Page:Stories from Old English Poetry-1899.djvu/204

182 followers; that she could no longer permit it. She asked what necessity there was for him, who would always be well taken care of by his daughters, if he behaved properly, to have so many as a hundred followers. Would not fifty, or even twenty-five, do quite as well?

Imagine how Lear felt at being talked to thus. An old king who had given up to this daughter half his kingdom, the command of his great armies, and his right to rule; he to whom thousands had been a small retinue, to be now denied a mere handful of attendants. The passionate old man was so choked with rage and grief, he could scarcely speak. When he tried to reply, his tears almost stopped him. Goneril stood gazing unmoved on her aged father’s wounded feeling, and at length he told her that he would leave her inhospitable roof, for he had yet another daughter who would not treat him thus. Surely Nature could not produce another monster such as she. When she answered this with more bitter insults, he cursed her with a curse so terrible, that one can hardly imagine how she could have heard it and not fallen on her knees and called on God for mercy.

Lear then left her castle gates with all his train, and set out for Regan’s palace. Just before this happened, the Earl of Kent, whom Lear had banished, fearing his old master would