Which scarcely keeps thee warm.-But, for true need, You heavens, give me that patience, patience I need1! You see me here, you gods, a poor old man2, That all the world shall-I will do such things,- I PATIENCE, PATIENCE, I need!] I believe the word patience was repeated inadvertently by the compositor. MALONE. The compositor has repeated the wrong word: Read: "You heavens, give me that patience that I need.” Or, still better, perhaps : You heavens, give me patience!-that I need." RITSON. poor old man,] The quarto has, poor old fellow." I will do such things, What they are, yet I know not ;] magnum est quodcunque paravi, Quid sit, adhuc dubito. Ovid. Met. lib. vi. haud quid sit scio, Sed grande quiddam est. Senecae Thyestes. JOHNSON. Let such as are unwilling to allow that copiers of nature must occasionally use the same thoughts and expressions, remember, that of both these authors there were early translations. I have since met with an apparent imitation of Seneca, in The Misfortunes of Arthur, a tragedy, 1587: 66 66 somewhat my minde portendes, Uncertayne what: but whatsoeuer, it's huge!" Evidently from Golding's translation, 1567: STEEVENS. The thing that I do purpose on is great, whatere it is "I know not what it may be yet." RITSON. I have full cause of weeping; but this heart [Exeunt LEAR, Gloster, Kent, and Fool. CORN. Let us withdraw, 'twill be a storm. REG. [Storm heard at a Distance. This house Is little; the old man and his people cannot GON. 'Tis his own blame; hath put himself from rest 5, And must needs taste his folly. REG. For his particular, I'll receive him gladly, But not one follower. GON. So am I purpos'd. Where is my lord of Gloster ? Re-enter GLOSTER. CORN. Follow'd the old man forth:-he is re turn'd. GLO. The king is in high rage. CORN. Whither is he going? * Quartos, flowes. -into a hundred thousand FLAWS,] A flaw signifying a crack or other similar imperfection, our author, with his accustomed licence, uses the word here for a small broken particle. again, in the fifth Act: 66 But his flaw'd heart "Burst smilingly." MALONE. So There is some reason for supposing that flaw might signify a fragment in Shakspeare's time, as well as a mere crack, because among the Saxons it certainly had that meaning, as may be seen in Somner's Diction. Saxon. voce. Floh. DoUCE. 5 hath put himself from rest,] In my former edition I adopted an alteration by Sir Thomas Hanmer: " he hath put himself from rest;" but as the personal pronoun was frequently omitted by the poet and his contemporaries, I have adhered to the reading of all the old copies. MALONE. GLO. He calls to horse; but will I know not whither. CORN. 'Tis best to give him way; he leads him self. GON. My lord, entreat him by no means to stay. GLO. Alack, the night comes on, and the bleak winds * Do sorely ruffle'; for many miles about There's scarce a bush. REG. O, sir, to wilful men, The injuries, that they themselves procure, And what they may incense him to3, being apt CORN. Shut up your doors, my lord; 'tis a wild night; My Regan counsels well: come out o' the storm. [Exeunt. *First folio, high winds. • Corn. Whither is he going? † Quartos, not a bush. Glo. He calls to horse ;] Omitted in the quartos. STEEVENS. > Do sorely RUFFLE;] Thus the folio. The quartos read-Do sorely russel, i. e. rustle. STEEVEens. Ruffle is certainly the true reading. time, was a noisy, boisterous swaggerer. A ruffler, in our author's 8 INCENSE him to,] To incense is here, as in other places, to instigate. MALONE. ACT III. SCENE I. A Heath. A Storm is heard, with Thunder and Lightning. Enter KENT, and a Gentleman, meeting. KENT. Who's here, beside foul weather? GENT. One minded like the weather, most unquietly. KENT. I know you; Where's the king? GENT. Contending with the fretful element': Bids the wind blow the earth into the sea, Or swell the curled waters 'bove the main 1. That things might change, or cease: tears his white hair2; 9 the fretful ELEMENT:] i. e. the air. Thus the quartos ; for which the editor of the folio substituted elements. MALONE. 1 Or swell the curled waters 'bove the MAIN,] The main seems to signify here the main land, the continent. So, in Bacon's War with Spain: "In 1589, we turned challengers, and invaded the main of Spain." This interpretation sets the two objects of Lear's desire in proper opposition to each other. He wishes for the destruction of the world, either by the winds blowing the land into the waters, or raising the waters so as to overwhelm the land. So, Lucretius, iii. 854: terra mari miscebitur, et mare cœlo. See also the Æneid i. 133, and xii. 204. STEEVENS. So, in Troilus and Cressida : "Should lift their bosoms higher than the shores, The main is again used for the land, in Hamlet: 2 "Goes it against the main of Poland, sir?' MALONE. tears his white hair;] The six following verses were omitted in all the late editions; I have replaced them from the first, for they are certainly Shakspeare's. POPE. The first folio ends the speech at change or cease, and begins again at Kent's question, But who is with him? The whole speech is forcible, but too long for the occasion, and properly retrenched. JOHNSON. Which the impetuous blasts, with eyeless rage, The lion and the belly-pinched wolf Keep their fur dry, unbonneted he runs, 3 Strives in his little world of man to out-SCORN 3 The to-and-fro-conflicting wind and rain.] Thus the old copies. But I suspect we should read out-storm : i. e. as Nestor expresses it in Troilus and Cressida : 66 - with an accent tun'd in self-same key, "Returns to chiding fortune : i. e. makes a return to it, gives it as good as it brings, confronts it with self-comparisons. Again, in King Lear, Act V.: 66 Myself could else out-frown false fortune's frown." "Threaten the threatner, and out-face the brow, Again, (and more decisively) in The Lover's Complaint, attributed to our author: 66 Storming her world with sorrow's wind and rain." The same mistake of scorn for storm had also happened in the old copies of Troilus and Cressida : 66 as when the sun doth light a scorn,” instead of a-storm. See vol. viii. p. 231. STEEVENS. 4 This night, wherein the CUB-DRAWN bear would couch,] Cub-drawn has been explained to signify drawn by nature to its young; whereas it means, whose dugs are drawn dry by its young. For no animals leave their dens by night but for prey. So that the meaning is, "that even hunger, and the support of its young, would not force the bear to leave his den in such a night." WARBURTON. Shakspeare has the same image in As You Like It: "A lioness, with udders all drawn dry, "Lay couching --." Again, ibidem: "Food to the suck'd and hungry lioness." STEEvens. $ And bids what will TAKE ALL.] So, in Antony and Cleopatra, Enobarbus says, "I'll strike, and cry, Take all." STEEVENS. |