Page 338 - King Lear: The Cambridge Dover Wilson Shakespeare

5-3. NOTE S 263
hearpoorrogues (<Q) F 'heere (poore Rogues)', poor
rogues i.e. visitors, who are interested in such things,
poor wretches. 15. in sc. office.
16. take upon 's=pretend to understand. A playful
hit at the 'philosophers' he had thought so much of
when mad.
17. As.. .spies='as if we were angels commissioned
to survey and report the lives of men' (J.). Cf. Ham. 4.
3.47,11. God's Q,F'Gods'. To read 'Gods", because
Sh. 'was writing of a pagan world' (Perrett), is surely
pedantry. Cf. Introd. p. xxii. wear out see G.
18. packs see G.
19. That...moon. Cf. M.N.D. 2. r. 103, 'the moon,
the governess of floods' and Rom. 2. 2. 109, 'th'in-
constant moon', by th'moon every month.
20. such sacrifices The speech represents the last
stage of Lear's process of redemption, viz. a joyful and
'serene renunciation of the world with its power and
glory and resentments and revenges'; and it is upon
such a renunciation the gods themselves throw incense—•
the message of the gospel itself. [See Bradley, pp. 285,
289-90]. R. W. Chambers cites Wisdom (in Apo-
crypha), iii. 6: 'As gold in the furnace hath he tried
them, and received them as a burnt offering.'
21. Have...thee? Intended to recall'Have I caught
my heavenly Jewel?' from Sidney, J strophe IandStella
(2nd song, 1. 1)—used in a very different context at
M.W.W. 3. 3. 40 [Mai.]. 22. shall =mast.
23. like foxes sc. 'are driven from their holes' (K.).
The brand must be brought from heaven; only by
Heaven can they be separated now.
24-5. The good-years...weep The gen. sense is that
Lear and Cord, cannot be made to weep by Gon. and
Reg., however much the latter prolong their wretched
lives.
24. good-years F 'good yeares'. Origin disputed—
N.S.K.L.-18