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CORDELIA, KING LEAR AND
HIS FOOL.
CHAPTER VIII
MIRACLES, MIRRORS
AND THE MOST OBVIOUS.
After Kent encounters Oswald and is stocked by Cornwall and
Regan, we have the scene where Kent reads a portion of a letter to him from
Cordelia.
Approach, thou
beacon to this under globe,
That by thy
comfortable beams I may
Peruse
this letter. Nothing almost sees miracles,
But
misery: I know 'tis from Cordelia,
Who
hath most fortunately been inform'd
Of my
obscured course; and shall find time
From
this enormous state, seeking to give
Losses
their remedies. (2.2.159ff).
This passage has been thought by some[1] to be
very obscure and even corrupted. But except for slight differences it comes
with the authority of both the Quarto and the Folio editions, the latter
providing us with the most logical text. The passage certainly does present
difficulties for the received interpretation of Lear. Might not it
reasonably be asked, how Cordelia, who was supposed to be in France, came to
hear about the disguise of Kent and the "enormous state" of affairs
that prevailed back in England, and how she could possibly get a letter
promising relief to him? In the source play Cordelia has no idea of Leir's or
Perillus' plight until they meet in France while she and her husband are out
strolling the French countryside.
Delius understood Kent to be reasoning: "That Cordelia should have
thought of him, or that her letter should have reached him, seems to him such a
miracle as only those in misery experience" (Furness, p. 132). No one in
the world of Lear knows of Kent's disguise. All would think he had gone from
England. How then could Cordelia, who is removed from the scene in France, who
left before Kent went into disguise, come to know of his disguise, of his whereabouts,
and condition? Certainly it would take
a miracle, or a number of miracles! Is Shakespeare asking us to believe that
these miracles have occurred? If we accept that Cordelia is in France, then we
have to answer this question in the affirmative!
But Kent does
not say that he has seen miracles, only that, in his misery, he has
"almost" seen them. This reflection by Kent has something in common
with the scene in Cymbeline (4.2) where Belarius reflects upon the
affection between the brothers Guilderius and Arviragus and, unbeknown to all,
their sister, Imogen, who is disguised as the boy Fidele. Belarius knows that
he is not the father of the boys, but they don't know that he is not their
father. However, they declare their love for Fidele to be greater than their
love for Belarius. Belarius ponders in an aside (4.2.28-29):
I'm
not their father; yet who this [Fidele] should be
Doth
miracle itself, loved before me.
Belarius is reasoning that it is miraculous that this
Fidele, whose identity he knows not of, should be loved more than he is by the
boys he has raised. Of course, the audience can understand what seems to be
miraculous for they know that Guilderius, Arviragus and Fidele are all in fact
the children of Cymbeline.
Similarly, if
the original audiences of Lear have seen the same actor who played
Cordelia playing the role of Fool, and suspect that Cordelia is the Fool, they
can see how the letter from Cordelia could get to Kent, and how Kent has
"almost", but not yet, seen a miracle - Cordelia in his presence! And
they have already heard Edmund suggest that the letter he was supposed to have
received from Edgar was not brought to him, but thrown in at the casement of
his closet (1.2.57-59). Might not the audience have understood that Cordelia,
the Fool, wrote the letter to Kent at some moment in Goneril's palace, and
threw it in at the casement of Kent's closet?
The audience has heard Edmund comment on the credulity of his father,
who could be so easily persuaded that the letter, the audience knows Edmund
forged, was from Edgar (1.2.176). The same audience might wonder at the
credulity of Kent who could believe that, against all odds, Cordelia has heard
of his disguise and plight and written to him from France, when the audience suspects
that it is Cordelia who is dressed in the Fool's motley and Kent is so taken up
with himself that he does not know it!
