原文地址：林纾、魏易译《英国诗人吟边燕语》作者：乐其可知也
《吟邊燕語》序
光緒三十年(1904)
林紓
歐人之傾我國也，必曰：識見局，思想舊，泥古駭今，好言神怪，因之日就淪弱，漸卽頽摺６釃倌陱姖浚煲涣η笮拢h詆其故老，放棄其前載，惟新之從。余謂從之帐且玻櫛刂^西人之夙行夙言，悉新於中國者，則亦譽人增其義，毀人益其惡耳。英文家之哈葛得，詩家之莎士比，非文眀大國英特之士耶？顧吾嘗譯之書矣，禁蛇役鬼，累累而見。莎氏之詩，抗吾國之杜甫，乃立義遣詞，往往託象於神怪。西人而果文明，則宜焚棄禁絕，不令淆世知識。然證以吾之所聞，彼中名輩，躭莎氏之詩者，家絃戶誦，而又不已，則付之梨園，用爲院本。士女聯襼而聽，欷歔感涕，竟無一斥爲思想之舊，而怒其好言神怪者，又何以故？夫彝鼎罇罍，古綠斑駮，且復累重，此至不適於用者也。而名閥望冑，毋吝千金，必欲得而陳之。亦以羅綺芻豢，生事所宜有者，已備足而無所顧戀。於是追躡古踪，用以自博其趣，此東坡所謂久饜膏粱，反思螺蛤者也。蓋政敎兩事，與文章無屬，政敎旣美，宜澤以文章，文章徒美，無益於政敎。故西人惟政敎是務，贍國利兵，外侮不乘，始以餘閒用文章家娛悅其心目，雖哈氏、莎氏，思想之舊，神怪之託，而文明之士，坦然不以爲病也。余老矣！旣無哈、莎之通涉，特喜譯哈、莎之書。摯友仁和魏君春叔，年少英博，淹通西文，長沙張尙書旣領譯事於京師，余與魏君適廁譯席。魏君口述，余則敍致爲文章。計二年以來，予二人所分譯者得三四種，《拿破崙本紀》爲最鉅本，秋初可以畢業矣。夜中餘閒，魏君偶舉莎士比筆記一二則，余就燈起草，積二十日書成，其文均莎詩之紀事也。嗟夫！英人固以新爲政者也，而不廢莎氏之詩。余今譯《莎詩紀事》，或不爲吾國新學家之所屛乎？《莎詩紀事》傳本至夥，互校頗有同異，且有去取，此本所收，僅二十則，余一一製爲新名，以標其目。光緒三十年五月，閩縣林紓序。
Tales from
Shakespeare
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Tales from Shakespeare was an English children's
book written by Charles Lamb with his sister Mary Lamb in 1807. It
was illustrated by Arthur Rackham in 1899 and 1909.
The book reduced the archaic English and complicated storyline
of Shakespeare to a simple level that children could read and
comprehend. However, as noted in the Author's Preface, "his words
are used whenever it seemed possible to bring them in; and in
whatever has been added to give them the regular form of a
connected story, diligent care has been taken to select such words
as might least interrupt the effect of the beautiful English tongue
in which he wrote: therefore, words introduced into our language
since his time have been as far as possible avoided."
Mary Lamb was responsible for most of the comedies, while
Charles wrote most of the tragedies; they wrote the preface between
them. Next to his essays, this book is his best-known work; yet its
success is attributable more to Mary, whose name did not appear on
the title page of the first few editions, than to Charles.
The 20 stories adapted from the selected plays were:
1 - The Tempest (Mary Lamb)
2 - A Midsummer Night's Dream (Mary Lamb)
3 - The Winter's Tale (Mary Lamb)
4 - Much Ado About Nothing (Mary Lamb)
5 - As You Like It (Mary Lamb)
6 - Two Gentlemen of Verona (Mary Lamb)
7 - The Merchant of Venice (Mary Lamb)
8 - Cymbeline (Mary Lamb)
9 - King Lear (Charles Lamb)
10 - Macbeth (Charles Lamb)
11 - All's Well That Ends Well (Mary Lamb)
12 - The Taming of the Shrew (Mary Lamb)
13 - The Comedy of Errors (Mary Lamb)
14 - Measure for Measure (Mary Lamb)
15 - Twelfth Night (Mary Lamb)
16 - Timon of Athens (Charles Lamb)
17 - Romeo and Juliet (Mary Lamb)
18 - Hamlet, Prince of Denmark (Charles Lamb)
19 - Othello (Charles Lamb)
20 - Pericles, Prince of Tyre (Mary Lamb)
Preface
THE following Tales are meant to be submitted to the young reader as an introduction to the study of Shakespeare, for which purpose his words are used whenever it seemed possible to bring them in; and in whatever has been added to give them the regular form of a connected story, diligent are has been taken to select such words as might least interrupt the effect of the beautiful English tongue in which he wrote: therefore, words introduced into our language since his time have been as far as possible avoided.
