Page 54 - King Lear: The Cambridge Dover Wilson Shakespeare

INTRODUCTIO N xlix
of determinism. As an explanation of the tragic mystery,
the inadequacy of Kent's
It is the stars,
The stars above us, govern our conditions
1
is patent even in the play in which it occurs.
2
And, as Professor Danby says, 'belief or disbelief in
astrology was not in the sixteenth century definitive of
orthodoxy'. If we maintain—as I am sure we must—
that Shakespeare is not in this play conceiving of any
character as star-crossed, this does not necessarily imply
that he is in sympathy with the views of the 'new man'.
Gloucester, in a memorable passage, says—
As flies to wanton boys are we to th' gods;
They kill us for their sport. (4. 1. 36-7)
Is this the philosophy that Shakespeare wants us to take
away from the theatre when the performance is over ?
There are some who think it is. Thus Professor G. B.
3
Harrison speaks of Shakespeare transmuting 'an old
tale in which evil is punished and good restored into a
tremendous and pessimistic drama, of which Glou-
cester's words [quoted above] form the most fitting
motto'. But do they?
All the evil characters are dead before the end, and
we cannot but relate this to the exercise of divine justice.
When Albany is told of how a servant has killed Corn-
wall, he exclaims—
This shows you are above,
You justicers, that these our nether crimes
So speedily can venge! (4. 2. 78-80)
There is no ground for pessimism here.
The sufferings of Lear and Gloucester are terrible to
1
Op. cit. pp. 348-9.
a
Shakespeare's Doctrine of Nature, p. 37.
3 Shakespeare: 23 Plays and the Sonnets (1948), p. 781.