Return to Chapter Index
Return to King Lear Notes
Back to Home page

CORDELIA, KING LEAR AND HIS FOOL.

CHAPTER VII

THE FOOL THAT RAN AWAY.

The question arises, if Cordelia becomes Lear's Fool, what became of the Fool Lear calls for in 1.4. As we have already suggested, he was Oswald.

The fact that Oswald's speeches are prefixed "Steward" in the latter part of the Quarto and throughout the whole of the Folio, suggests that Shakespeare is wanting us to think of Oswald as a steward. In his capacity as a steward we might question his faithfulness, especially considering Shakespeare's portrayal of the faithful steward Flavius, in Timon of Athens. In Thomas Dekker's earlier play, Old Fortunatus[1], we hear the Fool, Shadow, responding to allegations that he has robbed his master with "Not a peny, I haue beene as true a steward -" (3.1.450). Luke 16:1-9 presents us with a parable of the unjust steward whose behaviour is very much like that of Skalliger, Oswald's counterpart in Leir.

And he saide vnto his Disciples, There was a certaine rich man which had a Stewarde, and the same was accused vnto him that he had wasted his goods. And when he called him, and said vnto him, How is it that I heare this of thee? Giue accompts of thy stewardship : for thou mayest be no longer steward. The Steward said within himselfe, What shall I doe, for my master taketh away from me the stewardship? I cannot digge, and to begge I am ashamed. I wote what to doe, that when I am put out of the stewardship, they may receiue me into their houses. So when hee had called all his masters detters together, he said vnto the first, Howe much owest vnto my master? And he said, An hundred measures of oile. And he said vnto him, Take thy bill, & sit downe quickly, and write fiftie. Then said he to another, How much owest thou? And he saide, An hundred measures of wheate. He said unto him , Take thy bill, and write fourescore. And the Lord commended the uniust steward, because he had done wisely: for the children of this world are in their nation wiser then the children of light. And I say vnto you, Make you friends of the vnrighteous Mammon, that when yee shall haue neede, they may receiue you into the euerlasting habitations.

While Edmund's illegitimacy is the reason for his speech prefixes, "Bastard", there is nothing about Oswald, in Lear, that would suggest a reason for his speech title "Steward". But Shakespeare obviously thought of him as a steward in a big way. I believe that while creating Oswald, Shakespeare was thinking of Leir's Skalliger, who was not faithful to his master, but made friends with Gonorill and Ragan by telling them in advance of the proposed love test. By doing this Skalliger was behaving in much the same way as the unjust steward of the parable, who made friends with his master's debtors, in order that he might be received into their employment. Skalliger then moves from the service of Leir to that of Gonorill, which move is also in keeping with the advice the Fool gives Kent at 2.4.69ff:

Let go thy hold when a great wheel runs down a hill, lest it break thy neck with following; but the great one that goes upward, let him draw thee after

which I believe was the lesson of the chiding that Oswald gives the Fool for which Oswald was struck by Lear (1.3.1,2).

I am maintaining that Oswald was a young lord in the service of Lear who was in the habit of coming into Lear's presence disguised from all in motley. I believe that the audience would have been expected to understand that Goneril's and Regan's well rehearsed flattering speeches in response to their father's love test were indicative of their having been forewarned by Oswald. He then is received into Goneril's service leaving an opening for another to come into Lear's presence disguised as the motley Fool, and of course, I am maintaining that Cordelia slips into the motley in order that she might stay behind and prefer Lear to a better place.

The Fool is called "knave", "boy" and "bitter Fool" early in the play, but as time goes by these words cease to be used for the Fool whom Lear will call "Poor Fool" at 3.2.72, and, I believe, "my poor fool" at the play's end. This change in description of the Fool could result from a real change in the behaviour of the Fool who has previously attended Lear and for whom he calls, but it could also suggest that Lear is responding at first to the way he had come to know the original knavish Fool (Oswald), but slowly changes his attitude towards the Fool as he experiences the new Fool (Cordelia). To Lear's exclamation, "A bitter Fool", the Fool responds by offering to explain the difference "between a bitter Fool and a sweet one" (1.4.137).

