The vines of France and milk of Burgundy Strive to be interess'd; what can you say to draw A third more opulent than your sisters? Speak. Cor. Nothing, my lord. Lear. Nothing? Cor. Nothing. 85 Lear. Nothing will come of nothing: speak again. 90 My heart into my mouth: I love your majesty Lear. How, how, Cordelia! mend your speech a little, Cor. Good my lord, 95 You have begot me, bred me, lov'd me: I 85. interess'd] Jennyns, 86. Speak] F, omitted Q. 90. Nothing will come] 93. nor] Q, no 95. you] F, it Q. 84, 85. The . . . interess'd] F, omitted Q. intress'd Theobald, interest F; draw] F, win Q. 88, 89. Lear. Nothing? Cor. Nothing] F, omitted Q. F, How, nothing can come Q, Nothing can come Theobald. F. 94. How... Cordelia] F, Go to, go too Q. Nichols, 1779, vol. ii. p. 464: "To thee last of all, Not greeted last, 'cause thy desert was small." (Leir addressing Mumford.) 84. milk] pastures, the effect for the cause (Eccles). 85. interess'd] closely connected, interested, concerned. See " Faire la cane, to absent himself from a bickering or battell, wherein he is much interess'd," Cotgrave's French Dic tionary, and "to interess or interest, to concern or engage," Kersey's Dictionary, 1708. See also Sidney, Arcadia, book iv., "Her own honour might be as much interess'd, as Zelmane damaged. 90. Nothing nothing] There is a reference to the Latin proverb, "ex nihilo nihil fit," referred to again 1. iv. 144. 93. bond obligation, duty as a daughter. See I. ii. 106, II. iv. 177; also "the holy cords," II. ii. 70. 94. How, how] words-like How (alone), Two Gentlemen of Verona, II. iv. 22-expressive of impatience and irritation, as in Romeo and Juliet, III. v. 153: "How, how, how, how, choplogic! what is this?" So Q 2. See also Pericles, III. i. 18. 97. Return those duties . . . fit] as they, the duties, are right and fit to be returned. Keightley printed "as is most fit." Obey you, love you, and most honour you. Why have my sisters husbands, if they say They love you all? Haply, when I shall wed, 100 carry Half my love with him, half my care and duty: Sure I shall never marry like my sisters, To love my father all. Lear. But goes thy heart with this? Cor. Ay, my good lord. 105 Lear. So young, and so untender? Cor. So young, my lord, and true. Lear. Let it be so; thy truth then be thy dower: The mysteries of Hecate and the night, By all the operation of the orbs From whom we do exist and cease to be, Here I disclaim all my paternal care, 100. Haply] Q 2, Happely Q1, Happily F. 104. To... all] Q, omitted F. 105. thy heart with this] F, this with thy heart Q; Ay lord] F, Ay, good my lord Q. 108. Let it] F, Well let it Q; thy]Q, FI, 2; the F 3. 110. mysteries] F 2, mistresse Q, miseries F; night] F, might Q. III. operation] Q, F; operations F 2. 78: "Then let her beauty be her wedding-dower." 110. Hecate] here a dissyllable, and I believe it was always so accented by Shakespeare. True, it is a trisyllable once, in 1 Henry VI. III. ii. 64: "That railing Hecate"; but it is very improbable Shakespeare wrote the scene in which it occurs. III. operation] effect upon the life and death of mortals (Delius). See Antony and Cleopatra, II. vii. 30, where the word means benign agency. Propinquity and property of blood, Kent. And as a stranger to my heart and me Hold thee from this for ever. Scythian, 115 The barbarous Or he that makes his generation messes Lear. Peace, Kent! Good my liege,- 120 Come not between the dragon and his wrath. 118, 119. shall . . . Be] F, shall be Q. 114. Propinquity] kindred; Shakespeare only uses the word here. 114. property] closest blood relationship, rising, as it were, to identity of blood (Wright). We may compare Richard II. 1. ii. 1, "The part I had in Woodstock's blood," spoken by Woodstock's brother John of Gaunt. 116-118. The... appetite] Generation here is generally explained offspring or progeny; but why could it not mean parents? This is quite in the manner of Shakespeare, and, indeed, he twice uses progeny in the sense of ancestors, and so did his contemporaries; it is very frequent in Lilly. See 1 Henry VI. v. iv. 38, and Coriolanus, 1. viii. 12. Though Purchas in his Pilgrimes has a curious passage mentioning different kinds of cannibalism, he does not mention eating of children by their parents, nor do I know any reference to it. On the other hand, Herodotus tells us that the Scythians ate their aged and impotent relations, and Chapman in Byron's Tragedy, iv. 1, has the following passage: 122. the dragon] Moberly thinks that Lear may here refer to the famous dragon of Britain, which it was natural Lear would wear emblazoned on his helmet; and this may be. In the old play, The Birth of Merlin, a play formerly attributed to Shakespeare, the dragon of Britain is mentioned more than once. Prince Uter says, v. 2: "We have fair hope that though our dragon sleep Merlin will us and our fair king dom keep.' See also 1 Henry IV. III. i. 151; but Shakespeare refers to the dragon often as the emblem of savage ferocity; See King John, 11. i. 68; Richard, III. v. iii. 350; Coriolanus, IV. vii. 23. 