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RHETORICAL AND POETICAL CONVENTIONS Therefore, deare daughters, as ye tender the safety Of him that was the cause of your first being, Resolve a doubt which much molests my mind, Which of you three to me would prove most kind; Which loves me most, and which at my reguest Will soonest yeeld unto their fathers hest.?” As opposed to the anonymous play, Shakespeare provides hardly any background information before the royal family and the courtiers proceed on stage. However, even the stage directions suggest a ceremonial procession: “Sound a Sennet, Enter one bearing a Coronet, then Lear, then the Dukes of Albany, and Cornwell, next Gonorill, Regan, Cordelia, with followers.” Following the short and informal dialogue between Gloster and Kent, King Lear’s first utterances, which are in blank verse, even stylistically mark the shift of the register and tone of the discourse:??7 Meane time we will expresse our darker purposes, The map there; know we haue diuided In three, our kingdome; and tis our first intent, To shake all cares and busines of our state, Confirming them on yonger yeares, The two great Princes France and Burgundy, Great ryuals in our youngest daughters loue, Long in our Court haue made their amorous soiourne, And here are to be answerd, tell me my daughters, Which of you shall we say doth loue vs most, That we our largest bountie may extend, Where merit doth most challenge it, Gonorill our eldest borne, speake first???® In rhetorical terms, Lear’s lines fall into the category of “public speech” as opposed to the “private speech” between Leir and his daughters in the anonymous play. The distinction between the two contexts, and consequently between the characters’ relationships, is clearly marked in the diction used by Leir and Lear. Perhaps the best example of this is their use of pronouns. In the passage quoted above, Leir uses the first person singular when referring 9, , to himself: “me”; “my steps”; “my mind”; “my request”. King Lear’s lines, in 99 contrast, are dominated by the first person plural or the froyal we": "our darker 225 Ibid. sig., A4v—Blr. 226 Shak-speare: His True Chronicle, sig. B1v. Vickers: Tragic Prose, 351. Shak-speare: His True Chronicle, sig. Blv. 227 228