That lord that counsell'd thee

To give away thy land,

Come place him here by me,

Do thou for him stand:

The sweet and bitter fool

Will presently appear;

The one in motley here,

The other found out there.

I have earlier suggested that anyone who had seen a performance of Leir or who had read that play, could not help but make the connection with Skalliger when the Fool speaks of the lord who counselled Lear to give away his land, for in Leir, after the King proposes the dividing of his land between his three daughters, it is Skalliger who pronounces the worthiness of the proposal and suggests the love test. Thus the members of the audience are given the opportunity here to come to see Goneril's gentleman, whom they will later know as Oswald, as the bitter Fool. That Lear gives us the impression, in his next speech, that he understands his Fool to be referring to him, does not negate the possible suggestion of Skalliger already given to the audience in the Fool's words "That lord that counsell'd thee/ To give away thy land".

When, in the same scene, Goneril addresses Fool as "more knave than fool" (1.4.313), she is making a distinction that is made in many plays of the time. Will Summers, Henry's court jester in Samuel Rowley's WHEN YOV SEE ME, You know me, assures Woolsey that his fool, Patch, would not have been responsible for the letter Woolsey is reading that discredits the Cardinal. Will says, "I knew twas one of your knaues, for your fooles are harmless".[2] In All's Well That Ends Well[3] Lafew asks the Clown if he professes to be "a knave or a fool", and the Clown demonstrates that he is both. Touchstone rejects the insinuation that he is a knave in As You Like It[4]. Lollio, in Middleton's The Changeling[5], describes the residents of the madhouse:

We have but two sorts of people in the house,

and both under the whip, that's fools and madmen;

the one has not wit to be knaves, and the other

not knavery enough to be fools.

The picture of a knave dressed in motley, is alluded to in Timon's words to the Painter and Poet in Timon of Athens:

Tim. There's never a one of you but trusts a knave,

That mightily deceives you.

Both. Do we, my lord?

Tim. Ay, and you hear him cog, see him dissemble,

Know his gross patchery, love him, feed him,

Keep in your bosom; yet remain assur'd

That he's a made-up villain.

Robert Armin, in Foole Vpon Foole or Six Sortes of Sottes, 1600, tells the interesting story of a Fool who was mistakenly called knave, and of the trouble that ensued.[6]

Lear's Fool does not respond to Goneril's accusation of knavery at this point, but later (2.4.75-82), while talking to Kent who is in the stocks, the Fool will say:

That sir which serves and seeks for gain,

And follows but for form,

Will pack when it begins to rain,

And leave thee in the storm.

But I will tarry; the Fool will stay,

And let the wise man fly:

The knave turns Fool that runs away;

The Fool no knave, perdy.

The only one who could have been thought to have flown from Lear's service to this point is the character the audience might want to call Skalliger, for Oswald's name is not revealed to the audience until 1.4.357. In the spirit of the parable of the unjust steward who "had done wisely", Oswald, as we come to know him, could have been identified as a "wise man" in leaving his master. When Oswald first encountered Lear on stage we heard Lear sarcastically call him "sir" three times (1.4.76f). Kent has described Oswald as "Knowing nought, like dogs, but following" (2.2.77), which might be seen to be equivalent to "And follows but for form". It was Kent's argument with Oswald that had brought Kent to the stocks, an argument in which we hear Kent six times call Oswald a "knave", and even hear Cornwall ask Kent, "Why dost thou call him knave?" When the Fool mentions "the knave" who "turns (out to be the) Fool[7] that runs away", it would be easy for Kent to think of the knave, Oswald, that had brought him to his place of humiliation in the stocks. Certainly an audience seeing the same actor that played Cordelia now in the motley, might make that connection. Here we might understand that the Fool is rejecting the label knave, given by Goneril, and saying that it rightly belongs to the Fool that has run from Lear's service, Oswald. The Fool that is speaking is "no knave, perdy" but is a fool for staying behind to serve Lear, as is Kent also.