In those tales which have been taken from the Tragedies, the young readers will perceive, when they come to see the source from which these stories are derived, that Shakespeare's own words, with little alteration, recur very frequently in the narrative as well as in the dialogue; but in those made from the Comedies the writers found themselves scarcely ever able to turn his words into the narrative form: therefore it is feared that, in them, dialogue has been made use of too frequently for young people not accustomed to the dramatic form of writing. But this fault, if it be a fault, has been caused by an earnest wish to give as much of Shakespeare's own words as possible: and if the "He said," and "She said," the question and the reply, should sometimes seem tedious to their young ears, they must pardon it, because it was the only way in which could be given to them a few hints and little foretastes of the great pleasure which awaits them in their elder years, when they come to the rich treasures from which these small and valueless coins are extracted; pretending to no other merit than as faint and imperfect stamps of Shakespeare's matchless image. Faint and imperfect images they must be called, because the beauty of his language is too frequently destroyed by the necessity of changing many of his excellent words into words far less expressive of his true sense, to make it read something like prose; and even in some few places, where his blank verse is given unaltered, as hoping from its simple plainness to cheat the young reader into the belief that they are reading prose, yet still his language being transplanted from its own natural soil and wild poetic garden, it must want much of its native beauty.
It has been wished to make these Tales easy reading for very young children. To the utmost of their ability the writers have constantly kept this in mind; but the subjects of most of them made this a very difficult task. It was no easy matter to give the histories of men and women in terms familiar to the apprehension of a very young mind. For young ladies too, it has been the intention chiefly to write; because boys being generally permitted the use of their fathers' libraries at a much earlier age than girls are, they frequently have the best scenes of Shakespeare by heart, before their sisters are permitted to look into this manly book; and, therefore, instead of recommending these Tales to the perusal of young gentlemen who can read them so much better in the originals, their kind assistance is rather requested in explaining to their sisters such parts as are hardest for them to understand: and when they have helped them to get over the difficulties, then perhaps they will read to them (carefully selecting what is proper for a young sister's ear) some passage which has pleased them in one of these stories, in the very words of the scene from which it is taken; and it is hoped they will find that the beautiful extracts, the select passages, they may choose to give their sisters in this way will be much better relished and understood from their having some notion of the general story from one of these imperfect abridgments; which if they be fortunately so done as to prove delightful to any of the young readers, it is hoped that no worse effect will result than to make them wish themselves a little older, that they may be allowed to read the Plays at full length (such a wish will be neither peevish nor irrational). When time and leave of judicious friends shall put them into their hands, they will discover in such of them as are here abridged (not to mention almost as many more, which are left untouched) many surprising events and turns of fortune, which for their infinite variety could not be contained in this little book, besides a world of sprightly and cheerful characters, both men and women, the humour of which it was feared would be lost if it were attempted to reduce the length of them.
What these Tales shall have been to the young readers, that and much more it is the writers' wish that the true Plays of Shakespeare may prove to them in older years--enrichers of the fancy, strengtheners of virtue, a withdrawing from all selfish and mercenary thoughts, a lesson of all sweet and honourable thoughts and actions, to teach courtesy, benignity, generosity, humanity: for of examples, teaching these virtues, his pages are full.
King Lear
LEAR, king of Britain, had three daughters; Goneril, wife to
the duke of Albany; Regan, wife to the duke of Cornwall; and
Cordelia, a young maid, for whose love the king of France and duke
of Burgundy were joint suitors, and were at this time making stay
for that purpose in the court of Lear.
