Just Enough
Edward Matthew Ward, King Lear and Cordelia, 1857
I just finished rereading, for the umpteenth time, the incomparable King Lear, by William Shakespeare, a play first performed in 1606, written by one of the greatest writers in the English language. I returned to this amazing play because someone alerted me there is wise counsel here on how we might grow older gracefully. I know I need help.
You may remember the main plot revolves around the decision of the aging King of Britain, King Lear, to retire from the throne. As he steps off the platform that has defined his life, Lear plans to divide the Kingdom among his three daughters Goneril, Regan, and Cordelia. It is important to note that Cordelia is the King’s youngest and his favorite, a sweet young woman, bright as she can be, articulate, loving, and notably honest.
As the King lays out his conditions, each daughter must profess, through public speeches, loyalty and love for their father. The goods will be divided accordingly. This is where the drama begins. What we get from Goneril and Regan are these amazingly effusive, surely dishonest, speeches. We begin to sense something is awry.
Because of Lear’s outsized ego, grown overtime in his role as King, he misjudges the speech of the two daughters. The plot thickens when Cordelia refuses to try to match her sisters’ outrageous blather. She knows these speeches are dishonest. The sisters want their piece of the Kingdom now. It’s time to move out of the grasp, they surmise, of their aging, doddering old fool of a father.
But the King focuses on Cordelia. He is furious that she has not tried harder to flatter him with her speech. Apparently an aging ego can’t always see clearly. Everyone must love him, effusively, don’t you understand? The King imagines Cordelia is the unfaithful one. Apparently the outsized ego has a hard time stepping aside as we grow older.
Lear must learn from his counterpart Macbeth, from another great play, who finally sees the truth of stepping out of our roles: We strut and fret our “hour upon the stage / and then [we’re] heard no more.” Puff, we’re gone. The identity we built up so carefully is now a tale “full of sound and fury / signifying nothing.” Like it or not the stage becomes someone else’s stage, the loyalty we long for is sometimes hard to find. Let go, move on. There can be new life ahead.
The play rages into a furious blur of betrayal, subterfuge, revenge among the sisters and their husbands. The kingdom spirals out of control. The massive storm that threatens to destroy them all is a natural expression of the chaos in the kingdom.
After all the death and carnage subsides, tragedies always shine new light into the future. The light at the end of this great play, small though it may seem, I find in one of the most beautiful passages ever written about growing older. Lear and his faithful daughter Cordelia anticipate they will be imprisoned or executed. Cordelia asks whether they should go see “those daughters and these sisters?”
Lear responds, “No, no, no, no! Come, let’s away to prison,” if that’s where we must go.
We two alone will sing like birds i’ th’ cage.
When thou dost ask me blessing, I’ll kneel down
And ask of thee forgiveness. So we’ll live,
And pray, and sing, and tell old tales, and laugh
At gilded butterflies, and hear poor rogues
Talk of court news; and we’ll talk with them too—
Who loses and who wins; who’s in, who’s out. . . .
The great King kneeling down to ask forgiveness of his wronged daughter? My Christian sensibilities are enlivened here. We must recognize our worlds grow ever-smaller, as they should. Oh sure, we’ll still pay attention to what’s going on in the world of politics, ambition, intrigue, but we’ll focus on things that matter more. We’ll show each other the new love we’ve discovered. We’ll sing together like the birds. Rather than fretting and strutting across the stage, “I’ll kneel down / And ask of thee forgiveness.”
Just maybe, when the ego is finally crushed, when humility points to another way, we are presented with a glorious opportunity to “pray, and sing, and tell old tales, and laugh / At gilded butterflies.” Maybe that’s the grace we are offered for this season of growing older, the chance to live by a new way. Maybe we’re given just enough.