It has long
been established that the purpose of secondary plots of Shakespeare's plays is
to mirror the action of the main plot, confirming what has happened in previous
scenes, and paving the way for what is to happen in the future. Bradley saw a
structural weakness in Lear arising chiefly from the double action,
which is a peculiarity of Lear among the tragedies. He wrote of:
improbabilities,
inconsistencies, sayings and doings which suggest questions only to be answered
by conjecture. The improbabilities in King Lear surely far surpass those
of the other great tragedies in number and in grossness. And they are
particularly noticeable in the secondary plot. For example, no sort of reason
is given why Edgar, who lives in the same house with Edmund, should write a
letter to him instead of speaking; and this is a letter absolutely damning to
his character. Gloster was very foolish, but surely not so foolish as to pass
unnoticed this improbability; or, if so foolish, what need for Edmund to forge
a letter rather than a conversation, especially as Gloster appears to be
unacquainted with his son's handwriting?[2]
Might not the improbability of all this in the secondary
plot have been designed partly to pave the way for the audience to see the
credulity of Kent in the main plot at the end of 2.2?
In the very
next scene we have another example of what I believe to be the mirroring of the
action of the main plot by the secondary, in this case confirming something the
audience might have already suspected in the main plot, given that they have
seen the same actor that played Cordelia now playing the Fool. Edgar, who
suffers a similar fate to Cordelia, having been misunderstood by his father,
and effectively banished from his presence, takes on the disguise of poor Tom
to avoid discovery and save his neck. The words which immediately follow his
pronouncement of his assumed name, and conclude the scene, are most interesting
- "Poor Turlygod! poor Tom! That's something yet: Edgar I nothing
am." The mention of "nothing" surely could have been meant to
echo all the talk of nothing in Act 1. Cordelia offered Lear her "Nothing",
and got nothing in return. She was effectively reduced to nothing by Lear's
words to Burgundy at 1.1.197-9,
"If
aught within that little-seeming substance,
Or all
of it, with our displeasure piec'd,
And
nothing more....
When the Fool first appeared on the stage there was all that
talk of "nothing" again. Kent's/Lear's pronouncing that Fool's speech
was "nothing", was followed by the Fool protesting "you gave me
nothing for't" and the Fool's asking, "Can you make no use of
nothing, Nuncle?" Lear restates the popular maxim of James' day that
"nothing can be made out of nothing" and then Fool points out that
Lear has effectively reduced himself to nothing having given away all his
titles. Lear has, according to the Fool, "pared thy wit o'both sides, and
left nothing i'th'middle". To
Lear's disturbance at the entrance of Goneril the Fool says,
Thou
wast a pretty fellow when thou hadst no need to care for her frowning; now thou
art an O without a figure. I am better than thou art now; I am a Fool, thou art
nothing."
Might not an audience, that had seen the same actor who had
played Cordelia now playing the Fool, have understood that Cordelia is here
thinking concerning her father - 'You made me nothing, but I have managed to
get into the Fool's motley and "now" I'm the Fool, which is
"something yet", while you have made yourself nothing, a "O
without a figure"'? And then, a little later on, when that audience sees
Edgar disguise himself as poor Tom and hears him say "That's something
yet: Edgar I nothing am", might not the audience take this speech in the
secondary plot as confirmation of their understanding of earlier events in the
main plot? And when the audience sees
the Fool leading Lear about, and as Edgar is about to lead Gloucester towards
Dover, hears Edgar exclaim, "Bad is the trade that must play fool to
sorrow" (4.1.38), might not the audience reasonably see a parallel between
the two plots here - two abused children leading their blind fathers towards
safety? Bradley asks, "Why in the world should Gloster, when expelled from
his castle, wander painfully all the way to Dover simply in order to destroy
himself (iv. i 80)?" (p. 257). Why, if not to provoke the audience to
think of this as confirming their earlier suspicions that the Fool is Cordelia
watching out for her father and pointing him in the same direction?
