Page 307 - King Lear: The Cambridge Dover Wilson Shakespeare

232 NOTES 4.1.
growing old...by the chances and changes of this mortal
fife which make us hate it' (Muir).
17. You (F) £> (+Camb.) 'Alack sir, you'—prob.
memory of 1. 45.
19. / stumbled when I saw 'One of the central
paradoxes of the play' (Muir). Cf. 5. 3. 171-2.
20-1. Our.. .commodities. ' Prosperity makes us care-
less, and adversity ("our mere defects") proves to bean
advantage' (K.). See G. 'secure', 'means' 'mere'.
21. O F 'Oh', Q (+Camb.) 'ah'.
22. The food...wrath Cf.Z.Z.Z.4.1.92 'food for his
rage' [K.].
23. see...in my touch i.e.'hold thee in my embrace*
(K.).
25»27»37>5i» 53-. J-'s asides.
31. reason i.e. sanity.
33. a man a worm. Perh. Sh. echoes Job xxv. 6.
35. I...since. Cf. 3. 7. 87-9.
36-7. As flies...sport. See Introd. §X and 5. 3.
169-72, n.
37. kill (F) Q 'bitt'—literal misreading. How..*
&/='How can this have come about?'—a cry of
anguished astonishment. He had heard his father 'i'the
lastnight'sstorm'speakofhim(3.4.145-6, i66-7o)in
very different terms, had seen him with eyes that could
see—and now! What was the meaning of it all?
38-9. Bad...others. An apology [by Sh. to his
audience] for the strange part Edg. is now to play in
company with his,sorrowing and suffering father. Cf.
*And yet I must' (1. 53), though it is never explained
why he must, and 'O fault!' etc. (5. 3. 191). Edg.
plays fool to Glo. as the Fool himself does to Lear.
39. Ang'ring (F, Q) K.'s gloss 'distressing' is not
a sense recorded in O.E.D. after 1400. Poss. a common
error; Han.'sconj. 'Anguishing' being attractive. Note
the anguish in 11. 51-3.