Sleep
begins to come to him again, and he murmurs,
'Make no noise, make no noise; draw the curtains; so, so, so.
We'll go to supper i' the morning. So, so, so.'
At that moment Gloster enters with the news that he has discovered a
plot to kill the King; the rest that 'might yet have balm'd his broken
senses' is again interrupted; and he is hurried away on a litter towards
Dover. (His recovery, it will be remembered, is due to a long sleep
artificially induced.)]
[Footnote 161: III. iv. 49. This is printed as prose in the Globe
edition, but is surely verse. Lear has not yet spoken prose in this
scene, and his next three speeches are in verse. The next is in prose,
and, ending, in his tearing off his clothes, shows the advance of
insanity.]
[Footnote 162: [Lear's death is thus, I am reminded, like _pere_
Goriot's.] This interpretation may be condemned as fantastic, but the
text, it appears to me, will bear no other. This is the whole speech (in
the Globe text):
And my poor fool is hang'd! No, no, no life!
Why should a dog, a horse, a rat, have life,
And thou no breath at all? Thou'lt come no more,
Never, never, never, never, never!
Pray you, undo this button: thank you, sir.
Do you see this? Look on her, look, her lips,
Look there, look there!
The transition at 'Do you see this?' from despair to something more than
hope is exactly the same as in the preceding passage at the word 'Ha!':
A plague upon you, murderers, traitors all!
I might have saved her; now she's gone for ever!
Cordelia, Cordelia, stay a little.
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