The two plots
have their conjunction in the storm scene at the hovel in Act 3. As Lear and
Fool are approaching the hovel in 3.2, Shakespeare has the Fool say, "For
there was never yet fair woman but she made mouths in a glass." (3.2.35)
Why should a woman be mentioned? Rather than a bit of irrelevant nonsense[3], this
could be Cordelia thinking out loud as she checks her Fool's make-up and face
patches in a mirror to see how her appearance is faring in the rain that has
been falling. Thoughts of having a house to put one's head in may have reminded
her of a larger mirror in the room she left behind into which she had looked to
check her appearance before coming out to her father dressed as his Fool. This
comment of the Fool's could, perhaps, have had its parallel in the secondary
plot a little later when in the trial scene (3.4) Edgar, who is benched by the
Fool, will say, presumably looking at himself in a glass, perhaps even the same
glass, "My tears begin to take his part so much, They mar my
counterfeiting."[4] The
Fool's words are not too dissimilar to those of Cloten in Cymbeline
(4.1) when he says, "I dare speak it to myself, for it is not vainglory
for a man and his glass to confer in his own chamber...." The talk of
making mouths in a glass could suggest to us "making practised smiles as
in a looking glass" (compare The Winter's Tale 1.2.116), and might
have been what the Fool/Cordelia has been doing with the mirror since she has
been practicing to emulate the facial antics of the original
"glass-gazing" (2.2.16) Fool, Oswald, whom Kent has already accused
of smiling at his speeches as though he were a Fool (2.2.79) and pronounced
"a plague upon" his "epileptic visage!" (2.2.79).
Edgar is not
present when Fool speaks of a fair woman making mouths in a glass, but later
after the Fool has disappeared and the blind Gloucester is brought out to be
led to Dover, Edgar will speak of "Flibberdigibbet, of mopping and mowing,
who since possesses chambermaids and waiting-women" (4.1.60-62).
G.K. Hunter notes
"'Flibberdigibbet'
is a dancing devil in
Harsnet, and a woman
(hence, pre-sumably, Harsnet's devil's
name). The vices he represents here are in an appropriate key: mopping and
mowing - grimacing and twisting the face, like chamber-maids in their
mistress's looking-glass. There are three 'possessed' chambermaids in
Harsnet." [5]
Perhaps Edgar's comment was inspired by his observations of
the Fool when they met - a flighty chattering maid who waits on Lear, dancing
around stealing glances in the mirror to practice making the faces she had
observed in the original Fool. Flibberdigibbet has "since" left Tom
because there is no longer any need for him to maintain that behaviour
associated with his disguise now that his father is blind, but the last time he
saw the Fool she was still maintaining her disguise.
The Fool's
talk of making mouths in a glass is followed immediately by Lear's
determination to be "the pattern of all patience" and his resolution
"I will say nothing." This, we may be sure, was meant to echo
Cordelia's "Nothing" at the beginning of the play. At this point the
returning Kent asks "Who's there?" to which Fool responds, "Marry,
here's grace and a cod-piece - that's a wise man and a fool." Since the Fool has just described Lear as a
cod-piece some twelve lines earlier, the audience is invited to think of the
Fool as grace - royalty. In these few lines the "fair woman" making
"mouths in a glass", Lear's "nothing" and "grace"
all point to Cordelia.
I will have
more to say about the interweaving of the two plots in a
moment, but first
let us consider other aspects as we come to them. When Kent's attempts to gain
admission for the Lear party into Gloucester's castle have failed, Kent leads
them towards the hovel. Though Kent has said nothing of straw since his return,
Lear asks, "Where is this straw, my fellow?" and the party eventually
begins to enter. Why should Shakespeare have Lear mention straw? Could it be
that Shakespeare had passages from John Higgins, The Mirror for Magistrates
in mind? In Higgins' version of the folktale, which is recounted posthumously by Cordila, the
French King restores Leire to
the throne of Britain where he reigns until he dies. He is succeeded by
Cordila, who reigns until the death of the King of France, after which her
sisters' sons revolt against her and put her in prison, where after the
repeated bidding of the "gryzely
ghost", Despaire, for Cordila to take her own life, Cordila eventually
does so. Commencing at line 239, some five or six verses of this account are
given to Cordila's complaint about the conditions of her dungeon cell,
including:
From light to
darke, from holsom ayre to lothsom smell:
From odewr
swete, to sweate: from ease, to grievous payne:
From sight of
princely wights, to place where theves do dwel:
From deinty
beddes of downe, to be of strawe full fayne:
...
Thus as I
pyning lay my carkas on couch of strawe,
And felt that payne
erste never creature earthly knewe:
Me thought by
night a gryzely ghost in darkes I saw
...
I musing lay
in paynes and wondred what she was,
Mine eyne
stode still, mine haire rose up for feare an ende.
My fleshe it
shoke and trembled : yet I cryed alasse,
What wight art
thou, a foe or else a fawning frende?
