Page 55 - King Lear: The Cambridge Dover Wilson Shakespeare

1 KIN G LEA R
behold. But before we are tempted on this score to speak
of pessimistic tragedy we should do well to remember
two things. First: their sufferings are to some extent,
though certainly not entirely, brought about through
their own errors, so that the conception of divine justice
is valid here also—
The gods are just, and of our pleasant vices
Make instruments to plague us. (5. 3. 169-70)
It is true that here the 'just' dealings of the gods make us
more uneasy than does their treatment of the villains. If
admittedly it was 'the dark and vicious place' where
Gloucester begot Edmund that 'cost him his eyes',
there is much more to be said. Gloucester has to suffer
beyond his deserts, as has Lear—a common enough
phenomenon amongst humanity: we sow the wind and
reap the whirlwind. But, if tempted by the appalling
sufferings of Lear and Gloucester to regard this as a
'pessimistic' drama, we must bear in mind a second
point. The gods are merciful. If, after all their agony,
Lear and Gloucester died uneducated, unregenerate,
then we should indeed have to speak of pessimism. But
both, as they die, are wise, and redeemed. 'Nothing is
here for tears'—unless we weep for the means that
conduce to the end, for the dreadful cost of the salutary
outcome. We must do so; and the conclusion of the play
has indeed a sober colouring. Yet the unassailable fact
remains that the gods, in benignity, permit Lear and
Gloucester to die in a state of spiritual health. Their
sufferings are redemptive. There is no ultimate ground
for pessimism here.
But what of the death of Cordelia ? It troubles us all,
as it troubled Dr Johnson who, in a well-known passage,
1
declared —
1
See Walter Raleigh, Johnson on Shakespeare (1908);
1931 impression, pp. 161-2.