against about eight and a half),
and Spedding's change would give the Fourth nearly sixteen columns, and
the Fifth less than seven. (3) Spedding's proposal requires a much
greater alteration in the existing text than he supposed. It does not
simply shift the division of the two Acts, it requires the disappearance
and re-entrance of the blind Gloster. Gloster, as the text stands, is
alone on the stage while the battle is being fought at a distance, and
the reference to the tree shows that he was on the main or lower stage.
The main stage had no front curtain; and therefore, if Act IV. is to end
where Spedding wished it to end, Gloster must go off unaided at its
close, and come on again unaided for Act V. And this means that the
_whole_ arrangement of the present Act V. Sc. ii. must be changed. If
Spedding had been aware of this it is not likely that he would have
broached his theory.[277]
It is curious that he does not allude to the one circumstance which
throws some little suspicion on the existing text. I mean the
contradiction between Edgar's statement that, if ever he returns to his
father again, he will bring him comfort, and the fact that immediately
afterwards he returns to bring him discomfort. It is possible to explain
this psychologically, of course, but the passage is not one in which we
should expect psychological subtlety.
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 276: Where did Spedding find this? I find no trace of it, and
surely Edgar would not have risked his life in the battle, when he had,
in case of defeat, to appear and fight Edmund. He does not appear
'armed,' according to the Folio, till V. iii. 117.]
[Footnote 277: Spedding supposed that there was a front curtain, and
this idea, coming down from Malone and Collier, is still found in
English works of authority. But it may be stated without hesitation that
there is no positive evidence at all for the existence of such a
curtain, and abundant evidence against it.]
NOTE Y.
SOME DIFFICULT PASSAGES IN _KING LEAR_.
The following are notes on some passages where I have not been able to
accept any of the current interpretations, or on which I wish to express
an opinion or represent a little-known view.
1. _Kent's soliloquy at the end of_ II. ii.
(_a_) In this speech the application of the words 'Nothing, almost sees
miracles but misery' seems not to have been understood. The 'misery' is
surely not that of Kent but that of Lear, who has come 'out of heaven's
benediction to the warm sun,' _i.e._ to misery. This, says Kent, is just
the situation where something like miraculous help may be looked for;
and he finds the sign of it in the fact that a letter from Cordelia has
just reached him; for his course since his banishment has been so
obscured that it is only by the rarest good fortune (something like a
miracle) that Cordelia has got intelligence of it. We may suppose that
this intelligence came from one of Albany's or Cornwall's servants, some
of whom are, he says (III. i. 23),
to France the spies and speculations
Intelligent of our state.
(_b_) The words 'and shall find time,' etc., have been much discussed.
Some have thought that they are detached phrases from the letter which
Kent is reading: but Kent has just implied by his address to the sun
that he has no light to read the letter by.[278] It has also been
suggested that the anacoluthon is meant to represent Kent's sleepiness,
which prevents him from finishing the sentence, and induces him to
dismiss his thoughts and yield to his drowsiness. But I remember nothing
like this elsewhere in Shakespeare, and it seems much more probable that
the passage is corrupt, perhaps from the loss of a line containing words
like 'to rescue us' before 'From this enormous state' (with 'state' cf.
'our state' in the lines quoted above).
When we reach III. i. we find that Kent has now read the letter; he
knows that a force is coming from France and indeed has already 'secret
feet' in some of the harbours. So he sends the Gentleman to Dover.
2. _The Fool's Song in_ II. iv.
At II. iv. 62 Kent asks why the King comes with so small a train. The
Fool answers, in effect, that most of his followers have deserted him
because they see that his fortunes are sinking. He proceeds to advise
Kent ironically to follow their example, though he confesses he does not
intend to follow it himself. 'Let go thy hold when a great wheel runs
down a hill, lest it break thy neck with following it: but the great one
that goes up the hill, let him draw thee after. When a wise man gives
thee better counsel, give me mine again: I would have none but knaves
follow it, since a fool gives it.
