Edm. I was contracted to them both; all three Now marry in an inftant. Edg. Here comes Kent. Enter Kent. Alb. Produce the bodies, be they alive or dead. [Gonerill and Regan's bodies brought out. This judgment of the heav'ns, that makes us tremble, Touches us not with pity.O! is this he? The time will not allow the compliment, Which very manners urge. Kent. I am come To bid my King and mafter aye good night; Alb. Great thing of us forgot! Speak, Edmund, where's the King? and where's Cordelia? See'st thou this object, Kent? Kent. Alack, why thus? Edm. Yet Edmund was belov'd: The one the other poifon'd for my fake, And after flew herself. Alb. Even fo; cover their faces. Edm. I pant for life; fome good I mean to do, Defpight of mine own nature. Quickly fend, (Be brief) into the caftle; for my writ Is on the life of Lear and on Cordelia: Nay, fend in time. Alb. Run, run, O run Edg. To whom, my Lord? who has the office? Send thy token of reprieve. Edm. Well thought on, take my fword, Give it the Captain Edg. Hafte thee for thy life. [Exit Messenger Edm. He hath commiffion from thy wife and me To hang Cordelia in the prifon, and To lay the blame upon her own despair. Alb. The gods defend her! bear him hence awhile. [Edmund is borne off. Enter Enter Lear, with Cordelia dead in his arms. Lear. Howl, howl, howl, howl,--O you are men offtone, Had I your tongues and eyes, I'd use them fo, That heaven's vault fhould crack: fhe's gone for ever! If that her breath will mift or ftain the ftone, Kent. Is this the promis'd end? Lear. This feather ftirs, the lives; if it be fo, It is a chance which does redeem all forrows, That ever I have felt. Kent. O my good mafter! Lear. Pr'ythee, away Edg. 'Tis noble Kent, your friend. [Kneeling. Lear. A plague upon you, murd'rous traitors all! What is't thou fay'ft? her voice was ever foft, Lear. Did I not, fellow ? I've seen the day, with my good biting faulchion Lear. Are you not Kent? Kent. The fame; your fervant Kent; Where is your fervant Caius? Lear. 'Twas a good fellow, I can tell you that, (62) He'd ftrike, and quickly too:-he's dead and rotten. (62) He's a good fellow, I can tell you that, He'll frike and quickly too: he's dead and rotten.] We have feen Lear mad; but, never, a ftark fool till this moment; to tell us, that a dead and rotten man will trike quickly. But it was a stupidity of the editors, and not chargeable on the poet. Kent Kent. No, my good Lord, I am the very man,- Kent. That, from your firft of difference and decay, Have follow'd your fad fteps Lear. You're welcome hither. Kent. Nor no man elfe ;--all's cheerless, dark, and dead: Your eldest daughters have fore-done themselves, And defp'rately are dead. Lear. Ay, fo I think. Alb. He knows not what he says; and vain is it, That we prefent us to him. Edg. Very bootlefs. Enter a Meffenger. Mef. Edmund is dead, my Lord. Alb. That's but a trifle. You Lords and noble friends, know our intent To him our abfolute power: to you, your rights, [To Edgar With boot, and fuch addition as your honours Have more than merited. All friends fhall tafte The wages of their virtue, and all foes The cup of their defervings: O fee, fee Lear. And my poor fool is hang'd: no, no, no life. Why fhould a dog, a horfe, a rat have life, And thou no breath at all? thou'lt come no more, never Thank you, Sir; Do you fee this look on her, look on her lips, (63), Look there, look there [He dies. Edg. (63) Do you fee this? look on her, look on her lips; Look there, look there.--] Our poet has taken the liberty in the catastrophe of this play to depart from the Chronicles; in which Lear is faid to be reinstated in his throne by Cordelia, and to have reign'd upwards of two years after his restoration. He might have done this for two reafons. Either, to heighten the compaffion towards the poor old King or to vary from another, but most execrable, dramatic performance Edg. He faints; my Lord, Kent. Break heart, I pr'ythee, break! Edg. performance upon this ftory: which I certainly believe to have pre- In going to the temple of my god, And mourning-wife pour duft upon my head: S Edg. Look up, my Lord. Kent. Vex not his ghoft: O, let him pafs! he hates him, That would upon the rack of this rough world Stretch him out longer. Edg. He is gone, indeed. Kent. The wonder is, he hath endur'd fo long: Alb. Bear them from hence, our prefent business [Dies. [Exeunt with a dead March. So he but to forgive me once would please, [Exit. I will to church, and pray unto my Saviour, That, e'er I die, I may obtain his favour. This is, furely, fuch poetry as one might hammer out, Stans pede in uno; or, as our author fays, "it is the right butter-woman's rank "to market: and a man might verfify you fo eight years together, "dinners, and fuppers, and fleeping hours excepted."----- Again, Shakespeare was too well vers'd in Holing fhead not to know, that King Lear reign'd above 800 years before the period of chriftianity. The gods his King talks of are Jupiter, Juno, Apollo; and not any dei ies more modern than his own time. Licentious as he was in anachro nifms, he would have judg'd it an unpardonable abfurdity to have made a Briton of Cordella's time talk of her Saviour. And, his not being trapt into fuch ridiculous flips of ignorance, feems a plain proof to me that he ftole neither from his predeceffors, nor contemporaries of the English theatre, both which abounded in them. (64) Alb. The weight of this fad time, &c.] This fpeech from the authority of the old 4to is rightly plac'd to Albany : in the edition by the players it is given to Edgar, by whom, I doubt not, it was of custom fpoken. And the cafe was this: He who play'd Edgar, being a more favourite actor, than he who perfonated Albany; in fpight of decorum, it was thought proper he should have the laft word. ΤΙΜΟΝ |