[Footnote 165: The passages are here printed together (III. iv. 28 ff.
and IV. i. 67 ff.):

_Lear._ Poor naked wretches, wheresoe'er you are,
That bide the pelting of this pitiless storm,
How shall your houseless heads and unfed sides,
Your loop'd and window'd raggedness, defend you
From seasons such as these? O, I have ta'en
Too little care of this! Take physic, pomp;
Expose thyself to feel what wretches feel,
That thou mayst shake the superflux to them,
And show the heavens just.

_Glo._ Here, take this purse, thou whom the heavens' plagues
Have humbled to all strokes: that I am wretched
Makes thee the happier: heavens, deal so still!
Let the superfluous and lust-dieted man,
That slaves your ordinance, that will not see
Because he doth not feel, feel your power quickly;
So distribution should undo excess,
And each man have enough.]

[Footnote 166: Schmidt's idea--based partly on the omission from the
Folios at I. ii. 103 (see Furness' Variorum) of the words 'To his father
that so tenderly and entirely loves him'--that Gloster loved neither of
his sons, is surely an entire mistake. See, not to speak of general
impressions, III. iv. 171 ff.]

[Footnote 167: Imagination demands for Lear, even more than for Othello,
majesty of stature and mien. Tourgenief felt this and made his 'Lear of
the Steppes' a _gigantic_ peasant. If Shakespeare's texts give no
express authority for ideas like these, the reason probably is that he
wrote primarily for the theatre, where the principal actor might not be
a large man.]

[Footnote 168: He is not present, of course, till France and Burgundy
enter; but while he is present he says not a word beyond 'Here's France
and Burgundy, my noble lord.' For some remarks on the possibility that
Shakespeare imagined him as having encouraged Lear in his idea of
dividing the kingdom see Note T. It must be remembered that Cornwall was
Gloster's 'arch and patron.']

[Footnote 169: In this she stands alone among the more notable
characters of the play. Doubtless Regan's exclamation 'O the blest gods'
means nothing, but the fact that it is given to her means something. For
some further remarks on Goneril see Note T. I may add that touches of
Goneril reappear in the heroine of the next tragedy, _Macbeth_; and that
we are sometimes reminded of her again by the character of the Queen in
_Cymbeline_, who bewitched the