feeble King by her beauty, and married
him for greatness while she abhorred his person (_Cymbeline_, V. v. 62
f., 31 f.); who tried to poison her step-daughter and intended to poison
her husband; who died despairing because she could not execute all the
evil she purposed; and who inspirited her husband to defy the Romans by
words that still stir the blood (_Cymbeline_, III. i. 14 f. Cf. _King
Lear_, IV. ii. 50 f.).]

[Footnote 170: I. ii. 1 f. Shakespeare seems to have in mind the idea
expressed in the speech of Ulysses about the dependence of the world on
degree, order, system, custom, and about the chaos which would result
from the free action of appetite, the 'universal wolf' (_Troilus and
Cr._ I. iii. 83 f.). Cf. the contrast between 'particular will' and 'the
moral laws of nature and of nations,' II. ii. 53, 185 ('nature' here of
course is the opposite of the 'nature' of Edmund's speech).]

[Footnote 171: The line last quoted is continued by Edmund in the Folios
thus: 'Th' hast spoken right; 'tis true,' but in the Quartos thus: 'Thou
hast spoken truth,' which leaves the line imperfect. This, and the
imperfect line 'Make instruments to plague us,' suggest that Shakespeare
wrote at first simply,

Make instruments to plague us.

_Edm._ Th' hast spoken truth.

The Quartos show other variations which seem to point to the fact that
the MS. was here difficult to make out.]

[Footnote 172: IV. i. 1-9. I am indebted here to Koppel,
_Verbesserungsvorschlaege zu den Erlaeuterungen und der Textlesung des
Lear_ (1899).]

[Footnote 173: See I. i. 142 ff. Kent speaks, not of the _injustice_ of
Lear's action, but of its 'folly,' its 'hideous rashness.' When the King
exclaims 'Kent, on thy life, no more,' he answers:

My life I never held but as a pawn
To wage against thy enemies; nor fear to lose it,
_Thy safety being the motive_.

(The first Folio omits 'a,' and in the next line reads 'nere' for 'nor.'
Perhaps the first line should read 'My life I ne'er held but as pawn to
wage.')]

[Footnote 174: See II. ii. 162 to end. The light-heartedness disappears,
of course, as Lear's misfortunes thicken.]

[Footnote 175: This difference, however, must not be pressed too far;
nor must we take Kent's retort,

Now by Apollo, king,
Thou swear'st thy gods in vain,

for a sign of disbelief. He twice speaks of the gods in another manner
(I. i.