That sir which serves and seeks for gain,
And follows but for form,
Will pack when it begins to rain,
And leave thee in the storm.
But I will tarry; the fool will stay,
And let the wise man fly:
The knave turns fool that runs away;
The fool no knave, perdy.
The last two lines have caused difficulty. Johnson wanted to read,
The fool turns knave that runs away,
The knave no fool, perdy;
_i.e._ if I ran away, I should prove myself to be a knave and a wise
man, but, being a fool, I stay, as no knave or wise man would. Those who
rightly defend the existing reading misunderstand it, I think.
Shakespeare is not pointing out, in 'The knave turns fool that runs
away,' that the wise knave who runs away is really a 'fool with a
circumbendibus,' 'moral miscalculator as well as moral coward.' The Fool
is referring to his own words, 'I would have none but knaves follow [my
advice to desert the King], since a fool gives it'; and the last two
lines of his song mean, 'The knave who runs away follows the advice
given by a fool; but I, the fool, shall not follow my own advice by
turning knave.'
For the ideas compare the striking passage in _Timon_, I. i. 64 ff.
3. '_Decline your head._'
At IV. ii. 18 Goneril, dismissing Edmund in the presence of Oswald,
says:
This trusty servant
Shall pass between us: ere long you are like to hear,
If you dare venture in your own behalf,
A mistress's command. Wear this; spare speech;
Decline your head: this kiss, if it durst speak,
Would stretch thy spirits up into the air.
I copy Furness's note on 'Decline': 'STEEVENS thinks that Goneril bids
Edmund decline his head that she might, while giving him a kiss, appear
to Oswald merely to be whispering to him. But this, WRIGHT says, is
giving Goneril credit for too much delicacy, and Oswald was a
"serviceable villain." DELIUS suggests that perhaps she wishes to put a
chain around his neck.'
Surely 'Decline your head' is connected, not with 'Wear this' (whatever
'this' may be), but with 'this kiss,' etc. Edmund is a good deal taller
than Goneril, and must stoop to be kissed.
4. _Self-cover'd_.
At IV. ii. 59 Albany, horrified at the passions of anger, hate, and
contempt expressed in his wife's face, breaks out:
See thyself, devil!
Proper deformity seems not in the fiend
So horrid as in woman.
_Gon._ O vain fool!
_Alb._ Thou changed and self-cover'd thing, for shame,
Be-monster not thy feature. Were't my fitness
To let these hands obey my blood,
They are apt enough to dislocate and tear
Thy flesh and bones: howe'er thou art a fiend,
A woman's shape doth shield thee.
The passage has been much discussed, mainly because of the strange
expression 'self-cover'd,' for which of course emendations have been
proposed. The general meaning is clear. Albany tells his wife that she
is a devil in a woman's shape, and warns her not to cast off that shape
by be-monstering her feature (appearance), since it is this shape alone
that protects her from his wrath. Almost all commentators go astray
because they imagine that, in the words 'thou changed and self-cover'd
thing,' Albany is speaking to Goneril as a _woman_ who has been changed
into a fiend. Really he is addressing her as a fiend which has changed
its own shape and assumed that of a woman; and I suggest that
'self-cover'd' means either 'which hast covered or concealed thyself,'
or 'whose self is covered' [so Craig in Arden edition], not (what of
course it ought to mean) 'which hast been covered _by_ thyself.'
Possibly the last lines of this passage (which does not appear in the
Folios) should be arranged thus:
To let these hands obey my blood, they're apt enough
To dislocate and tear thy flesh and bones:
Howe'er thou art a fiend, a woman's shape
Doth shield thee.
_Gon._ Marry, your manhood now--
_Alb._ What news?
5. _The stage-directions at_ V. i. 37, 39.
In V. i. there first enter Edmund, Regan, and their army or soldiers:
then, at line 18, Albany, Goneril, and their army or soldiers. Edmund
and Albany speak very stiffly to one another, and Goneril bids them
defer their private quarrels and attend to business. Then follows this
passage (according to the modern texts):
_Alb._ Let's then determine
With the ancient of war on our proceedings.
