Page:The Psychology of Shakespeare.pdf/167

152 “Lear. I prithee daughter, do not make me mad : I will not trouble thee, my child; farewell; We'll no more meet, no more see one another—

But yet thou art my flesh, my blood, my daughter; Or, rather, a disease that's in my flesh, Which I must needs call mine; thou art a boil,

A plague-sore, an embossed carbuncle, In my corrupted blood. But I’ll not chide thee; Let shame come when it will, I do not call it. I do not bid the thunder-bearer shoot,

Nor tell tales of thee to high-judging Jove:” This

state of mind is further

evident from the sudden

change of his resolution to return home and reside with Roneril,

because he

believes that she will let him have

more attendants than her sister. He has just before de clared that he would rather “abjure all roofs,” or “knee the throne of France,” or be “slave and sumpter to this detested groom,” than return with her; and yet, because Regan entreats him to bring but five-and-twenty followers, assigning as good reason: “How, in one house,

Should many people, under two commands, Hold amity ? 'Tis hard, almost impossible "— he forgets all the comparisons he has drawn between her and Goneril, so unfavourable to the

latter ;

he

forgets his deep-rooted hatred to Goneril, and proposes to return home with her :

“I’ll go with thee; Thy fifty yet doth double five-and-twenty,

And thou art twice her love.” At this point the mind seems almost falling into fatuity; yet it is but for a moment, for immediately after comes

that outburst of eloquence: “O, reason not the need,” &c., the grandeur of which it would be difficult to overmatch with any other passage from dramatic literature. It con cludes, not with expressions of noble anger, but with those of insane rage, at a loss for words to express itself.