Enter GONEril. If you do love old men, if your sweet sway Make it your cause; send down, and take my part! Art not asham'd to look upon this beard ?— [To GONERIL. O, Regan, wilt thou take her by the hand? GON. Why not by the hand, sir? How have I offended? All's not offence, that indiscretion finds 8. And dotage terms so. LEAR. O, sides, you are too tough! If you do love old men, if your sweet sway 66 ALLOW obedience if, yourselves are old,] Mr. Upton has proved by irresistible authority, that to allow signifies not only to permit, but to approve, and has deservedly replaced the old reading, which Dr. Warburton had changed into hallow obedience, not recollecting the scripture expression, "The Lord alloweth the righteous," Psalm xi. ver. 6. So, in Greene's Never Too Late, 1616: she allows of thee for love, not for lust." Again, in his Farewell to Follie, 1617: "I allow those pleasing poems of Guazzo, which begin," &c. Again, Sir Thomas North's translation of Plutarch, concerning the reception with which the death of Cæsar met: "they neither greatly reproved, nor allowed the fact." Dr. Warburton might have found the emendation which he proposed, in Tate's alteration of King Lear, which was first published in 1687. STEEVENS. 7- if yourselves are old,] Thus Statius, Theb. x. 705: - hoc, oro, munus concede parenti, Si tua maturis signentur tempora canis, Et sis ipse parens." STEEVENS. 8 - that indiscretion FINDS,] Finds is here used in the same sense as when a jury is said to find a bill, to which it is an allusion. Our author again uses the same word in the same sense in Hamlet, Act V.Sc. I.: 66 Why, 'tis found so." EDWARDS. To find is little more than to think. The French use their word trouver in the same sense; and we still say I find time tedious, or I find company troublesome, without thinking on a jury. STEEVENS. Will you yet hold?-How came my man i' the stocks? CORN. I set him there, sir: but his own disor ders Deserv'd much less advancement. LEAR. You ! did you? REG. I pray you, father, being weak, seem so'. To be a comrade with the wolf and owl,- 9 - much less ADVANCEMENT.] The word advancement ironically used for conspicuousness of punishment; as we now say, a man is advanced to the pillory. We should read : 66 but his own disorders JOHNSON. "Deserv'd much more advancement." By less advancement is meant, a still worse or more disgraceful situation; a situation not so reputable. PERCY. Cornwall certainly means, that Kent's disorders had entitled him even to a post of less honour than the stocks. STEEVENS. II pray you, father, being weak, SEEM SO.] The meaning is, since you are weak, be content to think yourself weak. JOHNSON. 2 No, rather I abjure all roofs, and choose To WAGE against the enmity o' the air; To be a comrade with the wolf and owl, NECESSITY'S SHARP PINCH!] To wage is often used absølutely without the word war after it, and yet signifies to make war as before in this play: 66 My life I never held but as a pawn "To wage against thine enemies." The words "necessity's sharp pinch!" appear to be the reflection of Lear on the wretched sort of existence he had described in the preceding lines. STEEVENS. 3 4 To knee his throne, and, squire-like, pension beg LEAR. I pr'ythee, mad; : I will not trouble thee, my child; farewell: 3 * Quartos, that lies within my flesh. base life-] i. e. In a servile state. JOHNSON. 4 - and SUMPTER -] Sumpter is a horse that carries necessaries on a journey, though sometimes used for the case to carry them in.-See Beaumont and Fletcher's Noble Gentleman, Seward's edit. vol. viii. note 35; and Cupid's Revenge : 66 I'll have a horse to leap thee, "And thy base issue shall carry sumpters." Again, in Webster's Duchess of Malfy, 1623: "His is indeed a guarded sumpter-cloth, STEEVENS. 5 But yet thou art MY FLESH, &c.] So, in King Henry VI. Part I.: "God knows, thou art a collop of my flesh." STEEVENS. 6 - thou art a BOIL, &c.] The word in the old copies is written byle, and all the modern editors have too strictly followed them. The mistake arose from the word boil being often pronounced as if written bile. In the folio, we find in Coriolanus the same false spelling as here: 66 Byles [boils] and plagues "Plaster you o'er! MALONE. 7 A PLAGUE-SORE,] So, in Thomas Lupton's Fourth Booke of Notable Thinges, bl. 1. 4to.: "If you wyll knowe whether one shall escape or not, that is infected with the plague, (having the plague-sore) give the partie, &c. And also anoint the plaguesore," &c. The plague-sore, we may suppose, was the decisive mark of infection. STEEVENS. EMBOSSED carbuncle,] Embossed is swelling, protuberant. JOHNSON. In my corrupted blood. But I'll not chide thee; I, and my hundred knights. REG. Not altogether so, sir; I look'd not for you yet, nor am provided For your fit welcome: Give ear, sir, to my sister; For those that mingle reason with your passion, Must be content to think you old, and so But she knows what she does. Lear. Should many people, under two commands, GON. Why might not you, my lord, receive attendance From those that she calls servants, or from mine? REG. Why not, my lord? If then they chanc'd to slack you, We could control them: If you will come to me, (For now I spy a danger,) I entreat you To bring but five and twenty: to no more LEAR. I gave you all REG. And in good time you gave it. LEAR. Made you my guardians, my depositaries; But kept a reservation to be follow'd So, in Timon of Athens: "Whom once a day with his embossed froth With such a number: What, must I come to you With five and twenty, Regan? said you so? REG. And speak it again, my lord; no more with me. LEAR. Those wicked creatures yet do look wellfavour'd, When others are more wicked; not being the worst, Stands in some rank of praise :-I'll go with thee; [To GONERIL. Thy fifty yet doth double five and twenty, Hear me, my lord; GON. REG. What need one? LEAR. O, reason not the need: our basest beg gars Are in the poorest thing superfluous : Allow not nature more than nature needs, Man's life is cheap as beast's: thou art a lady; If only to go warm were gorgeous, Why, nature needs not what thou gorgeous wear'st, 9 Those WICKED creatures yet do look well-favour'd, When others are more wiCKED ;] A similar thought occurs in Cymbeline, Act V.: "That all the abhorred things o' the earth amend, 66 Again, in Cymbeline: Then thou look'dst like a villain; now, methinks, "Thy favour's good enough." MALONE. This passage, I think, should be pointed thus : "Those wicked creatures yet do look well-favour'd, "When others are more wicked; not being the worst That is, to be not the worst deserves some praise. TYRWHITT. |