_Edm._ I shall attend you presently at your tent.
_Reg._ Sister, you'll go with us?
_Gon._ No.
_Reg._ 'Tis most convenient: pray you, go with us.
_Gon._ [_Aside_] O, ho, I know the riddle.--I will go.
_As they are going out, enter_ EDGAR _disguised._
_Edg._ If e'er your grace had speech with man so poor,
Hear me one word.
_Alb._ I'll overtake you. Speak.
[_Exeunt all but_ ALBANY _and_ EDGAR.
It would appear from this that all the leading persons are to go to a
Council of War with the ancient (plural) in Albany's tent; and they are
going out, followed by their armies, when Edgar comes in. Why in the
world, then, should Goneril propose (as she apparently does) to absent
herself from the Council; and why, still more, should Regan object to
her doing so? This is a question which always perplexed me, and I could
not believe in the only answers I ever found suggested, viz., that Regan
wanted to keep Edmund and Goneril together in order that she might
observe them (Moberly, quoted in Furness), or that she could not bear to
lose sight of Goneril, for fear Goneril should effect a meeting with
Edmund after the Council (Delius, if I understand him).
But I find in Koppel what seems to be the solution
(Verbesserungsvorschläge, p. 127 f.). He points out that the modern
stage-directions are wrong. For the modern direction 'As they are going
out, enter Edgar disguised,' the Ff. read, 'Exeunt both the armies.
Enter Edgar.' For 'Exeunt all but Albany and Edgar' the Ff. have
nothing, but Q1 has 'exeunt' after 'word.' For the first direction
Koppel would read, 'Exeunt Regan, Goneril, Gentlemen, and Soldiers': for
the second he would read, after 'overtake you,' 'Exit Edmund.'
This makes all clear. Albany proposes a Council of War. Edmund assents,
and says he will come at once to Albany's tent for that purpose. The
Council will consist of Albany, Edmund, and the ancient of war. Regan,
accordingly, is going away with her soldiers; but she observes that
Goneril shows no sign of moving with _her_ soldiers; and she at once
suspects that Goneril means to attend the Council in order to be with
Edmund. Full of jealousy, she invites Goneril to go with _her_. Goneril
refuses, but then, seeing Regan's motive, contemptuously and ironically
consents (I doubt if 'O ho, I know the riddle' should be 'aside,' as in
modern editions, following Capell). Accordingly the two sisters go out,
followed by their soldiers; and Edmund and Albany are just going out, in
a different direction, to Albany's tent when Edgar enters. His words
cause Albany to stay; Albany says to Edmund, as Edmund leaves, 'I'll
overtake you'; and then, turning to Edgar, bids him 'speak.'
6. V. iii. 151 ff.
When Edmund falls in combat with the disguised Edgar, Albany produces
the letter from Goneril to Edmund, which Edgar had found in Oswald's
pocket and had handed over to Albany. This letter suggested to Edmund
the murder of Albany. The passage in the Globe edition is as follows:
_Gon._ This is practice, Gloucester:
By the law of arms thou wast not bound to answer
An unknown opposite: thou art not vanquish'd,
But cozen'd and beguiled.
_Alb._ Shut your mouth, dame,
Or with this paper shall I stop it: Hold, sir;
Thou worse than any name, read thy own evil:
No tearing, lady; I perceive you know it.
[_Gives the letter to Edmund._
_Gon._ Say, if I do, the laws are mine, not thine:
Who can arraign me for't?
_Alb._ Most monstrous! oh!
Know'st thou this paper?
_Gon._ Ask me not what I know. [_Exit._
_Alb._ Go after her: she's desperate: govern her.
_Edm._ What you have charged me with, that have I done;
And more, much more; the time will bring it out.
'Tis past, and so am I. But what art thou
That hast this fortune on me?
