Shakespearean Tragedy: Lectures on Hamlet, Othello, King Lear, Macbeth
beginning of Act IV. (5) Some of them, as Delius observes, emphasize the
parallelism between the stories of Lear and Gloster. (6) The fact that
the Folio omits the lines is, of course, nothing against them.
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 270: I ignore them partly because they are not significant for
the present purpose, but mainly because it is impossible to accept the
division of battle-scenes in our modern texts, while to depart from it
is to introduce intolerable inconvenience in reference. The only proper
plan in Elizabethan drama is to consider a scene ended as soon as no
person is left on the stage, and to pay no regard to the question of
locality,--a question theatrically insignificant and undetermined in
most scenes of an Elizabethan play, in consequence of the absence of
movable scenery. In dealing with battles the modern editors seem to have
gone on the principle (which they could not possibly apply generally)
that, so long as the place is not changed, you have only one scene.
Hence in _Macbeth_, Act V., they have included in their Scene vii. three
distinct scenes; yet in _Antony and Cleopatra_, Act III., following the
right division for a wrong reason, they have two scenes (viii. and ix.),
each less than four lines long.]
[Footnote 271: One of these (V. i.) is not marked as such, but it is
evident that the last line and a half form a soliloquy of one remaining
character, just as much as some of the soliloquies marked as such in
other plays.]
[Footnote 272: According to modern editions, eight, Act II., scene ii.,
being an instance. But it is quite ridiculous to reckon as three scenes
what are marked as scenes ii., iii., iv. Kent is on the lower stage the
whole time, Edgar in the so-called scene iii. being on the upper stage
or balcony. The editors were misled by their ignorance of the stage
arrangements.]
[Footnote 273: Perhaps three, for V. iii. is perhaps an instance, though
not so marked.]
NOTE W.
THE STAGING OF THE SCENE OF LEAR'S REUNION WITH CORDELIA.
As Koppel has shown, the usual modern stage-directions[274] for this
scene (IV. vii.) are utterly wrong and do what they can to defeat the
poet's purpose.
It is evident from the text that the scene shows the _first_ meeting of
Cordelia and Kent, and _first_ meeting of Cordelia and Lear, since they
parted in I. i. Kent and Cordelia indeed are doubtless supposed to have
exchanged a few words before they come on the stage; but Cordelia has
not seen her father at all until the moment before she begins (line 26),
'O my dear father!' Hence the tone of the first part of the scene, that
between Cordelia and Kent, is kept low, in order that the latter part,
between Cordelia and Lear, may have its full effect.
The modern stage-direction at the beginning of the scene, as found, for
example, in the Cambridge and Globe editions, is as follows:
'SCENE vii.--A tent in the French camp. LEAR
on a bed asleep, soft music playing; _Gentleman_, and others
attending.
Enter CORDELIA, KENT, and _Doctor_.'
At line 25, where the Doctor says 'Please you, draw near,' Cordelia is
supposed to approach the bed, which is imagined by some editors visible
throughout at the back of the stage, by others as behind a curtain at
the back, this curtain being drawn open at line 25.
Now, to pass by the fact that these arrangements are in flat
contradiction with the stage-directions of the Quartos and the Folio,
consider their effect upon the scene. In the first place, the reader at
once assumes that Cordelia has already seen her father; for otherwise it
is inconceivable that she would quietly talk with Kent while he was
within a few yards of her. The edge of the later passage where she
addresses him is therefore blunted. In the second place, through Lear's
presence the reader's interest in Lear and his meeting with Cordelia is
at once excited so strongly that he hardly attends at all to the
conversation of Cordelia and Kent; and so this effect is blunted too.
Thirdly, at line 57, where Cordelia says,
O, look upon me, sir,
And hold your hands in benediction o'er me!
No, sir, you must not kneel,
the poor old King must be supposed either to try to get out of bed, or
actually to do so, or to kneel, or to try to kneel, on the bed.
Fourthly, consider what happens at line 81.
_Doctor._ Desire him to _go in_; trouble him no more
Till further settling.
_Cor._ Will't please your highness _walk?_
_Lear._ You must bear with me;
Pray you now, forget and forgive; I am old and
foolish. [_Exeunt all but Kent and Gentleman_.
If Lear is in a tent containing his bed, why in the world, when the
doctor thinks he can bear no more emotion, is he made to walk out of the
tent? A pretty doctor!
But turn now to the original texts. Of course they say nothing about the
place. The stage-direction at the beginning runs, in the Quartos, 'Enter
Cordelia, Kent, and Doctor;' in the Folio, 'Enter Cordelia, Kent, and
Gentleman.' They differ about the Gentleman and the Doctor, and the
Folio later wrongly gives to the Gentleman the Doctor's speeches as well
as his own. This is a minor matter. But they agree in _making no mention
of Lear_. He is not on the stage at all. Thus Cordelia, and the reader,
can give their whole attention to Kent.
Her conversation with Kent finished, she turns (line 12) to the Doctor
and asks 'How does the King?'[275] The Doctor tells her that Lear is
still asleep, and asks leave to wake him. Cordelia assents and asks if
he is 'arrayed,' which does not mean whether he has a night-gown on, but
whether they have taken away his crown of furrow-weeds, and tended him
duly after his mad wanderings in the fields. The Gentleman says that in
his sleep 'fresh garments' (not a night-gown) have been put on him. The
Doctor then asks Cordelia to be present when her father is waked. She
assents, and the Doctor says, 'Please you, draw near. Louder the music
there.' The next words are Cordelia's, 'O my dear father!'
