The Sword of Song

NOTES 47 In Scenes iii., vi., and vii., Edmund, disgusted beyond all meaure 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 somew hat 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 not 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 w e 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 no 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 w ork and insult the English for the benefit of the ridiculed and hated Frenchmen ? Moreover, Cordelia reckons w ithout 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, forsees that Cordelia w ill 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 is not by brute force that the battle is w on ; 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, “I 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. 1 Quickly send, Be brief in it, to the castle ; for my w rit Is on the life Lear and on Cordelia. Nay, send in time.” (ll. 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— “Yet Edmund was beloved.” Edgar 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 of a 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 Gonerial, 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 dow n 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-exaltion 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 spe ak.” If so, the one phrase in the play which seems to refute our the ory is dispose d of. Execution of such criminals would be a matter of routine at the period of the play.