What Cordelia had feared with respect to her sisters speedily came
to pass. When the kingdom was safely in their possession, their
true natures became apparent, and they showed themselves for what
they really were--false, cruel, and utterly heartless women. The
arrangement had been that King Lear, with a hundred knights, was
to stay a month at each daughter’s in turn, but before his term of
residence at his eldest son-in-law’s, the Duke of Albany, had come
to an end, Goneril contrived, by her outrageous behaviour, to drive
him from the palace. She pretended that his knights brought disorder
into her household; and although her father had presented her with
half his kingdom as a dowry, she grudged even the small expenditure
of maintaining this paltry band of followers. She ordered her steward
Oswald and her servants to treat him with open negligence and
disrespect, in the hope of bringing about a quarrel; if it were to her
father’s distaste, she said brutally, he could go to her sister’s; she
knew that Regan was of the same mind with herself in the resolve, as
they expressed it, “not to be overruled.”
“Idle old man,” remarked Goneril contemptuously, “who would like still
to manage the authorities that he has given away.”
Lear, always fiery-tempered and impetuous, was certainly not one to
submit tamely to such insulting treatment, and, almost out of his mind
at the base ingratitude of Goneril and the insolence of her domestics,
he ordered his horses to be got ready, and prepared to depart to his
second daughter. He now began to repent of his harshness to Cordelia,
and to realise how foolish he had been in parting so rashly with his
authority.
But the poor, headstrong old King had one friend near him of whom he
did not know. The faithful Earl of Kent loved his master in spite of
his faults, and determined not to forsake him in the evil days which
he knew must be at hand. In the guise of a poor man, Kent came to the
palace of the Duke of Albany, and persuaded King Lear to take him into
his service.
One other devoted follower was also left to the King--his faithful
Fool, or jester. The loving loyalty of this man never failed, and his
deep attachment to his royal master was touching to see. In the midst
of the vexations which fretted his impatient spirit, the old King
turned for refreshment to the quaint sayings of this humble friend;
had he but known it, the intelligence of this poor Fool far surpassed
in wisdom his own mad folly.
Cordelia’s departure had been a great grief to this affectionate
creature, and after she went to France he pined and pined away,
and kept sadly aloof from his master. But King Lear, missing his
favourite, sent for him, and the poor Fool came in answer to the
summons, glib of tongue, but with eyes that looked sorrowful enough
under his cap and bells. His speech was ready, as usual, but his wit
was tinged with bitter philosophy, and his sayings conveyed many a
sharp home-truth to the misguided monarch. The King suffered him to
speak what he would have allowed no one else to utter, and the Fool,
in half-mocking words, pointed out with blunt plainness the folly
of the King in giving away his possessions. Later on, when Goneril
appeared, and with her lying statements and heartless insolence almost
goaded Lear to madness, the poor Fool tried, by every means in his
power, to divert the King’s mind; he desperately interposed after some
of Goneril’s most biting speeches, trying to take off their edge by
a little twist of humour, and to distract the King’s attention from
his daughter’s cruelty by bringing reproof upon himself by his own
impertinent sallies. Poor faithful heart! He might as well have tried
to divert a thunderbolt with a harlequin’s wand. In the storm that was
now to burst over them, the poor thrall could do nothing to save his
master, but at least he could cling to him with unswerving fidelity,
and share his wanderings and misery.
The Duke of Albany, less hard-hearted than his wife, tried to soften
her harsh severity, but his attempts were useless. She declined to
listen to any reasoning, called his mildness “want of wisdom,” and,
acting on her own authority, suddenly dismissed fifty of her father’s
knights, on the frivolous and altogether false pretext that they
conducted themselves in a riotous fashion in her house, and that it
was dangerous for the lives of herself and her husband for Lear to
keep such a large guard about him.
Lear, furious with rage, declared his intention of leaving Albany’s
palace immediately, and started with the Fool for Regan’s house,
sending Kent on in advance with letters to announce his coming.
Goneril, however, to secure her sister on her side, also sent letters
to her by the steward Oswald, the man who had already incurred King
Lear’s wrath by his insolence. The two messengers happening to meet
on the way, outside the castle of the Earl of Gloucester, where Regan
and her husband were then staying, Kent fell on the saucy knave, and
gave him a thoroughly well-deserved thrashing. Oswald’s loud and
cowardly cries raised the household, and by order of the Duke of
Cornwall, Kent was seized and placed in the stocks, in spite of his
protest that he was the messenger of the King, and as such ought to be
treated with respect. He took his punishment with much philosophy, and
when the kindly Earl of Gloucester expressed his pity, and said he
would entreat the Duke of Cornwall for him, Kent answered with sturdy
fortitude: “Pray do not, sir; I have watched and travelled hard; some
time I shall sleep out, the rest I’ll whistle.” And, as a matter of
fact, the stout-hearted champion presently went calmly to sleep in his
uncomfortable resting-place.