The first of the stage-directions is not in the Qq. or Ff.: it was
inserted by Johnson. The second ('Exit') is both in the Qq. and in the
Ff., but the latter place it after the words 'arraign me for't.' And
they give the words 'Ask me not what I know' to Edmund, not to Goneril,
as in the Qq. (followed by the Globe).
I will not go into the various views of these lines, but will simply say
what seems to me most probable. It does not matter much where precisely
Goneril's 'exit' comes; but I believe the Folios are right in giving the
words 'Ask me not what I know' to Edmund. It has been pointed out by
Knight that the question 'Know'st thou this paper?' cannot very well be
addressed to Goneril, for Albany has already said to her, 'I perceive
you know it.' It is possible to get over this difficulty by saying that
Albany wants her confession: but there is another fact which seems to
have passed unnoticed. When Albany is undoubtedly speaking to his wife,
he uses the plural pronoun, 'Shut _your_ mouth, dame,' 'No tearing,
lady; I perceive _you_ know it.' When then he asks 'Know'st _thou_ this
paper?' he is probably _not_ speaking to her.
I should take the passage thus. At 'Hold, sir,' [omitted in Qq.] Albany
holds the letter out towards Edmund for him to see, or possibly gives it
to him.[279] The next line, with its 'thou,' is addressed to Edmund,
whose 'reciprocal vows' are mentioned in the letter. Goneril snatches at
it to tear it up: and Albany, who does not know whether Edmund ever saw
the letter or not, says to her 'I perceive _you_ know it,' the 'you'
being emphatic (her very wish to tear it showed she knew what was in
it). She practically admits her knowledge, defies him, and goes out to
kill herself. He exclaims in horror at her, and, turning again to
Edmund, asks if _he_ knows it. Edmund, who of course does not know it,
refuses to answer (like Iago), not (like Iago) out of defiance, but from
chivalry towards Goneril; and, having refused to answer _this_ charge,
he goes on to admit the charges brought against himself previously by
Albany (82 f.) and Edgar (130 f.). I should explain the change from
'you' to 'thou' in his speech by supposing that at first he is speaking
to Albany and Edgar together.
7. V. iii. 278.
Lear, looking at Kent, asks,
Who are you?
Mine eyes are not o' the best: I'll tell you straight.
_Kent._ If fortune brag of two she loved _and_ hated (Qq. _or_),
One of them we behold.
Kent is not answering Lear, nor is he speaking of himself. He is
speaking of Lear. The best interpretation is probably that of Malone,
according to which Kent means, 'We see the man most hated by Fortune,
whoever may be the man she has loved best'; and perhaps it is supported
by the variation of the text in the Qq., though their texts are so bad
in this scene that their support is worth little. But it occurs to me as
possible that the meaning is rather: 'Did Fortune ever show the extremes
_both_ of her love _and_ of her hatred to any other man as she has shown
them to this man?'
8. _The last lines._
_Alb._ Bear them from hence. Our present business
Is general woe. [_To Kent and Edgar_] Friends of my
soul, you twain
Rule in this realm, and the gored state sustain.
_Kent._ I have a journey, sir, shortly to go;
My master calls me, I must not say no.
_Alb._ The weight of this sad time we must obey;
Speak what we feel, not what we ought to say.
The oldest hath borne most: we that are young
Shall never see so much, nor live so long.
So the Globe. The stage-direction (right, of course) is Johnson's. The
last four lines are given by the Ff. to Edgar, by the Qq. to Albany. The
Qq. read '_have_ borne most.'
To whom ought the last four lines to be given, and what do they mean? It
is proper that the principal person should speak last, and this is in
favour of Albany. But in this scene at any rate the Ff., which give the
speech to Edgar, have the better text (though Ff. 2, 3, 4, make Kent die
after his two lines!); Kent has answered Albany, but Edgar has not; and
the lines seem to be rather more appropriate to Edgar. For the 'gentle
reproof' of Kent's despondency (if this phrase of Halliwell's is right)
is like Edgar; and, although we have no reason to suppose that Albany
was not young, there is nothing to prove his youth.
