Page 350 - King Lear: The Cambridge Dover Wilson Shakespeare

5.3. NOTES 275
vesture of decay' (M.F. 5. i. 64.). And Kent, I think,
loosens the button—his last service.
310-11. Do. ..there! Lear dies of joy, being 'sure,
at last, that she lives' (Bradley, p. 291). Cf. Glo.'s
death (11. 195-8 above). 'But his flawed heart | (Alack,
too weak the conflict to support) 'Twixt two extremes
of passion, joy and grief, | Burst smilingly.' The parallel
is exact, and both, as R. W. Chambers notes {KingLear,
1940, pp. 44-5), owe something to Sidney's account of
the death of the old blind king in Arcadia, 1590 (ed
Feuillerat, p. 212):
In which season the blind king...with many teares (both of
joy and sorrow)...even in a moment died as it should seeme:
his hart broken with unkindness & affliction, stretched so
farre beyond his [=its] limits with this excess of comfort,
as it was able no longer to keep safe his [=its] roial spirits.
311. Here F. gives the S.D. 'He dis.\ But this
'prob. comes a few lines too soon' (Bradley, p. 292, n.),
and Edg.'s 'He is gone indeed' was, I think, intended
to mark the moment, though the audience cd prob. see
no difference between fainting and dying.
312. Break...break 'It is of himself he is speaking
perhaps' (Bradley, p. 309). Cf. 11. 215, 234 above
and nn. But at this point is not Rent's whole soul intent
upon Lear?
314-15. upon the rack...Stretch Cf. the like image
in Arcadia cited at 11. 310-11, n.
314. rack (F4+Camb.) Q, F 1 'wracke'. tough
(Q, F) = 'obdurate, rigid' (Steev.); Pope+J. 'rough'—
perh. rightly, confusion of r and / being very common
in 16th and 17th cent, books.
315. S.D. (J.D.W.) Cf.l.3ii,S.D.n.
317. usurped see G. Bear...hence. Here Sh. had no
curtain (as he had in Oth.) to hide the dead at the end of
the play. Cf. 2, 3. S.D. (head) n., Greg R.E.S. xvi,
300-3; and Ham. 5. 2. 393-8, n.