Geoffrey Bullough, editor of Narrative and Dramatic
Sources of Shakespeare[6], has
suggested that Shakespeare might have been influenced by this section of The
Mirror to invent the hovel. Is it just a coincidence that Shakespeare, like
Higgins, mentions straw (3.2.69 and 3.4.43), and that the Fool should recoil in
horror from the hovel saying, at the sight of Edgar, "Come not in here,
Nuncle; here's a spirit" (3.4.39)? And then, even though the question is
given to Kent, might not "What art thou that dost grumble there
i'th'straw?" remind the audience of Cordila's question, "What wight
art thou"? In Lear, Cordelia will not be imprisoned permanently,
but is hanged in a prison in a manner that was to suggest that she took her own
life out of "her own despair" (5.3.251-4). Could it be that this
mention of straw, a spirit, together with the questioning of the spirit's
identity was meant to suggest to Shakespeare's original audiences that this is
Cordelia's encounter with the straw and with the ghost, and thus cause them to
understand that the Fool is Cordelia? If the audiences did not make the
connection at that point, what might they have thought later, after Cordelia's
supposed return from France, when, as she reflects on her father's ordeal, she
says, "And wast thou fain, poor father, To hovel thee with swine and
rogues forlorn, In short and musty straw?" (4.7.38-40). Here her
description of the straw is a first hand one. She has seen that it was short
straw, and smelt the mustiness of it. She must have been present in the hovel.
She must have been disguised as the Fool. If Shakespeare didn't intend this
connection to be made he surely didn't have to introduce the straw or even the
spirit. And the so called spirit will next mention, among other things, the
foul fiend "that hath laid knives under his pillow" which may have
been meant to suggest Despair's approach to Cordila at lines 288-291
And
therwithall she spred her garmentes lap asyde,
Under the
which a thousand thinges I sawe with eyes:
Both knyves,
sharpe swordes, poynadoes all bedyde
With bloud,
and poysons prest which she could well devise.
Several other
incidents in Act 3 might lead one to believe that the Fool was a female. When
the Fool runs out of the hovel calling "Help me! Help me!" Kent
responds, "Give me thy hand." Is it possible that Kent has seen that
this is a woman? Would he have offered to hold the hand of a man? Then, in his
madness, Lear suggests that Edgar has given all to his daughters who have
brought him to this state of deprivation they find him in. He asks,
"Couldst thou save nothing? Would'st thou give them all?" to which
the Fool responds, "Nay, he reserv'd a blanket, else we had been all
sham'd." Is there anything in the fact that it is the Fool who notices
that the only clothing poor Tom has on is a blanket and expresses the shame
that would otherwise be if he were naked?
Would Lear or Kent be ashamed if Edgar were naked? A woman would have
been! And then, when Lear considers what little the naked Edgar owes to
society, Lear begins to tear off his own clothes, and it is the Fool again who
interjects with, "Prithee, Nuncle, be contented; 'tis a naughty night to
swim in." Could one see that a sense of embarrassment at the prospect of
seeing her father naked has caused Cordelia to respond quickly to Lear's
attempts to disrobe?
Once inside
the farmhouse, Lear wants to arraign Goneril and Regan. To do so he must
appoint men of justice, and he begins to seat the Fool side by side with Kent
and Edgar. At his first attempt to bench the Fool, Lear says, "Thou,
sapient sir, sit here", and immediately follows with "No, you she
foxes!" Edgar then comments on how Lear stands and stares, presumably at
the Fool - a she fox - or female Fool. He could be seen to be asking the Fool,
"Want'st thou eyes at trial madam?" for he goes on and asks,
"Come over the bourn, Bessy, to me". Malone tells us:
There
is a peculiar propriety in this address, that has not, I believe, been hitherto
observed. `Bessy' and `poor Tom,' it seems, usually travelled together. The
author of The Court of Conscience, or Dick Whipper's Sessions, 1607,
describing beggars, idle rogues, and counterfeit madmen, thus
speaks of these associates: `Another sort there is among you: they Do rage with
furie as if they were so frantique They knew not what they did, but every day
Make sport with stick and flowers like an antique; Stowt roge and harlot
counterfeited gomme; One calls herself poor Besse the other Tom.'[7]
Poor Tom's calling the Fool 'Bessy' invites us to think of
the Fool as a female. And what are we to make of the Fool's response other than
that she is a female? Edgar has
essentially asked the Fool to identify herself and team up with him, and the
Fool responds in song, "Her boat hath a leak,/ And she must not speak;/
why she dares not come over to thee!" Cordelia is concerned that this
close examination by Lear might undo her plans to remain disguised and guide
her father to safety.