The old king, worn out with age and the fatigues of
government, he being more than fourscore years old, determined to
take no further part in state affairs, but to leave the management
to younger strengths, that he might have time to prepare for death,
which must at no long period ensue. With this intent he called his
three daughters to him, to know from their own lips which of them
loved him best, that he might part his kingdom among them in such
proportions as their affection for him should seem to
deserve.
Goneril, the eldest, declared that she loved her father more
than words could give out, that he was dearer to her than the light
of her own eyes, dearer than life and liberty, with a deal of such
professing stuff, which is easy to counterfeit where there is no
real love, only a few fine words delivered with confidence being
wanted in that case. The king, delighted to hear from her own mouth
this assurance of her love, and thinking truly that her heart went
with it, in a ht of fatherly fondness bestowed upon her and her
husband one-third of his ample kingdom.
Then calling to him his second daughter, he demanded what she
had to say. Regan, who was made of the same hollow metal as her
sister, was not a whit behind in her profession, but rather
declared that what her sister had spoken came short of the love
which she professed to bear for his highness; insomuch that she
found all other joys dead, in comparison with the pleasure which
she took in the love of her dear king and father.
Lear blessed himself in having such loving children, as he
thought; and could do no less, after the handsome assurances which
Regan had made, than bestow a third of his kingdom upon her and her
husband, equal in size to that which he had already given away to
Goneril.
Then turning to his youngest daughter Cordelia, whom he called
his joy, he asked what she had to say, thinking no doubt that she
would glad his ears with the same loving speeches which her sisters
had uttered, or rather that her expressions would be so much
stronger than theirs, as she had always been his darling, and
favoured by him above either of them. But Cordelia, disgusted with
the flattery of her sisters, whose hearts she knew were far from
their lips, and seeing that all their coaxing speeches were only
intended to wheedle the old king out of his dominions, that they
and their husbands might reign in his lifetime, made no other reply
but this, that she loved his majesty according to her duty, neither
more nor less.
The king, shocked with this appearance of ingratitude in his
favourite child, desired her to consider her words, and to mend her
speech, lest it should mar her fortunes.
Cordelia then told her father, that he was her father, that he
had given her breeding, and loved her; that she returned those
duties back as was most fit, and did obey him, love him, and most
honour him. But that she could not frame her mouth to such large
speeches as her sisters had done, or promise to love nothing else
in the world. Why had her sisters husbands, if (as they said) they
had no love for anything but their father? If she should ever wed,
she was sure the lord to whom she gave her hand would want half her
love, half of her care and duty; she should never marry like her
sisters, to love her father all.
Cordelia. who in earnest loved her old father even almost as
extravagantly as her sisters pretended to do, would have plainly
told him so at any other time, in more daughter-like and loving
terms, and without these qualifications, which did indeed sound a
little ungracious; but after the crafty flattering speeches of her
sisters, which she had seen drawn such extravagant rewards, she
thought the handsomest thing she could do was to love and be
silent. This put her affection out of suspicion of mercenary ends,
and showed that she loved, but not for gain; and that her
professions, the less ostentatious they were, had so much the more
of truth and sincerity than her sisters'.
This plainness of speech, which Lear called pride, so enraged
the old monarch who in his best of times always showed much of
spleen and rashness, and in whom the dotage incident to old age had
so clouded over his reason, that he could not discern truth from
flattery, nor a gay painted speech from words that came from the
heart—that in a fury of resentment he retracted the third part of
his kingdom, which yet remained, and which he had reserved for
Cordelia, and gave it away from her, sharing it equally between her
two sisters and their husbands, the dukes of Albany and Cornwall;
whom he now called to him, and in presence of all his courtiers
bestowing a coronet between them, invested them jointly with all
the power, revenue, and execution of government, only retaining to
himself the name of king; all the rest of royalty he resigned; with
this reservation, that himself, with a hundred knights for his
attendants, was to be maintained by monthly course in each of his
daughters' palaces in turn.
