[In the following essay, Hardison traces parallels between King Lear and the story of the mythological king Ixion.]

Ever since A. W. Ward's History of English Drama (1899) scholars have recognized that the plot of Gorboduc is a compound of two heterogeneous elements. First, there is the pseudo-history derived ultimately from Geoffrey of Monmouth. In its original form, this material lacks shape. A second element, a framework, is needed within which it can be articulated. Thomas Sackville and Thomas Norton might simply have “invented” such a framework, but instead, following the habit of the age they drew on a classical myth previously used by Seneca. Ward and later scholars agree that this myth is “the ancient Theban story of the sons of Oedipus and Iocasta and their fatal strife.”¹ I do not wish to pursue the influence of the Theban material on Gorboduc but merely to call attention to the fact. It is, in its way, a remarkable fact. It leads to the conclusion that the first regular English tragedy was a self-conscious fusion of history and myth, with the history supplying the local habitation and the name, and the myth, the pattern which makes these elements coherent drama.

Forty-five years after Gorboduc was produced at Whitehall for Queen Elizabeth, Shakespeare's King Lear was produced “before the Kinges maiestie at Whitehall.” The similarity of the two dramas has often been remarked. Most obviously, both dramas deal with the motif of the division of the kingdom. However, another similarity has gone unnoticed. There is evidence that, like Sackville and Norton, Shakespeare drew upon classical mythology to articulate his historical materials. There is no need to argue that he learned the technique from Gorboduc. However, such a venerable precedent makes his use of it less surprising than it might otherwise be.

The myth which Shakespeare used is the myth of Ixion. The fact that he was thinking of this myth while writing King Lear is established by two references in Act IV, both of which are noted by Starnes and Talbert in Classical Myth and Legend in Renaissance Dictionaries.² Lear's statement to Cordelia, “Thou art a soul in bliss; but I am bound / Upon a wheel of fire” (IV. vii. 46-47), is an allusion to the punishment of Ixion. Since Lear compares his suffering to that of Ixion, it is natural to wonder whether the actions which cause his punishment are in any way analogous to those of Ixion. An earlier reference in Act IV helps to answer the question. In a moment of uncontrolled rage, Lear refers to his daughters as centaurs (IV. vi. 126). On the surface the allusion is confusing, since centaurs were usually considered male. However, it becomes intelligible when related to the Ixion-Lear parallel. According to classical mythology the centaurs were the children of Ixion. Starnes and Talbert justly remark, “the story of Ixion and his adulterous offspring was in Shakespeare's mind through a good part of Act IV.”

But is the influence confined to Act IV? When it is recalled that during the Renaissance the Ixion myth was interpreted as an allegory of irresponsible rule and that familial ingratitude is an important part of the myth, the desirability of further analysis is apparent.

The present essay is divided into two major sections. The first is a recapitulation of the details and interpretation of the Ixion myth offered by mythographers who influenced sixteenth-century thought. The second is a comparison of various aspects of the mythographic tradition with King Lear. This comparison leads to the conclusion that the Ixion myth had a general influence on the play, extending from the first scene to the last. Unlike Sackville and Norton, Shakespeare did not use myth for plot organization. His major source was already in dramatic form, and he could readily have supplied any dramatic deficiencies without recourse to mythology. The most striking fact about the parallels noted is that they are ideological. The myth of Ixion supplied Shakespeare with the philosophical issues in terms of which the action of the play is developed.

I

During the Renaissance Ixion and the centaurs were popular figures, familiar to anyone who had studied Ovid and Virgil in grammar school. Michelangelo planned an Ixion as part of a four-part design showing the four great classical sinners—Tantalus, Sisyphus, Tityus, and Ixion.³ Centaurs were popular decorative motifs and appear frequently in pastoral landscapes. Versions of the battle of the centaurs and Lapithae (after Ovid, Met., XII) were painted by Rosso Fiorentino and Piero di Cosimo,⁴ while centaurs figure prominently in such semi-allegorical paintings as Mantegna's “Minerva Expelling Vices from the Grove of Virtue”⁵ and the “Hercules and the Centaur” in the Farnesina Palace in Rome.⁶ Shakespeare never mentions Ixion by name but refers twice to the centaurs before Lear, both times in connection with the battle of the centaurs (Tit., V. ii. 204; MND, V. i. 44). Other English writers, including Spenser, Jonson, Bacon, and Milton, refer to the Ixion myth frequently and with easy familiarity.

Like most classical myths, the Ixion myth was a composite assembled by mythographers from scattered references and commentaries. The first synthesis to survive is the version in the sixth-century Mythology of Fabius Planciadis Fulgentius.⁷ Most later versions draw on Fulgentius, who, in turn, attributes his information to “Dromocritus in theogonia,” which is, perhaps, a garbled reference to Hesiod. According to Fulgentius, the myth of Ixion has two parts. The first is the literal history of Ixion the ruler, who was “the first Greek to affect pomp in rule” (“in Graeca primum regni gloriam adfectasse. …”). As part of his program he retained one hundred knights who were called centaurs. He was soon overthrown, and his fall is symbolized by a wheel “because the turn of a wheel soon casts down whatever it holds high” (“quod omnis rotae vertigo quae superiora habet modo deiciat”). The second part of the myth, the tale of Ixion's attempted seduction of Juno, is not a new story but an allegorical version of history recounted in the first part:

Who seeks to be more than is proper, will be less than he is. Thus when Ixion would have seduced Juno, she made a cloud in her shape, and when Ixion coupled with it, he begot centaurs. … Now Ixion was pronounced Axion, and dignity is called axioma in Greek. Moreover, Juno is the goddess of rule, as we noted earlier [supra, p. 38]. Thus the man who affects pomp of rule gains a cloud; that is, the appearance of rule. [True] rule is that which will last indefinitely. But whoever fleeting time, swift in its winged thefts, envies, is shown images of momentary happiness rather than truth and gains a hollow, windy fantasy.

