Page 275 - King Lear: The Cambridge Dover Wilson Shakespeare

2oo NOTES 3.2.
love is like a great natural (=fool) that runs lolling up
and down to hide his bauble in a hole' and (for the
traditional fool) Douce, Illustrations (1839 ed.), p. 509,
'The form of it...in some instances was obscene in
the highest degree', and Chambers Med. Stage, 1,
196-7 (footnote), .388. Thus paraphrased the lines
mean 'Even a poor fool like me is not so foolish as
to rush into marriage before he has a house to take a
wife to: that way lies lousy beggary.' house Equivocal.
so beggars...many—many beggars marry after this
fashion.
31-4. The man...wake The first quatrain speaks of
the foolish improvidence which even fools avoid: the
second of that which Lear has committed. An adaptation
of the proverb 'set not at thy heart what should be at thy
'
heel' (see Tilley, H 317), it may be paraphrased The
man who takes to his heart base creatures like Gon. and
Reg. who scorn him, and spurns those who love him like
Cord., will suffer such heartache (as if his heart had
grown the corn that belongs to his toe) that he cannot
sleep at night'.
3 5-6. For there.-..glass. And no marvel if Gon. and
Reg. despise him, for all pretty women practise grimaces
in their glass. He uses 'make mouths' in both literal and
fig. senses; see G. 'make'. Perhaps the idea of a
looking-glass came to Sh. here because (as Steev.
noted), in 1.37, he had in mind Leir, 755-6: see next n.
S.D. (F).
37-8. No...no thing Cf. Leir, 755, 'But he the
mirror of mild patience, | Puts up all wrongs, and never
gives reply'—noted by Greg, Lib. p. 388.
40-1. here's...fool 'grace' is of course Lear and 'a
codpiece' the Fool himself, who then with a motion of the
hand reverses the roles by pointing to himself as the 'wise
man' and to Lear as the fool.
41. S.D.(J.D.W.).