So preposterous a disposal of his kingdom, so little guided by
reason, and so much by passion, filled all his courtiers with
astonishment and sorrow; but none of them had the courage to
interpose between this incensed king and his wrath, except the earl
of Kent, who was beginning to speak a good word for Cordelia, when
the passionate Lear on pain of death commanded him to desist; but
the good Kent was not so to be repelled. He had been ever loyal to
Lear, whom he had honoured as a king, loved as a father, followed
as a master; and he had never esteemed his life further than as a
pawn to wage against his royal master's enemies, nor feared to lose
it when Lear's safety was the motive; nor now that Lear was most
his own enemy, did this faithful servant of the king forget his old
principles, but manfully opposed Lear, to do Lear good; and was
unmannerly only because Lear was mad. He had been a most faithful
counsellor in times past to the king, and he besought him now, that
he would see with his eyes (as he had done in many weighty
matters), and go by his advice still; and in his best consideration
recall this hideous rashness: for he would answer with his life,
his judgment that Lear's youngest daughter did not love him least,
nor were those empty-hearted whose low sound gave no token of
hollowness. When power bowed to flattery, honour was bound to
plainness. For Lear's threats, what could he do to him, whose life
was already at his service? That should not hinder duty from
speaking.
The honest freedom of this good earl of Kent only stirred up
the king's wrath the more, and like a frantic patient who kills his
physician, and loves his mortal disease, he banished this true
servant, and allotted him but five days to make his preparations
for departure; but if on the sixth his hated person was found
within the realm of Britain, that moment was to be his death. And
Kent bade farewell to the king, and said, that since he chose to
show himself in such fashion, it was but banishment to stay there;
and before he went, he recommended Cordelia to the protection of
the gods, the maid who had so rightly thought, and so discreetly
spoken; and only wished that her sisters' large speeches might be
answered with deeds of love; and then he went, as he said, to shape
his old course to a new country.
The king of France and duke of Burgundy were now called in to
hear the determination of Lear about his youngest daughter, and to
know whether they would persist in their courtship to Cordelia, now
that she was under her father's displeasure, and had no fortune but
her own person to recommend her: and the duke of Burgundy declined
the match, and would not take her to wife upon such conditions; but
the king of France, understanding what the nature of the fault had
been which had lost her the love of her father, that it was only a
tardiness of speech, and the not being able to frame her tongue to
flattery like her sisters, took this young maid by the hand, and
saying that her virtues were a dowry above a kingdom, bade Cordelia
to take farewell of her sisters and of her father, though he had
been unkind, and she should go with him, and be queen of him and of
fair France, and reign over fairer possessions than her sisters:
and he called the duke of Burgundy in contempt a waterish duke,
because his love for this young maid had in a moment run all away
like water.
Then Cordelia with weeping eyes took leave of her sisters, and
besought them to love their father well, and make good their
professions: and they sullenly told her not to prescribe to them,
for they knew their duty; but to strive to content her husband, who
had taken her (as they tauntingly expressed it) as Fortune's alms.
And Cordelia with a heavy heart departed, for she knew the cunning
of her sisters, and she wished her father in better hands than she
was about to leave him in.
Cordelia was no sooner gone, than the devilish dispositions of
her sisters began to show themselves in their true colours. Even
before the expiration of the first month, which Lear was to spend
by agreement with his eldest daughter Goneril, the old king began
to find out the difference between promises and performances. This
wretch having got from her father all that he had to bestow, even
to the giving away of the crown from off his head, began to grudge
even those small remnants of royalty which the old man had reserved
to himself, to please his fancy with the idea of being still a
king. She could not bear to see him and his hundred knights. Every
time she met her father, she put on a frowning countenance; and
when the old man wanted to speak with her, she would feign
sickness, or anything to get rid of the sight of him; for it was
plain that she esteemed his old age a useless burden, and his
attendants an unnecessary expense: not only she herself slackened
in her expressions of duty to the king, but by her example, and (it
is to be feared) not without her private instructions, her very
servants affected to treat him with neglect, and would either
refuse to obey his orders, or still more contemptuously pretend not
to hear them. Lear could not but perceive this alteration in the
behaviour of his daughter, but he shut his eyes against it as long
as he could, as people commonly are unwilling to believe the
unpleasant consequences which their own mistakes and obstinacy have
brought upon them.
