Page 349 - King Lear: The Cambridge Dover Wilson Shakespeare

274 NOTES 5.3.
hither Polite indifference. You are (Q 2, F 2—Camb.)
Q i 'You'r',Fi 'Your are'.
290. Nor...else 'Welcome! alas here's no welcome
for me or anyone' (Cap. Notes). Some take it as a
continuation of Kent's last words, i.e. no one else
followed you. This ignores the Fool and is too self-
assertive for Kent.
292. desperately=from despair.
294. S.D. (<Q) cf.l.250. F'Enter a Messenger*.
'Messenger' (theatr.) =super.
295. sp.-hdg. F 'Mess.', Q 'Capt.\
296. know our intent The play ends as it began, with
resignation of the throne—but of a very different sort.
Cf. 1. 1. 33 ff.
297. this great decay Lear. Q£.Ant. 3.10.19, 'the
noble ruin'.
300. S.D. (Mai.) Q,Fom. to you (Pope; J.D.W.)
F, Q 'you to' a common error. Most edd. 'you, to'.
301. addition see G.
304. O see, see! Lear has taken 'her broken body in
his arms again' (G.-B. p. 185).
305. my poor fool i.e. Cord. 'Fool' was often a term
of compassionate endearment. But poss. the words were
'intended to show a confused association in Lear's mind
between his child and the Fool who loved her (as a
very old man may confuse two of his children)'
(Bradley, p. 314). But surely the Fool, like Kent, is
forgotten.
308. Never Five times in F; 'to make a verse out of
this one word required the boldness as well as the in-
spiration which came infallibly to Sh. at the greatest
moments' (Bradley, p. 293).
309. this button A button at Lear's throat, he feeling
suffocated. See Introd. p.xxxviii.This feeling of suffoca-
tion shd prob. be associated with Kent's 'O, let him
pass!'—viz. his spirit struggling to leave its 'muddy