As to the meaning of the last two lines (a poor conclusion to such a
play) I should suppose that 'the oldest' is not Lear, but 'the oldest of
us,' viz., Kent, the one survivor of the old generation: and this is the
more probable if there _is_ a reference to him in the preceding lines.
The last words seem to mean, 'We that are young shall never see so much
_and yet_ live so long'; _i.e._ if we suffer so much, we shall not bear
it as he has. If the Qq. 'have' is right, the reference is to Lear,
Gloster and Kent.
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 278: The 'beacon' which he bids approach is not the moon, as
Pope supposed. The moon was up and shining some time ago (II. ii. 35),
and lines 1 and 141-2 imply that not much of the night is left.]
[Footnote 279: 'Hold' can mean 'take'; but the word 'this' in line 160
('Know'st thou this paper?') favours the idea that the paper is still in
Albany's hand.]
NOTE Z.
SUSPECTED INTERPOLATIONS IN _MACBETH_.
I have assumed in the text that almost the whole of _Macbeth_ is
genuine; and, to avoid the repetition of arguments to be found in other
books,[280] I shall leave this opinion unsupported. But among the
passages that have been questioned or rejected there are two which seem
to me open to serious doubt. They are those in which Hecate appears:
viz. the whole of III. v.; and IV. i. 39-43.
These passages have been suspected (1) because they contain
stage-directions for two songs which have been found in Middleton's
_Witch_; (2) because they can be excised without leaving the least trace
of their excision; and (3) because they contain lines incongruous with
the spirit and atmosphere of the rest of the Witch-scenes: _e.g._ III.
v. 10 f.:
all you have done
Hath been but for a wayward son,
Spiteful and wrathful, who, as others do,
Loves for his own ends, not for you;
and IV. i. 41, 2:
And now about the cauldron sing,
Like elves and fairies in a ring.
The idea of sexual relation in the first passage, and the trivial
daintiness of the second (with which cf. III. v. 34,
Hark! I am call'd; my little spirit, see,
Sits in a foggy cloud, and stays for me)
suit Middleton's Witches quite well, but Shakespeare's not at all; and
it is difficult to believe that, if Shakespeare had meant to introduce a
personage supreme over the Witches, he would have made her so
unimpressive as this Hecate. (It may be added that the original
stage-direction at IV. i. 39, 'Enter Hecat and the other three Witches,'
is suspicious.)
I doubt if the second and third of these arguments, taken alone, would
justify a very serious suspicion of interpolation; but the fact,
mentioned under (1), that the play has here been meddled with, trebles
their weight. And it gives some weight to the further fact that these
passages resemble one another, and differ from the bulk of the other
Witch passages, in being iambic in rhythm. (It must, however, be
remembered that, supposing Shakespeare _did_ mean to introduce Hecate,
he might naturally use a special rhythm for the parts where she
appeared.)
The same rhythm appears in a third passage which has been doubted: IV.
i. 125-132. But this is not _quite_ on a level with the other two; for
(1), though it is possible to suppose the Witches, as well as the
Apparitions, to vanish at 124, and Macbeth's speech to run straight on
to 133, the cut is not so clean as in the other cases; (2) it is not at
all clear that Hecate (the most suspicious element) is supposed to be
present. The original stage-direction at 133 is merely 'The Witches
Dance, and vanish'; and even if Hecate had been present before, she
might have vanished at 43, as Dyce makes her do.
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 280: _E.g._ Mr. Chambers's excellent little edition in the
Warwick series.]
NOTE AA.
HAS _MACBETH_ BEEN ABRIDGED?
_Macbeth_ is a very short play, the shortest of all Shakespeare's except
the _Comedy of Errors_. It contains only 1993 lines, while _King Lear_
contains 3298, _Othello_ 3324, and _Hamlet_ 3924. The next shortest of
the tragedies is _Julius Caesar_, which has 2440 lines. (The figures are
Mr. Fleay's. I may remark that for our present purpose we want the
number of the lines in the first Folio, not those in modern composite
texts.)