But it is Regan who adds: "Shut up your door ". So she eggs on her husband to deeds of greater cruelty. If Cornwall proposes to put Kent in the stocks and says, "There shall he sit till noon," (Act ii., sc. iv.) Regan exclaims,— "Till noon! till night, my lord; and all night too". When Cornwall has thrust out one of Gloster's eyes, Regan exclaims : "One side will mock another: the other too". (Act ii., sc. iv.) And she stabs the servant who would have held Cornwall back. It is clear that she thrusts on Edmund to still darker deeds : "It was ignorance, Gloster's eyes being out, His nighted life ". Afraid of Goneril herself, she stirs up Edmund against her sister, and only at last when she has no more to fear, she stabs her. Yet Goneril's violence is not strength, but weakness, the result of fear. When first the quarrel begins with her father, she justifies herself to Albany by urging her fears. He does not know enough then to condemn her, but answers :— "Well you may fear too far, How far your eyes may pierce I cannot tell, (Act i., sc. iv.) Of the beauty of Cordelia's character much has been written, but each of us conceives a different picture. We learn to know her, as we do real people, not by reading a description, but by watching her in different circumstances, by adding one trait after another. We know that she is lovable, as we see her father look on her and say : "Now, our joy, Although the last, not least," and, "I lov'd her most ". (Act i., sc. i.) France too reminds him that Cordelia had been "The argument of your praise, balm of your age". It is one grievance of the sisters that "he always loved our sister most ". We see her shrink, as she stands beside the mannish Goneril, the treacherous Regan, and listens to their bold falsehood. The "Nothing" which provokes the king, is full of indignant sorrow, and when she knows she has angered him she cannot retract; "to mend her fortunes," she cannot take a gift which is not the simple expression of her father's trust and love, nor buy it with false coin; yet she does not defy him. Afterwards as he recalls that scene he tells us: "Her voice was ever soft, Gentle and low-an excellent thing in woman". (Act v., sc. iii.) She utters not one word of gratitude to France, yet we hear by her pleading tones, "I yet beseech your majesty (If for I want that glib and oily art, To speak and purpose not; since what I well intend, I'll do't before I speak), It is no vicious blot. That hath deprived me of your grace's favour," (Act i., sc. i.) and we know from her few words, "Peace be with Burgundy, Since that respects of fortune are his love, I shall not be his wife," how glad she is that poverty has saved her from him, and given her to one who can interpret music without words. We hear nothing of her life in France, yet we know when the French army comes that France is stirred by her to maintain the right, to succour the defenceless. We know by his departure that no selfish greed has prompted the invasion, but love to her. We are sure that to her at least the fool is unjust, when he says: "There was never yet fair woman, but she made mouths in a glass ". (Act iii., sc. ii.) She never stands in admiring contemplation of her own virtues. "Cor.: O thou good Kent, how shall I live and work, (Act iv., sc. vii.) There is no violent utterance of grief and indignation. She does not curse her sisters, nor cast them out from her pity. Her passion is not like Lear's, a destructive whirlwind, dashing the frail vessel against the rocks, it is a steady breeze filling the sails, and moving on the soul in the path of love and duty. "It seemed she was a queen over her passion; who, most rebel-like, sought to be king over her." "Kent: O, then it mov'd her.” (Act iv., sc. iv.) "Gent.: Not to a rage; patience and sorrow strove Who should express her goodliest." We marvel at first at the mingled feeling : "Her smiles and tears Were like a better May: those happy smiles, That play'd on her ripe lip, seemed not to know (Act iv., sc. iii.) until we remember that she must have felt how blessed is sorrow, that "There is a soul of goodness in things evil, Would men observingly distil it out," Besides, her modest nature hinders her expressing much : "What I well intend, I'll do't before I speak". (Act i., sc. i.) This makes her shrink from display of grief : "There she shook The holy water from her heavenly eyes, And clamour moisten'd: then away she started (Act iv., sc. iv.) I need not dwell on the beauty of that scene where she wakens her father with a healing kiss. When he is defeated she grieves not for herself, but for her father, and turns at once to the hope that she may yet touch her sisters' hearts : "We are not the first, Who with best meaning have incurred the worst ; Myself could else out-frown false Fortune's frown,- And then follows that wonderful speech of the king, which tells us that sorrow mingled with love has done its work: "When thou dost ask me blessing, I'll kneel down (Act v., sc. iii.) Turning to the old king we find much to make us love him his generosity, his sense of justice as shown in the division of his kingdom, his childlike trust, his sincerity, his affection for his daughters, his fidelity to his knights, and the fact that he had won the devoted love of Cordelia and of Kent. But he had missed the discipline of life, and so he was a child in character. "They flattered me; and told me there were white hairs in my head ere the black ones were there. To say ay and no to everything I said was no good divinity. When the thunder would not peace at my bidding, there I smelt them out." "When I do stare see how the subject quakes." Thus, when the weakness of old age came on, his childish faults appeared-rashness, wilfulness, obstiGoneril says truly : nacy. "We must look from his age to receive not only the imperfections of his long engrafted condition, but therewithal the unruly waywardness that infirm and choleric years bring with them ". When he had become sensible of his first error, he might have appealed against Goneril to her husband. Three times Albany protested his innocence, and asked the cause of the king's wrath; but Lear would not be interrupted in his cursing, and finally rushed out, leaving Albany to Goneril's misrepresentations. At first, as we listen to Lear's curses, we think adversity has made him harder and more wicked. But already there are signs of softening, when he tries to believe Regan is really ill : "I'll forbear; And am fallen out with my more headier will ". And if he breaks out once more into curses against Goneril, he checks himself: - "I do not bid the thunder-bearer shoot, Nor tell tales of thee to high-judging Jove: Mend when thou canst, be better at thy leisure: |