123. set my rest] stake my all. This phrase, like "set up my rest,' Merchant of Venice, II. ii. 110, and Romeo and Juliet, v. iii. 110, is one borrowed from the game of primero. See Gascoyne, Supposes, iii. 2: "This amorous cause... may be compared to them that play at primero: of whom one, peradventure, shall leese a great sum of money before he win one stake, The Scythians to inter not eat and, at last, half in anger shall set up "to teach their parents." his rest, win it, and after that another, On her kind nursery. Hence, and avoid my sight! So be my grave my peace, as here I give 125 Her father's heart from her! Call France. Who With my two daughters' dowers digest this third; Let pride, which she calls plainness, marry her. course, 130 Ourself, by monthly With reservation of an hundred knights 128. dowers] F, dower Q; this] Q, the F. turn] F, turns Q; we still] Q, we shall F. and another; till, at last, he draw the most part of the money to his heap, the other by little and little diminishing his rest, till he come as near the brink as erst the other was." See also Hayward, History of England, p. 63: "he resolved to set up his last rest on crown and kingdom." The word seems to be used with a sort of quibble with its usual sense. Nash in Have with You to Saffron Walden has one form of the expression in a similar double significance, "for no roof had he to hide his noddle in, or whither he might go to set up his rest," P. 159. 124. nursery] nursing, attendance. 126. Who stirs ?] This is either used by Lear as a threat, or he was surprised to observe, as Furness expresses it," the circle of courtiers stand turn. Only we still 135 130. in] Q, with F. 135. motionless and forget to move, so shocked are they at Lear's rash and foolish act.' 128. digest] amalgamate (Schmidt explains "enjoy"). 130. invest... power] I follow the Quarto, for Shakespeare, though he has once the expression "invest with," 2 Henry IV. IV. v. 73, uses "invest in" three times. See Measure for Measure, III. i. 96; As You Like It, II. vii. 58; Othello, IV. i. 40. 131. large effects] splendid accom. paniments. 132. troop with] go with, are associated with, as in Romeo and Juliet, I. v. 50: “So shows a snowy dove trooping with crows." 133. reservation] See II. iv. 255. This word is drawn from the language of law, and means a saving clause. Kent. The name and all the additions to a king; Royal Lear, Loved as my father, as my master follow'd, 140 As my great patron thought on in my prayers,— Lear. The bow is bent and drawn; make from the shaft. Kent. Let it fall rather, though the fork invade The region of my heart: be Kent unmannerly, 145 When Lear is mad. What would'st thou do, old man?! Think'st thou that duty shall have dread to speak 136. the additions] Q, th' 146. mad] Q 2, F; man Q1; addition F. 139. betwixt] Q, between F. would'st] F, wilt, Q. 136. additions] either the ceremonial observances pertaining to royalty, or else the titles belonging to a king. Compare "the farced title running 'fore the king," Henry V. IV. i. 280. For an instance of the word in this latter sense, see Macbeth, 1. iii. 106; see also Scott, Discovery of Witchcraft, 1580; Nicholson, 1886, p. 437. "Many other great epithets or additions are given him for his name." 66 144. fork] the barbed arrow-head. See Palsgrave, Lesclarcissement, glisseau, the forked head of an arrow, Fer de fleische à oreilles, a forked, or barbed arrow-head." Ascham, in his Toxophilus, Arber, p. 135, writes thus of arrow-heads: "Fashion of heades is divers, and that of olde time; two maner of arrow heades, sayeth Pollux, Iwas used in olde time. The one he calleth bykos, describing it thus, having two poyntes or barbes looking backwarde to the stele and the fethers, which surely we call in English a broad arrow-head or a swallow tayle; the other he called yλwxis, having two points stretching forward, and this Englishmen do call a forke-head." See Chapman, The Gentleman Usher, IV. i. 10: "Po. O aunt, my uncle lies shot. Cy. How is he shot? Po. Why, with a forked shaft." See also Brome, The Northern Lass, v. I; also Chapman's Iliad, Taylor, 1843, vol. i. p. 107: "And straight he draws the shaft without the forks." Compare also "forked heads," As You Like It, II. i. 24. 145. The region of my heart] This A flake, no bigger than a spider's |