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Notes
More than a quibble is involved. Mr. Duthie's text is in most respects so authoritative that future editors will very likely be inclined to use it as a basis for their own editions, in which case his reading of this passage may become perpetuated.
Hanmer (1744) reverts to Pope in the pointing of the second line; but for editors following Theobald, cf. Warburton (1747), Johnson (1765), Capell (1767), Malone (1786), Morgan and Manning (1805), Boswell (1821), Dyce (1866), Furness (Variorum, 1871-80 and 1908), Hudson (1879), Rolfe (1880), Wright (Cambridge, 1892), Craig (1899), D. N. Smith (Arden, 1901), Lee (1906), Clark and Wright (1911), Bernbaum (Arden, 1917), Phelps (Yale, 1917), Kittredge (1936), and Harrison (1948).
Cf. the Vulgate, ". . . rupti sunt omnes fontes abyssi magnæ, et cataractæ cæli apertæ sunt" and the Geneva version, ". . . were all the fountaines of the great deepe broken vp, and the windowes of heauen were opened."
For example, the NED enters this passage under "cataract" and also under "hurricano" with a meaning of "waterspouts" for both. There is no question, at least, about the meaning of "hurricano" for Shakespeare, since the NED also quotes Troilus and Cressida, V.ii.172, in which Shakespeare defines hurricano as "the dreadful spout." "Cataract" in this period generally means in the Biblical sense the "floodgates of Heaven" though the waterspouts observed by the explorers in the tropics were so named also, probably because of their size and terrifying violence. "Hurricano" may also mean a violent storm and downpour from the clouds of water sucked up by the sun. If this were the precise gloss to the passage, the reference to inundation from water originating in the ocean is not affected, however, nor the contrast with the waters from the heavenly cataracts.
For the common reference of cataract to the floodgates of heaven and the Deluge we may profitably recall the wording of the Vulgate (footnote 4 above) and the Septuagint, and Milton's Paradise Lost, XI.820-25. In another passage strikingly reminiscent of these lines in Lear, Milton in drawing an ironic parallel between Heaven and Hell again recalls the passage in Genesis: ". . . what if all / Her stores were op'n'd, and this Firmament / Of Hell should spout her Cataracts of Fire, / Impendent horrors. . . ." (Paradise Lost, II. 174-77). It is interesting to find that in these lines indirectly based on the same passage in Genesis which is referred to in Lear, there are cataracts spouting. See also line 14 of this same scene in Lear in which occurs, "spout rain."
Epanalepsis was a recognized figure: see Puttenham, Arte of English Poesie, ed. Willcock and Walker (London, 1936), p. 200.
Typical examples may be observed in Thomas Dekker, The Shoemakers Holiday (1600), sig. K3v, lines 1-2; and in Fortunatus (1600), sig. B2, lines 8-9; B2v, lines 5-6; G4v, lines 27-28. For inversion of punctuation within a line, see Fortunatus, sig. F2, line 22. For omission of necessary punctuation at the end of a line, doubtless for reasons of justification, see Fortunatus, sig. A3, line 5; B2v, line 25; C1v, final line; D4, line 1. I am indebted to Dr. Bowers for these references as well as for some suggestions concerning the bibliographical evidence.
W. W. Greg (The Library, 4th ser., XVII [1936], 178-79) in another connection has pointed out the use of varying measures in this passage.
This, of course, may describe the end process only. Actually, if the compositor had set spaces after the commas following cheekes or rage, he would have been unable to complete setting blow in his stick before beginning to justify. Removal of these spaces might just possibly have provided room for the last two types in blow, although there is a slight possibility that some adjustment was made in the space between speech-heading and first word, which may be somewhat narrower here than is customary. Having reached this point, and achieved a satisfactorily justified line including the final word, he may well either have forgotten that a comma should follow, or else not troubled himself further since the passage made sense without a comma. However, the argument that the comma could have been omitted in the process of justifying the line does not depend exclusively on the assumption that spaces originally appeared after cheekes and rage. This compositor omitted the space after a comma in line 2 (which fills the measure), although setting spaces in the following lines of the passage. Yet on other pages where justification does not appear to be in question for a short line in his 80 mm. measure, he frequently omits these spaces.
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