is asleep on a bed. Cordelia enters with Kent, still in disguise. Lear is awakened by music and, seeing Cordelia, does not believe she is alive but thinks her an apparition, and does not believe that he is himself alive. Cordelia assures him that she is his daughter, and begs him to bless her. He goes on his knees before her, begs forgiveness, admits himself to be old and foolish, and says he is ready to take poison, which he thinks she probably has prepared for him, as he is persuaded that she must hate him.

For your sisters Have, as I do remember, done me wrong; You have some cause, they have not.

Then little by little he comes to his senses and ceases to rave. His daughter suggests that he should take a little walk. He consents and says:

You must bear with me: Pray you now, forget and forgive: I am old and foolish.

They go off. The gentleman and Kent, who remain on the scene, talk in order to explain to the audience that Edmund is at the head of the forces and that a battle must soon begin between Lear’s defenders and his enemies. So Act IV ends.

In this Fourth Act the scene between Lear and his daughter might have been touching had it not been preceded in three previous acts by the tedious monotonous ravings of Lear, and also had it been the final scene expressing his feelings, but it is not the last.

In Act V Lear’s former cold pompous artificial ravings are repeated, destroying the impression the preceding scene might have produced.