NOTES
189
In Scenes iii., vi., and vii., Edmund, disgusted
beyond all measure with Gloucester’s infamies,
honourably and patriotically denounces him.
The other scenes depict the miseries which
follow the foolish and the unjust ; and Nemesis
falls upon the ill-minded Gloucester. Yet
Shakespeare is so appreciative of the virtue of
compassion (for Shakespeare was, as I shall
hope to prove one day, a Buddhist) that Corn-
wall, the somewhat cruel instrument of eternal
Justice, is killed by his servant. Regan avenges
her husband promptly, and I have little doubt
that this act of excessive courtesy towards a
man she did not love
is the moral cause of her
unhappy end.
I would note that we should not attempt to
draw any opinions as to the author's design
from the conversation of the vulgar ; even had
we not Coriolanus to show us what he thought.
IV.
Act IV. develops the plot and is little germane
to our matter, save that we catch a glimpse of
the unspeakably vile Cordelia, with no pity for
her father’s serious condition (though no doubt
he deserved all he got, he was now harmless,
and should have inspired.compassion), hanging
to him in the hope that he would now reverse
his banishment and make her (after a bloody
victory) sole heiress of great England.
And were any doubt left in our minds as to
who really was the hero of the play, the partizan-
ship of France should settle it. Shakespeare
has never any word but ridicule for the French;
never aught but praise of England and love for
her: are we to suppose that in his best play he
is to stultify all his other work and insult the
English for the benefit of the ridiculed and
hated Frenchman?
Moreover, Cordelia reckons without her host.
The British bulldogs make short work of the
invaders and rebels, doubtless with the con-
nivance of the King of France, who, with great
and praiseworthy acuteness, foresees that
Cordelia will be hanged, thus liberating him
from his ‘‘most filthy bargain”: there is but
one alarum, and the whole set of scoundrels
surrender. Note this well; it 1s not by brute
force that the battle is won; for even if we
exonerate the King of France, we may easily
believe that the moral strength of the sisters
cowed the French.
This is the more evident, since in Act V.
Shakespeare strikes his final blow at the
absurdity of the duel, when Edmund is dis-
honestly slain by the beast Edgar. Yet the
poet's faith is still strong: wound up as his
muse is to tragedy, he retains in Edmund the
sublime heroism, the simple honesty, of the
true Christian; at the death of his beloved
mistresses he cries,
**T was contracted to them both: all three
Now marry in an instant
At the moment of death his great nature
(self-accusatory, as the finest so often are)
asserts itself, and he forgives even the vilest of
the human race,—“‘ I pant for life: some good
I mean to do Despite of mine own nature.!
Quickly send, Be brief in it, to the castle; for
my writ Is on the life of Lear and on Cordelia.
Nay, send intime" (IL. 245-249).
And in that last supreme hour of agony he
claims Regan as his wife, as if by accident; it
is not the passionate assertion of a thing doubt-
ful, but the natural reference to a thing well
known and indisputable.
And in the moment of his despair ; confronted
with the dead bodies of the splendid sisters, the
catafalque of all his hopes, he can exclaim in
spiritual triumph over material disaster—the
victory of a true man’s spirit over Fate—
** Vet Edmund was belov -d.”’
I'dgar is left alive with Albany, alone of all
that crew; and if remorse could touch their
brutal and callous souls (for the degeneration
of the weakling, well-meaning Albany, is a
minor tragedy), what hell could be more horrible
than the dragging out ofa cancerous existence in
the bestial world of hate their hideous hearts
had made, now, even for better men, for ever
dark and gloomy, robbed of the glory of the
glowing Goneril, the royal Regan, and only
partially redeemed by the absence of the harlot
Cordelia and the monster Lear.
V.
It may possibly be objected by the censorious,
by the effete parasites of a grim conventionalism,
that I have proved too much. Even by con-
ventional standards Edmund, Goneril, and
Regan appear angels. Even on the moral
point, the sisters, instead of settling down to
an enlightened and by no means overcrowded
polygamy, prefer to employ poison. This is
perhaps true, of Goneril at least; Regan is,
if one may distinguish between star and star,
somewhat the finer character.
This criticism is perhaps true in part; but I
will not insult the intelligence of my readers.
I will leave it to them to take the obvious step
and work backwards to the re-exaltation of
Lear, Cordelia, Edgar and company, to the
heroic fields of their putty Elysium (putty, not
1 This may merely mean ‘‘despite the fact that I
am dying—though I am almost too weak to speak.”
If so, the one phrase in the play which seems to
refute our theory is disposed of. Execution of such
criminals would be a matter of routine at the period
of the play.