Page:The Psychology of Shakespeare.pdf/161

146 evidence of his daughter's ingratitude, which inflames the temper. He will not understand Goneril's accu sations and threats, until they are expressed in lan guage too gross and cruel to be mistaken. In the same manner he will not believe that Regan and Cornwall have placed his messenger in the stocks. To Kent's blunt assertion, it is both he and she-your son and daugh ter—he reiterates denial, and swears by Jupiter it is not so :

“They durst not do't; They could not, would not, dot; 'tis worse than murder, To do upon respect such violent outrage ;” and when conviction follows upon Kent's plain narrative of his treatment and its occasion, rage almost chokes the utterance. At first he struggles to repress its expression: “Lear. O, how this mother swells up towards my heart Hysterica passio !—down thou climbing sorrow, Thy element is below !” He does not succeed long, and when denied access to his child ; under the pretence of sickness, which he well recog nizes as the image of revolt and flying off; and when re minded, inopportunely enough, “of the fiery quality of the duke,” the climbing sorrow will not be repressed : “Lear. Wengeance plague 1 death ! confusion — Fiery what quality ? why, Gloster, Gloster, I'd speak with the duke of Cornwall, and his wife. Glo. Well, my good lord, I have informed them so. Lear. Inform'd them | Dost thou understand me, man?

Glo. Ay, my good lord. Lear. The king would speak with Cornwall; the dear father Would with his daughter speak, commands, tends, service: Are they informed of this?—My breath and blood — Fiery the fiery duke 7–Tell the hot duke, that— No, but not yet:—may be, he is not well:

Infirmity doth still neglect all office, Whereto our health is bound; we are not ourselves, When nature, being oppress'd, commands the mind