Page 296 - King Lear: The Cambridge Dover Wilson Shakespeare

3.6. NOTES 221
took from Chaucer, Monk's Tale, 11. 485-6. Cf. 4. 2.
18, n.
7. innocent see G. Addressed to Fool.
12-14. No...before him. From F. Q om.
12. /o=as.
13-14. /or he's., .before him. In that age of a rigid
hierarchy of rank, it wd be exceedingly awkward, even
disagreeable, for a son to become a gentleman first.
Through the grant in 1596 of a coat of arms to John
Shakespeare, yeoman, both he and his son William
became gentlemen together. The Fool is as usual
glancing at Lear who should be superior in rank and
power to his daughters, but has become inferior to them
as a result of his own mad folly.
15-16. To have...'em Prompted by Edg.'s ref. to
'the lake of darkness', Lear sees Gon. and Reg. given
over to the torments of Hell. Muir cites from Harsnett,
pp. 93-4, a similar account of the Furies in Hell.
[£.£.£. (1951), p. 19.]
17-55. The foul Jiend...let her scape? From Q.
F om.
17. bites tny back. Cf. 3. 4. 159 'to kill vermin'
[K.].
19. a horse's health 'A horse is above all other
animals subject to diseases' (J.). Cf. Shr. 1. 2. 79-80;
3. 2. 49-55. Muir suggests: what a horse-dealer says
about it when trying to sell you the animal. Warb. read
'a horse's heels' and Ritson cited Ray's 'Trust not a
horse's heel nor a dog's tooth'. Cf. Tilley, H 7.
21. S.D. (Cap.) Q, F om. justicer (Theob.) Q
'Iustice'. Emendation metrically desirable. Cf. 1. 55;
4. 2. 79, and Greg, Variants, p. 175.
22. S.D. (Cap.) Q,Fom. Nozo(<Q2) Q 1 'no'.
23. he an imaginary fiend. Want'st (<Q 2) Q 1
*wanst\ trial (<Q,2) Q l 'tral\ Want'St...trials
'Do you wish for spectators at your trial ? If so, there's a