This passage is odd in its collocation of the thousand noses and the
clearest gods, of grotesque absurdity and extreme seriousness. Edgar
knew that the 'fiend' was really Gloster's 'worser spirit,' and that
'the gods' were himself. Doubtless, however--for he is the most
religious person in the play--he thought that it _was_ the gods who,
through him, had preserved his father; but he knew that the truth could
only enter this superstitious mind in a superstitious form.
The combination of parallelism and contrast that we observe in Lear and
Gloster, and again in the attitude of the two brothers to their father's
superstition, is one of many indications that in _King Lear_ Shakespeare
was working more than usual on a basis of conscious and reflective
ideas. Perhaps it is not by accident, then, that he makes Edgar and Lear
preach to Gloster in precisely the same strain. Lear says to him:
If thou wilt weep my fortunes, take my eyes.
I know thee well enough; thy name is Gloster:
Thou must be patient; we came crying hither:
Thou know'st, the first time that we smell the air,
We wawl and cry. I will preach to thee: mark.
Edgar's last words to him are:
What, in ill thoughts again? Men must endure
Their going hence, even as their coming hither:
Ripeness is all.
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