in profusion self-less devotion and unconquerable love. And the strange thing is that neither Shakespeare nor we are surprised. We approve these characters, admire them, love them; but we feel no mystery. We do not ask in bewilderment, Is there any cause in nature that makes these kind hearts? Such hardened optimists are we, and Shakespeare,—and those who find the darkness of revelation in a tragedy which reveals Cordelia. Yet surely, if we condemn the universe for Cordelia’s death; we ought also to remember that it gave her birth. The fact that Socrates was executed does not remove the fact that he lived, and the inference thence to be drawn about the world that produced him. Of these four characters Edgar excites the least enthusiasm, but he is the one whose development is the most marked. His behaviour in the early part of the play, granted that it is not too improbable, is so foolish as to provoke one. But he learns by experience, and becomes the most capable person in the story, without losing any of his purity and nobility of mind. There remain in him, however, touches which a little chill one’s feeling for him.
Make instruments to plague us:
The dark and vicious place where thee he got
Cost him his eyes:
—one wishes he had not said to his dying brother those words about their dead father. ‘The gods are just’ would have been enough.[1] It may be
- ↑ The line last quoted is continued by Edmund in the Folios thus: ‘Th’ hast spoken right; ’tis true,’ but in the Quartos thus: ‘Thou hast spoken truth,’ which leaves the line imperfect. This, and the imperfect line ‘Make instruments to plague us,’ suggest that Shakespeare wrote at first simply,
Make instruments to plague us.
Edm. Th’ hast spoken truth.The Quartos show other variations which seem to point to the fact that the MS. was here difficult to make out.
