Page 44 - King Lear: The Cambridge Dover Wilson Shakespeare

I N T R O D U C T I O N xxxk
indicate at the outset that this is going to be so, Shake-
speare strikingly echoes near the beginning of the sub-
plot a word that has been impressively used near the
beginning of the main plot. The word 'nothing' links the
two at the start, suggesting that they are, as it were,
going to be in the same key. In Lear's interrogation of
Cordelia the word 'nothing' is emphasized unforget-
i
ably. In . 2, when Gloucester enters to the villainous
Edmund, we have this:
Gloucester. What paper were you reading?
Edmund. Nothing, my lord.
Gloucester. No? What needed then that terrible dispatch
of it into your pocket? The quality of nothing hath not
such need to hide itself. Let's see. Come, if it be nothing, I
shall not need spectacles.
Not only is this connected with I. i by means of
'nothing'. We also remember how in 1.1 Kent adjured
Lear to 'see better'. Ocular vision symbolizes moral
vision. 1 Lear and Gloucester are both, at the start,
morally and spiritually blind. Lear needs to 'see
better'; Gloucester does indeed 'need spectacles'.
The two plots reinforce each other in a remarkable
manner. Lear lacks sound judgement at the start; so
does Gloucester. Lear rejects the loving daughter and
cleaves to the false ones; Gloucester rejects the loving
son and cleaves to the false one. Both fathers bring dire
suffering on themselves through their own folly. At the
same time, both are the victims of dynamic evil, existing
outside themselves, and bringing itself to bear upon,
them. Both are assisted in their sufferings by those whom
they have wronged, Edgar being as full of loving forgive-
ness as Kent and Cordelia are. Both Lear and Glou-
cester learn wisdom through suffering, and achieve
1
See Heilman, op. cit. p. 25 and passim on 'the sight
pattern*.