8. On Loyalty

While Lear and his companions were trying to catch some sleep, terrible things happened, which raise the issue of divine providence and the transcendent meaning of life all too graphically: namely, Gloucester' blinding. The cruelty that began the play has gone to a new level, all of it permitted by whatever divinity there is. The play seems to be asking, through its characters, how does one live in such a world, where honesty is grounds for disinheritance, a plotting son is rewarded for his crime, and a naive old man has his eyes put out? Among other things, if kings and dukes act like this, then all authority in this world is suspect.  In a time just emerging from feudalism and its pledges of fealty, the question of to whom or what one may rightfully owe one's loyalty is at issue, raised in just such terms by the play. A changed conception of loyalty is in fact part of Lear's, and our, transformation.

For Lear before his humbling, loyalty is connected with obedience and love: Cordelia is disloyal and unloving for not singing his praises. Then Kent disobeys, with the same result:

Kent. ...Thy youngest daughter does not love thee least;
Nor are those empty-hearted whose low sounds
Reverb no hollowness.
Lear.            Kent, on thy life, no more.
Kent. My life I never held but as a pawn
To wage against thine enemies, nor fear to lose it,
Thy safety being motive. (I.i.153-158)

In this instance, the enemy Kent is fighting against is Lear himself, on behalf of Lear.  For such loyalty, Kent is banished. Kent then shows his loyalty all the more in  refusing to abandon him:

Kent. [at Goneril's castle, disguised] ...Now, banished Kent
If thou canst serve where thou dost stand condemned,
So may it come, thy master whom thou lov’st,
Shall find thee full of labours. (I.4.4-7)

Kent disobeys his master to serve his master better. This is not feudal fealty. Yet it is apparently still loyalty to a person, and toward protecting that person--the disguise Kent uses is that of a servant, who is in a position to protect his master's physical well-being and advise where advice is sought, but not to intervene against him by force.

Another character exemplifying loyalty is Edgar, to his father despite Gloucester’s belief that Edgar has plotted to kill him. Again, Edgar works to protect Gloucester, even against his father's will, most clearly when the father tries to commit suicide. Edgar is like Kent in loyalty.

A more difficult example is one that critics tend to pass over. The Duke of Cornwall and his wife Regan are preparing to put out Gloucester's eyes. Gloucester's son Edmund had handed these two a letter, which Edmund had received from his father, telling of a French landing at Dover. Cornwall and Regan decide that Gloucester is part of a treasonous plot to put Lear back in power: They approach the old man, and Gloucester asks, warily, “What will you do? (III.vii.39). Cornwall tells Gloucester his intention. But suddenly a servant intervenes:

Cornwall.        Fellows, hold the chair;
Upon these eyes of thine I’ll set my foot...
1 Servant.     Hold your hand, my lord.
I have served you ever since I was a child,
But better service have I never done you
Than now to bid you hold.
Regan.                               How now, you dog?
Cornwall. My villein [serf]? {They draw and fight.]
1 Serv. Nay then, come on, and take the chance of anger. [He wounds Cornwall.]
Regan [to another serv.]  Give me thy sword! A peasant stand up thus? [She takes a sword and runs at him behind. Kills him.] (III.vii.39-41, 66-67, 71-79)

His servant dead, Cornwall goes about blinding Gloucester. Events quickly overshadow the servant's attempt to stop Cornwall. But it is extraordinary: the servant surely did not expect to die that day, much less at his mistress's own hand.

What I want to ask is this: Was the servant disloyal? He meant to be serving his master. "Better service I have never done you," he tells Cornwall, than to advise his master not to put out Gloucester's eyes. To Cornwall, this is treason. The servant, like Kent, fails to be cowed and  disobeys his master's order; unlike Kent, he does not do so in the sense of protecting him, since he tries to kill Cornwall--and in fact does so, except that Cornwall manages to blind Gloucester before dying from his wound. The servant's action, against Cornwall's manifest evil, is surely heroic. But is he loyal or disloyal?