What has happened? At the words 'is he arrayed?' according to the Folio,
'_Enter Lear in a chair carried by Servants._' The moment of this
entrance, as so often in the original editions, is doubtless too soon.
It should probably come at the words 'Please you, draw near,' which
_may_, as Koppel suggests, be addressed to the bearers. But that the
stage-direction is otherwise right there cannot be a doubt (and that the
Quartos omit it is no argument against it, seeing that, according to
their directions, Lear never enters at all).
This arrangement (1) allows Kent his proper place in the scene, (2)
makes it clear that Cordelia has not seen her father before, (3) makes
her first sight of him a theatrical crisis in the best sense, (4) makes
it quite natural that he should kneel, (5) makes it obvious why he
should leave the stage again when he shows signs of exhaustion, and (6)
is the only arrangement which has the slightest authority, for 'Lear on
a bed asleep' was never heard of till Capell proposed it. The ruinous
change of the staging was probably suggested by the version of that
unhappy Tate.
Of course the chair arrangement is primitive, but the Elizabethans did
not care about such things. What they cared for was dramatic effect.
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 274: There are exceptions: _e.g._, in the editions of Delius
and Mr. W.J. Craig.]
[Footnote 275: And it is possible that, as Koppel suggests, the Doctor
should properly enter at this point; for if Kent, as he says, wishes to
remain unknown, it seems strange that he and Cordelia should talk as
they do before a third person. This change however is not necessary, for
the Doctor might naturally stand out of hearing till he was addressed;
and it is better not to go against the stage-direction without
necessity.]
NOTE X.
THE BATTLE IN _KING LEAR_.
I found my impression of the extraordinary ineffectiveness of this
battle (p. 255) confirmed by a paper of James Spedding (_New Shakspere
Society Transactions_, 1877, or Furness's _King Lear_, p. 312 f.); but
his opinion that this is the one technical defect in _King Lear_ seems
certainly incorrect, and his view that this defect is not due to
Shakespeare himself will not, I think, bear scrutiny.
To make Spedding's view quite clear I may remind the reader that in the
preceding scene the two British armies, that of Edmund and Regan, and
that of Albany and Goneril, have entered with drum and colours, and have
departed. Scene ii. is as follows (Globe):
SCENE II.--_A field between the two camps.
Alarum within. Enter, with drum and colours_, LEAR, CORDELIA,
_and_ Soldiers, _over the stage; and exeunt._ _Enter_ EDGAR
_and_ GLOSTER.
_Edg._ Here, father, take the shadow of this tree
For your good host; pray that the right may thrive:
If ever I return to you again,
I'll bring you comfort.
_Glo._ Grace go with you, sir!
[_Exit_ Edgar
_Alarum and retreat within._ _Re-enter_ EDGAR.
_Edg._ Away, old man; give me thy hand; away!
King Lear hath lost, he and his daughter ta'en:
Give me thy hand; come on.
_Glo._ No farther, sir; a man may rot even here.
_Edg._ What, in ill thoughts again? Men must endure
Their going hence, even as their coming hither:
Ripeness is all: come on.
_Glo._ And that's true too. [_Exeunt_.
The battle, it will be seen, is represented only by military music
within the tiring-house, which formed the back of the stage. 'The
scene,' says Spedding, 'does not change; but 'alarums' are heard, and
afterwards a 'retreat,' and on the same field over which that great army
has this moment passed, fresh and full of hope, re-appears, with tidings
that all is lost, the same man who last left the stage to follow and
fight in it.[276] That Shakespeare meant the scene to stand thus, no one
who has the true faith will believe.'
Spedding's suggestion is that things are here run together which
Shakespeare meant to keep apart. Shakespeare, he thinks, continued Act
IV. to the '_exit_ Edgar' after l. 4 of the above passage. Thus, just
before the close of the Act, the two British armies and the French army
had passed across the stage, and the interest of the audience in the
battle about to be fought was raised to a high pitch. Then, after a
short interval, Act V. opened with the noise of battle in the distance,
followed by the entrance of Edgar to announce the defeat of Cordelia's
army. The battle, thus, though not fought on the stage, was shown and
felt to be an event of the greatest importance.
Apart from the main objection of the entire want of evidence of so great
a change having been made, there are other objections to this idea and
to the reasoning on which it is based. (1) The pause at the end of the
present Fourth Act is far from 'faulty,' as Spedding alleges it to be;
that Act ends with the most melting scene Shakespeare ever wrote; and a
pause after it, and before the business of the battle, was perfectly
right. (2) The Fourth Act is already much longer than the Fifth (about
fourteen columns of the Globe edition against about eight and a half),
and Spedding's change would give the Fourth nearly sixteen columns, and
the Fifth less than seven. (3) Spedding's proposal requires a much
greater alteration in the existing text than he supposed. It does not
simply shift the division of the two Acts, it requires the disappearance
and re-entrance of the blind Gloster. Gloster, as the text stands, is