We have other examples of Shakespeare's Fools who desert, or contemplate deserting, their masters after they have been revealed as cruel. Touchstone is easily persuaded by Rosalind and Celia to desert the court of the harsh usurping Duke Frederick and cast his lot with them in the forest of Arden (As You Like It 1.3.127). When we first meet Launcelot Gobbo, in The Merchant of Venice, (2.2.10ff) the Clowne is contemplating following the fiend's advice to "pack" and run away from his devilish master, Shylock. As we have already seen, The Reuells Booke for 1605 shows Shakespeare's troupe performing "A play of the Marchant of Venis" on Shrousunday, and then "On Shroutusday A play cauled The Mart-/chant of Venis againe commauded by the Kings Ma^tie".[8] So King James could have been familiar with the concept of a Fool wanting to leave the service of his unjust master. I believe that Oswald, like Skalliger, "packed" when it began to rain in Lear's life and ran to the service of Goneril, and King James and Jacobean audiences could well have understood the situation.

If Goneril can be seen by Kent as "Vanity the puppet" or as a morality-play figure of Self-Regard,[9] I believe that Oswald can be seen to be somewhat like Subtill Shift, the "Vice" of Clyomon and Clamydes, who shifts his allegiance several times throughout that play[10]. Oswald shifts his allegiance from Goneril to Regan[11] who offers preferment to the one who cuts off blind Gloucester's head. If we accept, as I believe we should, that in Shakespeare's mind Oswald was originally Skalliger the adviser to Lear, then Oswald has shifted from Lear to Goneril, then to Regan. Subtill Shift even appears in the "gowne" of "a foole to be sage, graue, and of counsell wise" (lines 1478 - 1511). Shift (line 217) and Skalliger (Line 813) both declare themselves to be villains on stage, Oswald is declared such by Edgar (4.6.249). Shift, (line 967) like Oswald, (4.6.223) is depicted as being interested in his own material gain. Edgar's exclamation at the death of Oswald, "I know thee well, a serviceable villain,/ As dutious to the vices of thy mistress, as badness would desire" (4.6.249) has the ring of the King's remark to Shift "Nay then you are a dissembling knaue, I know very well" (line 292). Edgar's description of Oswald also has the ring of the discussion about fools and knaves in Measure for Measure 4.5[12]. He is essentially saying that Oswald is both a Fool and a Knave. There can be little doubt that original audiences who had seen Measure for Measure, as had King James, would have seen this in the final description of Oswald.

When Oswald first appears on stage, there is talk of his having been struck by Lear for chiding Lear's Fool. Goneril then complains about the way her father is behaving,[13] which might be seen as a summing up of the complaints that Gonorill makes to Skalliger.[14] Goneril's words, "If you come slack of former services", might have been calculated to suggest, to those familiar with Leir, the services rendered to Leir by Skalliger before he shifted to Gonorill's service. Remember that the audience has no way of knowing that Goneril's gentleman is not called Skalliger at this point, for Oswald's name is not revealed for some time. In the Quarto version Goneril will next say to Oswald:

Now, by my life,

Old fools are babes again; and must be used

With checks as flatteries, when they are seen abused.

Remember what I tell you.

Commentators have disagreed on what exactly Goneril meant by "when they are seen abus'd". We can be sure that Goneril had her father in mind when she said "old fools" but it's not clear in what way she perceives her father as having been abused[15]. Certainly she is currently dealing with the situation where her father has abused Oswald. This may have been meant to be ambiguous so as to glance at Oswald the old Fool who had been in Lear's service. There is a "babe" quality in Oswald.

I believe that it would have been relatively easy for Cordelia to have successfully accompanied Lear disguised as his Fool, because she was probably meant to be about the same age and size as Oswald. One might question how a "lord" acting in the capacity of adviser to the king could be so young! This can be understood to be not impossible if we consider further advice given to Prince Henry in James' Basilikon Doron.

