found in souls like Edgar’s, naturally buoyant and also religious. It may even be characteristic of him that, when Lear is sinking down in death, he tries to rouse him and bring him back to life. ‘Look up, my lord!’ he cries. It is Kent who feels that
That would upon the rack of this tough world
Stretch him out longer.
Kent is one of the best-loved characters in Shakespeare. He is beloved for his own sake, and also for the sake of Cordelia and of Lear. We are grateful to him because he stands up for Cordelia, and because, when she is out of sight, he constantly keeps her in our minds. And how well these two love each other we see when they meet. Yet it is not Cordelia who is dearest to Kent. His love for Lear is the passion of his life: it is his life. At the beginning he braves Lear’s wrath even more for Lear’s sake than Cordelia’s.[1] At the end he seems to realise Cordelia’s death only as it is reflected in Lear’s agony. Nor does he merely love his master passionately, as Cordelia loves her father. That word ‘master,’ and Kent’s appeal to the ‘authority’ he saw in the old King’s face, are significant. He belongs to Lear, body and soul, as a dog does to his master and god. The King is not to him old, wayward, unreasonable, piteous: he is still terrible, grand, the king of men. Through his eyes we see the Lear of Lear’s prime, whom Cordelia never saw. Kent never forgets this Lear. In the Storm-scenes, even after the King becomes insane, Kent never addresses
- ↑ See I. i. 142 ff. Kent speaks, not of the justice of Lear’s action, but of its ‘folly,’ its ‘hideous rashness.’ When the King exclaims ‘Kent, on thy life, no more,’ he answers:
My life I never held but as a pawn
To wage against thy enemies; nor fear to lose it,
Thy safety being the motive.(The first Folio omits ‘a,’ and in the next line reads ‘nere’ for ‘nor.’ Perhaps the first line should read ‘My life I ne’er held but as pawn to wage.’)