(Qui plus quaerit esse quam licet, minus erit quam est. Ixion igitur coniungium Iunonis adfectatus, illa nubem ornavit in speciem suam, cum qua Ixion coiens Centauros genuit. … Denique Ixionem dici voluerunt quasi Axionem; axioma enim Grece dignitas dicitur, Dea vero regnorum Iuno est, ut pridem diximus; ergo dignitas regnum adfectans nubem meretur, id est similitudinem regni; regnum enim illud est quod perenniter duraturum est. At vero cui temporis fugitiva vis invidet pinnatisque celerrima raptibus, momentaneae felicitatis figuras potius quam veritatem ostendenti, ventositatis inanem speciem praesumit.)

By Boccaccio's time the myth had grown considerably, partly as a result of humanistic interest in the classics. In the Genealogy of the Gods,⁸ Boccaccio refers admiringly to Fulgentius, but he has also drawn on Macrobius and shows debts to Servius and Lactantius as well.⁹ Ixion is localized as a king in Thessaly and lord of the Lapithae. He is described as “avid for power” and “tyrannical,” and the cloud-woman is made a metaphor for false rule, as in Fulgentius. Boccaccio embellishes his comment with a vivid description of the cloud, contrasting its obscure, fiery, and rain-bringing properties with the clear, shining air of true rule. It should be noted that as early as the Genealogy the authentic detail of the cloud-woman has been replaced by something close to a literal storm symbolizing improper rule.

Boccaccio agrees with Fulgentius that the fable suggests foolish desire for pomp, but he prefers to see Ixion as the first usurper and tyrant rather than as the first vain king. To the account in Fulgentius he adds the tale, derived from Lactantius, that Ixion returned to earth after his attempted seduction, boasted of it, and was hurled down to hell by a Jovian thunderbolt. The thunderbolt symbolizes the shock of disillusionment which comes when the would-be king realizes the difficulty of his situation. The wheel symbolizes the ceaseless round of cares which torment him.

It is characteristic of Renaissance mythographers to offer more than one interpretation of a myth. Usually the interpretations are not contradictory, and often they are mutually reinforcing. This is the case with the Ixion myth, which seems to have gathered richer connotations with each new interpretation. Boccaccio gives four corollary interpretations, of which only two need concern us here. First, there is the interpretation of the myth as an allegory of hope which feeds on illusion but ends in disillusionment (the thunderbolt). Second, following Macrobius, Boccaccio suggests that the wheel is the wheel of fortune on which those men are bound who allow passion to govern reason (“qui nichil consilio previdentes, nichil moderantes, nichil virtutibus explicantes, seque et omnes actus suos fortune committentes, casibus fortuitis semper rotantur”).

In the de Laboribus Herculis, Salutati makes the slaying of the centaurs one of Hercules' early labors.¹⁰ This occasions a résumé of the Ixion myth based on Fulgentius and Boccaccio. Salutati adds to this material an account of the genealogy of Ixion (in part from the Genealogy) and of the symbolism of the centaurs. Ixion's father was Flegias, son of Mars. Since flegias (i.e., Gr. φλέγμα) is flama in Latin, the genealogy suggests the “fiery humour” which leads men to violence. Men first congregated in towns and elected magistrates to protect themselves from violence: “civitates et oppida struere, et magistratum inducere dignitatem, qui cunctis iusticiam ministrarent.” Ixion is a type of the magistrate who becomes enamored of the dignitas of office while neglecting the iusticia. The centaurs are violent desires for rule, and their battle with the Lapithae is an allegory of the attempt to usurp power.

A few details are added by commentators of the high Renaissance, such as Comes, Stephanus, and Alexander Ross.¹¹ Comes adds the story of Ixion's murder of his father-in-law Eioneus (or Deinoeus), for which he wandered the earth unforgiven until Jove had pity on him and raised him to heaven. A striking feature of his account, duplicated by most of his successors, is the tendency to read the entire myth as history with an allegorical level of interpretation, whereas earlier writers had divided the myth into two parts, the first historical and the second an allegorical restatement of the history.