True love and fidelity are no more to be estranged by ill,
than falsehood and hollow-heartedness can be conciliated by good,
usage. This eminently appears in the instance of the good earl of
Kent, who, though banished by Lear, and his life made forfeit if he
were found in Britain, chose to stay and abide all consequences, as
long as there was a chance of his being useful to the king his
master. See to what mean shifts and disguises poor loyalty is
forced to submit sometimes; yet it counts nothing base or unworthy,
so as it can but do service where it owes an obligation! In the
disguise of a serving man, all his greatness and pomp laid aside,
this good earl proffered his services to the king, who, not knowing
him to be Kent in that disguise, but pleased with a certain
plainness, or rather bluntness in his answers, which the earl put
on (so different from that smooth oily flattery which he had so
much reason to be sick of, having found the effects not answerable
in his daughter), a bargain was quickly struck, and Lear took Kent
into his service by the name of Caius, as he called himself, never
suspecting him to be his once great favourite, the high and mighty
earl of Kent.
This Caius quickly found means to show his fidelity and love
to his royal master: for Goneril's steward that same day behaving
in a disrespectful manner to Lear, and giving him saucy looks and
language, as no doubt he was secretly encouraged to do by his
mistress, Caius, not enduring to hear so open an affront put upon
his majesty, made no more ado but presently tripped up his heels,
and laid the unmannerly slave in the kennel; for which friendly
service Lear became more and more attached to him.
Nor was Kent the only friend Lear had. In his degree, and as
far as so insignificant a personage could show his love, the poor
fool, or jester, that had been of his palace while Lear had a
palace, as it was the custom of kings and great personages at that
time to keep a fool (as he was called) to make them sport after
serious business: this poor fool clung to Lear after he had given
away his crown, and by his witty sayings would keep up his good
humour, though he could not refrain sometimes from jeering at his
master for his imprudence in uncrowning himself, and giving all
away to his daughters; at which time, as he rhymingly expressed it,
these daughters
For sudden joy did weep
And he for sorrow sung,
That such a king should play bo-peep
And go the fools among.
And in such wild sayings, and scraps of songs, of which he had
plenty, this pleasant honest fool poured out his heart even in the
presence of Goneril herself, in many a bitter taunt and jest which
cut to the quick: such as comparing the king to the hedge-sparrow,
who feeds the young of the cuckoo till they grow old enough, and
then has its head bit off for its pains; and saying, that an ass
may know when the cart draws the horse (meaning that Lear's
daughters, that ought to go behind, now ranked before their
father); and that Lear was no longer Lear, but the shadow of Lear:
for which free speeches he was once or twice threatened to be
whipped.
The coolness and falling off of respect which Lear had begun
to perceive, were not all which this foolish fond father was to
suffer from his unworthy daughter: she now plainly told him that
his staying in her palace was inconvenient so long as he insisted
upon keeping up an establishment of a hundred knights; that this
establishment was useless and expensive, and only served to kill
her court with riot and feasting; and she prayed him that he would
lessen their number, and keep none but old men about him, such as
himself, and fitting his age.
Lear at first could not believe his eyes or ears, nor that it
was his daughter who spoke so unkindly. He could not believe that
she who had received a crown from him could seek to cut off his
train, and grudge him the respect due to his old age. But she
persisting in her undutiful demand, the old man's rage was so
excited, that he called her a detested kite, and said that she
spoke an untruth; and so indeed she did, for the hundred knights
were all men of choice behaviour and sobriety of manners, skilled
in all particulars of duty, and not given to rioting or feasting,
as she said. And he bid his horses to be prepared, for he would go
to his other daughter, Regan, he and his hundred knights; and he
spoke of ingratitude, and said it was a marble-hearted devil, and
showed more hideous in a child than the sea-monster. And he cursed
his eldest daughter Goneril so as was terrible to hear; praying
that she might never have a child, or if she had, that it might
live to return that scorn and contempt upon her which she had shown
to him that she might feel how sharper than a serpent's tooth it
was to have a thankless child. And Goneril's husband, the duke of
Albany, beginning to excuse himself for any share which Lear might
suppose he had in the unkindness, Lear would not hear him out, but
in a rage ordered his horses to be saddled, and set out with his
followers for the abode of Regan, his other daughter. And Lear
thought to himself how small the fault of Cordelia (if it was a
fault) now appeared, in comparison with her sister's, and he wept;
and then he was ashamed that such a creature as Goneril should have
so much power over his manhood as to make him weep.
