Page 311 - King Lear: The Cambridge Dover Wilson Shakespeare

236 NOTES 4.2.
15. May prove effects=will perhaps be realized.
brother i.e. brother-in-law.
17. arms (Q +Camb.) F'names'. I.e. she will lead
the army, taking 'cowish' Alb.'s sword. K. cites Cymb.
5. 3. 33-4, 'which could have turned a distaff to a
lance', and Wint. I. 2. 37 where the distaffis a woman's
weapon. Budd (R.E.S. xi, 427) shows too thatthe Host's
complaint about his quarrelsome wife in Chaucer's
Pro/, to Monk's Tale (11.13-24) was prob. in Sh.'s mind
here; as was the Monk's Tale at 3. 6. 6-7 (see n.).
20. F's brackets indicate a significant change of
voice, Gon. 'is presumably going to ask Edm. to
murder Alb.' (Muir), and then to marry her. Q om.
21. mistress's=(a) liege lady's, (b) lady-love's. S.D.
(J. at end of line).
27. due Emphatic. Antithetical to'usurps'in 1. 28.
28. A...bed. (G.I.D. <Qcorr.) Q uncorr.'My
foote vsurps my body.', F 'My Foole vsurpes my body.'
F here depends on Q uncorr., edited. The editor altered
'foote' correctly; but reconsidering the 1949 reading,
G.I.D. now thinks that he should have also altered' My'
to 'A' and 'body' to 'bed'. In Variants (pp. 169-72)
Greg makes out a strong case for' bed' as against' body'.
On the other hand 'A fool' seems to us more likely to
be Sh.'s than 'My fool'—in Gon.'s eyes, Alb. is just 'a
fool' who has no business to be sharing her bed; and
nothing is easier than to suppose that the original Q' My'
was an accidental anticipation of the 'my' three words
ahead. Cf. A.W. p. 57.
S.D. (i) <Q'ExitStew.'. Fom. S.D.(ii)(F) Qom.
Presumably F comp. took Q editor's addition for a
substitution.
29. I...whistling. Alb. had not come to meet her'on
the way' (11. 1-2), and now comes belatedly. She says,
in effect,' Here have I been whistling for you, but there
was a time when you thought me worth whistling for.'