Wright
suggests that Edgar's use of "nightingale" (3.6.30) is a reference to
the Fool's singing (Furness, p. 208). The Fool sings in a voice that is
beautiful like a nightingale. Might not this be somewhat similar to Arviragus'
comment concerning Fidele (a girl disguised as a boy), "How angel-like he
sings!" in Cymbeline (4.2.48)? Muir[8] has
pointed out that in one of Shakespeare's major sources for Lear, Samuel
Harsnett's A Declaration of Egregious Popish Impostures, to with-draw the
harts of her Maiesties Subiects from their allegeance, and from the truth of
Christian Religion professed in England, vnder the pretence of casting out
deuils, of 1603, among the many words that could have been suggested to
Shakespeare by the Declaration is the word "nightingale."[9] This along
with an earlier reference to a "deuill that was about the bedde, that
spake with the voyce of a Toade" may have suggested the foul fiend that
"haunts poor Tom in the voice of a nightingale." Depending on how well the audience knew the Declaration,
this breaking of the neck of the nightingale may have been meant to foreshadow
the hanging of the singer who sang with the voice of a nightingale, which is
what happens, I contend, to the Fool when she puts off the motley and takes up
her role as Cordelia Queen of France. There is also another interesting
comparison that can be made between Leir and Lear on the use of
this word "nightingale." When Leir is putting his daughters through
the love test in that play, at the conclusion of Ragan's speech, and just before
he bids Cordella speak, Leir asks "Did neuer Philomel sing so sweet
a note." (Line 273). Legend has it that Philomela was the "daughter
of Pandion, King of Athens, and sister of Procne, who had married Tereus, King
of Thrace. Being dishonoured by the latter, Philomela was metamorphosed into a
nightingale."[10] There
were variations in the legend, some suggesting that Procne, who was also
metamorphosed into a bird, was in fact changed into a nightingale, while
Philomela was changed into a swallow[11]. That the
legend was well known to Shakespeare and his audiences is seen from his
frequent reference to the tale. Imogen has been reading it in Cymbeline
2.2.45,46; there is a lengthy treatment of it in Titus Andronicus at 2.4
and 4.1; and a brief reference to the tale in The Rape of Lucrece
beginning at 1128. Leir is evidently pleased with the "song" Ragan
has sung for him. Cordella immediately draws attention to the flattery of it.
It is just possible that Shakespeare's mentioning the nightingale might have
caused some in those early audiences to see Cordelia, the daughter of a king
who is married to another king, the sister of the one whom Leir said sang like
Philomel, changed into the Fool who sings in the voice of a nightingale.
Concerning Cordelia's voice Lear will later say "Her voice was ever soft,
Gentle and low, an excellent thing in woman" (5.3.271,272). Could this
comment have been meant to provide further confirmation of Cordelia's role as
the Fool. The Fool had a sweet feminine singing voice like that of a
nightingale, while Cordelia has a low speaking voice that is an excellent thing
in a woman. The two voices meet in the middle. Like Portia, in The Merchant
of Venice, which King James had already seen twice, Cordelia speaks
"between the change of man and boy/ With a reed voice" (3.4.66,67).
When Lear
tries the second time to seat the members of his commission, and succeeds, it
is interesting to see how he addresses Edgar and the Fool. Modern texts follow
Pope in having Lear say to Edgar "Thou robed man of justice, take thy
place." However, all Quarto texts[12] are
consistent in suggesting that Lear says to Edgar, "Thou robbed man of
justice, take thy place". I believe we should go with the Quarto here
since "robbed" is of frequent usage in Shakespeare's works, while,
"robed" appears only at this point in all Shakespeare's works if Pope
is right. Pope's "robed" might be suggested by Edgar's blanket, and
the robes Lear would be accustomed to seeing in a court, but Lear doesn't like
the blanket and will later suggest that Edgar change his clothing. More
immediate to the context, however, there has been considerable talk arising out
of Lear's imagination that Edgar has, like himself, been deprived of everything
by his daughters, so it is easier to justify "robbed" in this place.
