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CORDELIA, KING LEAR AND
HIS FOOL.
CHAPTER IX
FURTHER CONFIRMATION.
Although the blinding of Gloucester, the turning point in
the play coming before the first defeat of the evil forces, is one of darkest
scenes in Lear, it was perhaps not as dark for Jacobean as it has been
for modern audiences. The idea of plucking out eyes is brought to the folktale
by Ragan in Leir, when she threatens to go to France in disguise,
"and with these nayles scratch out her [Cordella's] hatefull eyes"
(line 1904). In Lear, Goneril's suggestion to Regan that she should
pluck out Gloucester's eyes would perhaps remind an audience, familiar with the
old play, of Ragan's threat against Cordella. That threat was not carried out,
and perhaps early audiences of Lear would have expected that this threat
against Gloucester would likewise not be carried out. But Shakespeare has
Gloucester tell Regan that he had sent Lear off to Dover; "Because I would
not see thy cruel nails pluck out his poor old eyes". This possible
behaviour towards Lear which Gloucester imputes to Regan is then unleashed
against Gloucester by Cornwall, with Regan's encouragement. This must have been
a shocking turn of events for those who had seen Leir. Gloucester is
then thrust out of doors to smell his way to Dover: however, Edgar, who has
already thought to throw off his disguise (3.6.109), is seconded to lead him
and "must" remain disguised (4.1.53) even though he feels he can't
"daub it" any longer.
In 4.2, among other
things, we have Albany's assessment of Oswald as a "sot" and
turncoat. Then in Scene 3 we have, as, I have already suggested, Kent's
conversation with the disguised France. In Scene 4 we see Cordelia, not long,
most have thought, back from France. Lear has been seen as mad as ever, and
Cordelia, sends soldiers to look for him. There could be a sense in Cordelia's
words here of her not having seen her father for some time, and a longing to
see him again. She does not, however, speak about having come from France, and
everything she says could have been said by one who had been separated for a
short space of time from a loved one who is troubled and missing as Lear is.
The point is, that this is the first time she has spoken as Cordelia since the
beginning of the play. She declares her love for her father, how she has
importuned France with tears - which she could have done just after she was
banished from Lear's presence when she left with "wash'd eyes"
(1.1.267). The King of France then could have sent back to France for troops to
come in at Dover, where he and Cordelia, the "secret feet" (3.1.33),
would meet them, in much the same way as Roman troops in Gallia were sent for
to be landed at Milford Haven, in Cymbeline (3.5.7), while the general
of those forces, Caius Lucius, passes overland from Cymbeline to meet them.
Cordelia is now rejoicing in what France has done for her father, in sending
for the troops, as the full implications of the presence of those French troops
on British soil hits her, but she is also concerned that this presence might
seem ambitious on France's part, and she wants to assure her father that this
is not the case.
Cordelia's words, "O dear father! It is
thy business that I go about", are often said to be an echo of Luke 2:49:
"Knew yee not that I must goe about my father's business?" They might
also have been an echo of words from Oedipus at Colonus (342-346)[1] where
Oedipus says that while others sit at home "Instead of troubling
themselves about my business," "Antigone", his younger daughter
who has led her blind father about, "has been an old man's nurse".
Anyone familiar with that story could have seen Cordelia's words as
confirmation of her earlier role as the Fool. There are a number of echoes of Lear
in E. F. Watling's 1947 translation of Sophocles' Theban plays.
The Gentleman,
whom I believe is France, and who has earlier been told by Kent "some dear
cause" would in concealment wrap him up awhile (4.3.51), explains to Edgar
that the Queen, Cordelia, is here "on special cause" (4.6.212). We do
not see Kent or Cordelia again after the mention of their respective causes,
until we see them together at the beginning of Scene 7.
Cordelia
begins by commending Kent for his goodness and Kent responds by suggesting that
being acknowledged is more than he wants, and yet to Cordelia's suggestion that
he change his clothes, he indicates that he wants to keep his disguised
identity obviously until he meets Lear and has his services acknowledged by
him. He wants his reward from Lear - acknowledgment and praise. His use of the
word "acknowledg'd" might be seen as echoing earlier uses of that
word in Lear - Gloucester's statements that "the whoreson"
Edmund, his son, "must be acknowledged" (1.1.23), even though he has
"often blush'd to acknowledge him" (1.1.9); and Lear's words to
France when he seeks to avert France's liking away from Cordelia, "Whom
Nature is asham'd Almost t'acknowledge hers" (1.1.212). There is irony
here in this statement of Kent's for he has had many opportunities to
investigate and acknowledge the identity of the Fool but he has not done so.
Kent's talk of his "made intent" was no doubt a reminder to the
audience of his "good intent" back in 1.4.1-7 where he hoped that Lear
would find him serving him in disguise. His use of the word "intent"
would perhaps have been meant to cause an audience to recall Cordelia's
"since what I well/will intend, I'll do't before I speak"
(1.1.223).
Cordelia then
speaks in a way that could suggest that she has actually experienced the storm
and deprivation the Fool experienced along with Lear and Kent. True, Kent has
sent her letters from which she might have learned something, but her earlier
reception of those letters, as reported by the Gentleman to Kent (4.3), could
be seen as the reception of letters which contained news that, for the reader,
was no news at all. She was not moved to rage (4.3.15,16) and she questioned
the bearer of the letters no further (4.3.24) which was surprising to Kent.