When King Lear, with the Fool and a gentleman attendant, arrived
at the Earl of Gloucester’s castle, the first thing he saw was his
messenger sitting in the stocks. He asked indignantly who had dared
to do such a deed, and was told that it was his daughter and his
son-in-law. The King could scarcely think such a thing was possible,
and demanded to see Regan and the Duke of Cornwall. They returned for
answer that they could not be spoken with. King Lear’s fiery temper
was already blazing at this insulting reception. He sent a peremptory
summons that Regan and her husband should come forth and hear him, or
else he would go and batter with drums at their chamber door; and the
Earl of Gloucester, always ready to make peace, at last persuaded his
guests to appear.
After a stiff greeting from the Duke of Cornwall and his wife, Kent
was set at liberty, and King Lear began to relate the unkind treatment
of Goneril, thinking to receive some affection and sympathy from this
daughter, although the eldest one had behaved so badly.
Regan, however, took her sister’s part, and coldly replied that she
could not think that her sister would have failed the least in her
duty; if she restrained the riots of his followers, she was not
to blame. Her father was old, he should be ruled and led by some
discretion better than his own. Therefore she prayed him to return to
Goneril and say he had wronged her.
“Ask her forgiveness?” demanded King Lear. “Mark how this becomes the
house.” He fell on his knees and continued in bitter mockery: “‘Dear
daughter, I confess that I am old; age is unnecessary; on my knees I
beg that you’ll vouchsafe me raiment, bed, and food.’”
Regan was annoyed at the old man’s raillery, and again bade him return
to her sister.
“Never, Regan,” said King Lear, rising; and in angry words he called
down the vengeance of heaven on his eldest daughter for her black
ingratitude.
”So you will wish on me when the rash mood is on,” said Regan.
“No, Regan, you will never have my curse,” said the old man, and with
piteous words of misplaced affection he tried to convince himself that
this daughter would never have treated him as the other one had done.
While they were speaking, the sound of a trumpet was heard, and, to
the horror and dismay of King Lear, Goneril herself appeared.
“O Regan, wilt thou take her by the hand?” he asked reproachfully.
“Why not by the hand, sir?” demanded Goneril arrogantly. “How have I
offended? All is not offence that indiscretion finds and dotage terms
so.”
Lear’s self-control was rapidly leaving him, and he could scarcely
answer calmly when Regan again advised him to return and sojourn with
her sister for the remainder of the month, dismissing half his train,
and then to go back to her. Lear indignantly refused to return with
Goneril, but, making one last effort to subdue his rising violence,
he said he would not trouble Goneril; they need never see each other
again; but he could stay with Regan, he and his hundred knights.
[Illustration: “You heavens, give me that patience, patience I
need!”]
To this Regan answered coldly that she had not expected him so soon,
and was not provided for his fit welcome. She again counselled him to
listen to her sister. Fifty followers? What should he need of more?
Indeed, why so many? How, in one house, could many people under two
commands dwell peaceably? It was hard, almost impossible.
“Why might not you, my lord, receive attendance from those that she
calls servants, or from mine?” put in Goneril.
“Why not, my lord?” echoed Regan. “If you will come to me--for now I
spy a danger--I entreat you to bring but five-and-twenty; to no more
will I give place or notice.”
Seeing that Regan was about to treat him worse, if anything, than
Goneril, King Lear said he would return to his eldest daughter with
the fifty knights to which she had reduced him. But now Goneril began
to draw back. Why did he need five-and-twenty, ten, or even five
followers, in a house where twice as many had orders to attend on him?
“What need of one?” added Regan.
“O, reason not the need,” exclaimed Lear, justly indignant at
this sordid argument from those to whom he had given his entire
possessions. “Our basest beggars are in the poorest thing superfluous.
But for true need--you heavens, give me that patience, patience I
need! You see me here, you gods, a poor old man, as full of grief as
age; wretched in both.... You think I’ll weep? No, I’ll not weep. I
have full cause of weeping; but this heart shall break into a hundred
thousand flaws before I’ll weep.... O Fool, I shall go mad!”
And, hurling forth threats of revenge, King Lear hurried from the
castle, followed by his faithful companions, the Fool and the Earl of
Kent. Darkness was coming on; it was a wild night of storm; the wind
howled and raged; for miles around on the desolate heath there was not
even a bush for shelter. But the heart-broken father’s only thought
was to fly from the cruel daughters who had so shamefully treated him.
The Earl of Gloucester came in much concern to tell Goneril and Regan
that the King was leaving the castle, but they bade him with cold
brutality not to persuade him to stay, but to shut his doors. Regan
remarked that to wilful men the injuries they brought on themselves
must be their own schoolmasters; Lear was attended with a desperate
train, and it was wise to be cautious.
“Shut up your doors, my lord,” agreed Cornwall; “it’s a wild night; my
Regan counsels well. Come in, out of the storm.”