All your seruants and Courte must be composed partly of minors, such as young Lordes, to be brought vp in your company, or Pages and such like; and partly of men of perfite age, for serving you in such roomes, as ought to be filled with wisdome and discretion. (p. 129)

I take it from Kent's description of Oswald as "goodman boy"[16] and "young master" (2.2.42,3) that Oswald is a youth. Remember that "boy" is the most common appellation we hear coming from Lear's lips for the Fool. Further, Oswald's description of Kent as "ancient ruffian" (2.2.59) supports Oswald's being a youth. There is an essential timidity and perhaps even an effeminateness about Oswald that would be easier for Cordelia to practice than a robust masculinity. While complaining to Goneril that he has been struck by Lear, Oswald hears the approach of the King and says, as if alarmed, "He's coming, Madam; I hear him." To Lear's calling him names he responds, "I am none of these, my Lord: I beseech your pardon." And then, when Lear strikes him again, he protests "I'll not be strucken, my Lord." Immediately he is tripped up by the elderly Kent. According to Kent, who meets him next at Gloucester's castle, in Scene 2 he is among other things, "lily-livered" and "finical". To these accusations he can only manage, "Why, what a monstrous fellow art thou, thus to rail on one that is neither known of thee nor knows thee!" He refuses to draw when challenged by Kent, cries murder, and is "scarce in breath". Although Kent is a "malcontent" in these speeches, and probably overstates Oswald's deficiencies, his estimate of Oswald seems largely to be supported by the manner in which Oswald dies, with sword drawn against a blind man defended only by Edgar's "ballow" or cudgel (4.6.223-249). Kent also describes Oswald as "whoreson zed! thou unnecessary letter!" The letter "z" was considered unnecessary because its sound could be represented by an "s." Kent is saying that Oswald is superfluous. This would have seemed to be even more so the case if the audience has caught on to his having been Lear's Fool until Cordelia takes his place!

It is amazing how many terms denoting foolery are connected with Oswald, how often his behaviour might be likened to that of a Fool, how often he is associated with talk about fools, or is treated as a fool. In his first encounter with Lear, when Lear calls for his Fool, Oswald immediately makes his entrance, and is called "sirrah" and "clotpoll". On his second entrance Lear calls him "sir" three times, obviously in a sarcastic tone. He is accused of bandying looks with Lear, perhaps in the manner of a clown. We hear him called "my Lord's knave" no more than forty lines after Lear has said, "Where's my knave? my Fool?" Oswald is again struck by Lear, who will soon threaten to have the Fool whipped. And just before he gives place on the stage for the Fool, his wisdom will be questioned by Kent. After Oswald's brief appearance in which Goneril instructs him to take a letter to Regan, we next see him outside Gloucester's castle, and we hear Kent rail against him. He calls him "glass-gazing" meaning vain or foppish[17], and accuses him of being a "barber-monger" or a constant patron of the barber's shop[18]. Kent describes Oswald as an "unbolted villain" which might be "a released... villain"[19] and could suggest to the audience that Oswald was once Lear's knave, though Kent does not know this. He is called a "wagtail" which might suggest that he is wagging his tail from side to side as a jester might do. Then there is the telling line, "Smoile you my speeches, as I were a Fool?" This might be meant to suggest a jester's smiling at a person who is behaving in a foolish manner, and could be somewhat akin to Oswald's bandying looks with Lear at 1.4.82. These descriptions of Oswald help pave the way for the audience to consider Oswald the fool that ran away. At 4.2.8 we have Oswald's own report of how Albany has called him "sot", which means fool, and Goneril's talk of a fool usurping her bed / body 4.2.28 is followed immediately by Oswald's warning that Albany is coming. It is not unusual for clowns to be the bungling messengers of Jacobean drama, and this is what Oswald proves to be. Sent off to Edmund with a letter from Goneril, he is intercepted by Regan, who persuades him to also carry something from her to Edmund. Oswald directs this letter into Edgar's hands who then gives it to Albany who uses it against Goneril (5.3.155). At 1.4.181 the Fool sings the song,

Fools had ne'er less wit [grace - F] in a year,

For wise men are grown foppish,

They know not how their wits do [to - F] wear,

Their manners are so apish

which could well sum up an audience's attitude towards Oswald. Oswald is a wise man (who make good fools - Cf. Twelfth Night 3.1.62) whose manners are so foppish, it's as though he were aping the Fool, and could put the Fool out of business. Actually, as I have already suggested, I believe that the Fool is aping Oswald and this song is perhaps the Fool's way of trying to put the people of Lear's world off thinking that the Fool is in fact usurping Oswald's role. In the first line of the song the Fool appears to be saying that fools are likely to be put out of business by fops like Oswald. Oswald has played the Fool so long that he is, in the words of Twelfth Night 3.1.70, a wise man "folly-fall'n" who has quite tainted his wit.

