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through the humbug of the star-gazers ; if not, say what they think will please the dotard s
he was a credulous fool ; not the one man of vanity. Also no doubt the sound commercial
his time, not a  debauched genius (for Sir R. instinct was touched by Lear s promise to
Burton in this phrase has in a sense antici- make acres vary as words, and they deter-
pated my discovery) but a mere Elizabethan. mined to make a final effort to get some par-
This the greatest poet of all time ? Then snips buttered after all.
we must believe that Gloucester was right, and Shakespeare (it is our English boast) was no
that eclipses caused the fall of Lear ! Observe long-haired squiggle self-yclept bard ; but a
that before this Shakespeare has had a sly business man see Bishop Blougram s appre-
dig or two at magic. In King John,  My ciation of him as such.
lord, they say five moons were seen to-night Shall we suppose him to have deliberately
 but there is no eyewitness. So in Macbeth. blackguarded in another his own best qualities?
In a host of spiritual suggestion there is always Note, too, the simple honesty of the divine
the rational sober explanation alongside to sisters ! Others, more subtle, would have
discredit the folly of the supernatural. suspected a trap, arguing that such idiocy as
Shakespeare is like his own Touchstone; Lear s could not be genuine Cordelia, the
he uses his folly as a stalking-horse, and under Madame Humbert of the play, does so; her
the presentation of that he shoots his wit. over-cleverness leaves her stranded : yet by a
Here, however, the mask is thrown off for certain sliminess of dissimulation, the oiliness
any but the utterly besotted ; Edmund s speech of frankness, the pride that apes humility, she
stands up in the face of all time as truth ; it does catch the best king going. Yet it avails
challenges the acclamation of the centuries. her little. She is hanged like the foul Vivien
Edmund is then the hero ; more, he is she is.*
Shakespeare s own portrait of himself ; his Cordelia s farewell to her sistes shows up
ways are dark (and, alas ! his tricks are the characters of the three in strong relif.
vain !) for why ? For the fear of the conven- Cordelia without a scrap of evidence to go on
tional world about him.  accuses her sisters of hypocrisy and cruelty.
He is illegitimate : Shakespeare is no true (This could not have previously existed, or
child of that age, but born in defiance of it and Lear would not have been deceived.)
its prejudices. Regan gravely rebukes her ; recommends, as
Having taken this important step, let us it were, a course of Six Easy Lessons in Mind-
slew round the rest of the play to fit it. If it
* I use the word Vivien provisionally, pending the
fits, the law of probability comes to our aid ;
appearance of an essay to prove that Lord Tennyson
every coincidence multiplies the chance of our was in secret a reformer of our lax modern morals.
correctness in increasing proportion. We No doubt, there is room for this. Vivien was
perfectly right about the  cycle of strumpets and
shall see and you may look up your Proctor
scoundels whom Mr. Tennyson has set revolving
 that if the stars are placed just so by chance
round the figure of his central wittol, and she was
not law, then also it may be possible that
the only one with the courage to say so, and the
Shakespeare was the wool-combing, knock-
brains to strip of the barbarous glitter from an
kneed, camel-backed, church-going, plaster-
idiotic and phantom chivaly.
47
THE SWORD OF SONG
ing Her Own Business; and surely it was plainest sense we are likely to here for the rest
unparalled insolence on the part of a dis- of our lives ; then, with the prettiest humour
missed girl to lecture her more favourite sister in the world takes the cue of his father s ab-
on the very point for which she herself was at surdity, and actually plays it on his enemy.
that moment being punished. It is the spite Edgar s leg is not so easily pulled ( How
of baffled dissimulation against triumphant long have you been a sectary astronomical ? ll.
honesty. Goneril adds a word of positive 169, 170) and the bastard hero, taking
advice.  You, she says in effect,  who alarm, gets right down to business.
prate of duty thus, see you show it unto In Scene iii. we find Lear s senile dementia
him unto who you owe it. taking the peculiarly loathesome form familiar
That this advice is wasted is clear from Act to alienists this part of my subject is so un-
V. Sc. iii., where the King of France takes pleasant that I must skim over it ; I only
the first trivial opportunity* to be free of the mention it to show how anxious Shakespeare
vile creature he had so foolishly married. is to show his hidden meaning, otherwise his
Cordelia goes, and the sisters talk together. naturally delicate mind would have avoided
Theirs is the language of quiet sorrow for an the depiction of such phenomena.
old man s failing mind ; yet a most righteous All this prepares us for Scene iv., in which
determination not to allow the happiness of we get a glimpse of the way Lear s attendants
the English people to depend upon his whims. habitually behave. Oswald, who treats Lear
Bad women would have rejoiced in the banish- throughout with perfct respect, and only
ment of Kent, whom they already knew to be shows honest independence in refusing to obey
their enemy ; these truly good women regret a man who is not his master, is insulted in
it.  Such unconstant stars are we like to language worthier of a bargee than a king ; and
have from him as this of Kent s banishment when he remonstrates in dignified and temper-
(Act I. Sc. i. ll. 304-5). ate language is set upon by the ruffianly Kent.
In Scene ii. Edmund is shown ; he feels Are decent English people to compain when
himself a man, more than Edgar : a clear- Goneril insists that this sort of thing shall not
headed, brave, honourable man ; but with no occur in a royal house ? She does so, in lan-
maggots. The injustice of his situation strikes guage nobly indignant, yet restrained : Lear, in
him ; he determines not to submit. the hideous, impotent rage of senility, calls her
This is the attitude of a strong man, and  his own daughter a bastard (no insult to
a righteous one. Primogeniture is wrong her, but to himself or his wife, mark ye well!).
enough ; the other shame, no fault of his, Albany enters a simple, ordely-minded man ;
would make the blood of any free man boil. he must not be confused with Cornwall ; he
Gloucester enters, and exhibits himself as a is at the last Lear s dog ; yet even he in decent
prize fool by shouting in disjointed phrases what measured speech sides with his wife. Is Lear
everybody knew. Great news it is, of course, quited ? No ! He utters the most horrible
and on discovering Edmund, he can think of curse, not excepting that of Count Cenci, that
nothing more sensible than to ask for more ! a father ever pronounced. Incoherent threats
 Kent banished thus ! And France in choler succeed to the boilings-over of the hideous
parted ! And the king gone to-night ! sub- malice of a beastly mind ; but a hundred
scrib d his power ! Confin d to exhibition ! knights are a hundred knights, and a threat is
All this done upon the gad ! Edmund, how a threat. Goneril had not fulfilled her duty to
now ! what news ? (Act I. Sc. ii. ll 23-26). herself, to her people, had she allowed this
Edmund  forces a card by the simple monster of mania to go on.
device of a prodigious hurry to hide it. Glou- I appeal to the medical profession; if one
cester gives vent to his astrological futilities, doctor will answer me that a man using Lear s [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]