Comes offers two important interpretations of the myth. First, it is a warning against the desire for glory rather than virtue, an echo of Fulgentius: “Those men who seek glory rather than virtue in any affair, or embrace false wisdom rather than the truth, will do many improper things, wherefore monster-like centaurs are born from a cloud” (“Illi enim qui pro virtute gloriam ex quibusvis rebus consectantur, aut qui pro vera sapentia falsam amplectuntur, multa indecora faciant oportet: quare monstro similes Centauri ex nubi nascuntur”). The second interpretation is closer to the spirit of the tale as modified by the introduction of Ixion's murder of his father-in-law. It stems directly from the sixteenth-century revival of interest in Greek, for it is derived from the second Pithian Ode of Pindar. There, Pindar recounts the details mentioned by Comes, and interprets the whole myth as a warning against ingratitude: “Ixion, as he whirleth round and round on his winged wheel, by the behests of the gods, teacheth this lesson: men should requite the benefactor with fresh tokens of gratitude.”¹² Comes followed Pindar closely:

This more than all other [myths] of the ancients makes plain what princes have often learned who uncover plots against them laid by those whom they cherished before all others and advanced to great wealth and highest honor: Through it the ancients showed that forgetfulness of benefits is the most hateful vice of all to the immortal gods; and it was all the more hateful when a man not only forgets benefits, but even repays them with injuries.

(Hoc tamen veterum caeterorum omnium fere maxime patet, quod non semel experti sunt principes plurique, qui sibi ab illis parari insidias senserunt, quos ante omnes charos habebunt, ad maximes opes, supremosve honores provexerant: per hanc significarent antiqui maxime omnium vitiorum invisam esse Deis immortalibus acceptorum beneficiorum oblivionem: atque id etiam multo magis, cum quis non modo obliviscatus, sed etiam inurias referet pro beneficiis.)

The mythological dictionaries are relatively compressed and avoid the finer points of interpretation. However, Stephanus finds time to note that the Ixion myth is an emblem of “tyrants, ambitious and intemperate men in the state, and heretics and sophists in the church.”¹³ Alexander Ross adds a rather surprising Christian interpretation. For him it is a fable of religious ingratitude. It shadows forth the Christian doctrine of man redeemed from original sin (Ixion's murder, Jove's pardon) only to plunge into post-baptismal sins which eventually lead to damnation.¹⁴ Yet the Fulgentius influence remains strong. The cloud is hollow pomp, the wheel is fickle fortune, and the centaurs are symbols of violence.

To complete a survey of the Ixion myth we must recall that two of its component elements—Juno and the centaurs—have specialized symbolic meanings which are used extensively by the mythographers. In the historical part of the Ixion myth the centaurs are identified with Ixion's guard of one hundred unruly horsemen.¹⁵ In the allegorical part of the myth they are Ixion's children. They symbolize proneness to violent passion, and in particular to the passion of lust. Dante made them guardians of the seventh circle of hell (the abode of the violent, Inf., XII). The Fulgentius Metaforalis of John Ridewall describes them as “half-men and half-horses, denoting men made bestial by their carnal appetite. …” (“semihomines et semiequi, denotant homines carnali concupiscentia facti ut bestie. …”).¹⁶ The association was sufficiently commonplace for Ben Jonson to name one of the over-sexed ladies in Epicoene “Centaure”; and Alexander Ross insists, “they were said to be halfe horses, imitative of their insatiable lust, and proneness to Venerie.”¹⁷

The part played by Juno in the Ixion myth greatly reinforced its political application. Jupiter and Juno were considered the twin patrons of government. Roughly speaking, Jupiter was associated with the object of government, which is justice, while Juno was associated with the means of government, which are power and wealth. Among her attributes, mythographers stress her ornate clothing, symbolizing wealth, and her peacock, symbolic both of wealth and of the fickle fortune which attends the wealthy, since the bird is beautiful from the front but “ugly and nude in the rear, just as the desire for riches briefly elevates, but eventually denudes.”¹⁸ Being patroness of wealth, she was also patroness of marriage, for, as Ross explains, “it is wealth that can bring in … a wedding girdle; and without that [a maid] may be long enough without home, ointment, or husband. …”¹⁹ A final attribute, which was naturally stressed in connection with Ixion's cloud-woman, is Juno's patronage of the weather. She was often shown accompanied by Iris (the rainbow); and the fourteen nymphs who attend her (Aeneid, I, 71) are interpreted regularly as various aspects of the weather—“showres, dewes, serenetie, force of winds, clouds, tempest, snow, haile, lightning, thunder” are mentioned by Jonson in his comment on Hymenaei.²⁰

To summarize, the Ixion myth was conventionally interpreted in two ways: as a political allegory showing the disastrous result of irresponsible rule, and as an allegory of ingratitude, both familial and religious. These two interpretations, while seemingly disparate, were often fused. Coupled with them were several corollary motifs such as the idea of providential punishment (Jove's thunderbolt), the idea of lust (the centaurs), emphasis on wealth as a source of power (Juno symbolism), and others. Having briefly examined these ideas, we may turn to King Lear.

II

Irresponsibility: the Desire for “Dignitas.” The earliest and most persistent interpretation of the Ixion myth is that it symbolizes the desire for pomp (dignitas) without responsibilities. As Salutati expresses it, “affecting rule, he gets a cloud; that is, he gains the appearance of rule, not its reality” (“regnum affectans, nubem mereatur, id est similitudinem regni suscipere, non regnum”).²¹ The tragic conclusion of the myth teaches the stern moral, “Who strives to be more than is proper, will be less than he is.”