Lear wants someone he thinks has been in the same position as himself to be on
the bench. Lear then addresses the Fool as Edgar's "yoke-fellow of
equity," and says "Bench by his side." By "yoke-fellow of equity" Lear no doubt means their
being yoked together in the cause of seeing justice and equity upheld. But if
we accept that Lear described Edgar as "robbed man of justice"
because his daughters took all, and if we remember that Lear has already
described Fool as "houseless poverty" (in the Folio at 3.4.26), all
this might have been calculated to prompt the audience to think of Cordelia,
who was also robbed of justice and whom the audience perhaps suspects is now
disguised as the Fool. When Kent is benched by the Fool's side, we have three
disguised people sitting side by side. Let us not forget that the Fool is a
disguised person.
While we have
acknowledged the disguises of Kent and of Edgar, we have failed to acknowledge
that Shakespeare has included in Lear a character which in other plays
is the most common form of disguise. So common was this disguise that in
discussing the possibility of a discrepancy between a man's clothing and his
character Borachio says, "Tush! I may as well say the fool's the
fool."[13] There are
examples of characters disguised as fools in plays both before and after Lear.
There are males so disguised in THE HISTORIE OF the two valiant Knights, Syr
Clyomon Knight of the Golden Sheeld, sonne to the King of Denmarke And Clamydes
the white Knight, sonne to the King of Suauia, 1599; in John Marston, ANTONIOS
Reuenge. The second part, 1602; in Robert Armin, THE History of the two
Maids of More-clacke, VVith the life and simple maner of IOHN in the Hospitall,
1609; and in Thomas Middleton and William Rowley, THE CHANGELING, 1622;
and there is a female disguised as a fool in John Fletcher, The Pilgrim
c 1611. The concept forms the basis of the conceit used in Sonnet 110[14]. It would
have been no new thing for Shakespeare to hide Cordelia in the motley. For
audiences today it might seem strange, but it certainly would not have been so
in Shakespeare's time.
In Lear
there are frequent statements about knowing others, and things about others.
Glou....Do you
know this noble gentleman, Edmund? 1.1.23
Kent. I must...sue to
know you better. 1.1.29
Cor. ...I know
you, what you are... 1.1.268
Lear. Dost thou
know me, fellow? 1.4.26
Lear. Does any
here know me? 1.4.223
Osw....I know
thee not.
Kent. Fellow, I
know thee. 2.2.10,11
Corn. These kind
of knaves I know.... 2.2.98
Kent....I know
'tis from Cordelia.... 2.2.162
Kent. I know
you. Where's the King? 3.1.3
Kent. Sir, I do
know you.... 3.1.15
Kent. If you
see Cordelia...
she will tell you who that fellow is
That yet you do not know. 3.1.46-49
Lear.
...Consider him well.... 3.4.101
Gent. ...seemed
not to know
What guests were in her eyes.... 4.3.20,21
Glou. I know
that voice. 4.6.96
Lear. I know
thee well enough; thy name is Gloucester....
4.6.175
Edgar. I know
thee well: a serviceable villain...
4.6.249
Kent. My boon I
make it that you know me not... 4.7.10
Cor. Sir know
me. 4.7.48
Lear. Methinks
I should know you and know this man....
4.7.64
Gon. O, ho! I know
the riddle. I will go. 5.1.37
Edgar. Know, my
name is lost... 5.3.120.
The general impact of this extensive questioning of identity
could be to cause an audience to scrutinise each character that appears on
stage. Here in the farmhouse at this
conjunction of the main and secondary plots we have three disguised characters.
We know who Tom is, and we know Kent. But who is the Fool? Surely, if at any
time in the play, it is here that all must wonder just who this Fool is. And
the yoking of this female Fool with one who is a "robbed man of
justice" must cause us to wonder if the Fool is Cordelia.
