ii.
79 ff., is spurious. (1) The scene ends characteristically without the
lines. (2) They are addressed directly to the audience. (3) They destroy
the pathetic and beautiful effect of the immediately preceding words of
the Fool, and also of Lear's solicitude for him. (4) They involve the
absurdity that the shivering timid Fool would allow his master and
protector, Lear and Kent, to go away into the storm and darkness,
leaving him alone. (5) It is also somewhat against them that they do not
appear in the Quartos. At the same time I do not think one would
hesitate to accept them if they occurred at any natural place _within_
the dialogue.
(_c_) On the other hand I see no sufficient reason for doubting the
genuineness of Edgar's soliloquy at the end of III. vi. (1) Those who
doubt it appear not to perceive that _some_ words of soliloquy are
wanted; for it is evidently intended that, when Kent and Gloster bear
the King away, they should leave the Bedlam behind. Naturally they do
so. He is only accidentally connected with the King; he was taken to
shelter with him merely to gratify his whim, and as the King is now
asleep there is no occasion to retain the Bedlam; Kent, we know, shrank
from him, 'shunn'd [his] abhorr'd society' (V. iii. 210). So he is left
to return to the hovel where he was first found.
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