Desire for dignitas without responsibility is precisely the motive which causes Lear to abdicate in the first scene of King Lear. As soon as the courtiers are assembled, Lear announces,

                              … 'tis our fast intent
To shake all cares and business from our age,
Conferring them on younger strengths, while we
Unburden'd crawl toward death.

(I. i. 39-42)

At first we may be reminded of Shakespeare's dramatic source The True Chronicle Historie of King Leir, and his Three Daughters, in which the King abdicates for motives of religious piety: “… I would fayne resigne these earthly cares, / And think upon the welfare of my soule.”²² However, Shakespeare's King is only wearied by his duties. He intends to retain all of the trappings of the royal office:

                              … we shall retain
The name, and all th'addition to a king;
The sway, revenue, execution of the rest,
Beloved sons, be yours. …

(I. i. 137-40)

In effect, Lear has separated the dignitas of rule from its practical cares. As the drama unfolds we find that to retain his dignitas Lear must be surrounded by one hundred knights accountable only to him and must continue to be addressed by the formal title King. When his daughters suggest reducing the number of retainers, and when Oswald addresses him as “my lady's father” (I. iv. 87), he flies into an ungovernable rage. But ceremonies are the shadow, not the substance of rule. Just as Ixion gained “a hollow, windy fantasy” which soon collapsed, Lear is soon informed that he is “an O without a figure … thou art nothing” (I. iv. 211-13).

Wealth and Force: the Real Bases of Power. Complementing Ixion's infatuation with dignitas is his failure to gain real power, symbolized by Juno. His disastrous infatuation with the cloud-woman was interpreted as an allegorical lesson that authority must be based on the physical realities of money and force. Alexander Ross, commenting on Juno's patronage of money and power, declared that “wealth is every thing; it is both meat, drink, clothes, armour, it is that which doth command all things.”²³

Lear misinterprets the nature of power in the same way as Ixion. He explicitly gives up “sway,” “revenue,” and “execution,” yet wishes to retain authority. His error is neatly defined by the references to Jupiter and Juno in the scene where he finds Kent in the stocks. He is incredulous; he refuses to believe that his authority has been so far flouted. He exclaims, “By Jupiter [that is, by the god of justice, of what is right], I swear, no.” To this / the realistic Kent replies, “By Juno [goddess of Realpolitik], I swear, ay” (II. iv. 21-22).

The same point is made constantly by the Fool. Since the importance of wealth as a source of power is always emphasized in discussions of the significance of Juno in the Ixion myth,²⁴ it is significant that the Fool also emphasizes wealth:

Fool. Can you make no use of nothing, nuncle?
Lear. Why, no, boy; nothing can be made out of nothing.
Fool. [To Kent] Prithee, tell him so much the rent of his land comes
to.

(I. iv. 143-47)

And,

“Fathers that wear rags
                              Do make their children blind;
But fathers that bear bags
                              Shall see their children kind.”

(II. iv. 48-51)

And,

“That sir which serves and seeks for gain,
                              And follows but for form,
Will pack when it begins to rain,
                              And leave thee in the storm.”

(II. iv. 79-82)

Later, when Lear is at the nadir of his despair, he comes to realize the part which wealth plays in rule. At this point he has moved from an infatuation with outward show to an equally irrational cynicism—we might say that he honors Juno now but has forgotten Jupiter—and his comment recalls the comparison made by Alexander Ross between wealth and armor:

Through tatter'd clothes small vices do appear;
Robes and furr'd gowns hide all. Plate sin with gold,
And the strong lance of justice hurtless breaks;
Arm it in rags, a pigmy's straw does pierce it.

(IV. vi. 168-71)

Although dowries do not enter the Ixion myth per se, Juno was, as has been noted, the patroness of dowries as well as wealth in general. She was “much adored and called upon by maids that were to marry … for it is wealth that can bring in, and bring home, anoint, and gird the maid with a wedding girdle; and without that she may be long enough without a home … or husband.”²⁵ This is exactly what Cordelia learns from Burgundy. Despite the assurance of France that “She is herself a dowry,” Burgundy asks Lear for “that portion which yourself propos'd”; and when Lear refuses, he dryly remarks to Cordelia, “I am sorry, then, you have so lost a father / That you must lose a husband” (I. i. 244-50).

The reference to Jupiter and Juno, the Fool's allusions to wealth, and the dowry ritual all turn on the truth which mythographers found in the Ixion myth: authority cannot exist unless backed by money and power. As Regan reminds the hysterical Lear: “I pray you, father, being weak, seem so” (II. iv. 204).

The Storm: Nature and Providence. From Lactantius, later mythographers learned of the thunderbolt which cast Ixion into hell. This thunderbolt was sent by Jove and was interpreted both as a symbol of sudden disillusionment and as providential justice. Both interpretations apply to the storm in Lear. The storm follows directly on Lear's final disillusionment with his daughters. At the very moment when he vows, “I have full cause of weeping; but this heart / Shall break into a hundred thousand flaws, / Or ere I'll weep.” (II. iv. 287-89), the stage directions call for “storm and tempest” and Cornwall remarks, “’twill be a storm.” Lear's disillusionment is complete, and his next act is to rush out into the storm.

