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Pantingly forth, as if it press'd her heart;

Cried, Sisters! sisters!-Shame of ladies! sisters ! Kent! father! sisters! What? i' the storm? i' the night?

Let pity not be believed!
The holy water from her
And clamour moisten'd:
To deal with grief alone.

There she shook heavenly eyes,

then away she started

It is the stars,

KENT. The stars above us, govern our conditions;' Else one self mate and mate could not beget Such different issues. You spoke not with her since?

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Let pity not be believed!] i. e. Let not such a thing as pity be supposed to exist! Thus the old copies; but the modern editors have hitherto read

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And clamour moisten'd:] It is not impossible but Shakspeare might have formed this fine picture of Cordelia's agony from holy writ, in the conduct of Joseph; who, being no longer able to restrain the vehemence of his affection, commanded all his retinue from his presence; and then wept aloud, and discovered himself to his brethren. THEOBALD.

clamour moisten'd:] That is, her out-cries were accompanied with tears. JOHNSON.

The old copies read-And clamour moisten'd her. I have no doubt that the word her was inserted by the compositor's eye glancing on the middle of the preceding line, where that word occurs; and therefore have omitted it. It may be observed that the metre is complete without this word. A similar error has happened in The Winter's Tale. See Vol. IX. p. 392, n. 2. She moisten'd clamour, or the exclamations she had uttered, with tears. This is perfectly intelligible; but clamour moisten'd her, is certainly nonsense. MALONE.

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govern our conditions ;] i. e. regulate our dispositions. See Vol. XII. p. 521, n. 7. MALONE.

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one self mate and mate-] The same husband and the same wife. JOHNSON.

Self is used here, as in many other places in these plays, for self-same. MALONE,

GENT. No.

KENT. Was this before the king return'd?

GENT.

No, since.

KENT. Well, sir; The poor distress'd Lear is i'the town:

Who sometime, in his better tune, remembers
What we are come about, and by no means
Will yield to see his daughter.

GENT.

Why, good sir?

KENT. A Sovereign shame so elbows him: his own unkindness,

That stripp'd her from his benediction, turn'd her To foreign casualties, gave her dear rights

To his dog-hearted daughters,-these things sting His mind so venomously, that burning shame' Detains him from Cordelia.

GENT.

Alack, poor gentleman! KENT. Of Albany's and Cornwall's powers you heard not?

GENT. 'Tis so; they are afoot.s

KENT. Well, sir, I'll bring you to our master Lear, And leave you to attend him: some dear cause

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- these things sting

The

His mind so venomously, that burning shame-] metaphor is here preserved with great knowledge of nature. The venom of poisonous animals being a high caustick salt, that has all the effect of fire upon the part. WARBURTON.

'Tis so; they are afoot.] Dr. Warburton thinks it necessary to read, 'tis said; but the sense is plain, So it is that they are on foot. JOHNSON.

'Tis so, means, I think, I have heard of them; they do not exist in report only; they are actually on foot. MALONE.

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some dear cause-] Timon of Athens, Act V. sc. ii.

Some important business. See
MALONE.

Will in concealment wrap me up awhile;
When I am known aright, you shall not grieve
Lending me this acquaintance. I pray you, go
Along with me.]

[Exeunt.

SCENE IV.

The same. A Tent.

Enter CORDELIA, Physician, and Soldiers.

COR. Alack, 'tis he; why, he was met even now As mad as the vex'd sea: singing aloud; Crown'd with rank fumiter,' and furrow weeds, With harlocks, hemlock, nettles, cuckoo-flowers, Darnel, and all the idle weeds that grow

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So, in Romeo and Juliet

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:

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a ring, that I must use

"In dear employment." STEEVENS.

-fumiter,] i. e. fumitory: by the old herbalists written fumittery. HARRIS.

2 With harlocks, hemlock, &c.] The quartos read-With hordocks; the folio-With hardokes. MALONE.

I do not remember any such plant as a hardock, but one of the most common weeds is a burdock, which I believe should be read here; and so Hanmer reads. JOHNSON.

Hardocks should be harlocks. Thus Drayton, in one of his Eclogues:

"The honey-suckle, the harlocke,

"The lilly, and the lady-smocke," &c. FARMER.

One of the readings offered by the quartos (though misspelt) is perhaps the true one. The hoar-dock, is the dock with whitish woolly leaves. STEEVEens.

3 Darnel,] According to Gerard, is the most hurtful of weeds among corn. It is mentioned in The Witches of Lancashire, 1634:

In our sustaining corn.-A century send forth;
Search every acre in the high-grown field,
And bring him to our eye. [Exit an Officer.]-
What can man's wisdom do,3

In the restoring his bereaved sense?

He, that helps him, take all my outward worth. PHY. There is means, madam:

Our foster-nurse of nature is repose,

The which he lacks; that to provoke in him,
Are many simples operative, whose power
Will close the eye of anguish.

COR.

All bless'd secrets,

All you unpublish'd virtues of the earth,

Spring with my tears! be aidant, and remediate, In the good man's distress!-Seek, seek for him; Lest his ungovern'd rage dissolve the life

That wants the means to lead it.*

MESS.

Enter a Messenger.

Madam, news;

The British powers are marching hitherward.

COR. 'Tis known before; our preparation stands In expectation of them.-O dear father,

It is thy business that I go about;

Therefore great France

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"That cockle, darnel, poppy wild,

May choak his grain," &c.

See Vol. XIII. p. 99, n. 4. STEEVENS.

What can man's wisdom do,] Do should be omitted as needless to the sense of the passage, and injurious to its metre. Thus, in Hamlet:

"Try what repentance can: What can it not?” Do, in either place, is understood, though suppressed.

STEEVENS.

the means to lead it.] The reason which should guide

it. JOHNSON.

My mourning, and important tears, hath pitied. No blown ambition doth our arms incite,

But love, dear love, and our ag'd father's right: Soon may I hear, and see him!

[Exeunt.

SCENE V.

A Room in Gloster's Castle.

Enter REGAN and Steward.

REG. But are my brother's powers set forth?

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Your sister is the better soldier.

REG. Lord Edmund spake not with your lord" at home?

important-] In other places of this author, for importunate. JOHNSON.

See Comedy of Errors, Act V. sc. i. The folio reads, importuned. STEEvens.

• No blown ambition-] No inflated, no swelling pride. Beza on the Spanish Armada:

"Quam bene te ambitio mersit vanissima, ventus,
"Et tumidos tumidæ vos superastis aquæ.'

JOHNSON.

In the Mad Lover of Beaumont and Fletcher, the same epithet is given to ambition.

Again, in The Little French Lawyer:

"I come with no blown spirit to abuse you." STEEVens. 7 — your lord-] The folio reads, your lord; and rightly. Goneril not only converses with Lord Edmund, in the Steward's

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