Enter LEAR, with CORDELIA dead in his Arms; 3 EDGAR, Officer, and Others. 3 LEAR. Howl, howl, howl, howl!-O, you are men of stones; Had I your tongues and eyes, I'd use them so That heaven's vault should crack :-O, she is gone for ever! I know when one is dead, and when one lives; She's dead as earth :-Lend me a looking-glass; If that her breath will mist or stain the stone, Why, then she lives. 3 KENT. Is this the promis'd end? EDG. Or image of that horror?+ -Cordelia dead in his arms;] This princess, according to the old historians, retired with victory from the battle which she conducted in her father's cause, and thereby replaced him on the throne but in a subsequent one fought against her (after the death of the old king) by the sons of Goneril and Regan, she was taken, and died miserably in prison. The poet found this in history, and was therefore willing to precipitate her death, which he knew had happened but a few years after. The dramatick writers of this age suffered as small a number of their heroes and heroines to escape as possible; nor could the filial piety of this lady, any more than the innocence of Ophelia, prevail on Shakspeare to extend her life beyond her misfortunes. STEEVENS. Geoffrey of Monmouth, the original relater of this story, says, that Cordelia was thrown by her nephews into prison, "where, for grief at the loss of her kingdom, she killed herself.” MALONE. Edg. Or image of that horror?] It appears to me that by the promised end Kent does not mean that conclusion which the state of their affairs seemed to promise, but the end of the world. In St. Mark's Gospel, when Christ foretels to his disciples the end of the world, and is describing to them the signs that were to precede, and mark the approach of, our final dissolution, he ALB. Fall, and cease !5 says, "For in those days shall be affliction such as was not from the beginning of the creation which God created, unto this time, neither shall be:" and afterwards he says, "Now the brother shall betray the brother to death, and the father the son; and children shall rise up against their parents, and shall cause them to be put to death." Kent in contemplating the unexampled scene of exquisite affliction which was then before him, and the unnatural attempt of Goneril and Regan against their father's life, recollects these passages, and asks, whether that was the end of the world that had been foretold to us. To which Edgar adds, or only a representation or resemblance of that horror? So Macbeth, when he calls upon Banquo, Malcolm, &c. to view Duncan murdered, says 66 -up, up, and see "The great doom's image!" There is evidently an allusion to the same passages in scripture, in a speech of Gloster's, which he makes in the second scene of the first Act: "These late eclipses in the sun and moon portend no good to us;-love cools; friendship falls off; brothers divide; in cities, mutinies; in countries, discord; in palaces, treason; and the bond cracked 'twixt son and father. This villain of mine comes under the prediction; there's son against father; the king falls from the bias of nature; there's father against child: We have seen the best of our time." If any criticks should urge it as an objection to this explanation, that the persons of the drama are pagans, and of consequence unacquainted with the scriptures, they give Shakspeare credit for more accuracy than I fear he possessed. M. MASON. This note deserves the highest praise, and is inserted in the present work with the utmost degree of gratitude to its author. STEEVENS. I entirely agree with Mr. Mason in his happy explanation of this passage. In a speech which our poet has put into the mouth of young Clifford in The Second Part of King Henry VI. a similar imagery is found. On seeing the dead body of his father, who was slain in battle by the Duke of York, he exclaims"-O, let the vile world end, "And the premised flames of the last day "Now let the general trumpet blow his blast, "To cease!" |