Just as the thunderbolt of the Ixion myth is associated with Jove, so the thunder during the storm scene in Lear is Jovian. Even before the storm Lear calls Jove the “thunder-bearer” (II. iv. 230) and invokes him as “high-judging Jove,” the agent of providential justice. During the storm he refers to the thunderbolts as “oak-cleaving” (III. ii. 5), an allusion which recalls that the oak was sacred to Jove, and bids the “all-shaking thunder” to restore justice by destroying “ingrateful man.” The association of the storm with providential justice is made explicit as Lear exclaims,

                    Let the great gods,
That keep this dreadful pudder o'er our heads,
Find out their enemies now. Tremble, thou wretch
That hast within thee undivulged crimes,
Unwhipp'd of justice.

(III. ii. 49-53)

The parallel to the Ixion myth is strengthened by the fact that, like Ixion, Lear is the victim of this justice. Usually the True Chronicle Historie is cited as Shakespeare's precedent for the storm. It is true that thunder sounds twice in the old play, but in both cases it is a warning which deters the “Messenger” from murdering Leir and his companion Perillus. It is thus the act of a benevolent providence and is directly opposite in significance to the storm in Lear. It is Lear who suffers the “impetuous blasts” and “oak-cleaving thunderbolts,” while Goneril and Regan remain safe in Gloucester's castle. Lear vaguely recognizes this as he recalls the time “When the rain came to wet me once, and the wind to make me chatter; when the thunder would not peace at my bidding …” (IV. vi. 102-4); and Cordelia asks,

                                                  Was this a face
To be oppos'd against the warring winds?
To stand against the deep dread-bolted thunder?
In the most terrible and nimble stroke
Of quick, cross lightning?

(IV. vii. 31-35)

The storm gains additional significance when we recall that Juno was patroness of weather and that, as early as Boccaccio, mythographers used this fact to explain the symbolism of Ixion's cloud-woman.²⁶ Good weather, bringing fertility, was interpreted as an accord between Jupiter and Juno, a tradition preserved in Milton's lovely image, “as Jupiter / On Juno smiles, when he impregns the Clouds / That shed May flowers.” Conversely, a destructive storm was interpreted as discord between the two: “The discord between Juno and Jove is nothing else than the distemper of the elements from which comes destruction. … Thus if Juno, that is, humid and windy nature, attacks Jove, that is, the hot and dry force, the rains will be so great that they will overflow the earth …” (“La discordia nata fra Giunone, e Giove altro non è, che lo stemperamento de gli elementi, dal quale viene la distruttione delle cose … Se Giunone adunque, cioè la natura humida, & ventosa, attacca a Giove, che è la virtù calda, & secca, & lo sprezza, tante saranno le pioggie, che allagaranno la terra. …”).²⁷ Drawing on this tradition, mythographers tended to interpret the cloud-woman as a storm symbolizing the disastrous results of Ixion's rule. The storm in Lear has a similar meaning. It is not only a tempest where Jovian thunderbolts punish the rash King; it is also a reflection in Nature of the chaos which is engulfing the kingdom as a result of Lear's separation of authority (the Jovian element of rule) from power (under the aegis of Juno). Lear's reference to rain, wind, thunder, and fire as “servile ministers” (III. ii. 21) recalls the relationship of these “elements” to Juno. His reference to “the great gods / That keep this dreadful pudder o'er our heads” (III. ii. 49-50) echoes the idea of storm as discord among the gods. Finally, the destructive nature of such discord is emphasized in both the first and second scenes of Act IV. Cartari's “distruttione delle cose” and “allagaranno la terra” are paralleled in Lear's command that “the wind blow the earth into the sea, / Or swell the curled waters 'bove the main, / That things might change or cease …” (III. i. 5-7).

Punishment: the Wheel. The punishment for Ixion's sin is the torture of being bound on a wheel and rolled eternally through hell. Lear explicitly compares his experience with that of Ixion when he exclaims, “I am bound / Upon a wheel of fire, that mine own tears / Do scald like molten lead” (IV. vii. 46-48). The statement is in the nature of a confession. It is Lear's first admission that he is being punished for some sin. As his senses return he kneels before Cordelia to ask forgiveness. For a moment the wheel ceases to turn, for he has come to terms with what he has made himself: “Pray you now, forget and forgive; I am old and foolish” (IV. vii. 84). However, like Ixion, he must suffer further. In the next act the wheel resumes its inexorable motion.

Further significance is added to the wheel image when we recall that Ixion's wheel was interpreted as the wheel of fortune on which man is bound when he allows violent passion to override reason. It is Lear's “hideous rashness” (I. i. 153) which begins the action of the play, and this rashness recurs in his violent curses of Cordelia, Goneril, and Regan. The association of the wheel image in Lear with fortune is made explicit in two references. First, there is Kent's “Fortune, good-night! Smile once more; turn thy wheel!” (II. ii. 180). Second, there is Edmund's dying exclamation, “The wheel is come full circle; I am here” (V. iii. 174).

