Note VII
I. 4. 225-228. In this passage Rowe followed the Folios. Pope introduced some of the lines of the Quartos, making verse of them thus:
Of sovereignty, of knowledge, and of reason,
I should be false persuaded I had daughters.
Your name, fair gentlewoman?'
Theobald and Hanmer followed Pope. So did Warburton, except that in the second line he read 'Of sovereignty of knowledge, &c.' Johnson and Capell followed the Folios. Steevens in his edition of 1773 read as in the text, but in 1778 recurred to the reading of Pope: except that he transferred 'Lear's shadow?' to the end of the previous line, and for 'learn' read 'learn that.' Mr Dyce, in his first edition, arranged lines 225-228 thus:
Knowledge, and reason,
I should be false persuaded I had daughters.'
In his second edition he reads:
Knowledge, and reason, I should be false-persuaded
I had daughters.'
Mr Staunton reads 'I would ... reason' as prose, and the next line as verse. He suggests that "possibly the meaning may be restored by simply omitting the comma after sovereignty, 'by the marks of sovereignty knowledge and reason,' i.e. of supreme or sovereign knowledge, &c." But his later conjecture is that for 'Of sovereignty, of knowledge' we should read 'Of sovereignly knowledge.' Mr Keightley, adopting some of the readings of the Quartos, arranges the whole passage as follows:
Does Lear walk thus? speak thus? Where are his eyes?
Either his notion weakens, or his discernings
Are lethargied.—Sleeping or waking?—Ha!
Sure 'tis not so.—Who is it that can tell me
Who I am?
The marks of sovereignty, knowledge, and reason,
I should be false persuaded I had daughters.'
Becket proposes:
Lear's shadow? I would learn that; for by the marks
Of sov'reignty, I should be false persuaded.—
Of knowledge and of reason I had daughters.'
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