t press'd her heart:

two or three broken ejaculations escape her lips, and she 'starts' away
'to deal with grief alone.' The same trait reappears with an ineffable
beauty in the stifled repetitions with which she attempts to answer her
father in the moment of his restoration:

_Lear._ Do not laugh at me;
For, as I am a man, I think this lady
To be my child Cordelia.

_Cor._ And so I am, I am.

_Lear._ Be your tears wet? yes, faith. I pray, weep not;
If you have poison for me, I will drink it.
I know you do not love me; for your sisters
Have, as I do remember, done me wrong:
You have some cause, they have not.

_Cor._ No cause, no cause.

We see this trait for the last time, marked by Shakespeare with a
decision clearly intentional, in her inability to answer one syllable to
the last words we hear her father speak to her:

No, no, no, no! Come, let's away to prison:
We two alone will sing like birds i' the cage:
When thou dost ask me blessing, I'll kneel down,
And ask of thee forgiveness: so we'll live,
And pray, and sing, and tell old tales, and laugh
At gilded butterflies....

She stands and weeps, and goes out with him silent. And we see her alive
no more.

But (I am forced to dwell on the point, because I am sure to slur it
over is to be false to Shakespeare) this dumbness of love was not the
sole source of misunderstanding. If this had been all, even Lear could
have seen the love in Cordelia's eyes when, to his question 'What can
you say to draw a third more opulent than your sisters?' she answered
'Nothing.' But it did not shine there. She is not merely silent, nor
does she merely answer 'Nothing.' She tells him that she loves him
'according to her bond, nor more nor less'; and his answer,

How now, Cordelia! mend your speech a little,
Lest it may mar your fortunes,

so intensifies her horror at the hypocrisy of her sisters that she
replies,

Good my Lord,
You have begot me, bred me, loved me: I
Return those duties back as are right fit,
Obey you, love you, and most honour you.
Why have my sisters husbands, if they say
They love you all? Haply, when I shall wed,
That lord whose hand must take my plight shall carry
Half