Page 213 - King Lear: The Cambridge Dover Wilson Shakespeare

138 T H E COPY FOR
F Either his Notion weakens, his Discernings
Are Lethargied. Hat Waking? 'Tisnotso?
Who is it that can tell me who I am?
Foole. Lears shadow.
Lear. Your name, faire Gentlewoman?
Miss Walker is certainly right in accepting the Q i
passage which F, no doubt accidentally, omits. She is
also right, I am now sure, in supposing that the Lear
speech which F omits is in verse—though whether the
1
two 'of V she inserts are desirable is a matter of opinion.
I cannot, however, agree with the text she proposes for
the passage 'Either...am?'. My view of this passage
is still that which is stated in my 1949 edition, pp. 3 2-4.
Miss Walker, I think rightly, regards 'Lears shadow'
as extra metrum. I take it, then, that she is suggesting for
Lear a pentameter running—
Who I am? I would learne that, for by the markes.
This can be scanned, in more than one way. But I can
scan it in no way that seems to me convincingly Shake-
spearian;* whereas F gives a pentameter that sounds
absolutely right:
Who is it that can tell me who I am?
I feel sure that in accepting Q i ' s 'sleeping, or wakeing'
Miss Walker is accepting a memorial corruption—cf.
3.6.41 ('Sleepest or wakestthou, jolly shepherd?'). In
accepting Q i ' s 'sure' she is, I think, accepting one
of those gratuitously inserted actors' ejaculations, re-
called from performances by reporters, which are not
1
See my note ad loc.
* On the other hand 'I would...markes' can be con-
vincingly scanned—
I would iearne that, | for by the markes.
The succession of single strong syllables is dramatically
effective in the context.