ng about the fields near
Dover, in a pitiable condition, stark mad, and singing aloud to himself,
with a crown upon his head which he had made of straw, and nettles, and
other wild weeds that he had picked up in the corn-fields. By the advice
of the physicians, Cordelia, though earnestly desirous of seeing her
father, was prevailed upon to put off the meeting, till by sleep and the
operation of herbs which they gave him, he should be restored to greater
composure. By the aid of these skilful physicians, to whom Cordelia
promised all her gold and jewels for the recovery of the old king, Lear
was soon in a condition to see his daughter.

A tender sight it was to see the meeting between this father and
daughter; to see the struggles between the joy of this poor old king at
beholding again his once darling child, and the shame at receiving such
filial kindness from her whom he had cast off for so small a fault in
his displeasure; both these passions struggling with the remains of his
malady, which in his half-crazed brain sometimes made him that he scarce
remembered where he was, or who it was that so kindly kissed him and
spoke to him: and then he would beg the standers-by not to laugh at
him, if he were mistaken in thinking this lady to be his daughter
Cordelia! And then to see him fall on his knees to beg pardon of his
child; and she, good lady, kneeling all the while to ask a blessing of
him, and telling him that it did not become him to kneel, but it was her
duty, for she was his child, his true and very child Cordelia! and she
kissed him (as she said) to kiss away all her sisters' unkindness, and
said that they might be ashamed of themselves, to turn their old kind
father with his white beard out into the cold air, when her enemy's dog,
though it had bit her (as she prettily expressed it), should have stayed
by her fire such a night as that, and warmed himself. And she told her
father how she had come from France with purpose to bring him
assistance; and he said that she must forget and forgive, for he was old
and foolish, and did not know what he did; but that to be sure she had
great cause not to love him, but her sisters had none. And Cordelia said
that she had no cause, no more than they had.

So we will leave this old king in the protection of his dutiful and
loving child, where, by the help of sleep and medicine, she and her
physicians at length succeeded in winding up the untuned and jarring
senses which the c