The Sword of Song

THE SWORD OF SONG 46 we see all the concentrated loathing of the true Shakespeare for a despotism, massed in one lurid flame, phantasmagoric horror, the grim First Act rolls down. II. Act II. Sc. i. adds little new to our thesis, save that in line 80 we see Gloucester (ignorant of his own son’s handwriting!) accept the forged letter as genuine, as final proof, with not even the intervention of a Bertillon to excuse so palpable a folly, so egregious a crime. What father of to-day would disin- herit, would hunt down to death, a beloved son, on such evidence? Or are we to take it that the eclipse gave proof unshakable of a phenomenon so portentous ? In Scene ii. we have another taste of Kent’s gentlemanly demeanour ; let our conven- tionalist interpreters defend this unw arrantable bullying if they dare ! Another might be so gross, so cowardly ; but not our greatest poet ! A good portion of this play, as will be shown later, is devoted to a bitter assault upon the essentially English notion that the pugilist is the supreme device of the Creator for furthering human happiness. (See “Cashel Byron’s Pro-fession” for a similar, though more logical and better-worded, attack.) Coarse and violent language continues to disgrace Lear’s follower ; only Gloucester, the unconscionable ass and villian of Scene i. , has a word to say in his defence. In Scene iii. w e have a taste of Edgar’s quality. Had this despicable youth the con- sciosness of innocence, or even common courage, he had surely stood to his trial. Not he ! He plays the coward’s part—and his disguise is not even decent. In Scene iv. we are shown the heroic sisters in their painful task of restraining, always with the utmost gentleness of word and demeanour, the headstrong passions of the miserable king. Lear, at first quiet in stating his fancied wrongs “Reg. ‘I am glad to see your highness.’ Lear. ‘Regan, I think you are ; I know what reason I have to think so : if thou shouldst not be glad, I would divorce me from thy mother’s tomb, Sepulchring an adult’ress. (To Kent). O ! are your free ? Some other time for that. B eloved R egan, Thy sister’s naught : O Regan ! she hath tied Sharp-tooth’d unkindness, like a vulture, here : (Points to his heart). I can scarce speak to thee ; thou’lt not believe with how deprav’d a quality—O Regan !’ Reg. ‘I pray you sir, take patience. I have hope.’ ”) (ll. 130-139), an excusable speech, at the first hint that he is not to have it all his own way, falls a-cursing again like the veriest drab or scullion Hamlet ever heard. Here is a man, deprived on just cause of half a useless company of retainers. Is this wrong (even were it wrong) such as to justify the horrible curses of ll. 164-168, “A ll the stor’d vengeances of heaven fall On her ingrate- ful top ! Strike her young bones, You taking airs, w ith lameness ! Y ou nimble lightnings, dart your blinding flames Into her scornful eyes !” With this he makes his age contemp- tible by the drivel-pathos of ll. 156-158, “Dear daughter, I confess that I am old ; Age is unnecessary : on my knees I beg ( Kneeling) That you’ll vouchsafe me raiment, bed, and food,” begging what none ever thought to deny him. Yet such is the patience of G oneril that even when goaded by all this infamous B illingsgate into speech, her rebuke is the temperate and modest ll. 198-200. “Why not by the hand, sir ? How have I offended ? All’s not offence that indiscretion finds And dotage terms so.” If we ask a parallel for such meekness under insult, calumny, and foul abuse, we must seek it not in a human story, but a divine. The heroines see that no half measures w ill do, and Lear is stripped of all the murderous retinue—what scum they are is shown by the fact that not one of them draws sword for him, or even follow s him into the storm—to which his bad heart clings ; yet for him—for him in spite of all his loathsomeness, his hatred, his revengefulness—is Regan’s gentle and loving, “For his particular, I’ll receive him gladly.” III. In A ct III. w e have another illustration of the morality that passed current w ith the Tudors, and which only a Shakespeare had the courage to attack. Kent does not stick at treachery—he makes one gulp of treason— straining at the gnat of discipline, he swallows the camel of civil war. It was then, and is even now, the practice of some—for example, the emigrés of the French Revolution—to invite foreign invasion as a means of securing domestic reaction. The blackguardism implied is beyond language : Shakesepare was perhaps thinking of the pro- posal, in Mary’s reign, to react to Romanism by the aid of Spanish troops. But he will go further than this, will our greatest poet; it w ere ill that the life of even one child should atone for mere indignity or discomfort to another, were he the greatest in the realm. To-day we all agree; we smile or sneer if any one should differ. “King Lear got caught in the rain—let us go and kill a million men !” is an argument not much understood of Radical Clubs, and even Jingos would pause, did they but take the precaution of indulging in a mild aperient before recording their opinions.