Part 44 (2/2)

That sir which serves and seeks for gain, And follows but for form, Will pack when it begins to rain, And leave thee in the storm.

But I will tarry; the fool will stay, And let the wise man fly: The knave turns fool that runs away; The fool no knave, perdy.

The last two lines have caused difficulty. Johnson wanted to read,

The fool turns knave that runs away, The knave no fool, perdy;

_i.e._ if I ran away, I should prove myself to be a knave and a wise man, but, being a fool, I stay, as no knave or wise man would. Those who rightly defend the existing reading misunderstand it, I think.

Shakespeare is not pointing out, in 'The knave turns fool that runs away,' that the wise knave who runs away is really a 'fool with a circ.u.mbendibus,' 'moral miscalculator as well as moral coward.' The Fool is referring to his own words, 'I would have none but knaves follow [my advice to desert the King], since a fool gives it'; and the last two lines of his song mean, 'The knave who runs away follows the advice given by a fool; but I, the fool, shall not follow my own advice by turning knave.'

For the ideas compare the striking pa.s.sage in _Timon_, I. i. 64 ff.

3. '_Decline your head._'

At IV. ii. 18 Goneril, dismissing Edmund in the presence of Oswald, says:

This trusty servant Shall pa.s.s between us: ere long you are like to hear, If you dare venture in your own behalf, A mistress's command. Wear this; spare speech; Decline your head: this kiss, if it durst speak, Would stretch thy spirits up into the air.

I copy Furness's note on 'Decline': 'STEEVENS thinks that Goneril bids Edmund decline his head that she might, while giving him a kiss, appear to Oswald merely to be whispering to him. But this, WRIGHT says, is giving Goneril credit for too much delicacy, and Oswald was a ”serviceable villain.” DELIUS suggests that perhaps she wishes to put a chain around his neck.'

Surely 'Decline your head' is connected, not with 'Wear this' (whatever 'this' may be), but with 'this kiss,' etc. Edmund is a good deal taller than Goneril, and must stoop to be kissed.

4. _Self-cover'd_.

At IV. ii. 59 Albany, horrified at the pa.s.sions of anger, hate, and contempt expressed in his wife's face, breaks out:

See thyself, devil!

Proper deformity seems not in the fiend So horrid as in woman.

_Gon._ O vain fool!

_Alb._ Thou changed and self-cover'd thing, for shame, Be-monster not thy feature. Were't my fitness To let these hands obey my blood, They are apt enough to dislocate and tear Thy flesh and bones: howe'er thou art a fiend, A woman's shape doth s.h.i.+eld thee.

The pa.s.sage has been much discussed, mainly because of the strange expression 'self-cover'd,' for which of course emendations have been proposed. The general meaning is clear. Albany tells his wife that she is a devil in a woman's shape, and warns her not to cast off that shape by be-monstering her feature (appearance), since it is this shape alone that protects her from his wrath. Almost all commentators go astray because they imagine that, in the words 'thou changed and self-cover'd thing,' Albany is speaking to Goneril as a _woman_ who has been changed into a fiend. Really he is addressing her as a fiend which has changed its own shape and a.s.sumed that of a woman; and I suggest that 'self-cover'd' means either 'which hast covered or concealed thyself,'

or 'whose self is covered' [so Craig in Arden edition], not (what of course it ought to mean) 'which hast been covered _by_ thyself.'

Possibly the last lines of this pa.s.sage (which does not appear in the Folios) should be arranged thus:

To let these hands obey my blood, they're apt enough To dislocate and tear thy flesh and bones: Howe'er thou art a fiend, a woman's shape Doth s.h.i.+eld thee.

_Gon._ Marry, your manhood now--

_Alb._ What news?

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