Edgar
continues to speak suggesting that they should deal justly. Then he sings the
little song,
Sleepest
or wakest thou, jolly shepherd?
Thy sheep be in the corn;
And
for one blast of thy minikin mouth,
Thy sheep shall take no harm.
Is this meant to be a bit of irrelevant nonsense, or could
this be a further attempt by Edgar to get "Bessy" the Fool to
"come over" to him, to identify herself to him. He sees the Fool as
being the shepherd of Lear and probably Kent. Remember that earlier (1.4.173),
in speaking of Lear's folly in giving his daughters the rod, Fool sings:
That
such a king should play bo-peep,
And go the fools among.
If Lear could play the shepherd, bo-peep, of the fools, the
Fool here, who "labours to out-jest" Lear's "heart-strook
injuries" (3.1.16), could be the "jolly shepherd" and Edgar
could be seen to be suggesting to the Fool that her sheep, Lear and Kent, are
preoccupied and won't be harmed if she sings a little more with her delicate,
musical (both ideas suggested by "minikin") mouth, that responded to
him a few moments before in the voice of a nightingale. But the Fool does not
respond paying attention to Lear who wants to get on with the arraignment of
Goneril.
The Fool next
pretends to address Goneril questioning her identity, as in a court of law, and
then exclaims, "Cry you mercy, I took you for a joint-stool." I
realise that "I cry you mercy" is a common expression of apology at a
misunderstanding, but I could not help thinking of Fool saying this when I read
the conversation between Gonorill and Ragan in Leir line 469. Here they
are discussing the plight of Cordella, how she has been reduced to nothing, and
would therefore make a good parson's wife. In this time of poking fun at
Cordella there is a slight misunderstanding, and Gonorill exclaims, "I cry
you mercy, I mistooke you much", which could well have been remembered by
one who had seen the earlier play, and this now could be seen as Cordelia's way
of having a joke at Goneril's expense! The next words Lear speaks to describe
Regan might have been calculated to remind the audience of the conversation
that led up to Gonorill's apology, which dealt with the superiority of
Cordella's beauty, compared here perhaps with Regan's "warp'd looks",
and how Cordella's beauty cut Gonorill to the heart, perhaps here compared with
Lear's mention of the store of Regan's heart.
The next
speech by the Fool will be the last if the Fool is not Cordelia - "And
I'll go to bed at noon."
Granville-Barker writes of these words "this is the last we hear or
see of him; and what happens to him thereafter, who knows and who cares?"[15] For one Lear cared! - in his dying moments and the denouement of
the play! (5.3.304). Bradley attributed a lack of information about what
happened to the Fool to carelessness on Shakespeare's part (p. 258). But I
don't think it necessary to accuse him of such. I believe that the Fool has
already talked of her departure from the play, (1.5.48), and these words can
also be seen to be the Fool talking about her departure again. Shylock accuses
his fool, Launcelot Gobbo, of sleeping all day, more than the wild cat (Merchant
of Venice 2.5.47), and on the surface something like this might have been
what Fool intended as a response to Lear's "We'll go to supper
i'th'morning." However, there could be another suggestion. One normally
goes to bed to sleep, and sleep in this play as elsewhere can mean die, cease
to exist (compare 1.2.50 "If our father would sleep till I wak'd him, you
should enjoy half his revenue for ever"). It could be that Cordelia is
looking forward to getting to Dover, to the French troops and finally putting
off the motley in exchange for her Queen's robes, effectively killing off the
Fool. The Fool could be saying, "This is the last time you will see
me", which certainly is the case.
I have already
commented on Kent's words to Fool, "Thou must not stay behind." It seems
to me, that having obtained a litter for Lear to travel to Dover, and trusting
him in the hands of Kent, Cordelia will soon separate from Lear and Kent and
get to Dover ahead of them in the same way that the disguised Portia and
Nerissa leave Venice before Bassanio and Gratiano to return to Belmont ahead of
them. At Dover Cordelia puts off the
motley and for the first time puts on the Queen's robes newly arrived from
France. Perhaps this trusting of Lear to Kent has its parallel in the secondary
plot, at 4.7.281,282, when Edgar speaks of entrusting his blind father into the
hands of a friend while he goes off to deliver his letter to Albany and regain
his rightful place.
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