Regan and her husband were keeping their court in great pomp
and state at their palace; and Lear despatched his servant Caius
with letters to his daughter, that she might be prepared for his
reception, while he and his train followed after. But it seems that
Goneril had been beforehand with him, sending letters also to
Regan, accusing her father of waywardness and ill humours, and
advising her not to receive so great a train as he was bringing
with him. This messenger arrived at the same time with Caius, and
Caius and he met: and who should it be but Caius's old enemy the
steward, whom he had formerly tripped up by the heels for his saucy
behaviour to Lear. Caius not liking the fellow's look, and
suspecting what he came for, began to revile him, and challenged
him to fight, which the fellow refusing, Caius, in a fit of honest
passion, beat him soundly, as such a mischiefmaker and carrier of
wicked messages deserved; which coming to the ears of Regan and her
husband, they ordered Caius to be put in the stocks, though he was
a messenger from the king her father, and in that character
demanded the highest respect: so that the first thing the king saw
when he entered the castle, was his faithful servant Caius sitting
in that disgraceful situation.
This was but a bad omen of the reception which he was to
expect; but a worse followed, when, upon inquiry for his daughter
and her husband, he was told they were weary with travelling all
night, and could not see him; and when lastly, upon his insisting
in a positive and angry manner to see them, they came to greet him,
whom should he see in their company but the hated Goneril, who had
come to tell her own story, and set her sister against the king her
father!
This sight much moved the old man, and still more to see Regan
take her by the hand; and he asked Goneril if she was not ashamed
to look upon his old white beard. And Regan advised him to go home
again with Goneril, and live with her peaceably, dismissing half of
his attendants, and to ask her forgiveness; for he was old and
wanted discretion, and must be ruled and led by persons that had
more discretion than himself. And Lear showed how preposterous that
would sound, if he were to go down on his knees, and beg of his own
daughter for food and raiment, and he argued against such an
unnatural dependence, declaring his resolution never to return with
her, but to stay where he was with Regan, he and his hundred
knights; for he said that she had not forgot the half of the
kingdom which he had endowed her with, and that her eyes were not
fierce like Goneril's, but mild and kind. And he said that rather
than return to Goneril, with half his train cut off, he would go
over to France, and beg a wretched pension of the king there, who
had married his youngest daughter without a portion.
But he was mistaken in expecting kinder treatment of Regan
than he had experienced from her sister Goneril. As if willing to
outdo her sister in unequal behaviour, she declared that she
thought fifty knights too many to wait upon him: that
five-and-twenty were enough. Then Lear, nigh heart-broken, turned
to Goneril and said that he would go back with her, for her fifty
doubled five-and-twenty, and so her love was twice as much as
Regan's. But Goneril excused herself, and said, what -teed of so
many as five-and-twenty? or even ten? or five? when he might be
waited upon by her servants, or her sister's servants? So these two
wicked daughters, as if they strove to exceed each other in cruelty
to their old father, who had been so good to them, by little and
little would have abated him of all his train, all respect (little
enough for him that once commanded a kingdom), which was left him
to show that he had once been a king! Not that a splendid train is
essential to happiness, but from a king to a beggar is a hard
change, from commanding millions to be without one attendant; and
it was the ingratitude in his daughters' denying it, more than what
he would suffer by the want of it, which pierced this poor king to
the heart; insomuch, that with this double ill-usage, a vexation
for having so foolishly given away a kingdom, his wits began to be
unsettled, and while he said e knew not what, he vowed revenge
against those unnatural hags, and to make examples of them that
should be a terror to the earth!
While he was thus idly threatening what his weak arm could
never execute, night came on, and a loud storm of thunder and
lightning with rain; and his daughters still persisting in their
resolution not to admit his followers, he called for his horses,
and chose rather to encounter the utmost fury of the storm abroad,
than stay under the same roof with these ungrateful daughters: and
they, saying that the injuries which wilful men procure to
themselves are their just punishment, suffered him to go in that
condition and shut their doors upon him.
