I pardon that man's life. What was thy cause?
Adultery?
Thou shalt not die: die for adultery! No:
The wren goes to 't, and the small gilded fly
Does lecher in my sight.
Let copulation thrive; ...
...
Down from the waist they are Centaurs,
Though women all above;
But to the girdle do the gods inherit,
Beneath is all the fiends'; ..."
Thus Lear raves for a whole page: Shakespeare on his hobby: in the same
erotic spirit he makes both Goneril and Regan lust after Edmund.
The note of this tragedy is Shakespeare's understanding of his insane
blind trust in men; but the passion of it springs from erotic mania and
from the consciousness that he is too old for love's lists. Perhaps his
imagination never carried him higher than when Lear appeals to the
heavens because they too are old:
"... O heavens,
If you do love old men, if your sweet sway
Allow obedience, if yourselves are old,
Make it your cause."
CHAPTER XII
THE DRAMA OF DESPAIR: "TIMON OF ATHENS"
"Timon" marks the extremity of Shakespeare's suffering.
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