Cardenal also has something to say about loyalty:

I have always despised fraud and treachery        Tostemps azir falsetat et enjan
And lived according to truth and justice;         Et ab vertat et ab dreg mi capdel;
And if this makes my fortunes vary,                       E si per so vauc atras o avan, I don't complain,.                                                                         No m’en rancur, For life seems fine and good to me.                                  car tot m’es bon e bel,
I know that loyalty often causes ruination   Que.ls us dechai lialtatz mantas ves, While treachery and bad faith bring wealth,    E.ls autres sors enjans e male fes,
But if a man rises through such fraud,        Mas si tant es c’om per falsetat mon,
All the greater will be his fall.                  D’aquel montar deissen pois en preon.
    (Bonner 1972, 199)                    (Bergin 1973, 203)

Cardenal knows that one who rises through fraud might well not fall, at least in this life. And loyalty to an evil man might not cause ruination. To what is one loyal, then, when loyalty causes ruination? The suggestion is that to honor one's rightful master is also to honor truth and justice, and to despise treachery. What one should be loyal to is truth and justice, in relation to the person owed loyalty, or to the person's soul in the sense that it is harmed when it commits injustice..


We can now perhaps better understand the servant's loyalty: He kills his master to protect him from injustice, one which the master is about to commit. Kent is similar, but without the use of force, for Lear is nowhere near as unjust as Cornwall. When Kent disobeys by continuing to protest Lear's action against Cordelia, he wishes to keep Lear from committing an injustice. Kent is likewise motivated by his sense of justice at Goneril's, in tripping up Goneril's steward-- this time punishing one who treats Lear unjustly by ignoring his royal status. The same is true when he stays with Lear during the storm. He is on the side of justice as he sees it.

Let us turn to another case: Edgar, too, is an example of loyalty, standing by his father despite everything. Yet he also thwarts the murderous purpose of the one he is with, by keeping his father out of harm’s way when he wants to kill himself. He even tricks his father—first, into thinking that he did indeed jump off the cliff and somehow survive unhurt; and second, that he had been led to the deed by a devil. But how is that intended suicide, which Edgar protects him from, against truth and justice? In this case, as with Cornwall, to be loyal is to honor a person's soul. Gloucester would dishonor his soul by suicide, by failing to honor its sacred task on earth, that of gaining whatever redeeming knowledge may come his way (as we saw in the last section). Edgar protects his father from such dishonor.

Similar issues of loyalty arise institutionally. Should one be loyal to the Church, as the representative of God on Earth? Or to a God as one understands Him or Her, as a voice from within? The Catholic Church expected obedience to its decrees; to put one's own understanding first was arrogance. Protestants were equally inflexible, but there was a multiplicity of sects, each with its own view. When there was one church, obedience simply went there. Now, in Shakespeare's day, a person with Catholicism in his or her background, as he did, had to choose—the old or the new; each had its perils.

Despite all the Christians thrown to the lions, orthodox Christianity has always approved of obedience. Consider Abraham, who was loyal to a command to sacrifice his son. How can one be loyal to an immoral command, even from God? The Gnostics rejected the God that made immoral demands: that was the demiurge. The orthodox theologians asked the Gnostics: "How do you know these demands are immoral? Do you put yourself above God?" Historically, that was the Church's charge.

But what the Gnostic says is this: Look to the God within (and not only the Gnostic: does not Luke tell us, “The Kingdom of God is within you” [17:21]?). The proto-Gnostic Gospel of Thomas develops this point. Thomas addresses Jesus as "Master." Jesus replies "I am not your master. Because you have drunk, you have become drunk from the bubbling stream which I have measured out" (Robinson 1988, 127). There is a stream of spiritual truth from within Thomas and every spiritual person which Jesus only "measures out," i.e. puts into words, Logos. Jesus advises: "that which you have will save you if you if you bring it forth from yourselves"--again, an appeal to an inner resource (134). The same saying counsels against relying on that which you do not have within you: "that which you do not have within you"--namely, external authority--"will kill you" (134). What is being appealed to is not the authority of a text, but an inner resource in the listener, received by revelation and grace.

To be sure, such reliance can lead to arrogance and a sense of being above common morality. The Gospel of Philip cautions against such an attitude.

Those that think that sinning does not apply to them are called "free" by the world. "Knowledge" of the "truth" merely makes such people arrogant, which is what the words "it makes them free" mean. It even gives them a sense of superiority over the whole world. But "love builds up." (a citation of 1 Cor. 8:1). (Robinson 1988, 155)

That is the message of King Lear as well, as Lear goes from arrogance to humility: and if he cannot love, at least he can admire those such as Cordelia and Edgar who do, and make this compassionate stance part of his own perspective.