The wind were high, and the rain and storm increased, when the
old man sallied forth to combat with the elements, less sharp than
his daughters' unkindness. For many miles about there was scarce a
bush; and there upon a heath, exposed to the fury of the storm in a
dark night, did king Lear wander out, and defy the winds and the
thunder; and he bid the winds to blow the earth into the sea, or
swell the waves of the sea till they drowned the earth, that no
token might remain of any such ungrateful animal as man. The old
king was now left with no other companion than the poor fool, who
still abided with him, with his merry conceits striving to outjest
misfortune, saying it was but a naughty night to swim in, and truly
the king had better go in and ask his daughter's blessing:
But he that has a little tiny wit
With heigh ho, the wind and the rain!
Must make content with his fortunes fit
Though the rain it raineth every day:
and swearing it was a brave night to cool a lady's
pride.
Thus poorly accompanied, this once great monarch was found by
his ever-faithful servant the good earl of Kent, now transformed to
Caius, who ever followed close at his side, though the king did not
know him to be the earl; and he said: "Alas! sir, are you here?
creatures that love night, love not such nights as these. This
dreadful storm has driven the beasts to their hiding places. Man's
nature cannot endure the affliction or the fear." And Lear rebuked
him and said, these lesser evils were not felt, where a greater
malady was taxed. When the mind is at ease, the body has leisure to
be delicate, but the temper in his mind did take all feeling else
from his senses, but of that which beat at his heart. And he spoke
of filial ingratitude, and said it was all one as if the mouth
should tear the hand for lifting food to it; for parents were hands
and food and everything to children.
But the good Caius still persisting in his entreaties that the
king would not stay out in the open air, at last persuaded him to
enter a little wretched hovel which stood upon the heath, where the
fool first entering, suddenly ran back terrified, saying that he
had seen a spirit. But upon examination this spirit proved to be
nothing more than a poor Bedlam beggar, who had crept into this
deserted hovel for shelter, and with his talk about devils frighted
the fool, one of those poor lunatics who are either mad, or feign
to be so, the better to extort charity from the compassionate
country people, who go about the country, calling themselves poor
Tom and poor Turlygood, saying: "Who gives anything to poor Tom?"
sticking pins and nails and sprigs of rosemary into their arms to
make them bleed; and with such horrible actions, partly by prayers,
and partly with lunatic curses, they move or terrify the ignorant
countryfolks into giving them alms. This poor fellow was such a
one; and the king seeing him in so wretched a plight, with nothing
but a blanket about his loins to cover his nakedness, could not be
persuaded but that the fellow was some father who had given all
away to his daughters, and brought himself to that pass: for
nothing he thought could bring a man to such wretchedness but the
having unkind daughters.
And from this and many such wild speeches which he uttered,
the good Caius plainly perceived that he was not in his perfect
mind, but that his daughters' ill usage had really made him go mad.
And now the loyalty of this worthy earl of Kent showed itself in
more essential services than he had hitherto found opportunity to
perform. For with the assistance of some of the king's attendants
who remained loyal, he had the person of his royal master removed
at daybreak to the castle of Dover, where his own friends and
influence, as earl of Kent, chiefly lay; and himself embarking for
France, hastened to the court of Cordelia, and did there in such
moving terms represent the pitiful condition of her royal father,
and set out in such lively colours the inhumanity of her sisters,
that this good and loving child with many tears besought the king
her husband that he would give her leave to embark for England,
with a sufficient power to subdue these cruel daughters and their
husbands, and restore the old king her father to his throne; which
being granted, she set forth, and with a royal army landed at
Dover.
Lear having by some chance escaped from the guardians which
the good earl of Kent had put over him to take care of him in his
lunacy, was found by some of Cordelia's train, wandering about the
fields near Dover, in a pitiable condition, stark mad, and singing
aloud to himself with a crown upon his head which he had made of
straw, and nettles, and other wild weeds that he had picked up in
the corn-fields. By the advice of the physicians, Cordelia, though
earnestly desirous of seeing her father, was prevailed upon to put
off the meeting, till by sleep and the operation of herbs which
they gave him, he should be restored to greater composure. By the
aid of these skilful physicians, to whom Cordelia promised all her
gold and jewels for the recovery of the old king, Lear was soon in
a condition to see his daughter.