Lust: the Centaurs. Lear's description of his daughters as centaurs (IV. vi. 126) is an allusion to the Ixion myth, since the centaurs were the offspring of Ixion, begotten by him on the cloud-woman. Shakespeare associated the offspring of Lear with the offspring of Ixion. Traditionally, the centaurs were considered emblems of masculine lust, “carnal men made bestial by lust.”²⁸ Although Shakespeare changes the sex of the centaurs, the emphasis on the idea of lust is preserved:

Behold yond simp' ring dame …
The fitchew nor the soiled horse goes to't
With a more riotous appetite.
Down from the waist they are Centaurs,
Though women all above. …

(IV. vi. 120-27)

The association between the centaurs and lust helps to explain the ramifications of this theme in the play. It is not intrinsic to the plot, since Lear's tragic flaw has nothing to do with lust, and the evil children are motivated primarily by the desire for power rather than sexual passion. Yet Shakespeare emphasizes lust in connection with Gloucester, Edmund, Regan, Goneril, and Lear's retainers.

Lear's Retainers: Further Centaur Symbolism. Ixion's band of retainers is prominent in the “history” of Ixion's activities while king of Thessaly. Seeking a rational explanation of the centaur image, mythographers regularly explained that the retainers were the original centaurs, either because they were the first mounted troops or from the false etymology, centum armati. They are unanimous in agreeing that there were one hundred retainers, and that the retainers were violent, unruly, and lustful.

The same points are made in connection with Lear's retainers. In the first place, it is stressed repeatedly that there are one hundred of them. The fact becomes significant when it is recalled that only one of the sources of the King Lear story which may have been consulted by Shakespeare is specific about the number of retainers. This is the Gesta Romanorum, in which the number is given as forty. Goneril's description of the retainers calls attention to their unruliness and particularly their lust:

Here do you keep a hundred knights and squires
Men so disorder'd, so debosh'd and bold,
That this our court, infected with their manners,
Shows like a riotous inn. Epicurism and lust
Makes it more like a tavern or a brothel
Than a grac'd palace.

(I. iv. 262-67)

Perhaps the most interesting feature of centaur symbolism is that suggested by the human torso coupled to the horse's body. Mythographers considered the image an emblem of the warring forces of passion and reason or nature and spirit which strive for dominion over man. Often the centaur was compared to other half-human monsters from classical mythology such as the sirens or the satyrs.²⁹

We can observe the creative use of this tradition during the sixteenth century in the painting “The Battle of the Centaurs” by Piero di Cosimo. This painting forms part of a series discussed by Erwin Panofsky and again by R. L. Douglas in his book on Piero.³⁰ The series includes the “Hunting Scene,” “Return from the Hunt,” “A Forest Fire,” and “The Battle of the Centaurs.” In each painting a higher stage of human evolution, conceived in the Lucretian sense as an ascent from savagery, is depicted. In the first, man is a brute, copulating with beasts and producing half-human offspring. In the second there is less brutality and some suggestion of cooperation among men, but the half-human monsters, including a centaur, are still evident. “A Forest Fire” shows cultivated land and records the discovery of fire as described in an often-illustrated passage from Vitruvius. The fourth painting is the climax of the series. It represents the moment at which man recognizes his difference from the brute world of nature and rejects it. The moment is symbolized by the battle of the centaurs with the Lapithae. Henceforth the separation between man and the lower forms of life will be absolute.

While Piero used centaur symbolism to illuminate a theory of evolution, elsewhere it is used to illustrate human psychology. Salutati associates the centaurs of the Ixion myth with man's stubborn hostility toward government by law.³¹ Speaking more generally, he teaches that the centaur is an emblem of the dual nature of man, half under the aegis of Nature and half under the aegis of spirit. In the seventeenth century Alexander Ross gave the image a Christian twist by observing that “every regenerate man is a centaur.”³²

There is no need to recapitulate the extensive and illuminating scholarship on the imagery of Lear to support the contention that the strife between the natural and spiritual in man is a basic theme of the play. Edmund is the spokesman for naturalism. To him, man is an animal, and force, the brute right of the fittest to survive, is the supreme law. Moral and legal principles, expressions of man's higher nature, are “the curiosity of nations”; that is, superstitions and customs to be set aside when they interfere with expediency. Cordelia embodies the opposite principle of allegiance to moral duty even at the cost of personal hardship. In fact, she is so scrupulous that she refuses to depart one jot from her “duty” even to humor her father's whims:

                                                  I love your Majesty
According to my bond; no more nor less.

And,

                                                  Good my lord,
You have begot me, bred me, lov'd me: I
Return those duties back as are right fit. …

And,

                                                  Haply, when I shall wed,
That lord whose hand must take my plight shall carry
Half my love with him, half my care and duty.

(I. i. 94-104)

Evidently, Edmund and Cordelia define the two extremes of human nature.

As for Lear, although he utterly disregards his own higher duties, he insists that others be dutiful and reveals an almost superstitious belief in the gods. Each time he curses his daughters he appeals to Nature as the agent of providence to right his wrongs. His first oath is the self-confident, “by the sacred radiance of the sun …” (I. i. 111). Next comes the petition, “Hear, Nature! hear, dear goddess, hear!” (I. iv. 297). Later there is the hysterical command, “Strike her young bones, / You taking airs …” (II. iv. 165-66). Finally, there is the insane order that the storm destroy the whole world: “Strike flat the thick rotundity o' th' world! / Crack nature's moulds, all germens spill at once / That makes ingrateful man! (III. ii. 6-9).

