And if I am told that he has
suffered too much for this, how can I possibly believe it with these
words ringing in my ears:
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?
And again when Schlegel declares that, if Lear were saved, 'the whole'
would 'lose its significance,' because it would no longer show us that
the belief in Providence 'requires a wider range than the dark
pilgrimage on earth to be established in its whole extent,' I answer
that, if the drama does show us that, it takes us beyond the strictly
tragic point of view.[131]
A dramatic mistake in regard to the catastrophe, however, even supposing
it to exist, would not seriously affect the whole play. The principal
structural weakness of _King Lear_ lies elsewhere. It is felt to some
extent in the earlier Acts, but still more (as from our study of
Shakespeare's technique we have learnt to expect) in the Fourth and the
first part of the Fifth. And it arises chiefly from the double action,
which is a peculiarity of _King Lear_ among the tragedies.
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