Page 263 - King Lear: The Cambridge Dover Wilson Shakespeare

i8S NOTES a. 4.
30. in his haste sc. in his sweat, panf fog (Q+Camb.)
F 'painting'—misreading or misprint.
32, spite ofintermission=in spite of the Fact that he
was interrupting me.
33. on whose contents i.e. upon reading which.
whose (Q) F 'those',
39. which (F) Q (+Camb.) 'that'.
40. Displayed so 'made such an impudent exhibition
of himself (K.). 41. man see 2. 2. 118-19, n.
45-53. From F. Q om.
45. Winter's...way Wild geese fly south in autumn
and north in spring. The 'geese'=Reg. and Gon.;
'winter'=Lear's troubles; and 'fly that way'=behave
(revolt) like that; see G. 'fly', wild (F 2) F 1 'wil'd'.
47. blind sc. to the 'rags', i.e. their troubles.
48. bear bags=\ave the cash.
51. turns the key to=admits to her favours.
52. dolours Quibble on 'dollars'. 52-3, from thy
daughters (J.D.W. <Theob.; Sing. ii). F 'for thy
daughters'. This 'for' is gen. explained 'on account of;
but 'from' is so much more pointed that it surely must
be Sh.'s. The collator or F comp. may well have caught
up the 'for' from earlier in the line.
53. tell Quibbling on 'tell'=count over, to suit
•dollars'.
54. mother=hysteria. Lear begins to feel his mind
giving. 'Mother' lit.=womb (see G.) and 'hysterica
passio' lit.=suffering in the womb; the old medical
theory being that what we still call 'hysteria' was caused
by 'vapours'—the 18th cent. name. Harsnett, who
mentions 'hysterica passio' several times, writes that the
disease 'riseth...of a wind in the bottome of the belly,
and proceeding with a great swelling, causeth a very
painfull colicke in the stomack, and an extraordinary
giddines in the head' [p. 263, cited by Muir, R.E.S.
(1951), p. 14]. LI. 54-5 and 117 show us its progress.