When we first meet Oswald he is Goneril's "Gentleman" in the stage direction and speech prefixes of the Quarto. If we consider the meaning of several of the words Kent uses to describe Oswald in Acts 2.2 we have what G.K. Hunter calls "Kent's general picture of Oswald" as "a jumped up menial pretending to be a gentleman."[20] Concerning Kent's use of "hundred pound" Hunter points out that "about this time James I was making knights for a hundred pounds; so that the phrase carries the idea of 'beggarly pretender to gentility'." Concerning Kent's phrase "a tailor made thee" Hunter says, "Oswald is made, not simply socially but in every sense, by his clothes." In Timon's words "he's a made-up villain."

In drama of Shakespeare's day disguise "generally means a drop in social status"[21] as is the case with Kent and Edgar, and as I am proposing France and Cordelia in Lear. But there were also instances of disguise in which people adopted a social status that was higher than their own. We have an instance of this in Scene 5 of Robert Greene's Friar Bacon and Friar Bungay[22] c. 1590 where the King's Fool, Ralph Simnell, appears disguised in Prince Edward's apparel only to be immediately found out. In Act 3.1 of Anthony Munday's Sir Thomas More (written between the 1580s and 1603)[23] we have More's head servant, Randall, appearing unsuccessfully disguised as his master before the visiting Erasmus. In Act 2.1 of the same play the carpenter's wife Doll Williams, appears in a knight's armour "in a shirt of mail, a headpiece, sword and buckler." In Shakespeare's Twelfth Night Act 4.2 we see Feste the Clown successfully disguised as Sir Topas the curate before Malvolio.

The "folly-fall'n" Oswald who has quite tainted his wit was much more suited to his former role as Lear's knavish motley Fool than as Goneril's Gentleman and Steward. If we accept that there is at least a modicum of truth in Kent's estimate of Oswald, Oswald might be thought of as a new young knight quite lacking in gentility who survived in Lear's world by his knavish foolery, but who is revealed as an upstart who is out of place in Goneril's court. That Goneril should have such an incompetent Gentleman/Steward in her service, whom she trusts with messages to Regan is not surprising when we have met the bungling Messenger Gonorill sends to Ragan in Leir.[24] When Oswald gave up the motley he was out of his depth. His failures in the roles of Gentleman and Steward, though not as blatant as Ralph Simnell's and Randall's failures, were nevertheless failures, and an audience familiar with Leir and other instances of socially upward disguise could easily have recognized Oswald as the Fool that ran away.

It is also possible that the early designation of Oswald as a Gentleman in the stage directions and his speech prefixes was meant to suggest his having been, like Middleton's Antonio, a gentleman who formerly went disguised as a Fool.

Next Chapter
To Chapter Index

Return to King Lear Notes
Back to Home page

---

[1]. The Dramatic Works of Thomas Dekker Volume I, ed. F. Bowers. (Cambridge, 1953).

[2]. Samuel Rowly WHEN YOV SEE ME, You know me 1613. Behind page signed F3.

[3]. All's Well That Ends Well ed. S. Barnet, (New York, 1965) 4.5.23.

[4]. As You Like It, ed. A. Gilman, (New York, 1963) 1.2.70.

[5]. The Changeling ed. D.L. Frost (Cambridge, 1978) 1.2.45ff.