When Lear's belief in supernatural powers proves empty, he does not modify it rationally. Instead, he espouses an extreme naturalistic view of man which is similar to Edmund's but couched in terms expressing the blackest despair. In Act II he still has faith in human dignity: “Allow not nature more than nature needs, / Man's life is cheap as beast's” (II. iv. 269-70). However, by the middle of Act III he thinks of man as “… no more but such a poor, bare, forked animal as thou art” (III. iv. 111-14). Having begun with a sentimental view of Nature as an agent of providence, he later describes the storm as “pitiless” (III. iv. 29), and man's lower anatomy, symbolic of natural instinct, as “hell … darkness … the sulphurous pit, / Burning, scalding, stench, consumption …” (IV. vi. 130-31). Finally, his image of human society is the dog who is obeyed in office (IV. vi. 163). The beadle lusts after the whore as he lashes her; the usurer hangs the cozener; and the rich man flaunts justice with impunity while the beggar is punished for the most trivial offense.

Neither of Lear's views is valid. Man exists in a middle state between nature and the world of spirit. He is a composite of these elements, and each has legitimate claims which he ignores at his peril. Although the centaur was usually an emblem of man dominated by his lower passions, Salutati reminds us that Chiron, the good centaur, symbolizes a proper balance of man's higher and lower natures: “When reason, which we have in common with the angels, rules our appetites, which we have in common with the beasts, a virtuous life results for a man.³³ Shakespeare's treatment of the nature-spirit dichotomy in Lear teaches the same lesson. Nature and the power derived from Nature are impersonal—to a certain degree, amoral. They cannot, however, be idealistically ignored. They must be controlled by responsible agents dedicated to the end of justice. When Jupiter and Juno are in accord—when justice and power are harmonized—men experience the fine weather of proper rule. When they quarrel, the kingdom suffers the destructive storms of civil war and anarchy. According to Alexander Ross, “… where things are not ruled by lawes and order, and civility, but are carried headlong with violence and force, we may say that there is a Commonwealth of Centaurs.”³⁴

Ingratitude. Following Pindar, Comes interpreted the Ixion myth as a fable of ingratitude which “makes plain what princes have often learned who uncover plots against them laid by those whom they cherished before all others and advanced to great wealth and highest honor.” As the fourth in the tetrad of great classical sinners, Ixion was often considered a type of ingratitude, since he repaid Jove's favors by attempting to seduce Juno.

In Lear the theme of ingratitude is exploited throughout the play. Most obviously, Lear cherishes Goneril and Regan and advances them to great wealth and honor, only to discover the plots which they have laid against him. Indeed, the word “ingratitude” is repeated thematically (e.g., I. iv. 281; II. iv. 182; III. ii. 9 and iv. 14).

It is obvious that King Lear experiences ingratitude. It is equally important to recognize that, like Ixion, he practices it. His rejection of Cordelia and Kent could be considered acts of ingratitude, but his most serious ingratitude is religious. The majority of Shakespeare's audience would have judged Lear's actions in terms of the Tudor theory of monarchy. Madeleine Doran has rightly stressed the similarity between Lear and Sidney's lesson in the Arcadia that abdication is close to a literal crime.³⁵ To this lesson should be added the lesson of Gorboduc and 1 Henry IV that the division of a kingdom is an equal, if not a greater, evil. In the carefully pagan atmosphere of Lear, the King rules under the patronage of “high-judging Jove” (II. iv. 231). It is Jove whom Lear offends by his “forgetfulness of benefits,” and his punishment is, like Ixion's, the wheel of fire.

Redemption: Chiron. Chiron was considered the one good centaur. Alexander Ross observed that he illustrates the existence of good even in the worst of societies.³⁶ Since Lear compares his evil daughters to centaurs, one may ask whether the one good daughter resembles the one good centaur. The question cannot be answered definitely. There are, however, attributes which Chiron and Cordelia share.

In mythology Chiron was renowned for three characteristics: (1) He was an emblem of self-discipline and a paragon of justice: “Chiron non modo Centauros ceteros, sed homines quoque iustitia superavit. …”³⁷ Cordelia also combines supreme self-discipline and justice. She is “queen / Over her passion, who, most rebel-like, / Sought to be king o'er her” (IV. iii. 15-17). Her justice is illustrated in the first scene in her refusal to compromise and in Kent's remark that she “justly [thinks] and hast most rightly said!” (I. i. 186). Later we learn that she “redeems Nature from the general curse / Which twain have brought her to” (IV. vi. 210-11). Finally, her pardon of Lear (IV. vii) is an act of justice tempered by mercy. (2) Chiron was renowned for two skills, music and the medicinal use of herbs. Cordelia is neither a physician nor a musician, but Lear's cure takes place under her sponsorship and involves both herbs (“All blest secrets, / All you unpublish'd virtues of the earth, / Spring with my tears” [IV. iv. 15-17]), and music (IV. vii. 25). (3) Chiron was also a symbol of innocent suffering. He was wounded accidentally by the poisoned arrow of Hercules, died, and was translated by Jove into the constellation of Sagittarius.³⁸ Ross says, “Just as Chiron was wounded by Hercules but was afterward placed among the Starrs; so, although might doth oftentimes overcome right here, yet the end of justice and mercy shall be the glory at last.”³⁹ As she is being led to prison, Cordelia observes that might often overcomes right: “We are not the first / Who with best meaning have incurr'd the worst” (V. iii. 3-4).

