d period will be throughly wrought
Or well or ill, as this day's battle's fought.

His heart is ready to break when he falls with his strong arms about
Edgar's neck; bellows out as he'd burst heaven (how like him!);

threw him on my father,
Told the most piteous tale of Lear and him
That ever ear received; which in recounting
His grief grew puissant, and the strings of life
Began to crack. Twice then the trumpet sounded,
And there I left him tranced;

and a little after, when he enters, we hear the sound of death in his
voice:

I am come
To bid my king and master aye goodnight.

This desire possesses him wholly. When the bodies of Goneril and Regan
are brought in he asks merely, 'Alack, why thus?' How can he care? He is
waiting for one thing alone. He cannot but yearn for recognition, cannot
but beg for it even when Lear is bending over the body of Cordelia; and
even in that scene of unmatched pathos we feel a sharp pang at his
failure to receive it. It is of himself he is speaking, perhaps, when he
murmurs, as his master dies, 'Break, heart, I prithee, break!' He puts
aside Albany's invitation to take part in the government; his task is
over:

I have a journey, sir, shortly to go:
My master calls me; I must not say no.

Kent in his devotion, his self-effacement, his cheerful stoicism, his
desire to follow his dead lord, has been well likened to Horatio. But
Horatio is not old; nor is he hot-headed; and though he is stoical he is
also religious. Kent, as compared with him and with Edgar, is not so. He
has not Edgar's ever-present faith in the 'clearest gods.' He refers to
them, in fact, less often than to fortune or the stars. He lives mainly
by the love in his own heart.[175]

* * * * *

The theatrical fool or clown (we need not distinguish them here) was a
sore trial to the cultured poet and spectator in Shakespeare's day. He
came down from the Morality plays, and was beloved of the groundlings.
His antics, his songs, his dances, his jests, too often unclean,
delighted them, and did something to make the drama, what the vulgar,
poor or rich, like it to be, a variety entertainment. Even if he
confined himself to what was set down for him, he often disturbed the
dramatic unity of the piece; and the temptation to 'gag' was too strong
for him to resist. Shakespeare makes Hamlet object to i