KING LEAR. 43

sent messengers at once, it was too late. The old King came staggering
into the tent of the Duke of Albany, carrying the hody of his dear
daughter Cordelia in his arms.

“Oh, she is gone for ever,” he said. “ I know when one is dead, and
when one lives. She’s dead as earth.”

They crowded round in horror.

“Oh, if she lives,” said the King, “it is a chance that does redeem
all sorrows that ever I have felt.”

The Earl of Kent spoke a word to him, but Lear was too mad to
listen.

“A plague upon you, murderous traitors all! I might have saved her.
Now she is gone for ever. Cordelia, Cordelia, stay a little. Her voice
was ever lo gentle, and soft—an excellent thing in woman. I killed
the slave that was a-hanging thee.”

“Tis true, my lords, he did,” said one of the ofticers from the
eastle. ;
“Oh, thou wilt come no more,” cried the poor old man. “Do you
see this? Look on her—look, her lips) Look there, look there.”

And with that he fell with her still in his arms, and died.

And this was the end of Lear and Cordelia.