Requital, redemption,
amends, equity, explanation, pity and mercy, are words without a meaning
here.
As flies to wanton boys are we to the gods;
They kill us for their sport.
Here is no need of the Eumenides, children of Night everlasting; for
here is very Night herself.
'The words just cited are not casual or episodical; they strike the
keynote of the whole poem, lay the keystone of the whole arch of
thought. There is no contest of conflicting forces, no judgment so much
as by casting of lots: far less is there any light of heavenly harmony
or of heavenly wisdom, of Apollo or Athene from above. We have heard
much and often from theologians of the light of revelation: and some
such thing indeed we find in Aeschylus; but the darkness of revelation
is here.'[154]
It is hard to refuse assent to these eloquent words, for they express in
the language of a poet what we feel at times in reading _King Lear_ but
cannot express. But do they represent the total and final impression
produced by the play? If they do, this impression, so far as the
substance of the drama is concerned (and nothing else is in question
here), must, it would seem, be one composed almost wholly of painful
feelings,--utter depression, or indignant rebellion, or appalled
despair.
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