[6]. Jack Oates sitting at cards all alone, was dealing to himself at Vide russe, for that was the game he enjoyed, and as he spied a knave, "Ah, knave art there," he would say. When he spied a King, "King by your leave," he would say. If he spied a queen, "Queen Richard art come" he would say and would kneel down and bid God bless her Majesty, (meaning indeed our Queen, whom he heard Sir William Hollis, his Master, so much pray for). But here is the jest, Jack, as I say being at cards all alone, spying a knave and saying "Ah knave art there," a simple servingman being in the hall waiting for his master's coming, walking by and hearing him say so, thought he had called him knave, took the matter in dudgeon, and miscalled the fool. Another servingman more foolish than both, took Jack's part, so that in short time they two fell together by the ears, who being parted, Jack Oates gives them each one a knave, and so he takes them into the Buttery to drink. The knight comes in, seeing the Hall not yet quiet, asked the matter. Jack comes "I'll tell you, Willy" he says, "As I was playing cards, one seeing I won all I played for, would needs have the knave from me, which as very a knave as he seeing, would needs bear him knave for company. So to bid them both welcome to your house, I have been to entreat the knave thy Butler to make them drink. "Aye," says Sir William, "And you like a knave made them fall out." "Aye," answered Jack, "and your drink Sir knave made them friends again." Sir William laughing departed. FOOLE VPON FOOLE, OR Six sortes of Sottes. (LONDON, 1600).

[7]. Cf. Friar: "...Virtue itself turns (out to be) vice" Romeo and Juliet 2.3.21

Falstaff: "This house is turned (into a) bawdry-house" Henry IV. Pt. I. 3.3.99.

[8]. P. Cunningham, Extracts From The Accounts of the Revels At Court, In the Reigns of Queen Elizabeth and King James I., From the Original Office Books of the Masters and Yeomen. (London, 1842) pp. 204,5.

[9]. G.K. Hunter King Lear (Harmondsworth, 1972) p. 225.

[10]. Lines 210-218, 292, 353, 542-547, 907, 1252.

[11]. 4.5.39 "Ste. Would I could meet him Madam, I would shew/ What Lady I doe follow."(Quarto).

[12]. LAFEU: Whether dost thou profess thyself, a knave or a fool?

Clown: A fool, sir, at a woman's service, and a knave at a man's.

LAFEU: Your distinction?

Clown: I would cozen the man of his wife and do his service.

LAFEU: So you were a knave at his service, indeed.

Clown: And I would give his wife my bauble, sir, to do her service.

LAFEU: I will subscribe for thee, thou art both knave and fool.

Clown: At your service.

[13]. By day and night, he wrongs me; every hour/ He flashes into one gross crime or other,/ That sets us all at odds. 1.3.4ff.

[14]. I prithy, Skalliger, tell me what thou thinkst:/ Could any woman of our dignity / Endure such quips and peremptory taunts, / As I do daily from my doting father? / Doth't not suffice that I him keepe of almes, / Who is not able for to keepe himselfe? / But as if he were our better, he should thinke / To check and snap me vp at euery word. / I cannot make me a new fashioned gowne, / And set it forth with more then common cost; / But his old doting doltish withered wit, / Is sure to giue a senselesse chack for it. / I cannot make a banquet extraordinary, / To grace my selfe, and spread my name abroad, / But he, old foole, is captious by and by, / And sayth, the cost would well suffice for twice. Lines 773 - 789.

[15]. See footnote of Arden edition for discussion of this. It could be that she sees Lear as having been abused by his knights whom she says do not respect the dignity and place of Lear and herself and the Albany palace. Cf. 2.4.305.

[16]. Hunter gives us the note "goodman boy master child, you have set yourself up with more authority than your years authorize". G.K. Hunter Op cit p. 226.

[17]. See note to Arden edition for line 16.

[18]. See note to Arden edition for line 31.

[19]. See note in Arden edition for lines 62-63.

[20]. G.K. Hunter Op cit p. 224.

[21]. M.C. Bradbrook Muriel Bradbrook on Shakespeare (Sussex, 1984) p. 23.

[22]. Robert B. Heilman An Anthology of English Drama Before Shakespeare (New York, 1952) p. 184.

[23]. V. Gabrieli & G. Melchiori Sir Thomas More a play by Anthony Munday and others (Manchester, 1990).

[24]. In creating Oswald Shakespeare seems to conflate two characters from Leir - Skalliger and the Messenger who appears after Skalliger disappears from that play.