a sudden stratagem

(Or Shakespeare, the surgeon)

The doc has more or less grounded me - not too much excitement and, combined with a 'between courses' week at work - 'Nothing to be done'.

So, browsing away this morning, I took a look at the opening of the 'sundry times lately acted' True Chronicle History of King Lear and his three daughters ...'

Then I had a bath.

Ermmmm

It was a trick - the how do you love me question - count out the ways and I'll give you everything.

And a trick specifically to catch out his wayward younger daughter.


She'd tell him more than the others and then he'd spring the trap - right then, do as I say - just as your sisters have done - 'marry the man today!'


Shakespeare wields the knife - he cuts the trick.


Surgical precision converts Lear from trickster to madman: Senility floods, like a sudden summer storm, the landscape - and grey clouds darken every horizon.


Again, the empty spaces - it's the gaps that make the magic - not what you explain - what you don't explain.