Now, in this meeting with Kent, Cordelia asks him to "Be better suited:
These weeds are memories of those worser hours I prithee, put them off."
(4.7.6-8). We must ask ourselves whose memories they are. Certainly they are
not Kent's. He's not looking at his clothing. But Cordelia is. They are her
memories! She then asks whether Lear "is array'd" perhaps because she
was witness to his wanting to tear off his clothes at the hovel, and was
perhaps concerned that he might have done so since she saw him last.
When Cordelia speaks
over her still sleeping father she asks,
Was
this a face
To be
oppos'd against the warring winds?
To
stand against the deep dread-bolted thunder?
In the
most terrible and nimble stroke
Of
quick, cross lightening?
Her description of the storm here is not one she could have
made from anything that Kent reported to her in the letters. It is a
description made by one who experienced the storm first hand. Then she says,
"Mine enemy's dog, Though he bit me, should have stood that night Against
my fire." The thought of this passage is similar to the words of the Fool
at 1.4.109:
Truth's
a dog must to kennel; he must be whipp'd out when
the
Lady's Brach may stand by th'fire and stink.
The words "that night" are telling ones,
suggesting that she had experienced it. I have already commented on her
description of the straw as "short and musty" and how this suggests
that she saw and smelled it.
When Lear
begins to waken, in the Quarto Cordelia says "Sir know me." If
Cordelia has been in Lear's presence as the Fool all this time without his
knowing it, she might be anxious for her father to acknowledge her. Then she
says, "Still, still, far wide", and we might ask, still since when?
Since the moment of his delivery to her several minutes before, or still since
the time his wits began to turn at the hovel of which she was witness? There is
a desperation in her words "O! look upon me, Sir..." a desperation
that could have come from not having been recognised by her father for so long.
And then there is a relief for her when he acknowledges that she is his
daughter Cordelia. She says, "And so I am, I am", as if, at long
last! The Quarto does not have the second "I am" as if Shakespeare
wanted to emphasise her relief in the Folio even more.[2]
When, in Scene
3, Edmund places Cordelia and Lear under guard she says to Lear:
We are
not the first
Who,
with best meaning, have incurr'd the worst.
For
thee, oppressed King, I am cast down;
Myself
could else out-frown false Fortune's frown.
Shall we
not see these daughters and these sisters?
Who else had there been who "with best meaning"
had incurred the worst? I do not believe she is referring to Kent here. I don't
think the original audience would have judged his "meaning" to have
been the best. She could have been thinking of her disguised husband France who
has gone off and died in the bloody arbitrament (4.7.94) the French troops
lost. She could have been thinking of Gloucester. The audience might think back
to the Fool whom they have not seen and whom they suspected was Cordelia since
the same actor played both parts. Her statement that she could "else
out-frown false Fortune's frown" might remind the audience of the many
ways in which the Fool had out-faced Fortune[3]. And then
her use of the words "these daughters and these sisters" instead of
simply "these sisters" might arguably result from the phenomenal
number of times that she has heard Lear speak of his "daughters"
while she was disguised as his Fool.
Lear then
talks of their going to prison together and becoming "Gods' spies",
which might have been calculated to suggest to the audience Cordelia's role,
while the Fool, as an obvious example of what Kent called "spies and
speculations Intelligent of our state" for France (Folio 3.1.24). Lear's
next words to Cordelia are:
Upon
such sacrifices, my Cordelia,
The
Gods themselves throw incense. Have I caught thee?
He
that parts us shall bring a brand from heaven,
And
fire us hence like foxes.
As we suggested earlier, these turn out to be an echo of
what the Fool said at 1.4.316:
A fox,
when one has caught her,
And
such a daughter,
Should
sure to the slaughter,
If my
cap would buy a halter;
So the
Fool follows after.
We are next presented with Edmund handing an officer a paper
with instructions regarding Cordelia and Lear; the nature of the instructions
we are not yet aware of, but Regan will soon assert, in another matter, that
"Jesters do oft prove prophets" which is exactly what Cordelia's
wearing the jester's cap will prove. Because she wore the Fool's cap she is
about to buy herself a halter, as prophesied. If she and France had gone to
France, as in the folktale up until Shakespeare's day, it could have been a
very different story.
After the
third sounding of the trumpet, Edgar appears to defend his title against
Edmund. Edgar says "Know, my name is lost", but it is not lost to the
audience. However, the Fool's and the Gentleman's names are lost if they were
ever known! The story of Lear might have been a very different story if Lear
and Kent had asked their names. Might not the Fool's "very gait" at
times have prophesied "A royal nobleness" (5.3.174,5) to the audience
if the same actor who played Cordelia also played the Fool? Might not she at
times have walked with a grace befitting a princess rather than with the
wagtail antics of a jester (2.2.64)? All this in the secondary plot could have
caused people in the audience to ask why Kent and Lear had not asked the names
of the Fool and the Gentleman. And readers of the play since have been content
to accept that the fool is just the fool. They have not wondered that
Shakespeare's most wonderful Fool should not have a name. Bradley could have
added this question to the list of careless attention to detail with which he
accuses Shakespeare, and to which we will turn our attention again next.
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[1]. Watling,
p. 81.
[2]. There is
perhaps an interesting parallel to Cordelia's feelings that led to her
"Sir know me" in The Merchant of Venice where Bassanio is told
by the disguised Portia "I pray you, know me when we meet again"
(4.1.420).
[3].
"Fortune, that arrant whore" (2.4.50); "Must make content with
his fortunes fit" (3.2.76).