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RV 320 (Rh) this dumbness of love was not the sole source of misunderstanding. If this had been all, even Lear could have seen the love in Cordelia’s eyes when, to his question ‘What can you say to draw a third more opulent than your sisters?’ she answered ‘Nothing.’ But it did not shine there. She is not merely silent, nor does she merely answer ‘Nothing.’ She tells him that she loves him ‘according to her bond, nor more nor less’; and his answer,

so intensifies her horror at the hypocrisy of her sisters that she replies,

What words for the ear of an old father, unreasonable, despotic, but fondly loving, indecent in his own expressions of preference, and blind to the indecency of his appeal for protestations of fondness! Blank astonishment, anger, wounded love, contend within him; but for the moment he restrains himself and asks,

Imagine Imogen’s reply! But Cordelia answers,

Yes, ‘heavenly true.’ But truth is not the only good in the world, nor is the obligation to tell truth the only obligation. The matter here