A tender sight it was to see the meeting between this father
and daughter; to see the struggles between the joy of this poor old
king at beholding again his once darling child, and the shame at
receiving such filial kindness from her whom he had cast off for so
small a fault in his displeasure; both these passions struggling
with the remains of his malady, which in his half-crazed brain
sometimes made him that he scarce remembered where he was, or who
it was that so kindly kissed him and spoke to him; and then he
would beg the standers-by not to laugh at him, if he were mistaken
in thinking this lady to be his daughter Cordelia! And then to see
him fall on his knees to beg pardon of his child; and she, good
lady, kneeling all the while to ask a blessing of him, and telling
him that it did not become him to kneel, but it was her duty, for
she was his child, his true and very child Cordial! and she kissed
him (as she said) to kiss away all her sisters' unkindness, and
said that they might be ashamed of themselves, to turn their old
kind father with his white beard out into the cold air, when her
enemy's dog, though it had bit her (as she prettily expressed it),
should have stayed by her fire such a night as that, and warmed
himself. And she told her father how she had come from France with
purpose to bring him assistance; and he said that she must forget
and forgive, for he was old and foolish, and did not know what he
did, but that to be sure she had great cause not to love him, but
her sisters had none. And Cordelia said that she had no cause, no
more than they had.
So we will leave this old king in the protection of his
dutiful and loving child, where, by the help of sleep and medicine,
she and her physicians at length succeeded in winding up the
untuned and jarring senses which the cruelty of his other daughters
had so violently shaken. Let us return to say a word or two about
those cruel daughters.
These monsters of ingratitude, who had been so false to their
old father, could not be expected to prove more faithful to their
own husbands. They soon grew tired of paying even the appearance of
duty and affection, and in an open way showed they had fixed their
loves upon another. It happened that the object of their guilty
loves was the same. It was Edmund, a natural son of the late earl
of Gloucester, who by his treacheries had succeeded in
disinheriting his brother Edgar, the lawful heir, from his earldom,
and by his wicked practices was now earl himself; a wicked man, and
a fit object for the love of such wicked creatures as Goneril and
Regan. It falling out about this time that the duke of Cornwall,
Regan's husband, died, Regan immediately declared her intention of
wedding this earl of Gloucester, which rousing the jealousy of her
sister, to whom as well as to Regan this wicked earl had at sundry
times professed love, Goneril found means to make away with her
sister by poison; but being detected in her practices, and
imprisoned by her husband, the duke of Albany, for this deed, and
for her guilty passion for the earl which had come to his ears,
she, in a ht of disappointed love and rage, shortly put an end to
her own life. Thus the justice of Heaven at last overtook these
wicked daughters.
While the eyes of all men were upon this event, admiring the
justice displayed in their deserved deaths, the same eyes were
suddenly taken off from this sight to admire at the mysterious ways
of the same power in the melancholy fate of the young and virtuous
daughter, the lady Cordelia, whose good deeds did seem to deserve a
more fortunate conclusion: but it is an awful truth, that innocence
and piety are not always successful in this world. The forces which
Goneril and Regan had sent out under the command of the bad earl of
Gloucester were victorious, and Cordelia, by the practices of this
wicked earl, who did not like that any should stand between him and
the throne, ended her life in prison. Thus, Heaven took this
innocent lady to itself in her young years, after showing her to
the world an illustrious example of filial duty. Lear did not long
survive this kind child.
Before he died, the good earl of Kent, who had still attended
his old master's steps from the first of his daughters' ill usage
to this sad period of his decay, tried to make him understand that
it was he who had followed him under the name of Caius; but Lear's
care-crazed brain at that time could not comprehend how that could
be, or how Kent and Caius could be the same person: so Kent thought
it needless to trouble him with explanations at such a time; and
Lear soon after expiring, this faithful servant to the king,
between age and grief for his old master's vexations, soon followed
him to the grave.
How the judgment of Heaven overtook the bad earl of
Gloucester, whose treasons were discovered, and himself slain in
single combat with his brother, the lawful earl; and how Goneril's
husband, the duke of Albany, who was innocent of the death of
Cordelia, and had never encouraged his lady in her wicked
proceedings against her father, ascended the throne of Britain
after the death of Lear, is needless here to narrate; Lear and his
Three Daughters being dead, whose adventures alone concern our
story.
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