s, still does not
disclose himself to his father. He takes the place of the aged guide and
talks with his father, who does not recognize his voice, but regards him
as a wandering madman. Gloucester avails himself of the opportunity to
deliver himself of a witticism: "'Tis the times' plague when madmen lead
the blind," and he insists on dismissing the old man, obviously not from
motives which might be natural to Gloucester at that moment, but merely
in order, when left alone with Edgar, to enact the later scene of the
imaginary leaping from the cliff.

Notwithstanding Edgar has just seen his blinded father, and has learnt
that his father repents of having banished him, he puts in utterly
unnecessary interjections which Shakespeare might know, having read them
in Haronet's book, but which Edgar had no means of becoming acquainted
with, and above all, which it was quite unnatural for him to repeat in
his present position. He says, "Five friends have been in poor Tom at
once: of lust, as Obidient; Hobbididance, prince of dumbness; Mahu, of
stealing; Modo, of murder; Flibbertigibbet, of mopping and mowing; who
since possesses chambermaids and waiting women."

Hearing these words, Gloucester makes a present of his purse to Edgar,
saying:

"That I am so 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."

Having pronounced these strange words, the blind Gloucester requests
Edgar to lead him to a certain cliff overhanging the sea, and they
depart.

The second scene of the fourth act takes place before the Duke of
Albany's palace. Goneril is not only cruel, but also depraved. She
despises her husband and discloses her love to the villain Edmund, who
has inherited the title of his father Gloucester. Edmund leaves, and a
conversation takes place between Goneril and her husband. The Duke of
Albany, the only figure with human feelings, who had already previously
been dissatisfied with his wife's treatment of her father, now
resolutely takes Lear's side, but expresses his emotion in such words as
to shake one's confidence in his feeling. He says that a bear would lick
Lear's reverence, that if the heavens do not send their visible spirits
to tame these vile offenses, humanity must prey on