III

Although some of the parallels which I have cited are suggestive rather than conclusive, the number of parallels, together with Shakespeare's explicit references to centaurs, the wheel of fire, Jupiter and Juno, the thunderbolt, and the like, fully justifies Talbert and Starnes' conclusion that the Ixion myth was much on Shakespeare's mind as he wrote King Lear.

Shakespeare could have learned of the Ixion myth from a variety of sources, including mythological dictionaries, commentaries on Ovid and Virgil, works on mythography such as those by Comes and Cartari, emblem books, and the like. The precedent of Gorboduc makes it clear that the use of myth to articulate historical materials was by no means an innovation. In addition, when Lear was written, interest in the symbolic and dramatic possibilities of classical mythology had been stimulated by the court masque.

Whatever Shakespeare's reason for becoming interested in the Ixion myth, his use of it conforms to a widely accepted Renaissance critical theory. According to this theory, poetry occupies a position in the scheme of knowledge half-way between philosophy and history. Philosophy is an essential discipline, the source of the general ideas which enable man to understand his experience. However, in itself, it is complex and abstract. History is equally important, being man's source of specific information. But it, too, is deficient. It tends to become a list of events with no higher significance. Poetry alone combines the virtues of philosophy and history. The poet draws on the generalizations of philosophy to shape the events of history in a meaningful pattern. In the Apologie for Poetrie Sidney explains:

The Philosopher therefore and the Historian, are they which would win the gole: the one by precept, the other by example. But both not having both, doe both halte. For the Philosopher, setting downe with thorny argument the bare rule, is so hard of utterance, and so mistie to be conceived, that one that hath no other guide but him, shall wade in him till hee be olde, before he shall find sifficient cause to be honest: for his knowledge standeth so upon the abstract and generall, that happie is that man who may understande him, and more happie, that can applye what hee doth understand.

On the other side, the Historian wanting the precept, is so tyed, not to what shoulde bee, but to what is, to the particuler truth of things, and not to the general reason of things, that hys example draweth no necessary consequence and therefore a lesse fruitfull doctrine.

Now dooth the peerelesse Poet perforem both: for whatsoever the Philosopher sayth should be doone, hee giveth a perfect picture of it in some one, by whom he presupposeth it was done. So as hee coupleth the generall notion with the particuler example.⁴⁰

The historical details of King Lear are assembled from a variety of sources. Holinshed's Chronicle. The Mirror for Magistrates, The Faerie Queene, and The True Chronicle Historie are those most frequently mentioned. The details, however, lack genuine coherence. They are “the particular truth of things,” but they have no “general reason.” We may conjecture that Shakespeare was aware of this fact. He therefore supplemented history with myth, choosing Ixion, the type of the irresponsible king, the ruler who confused pomp and circumstance with power, and the father of the lustful centaurs, as his model. The mythographic tradition gave him the “general reasons” which he needed to change a mass of “particular truths” into a unified drama. Since these “general reasons” were central issues of contemporary political and moral philosophy, they also helped him create his most profound study of the crisis of his age.

Notes

1. A. W. Ward, A History of English Dramatic Literature (London: Macmillan, 1899), I, 200. Cf. C. F. Tucker Brooke, The Tudor Drama (London: Constable, 1912), p. 192.

2. D. T. Starnes and E. W. Talbert, Classical Myth and Legend in Renaissance Dictionaries (Chapel Hill: Univ. of North Carolina Press, 1955), p. 116. All quotations from King Lear are from The Complete Plays and Poems of William Shakespeare, ed. William Allan Neilson and Charles Jarvis Hill (Cambridge, Mass.: Houghton Mifflin, 1942).

3. Erwin Panofsky, Studies in Iconology (New York: Oxford Univ. Press, 1947), p. 216 n.

4. Paola Barocchi, Il Rosso Fiorentino (Rome: Gismondi, 1950), pls. 112, 113, 114; R. L. Douglas, Piero di Cosimo (Chicago: Univ. of Chicago Press, 1946), pl. 17.

5. Paul Kristeller, Andrea Mantegna (London: Longmans, Green, 1901), pl. 23 and comment, pp. 55-56.

6. Paolo d'Ancona, The Farnesina Frescoes (Milan: Ed. del Milione, 1956), p. 25 and pl. 14.

7. Mitologiarum Libri Tres, in Opera, ed. R. Helm (Leipzig, 1898), pp. 55-56.

8. Genealogiae Deorum Gentilium Libri, ed. Vincenzo Romano (Bari: G. Laterza, 1951), II, 468-72 (IX, xxvii).

9. The standard version of the tale is briefly told by Servius in his commentary on Aeneid, VI, 286 and 601, and Georgics, III, 38 and 115; IV, 484. Lactantius tells the story of the Jovian thunderbolt in his commentary on Thebiad, IV, 539. Macrobius interprets Ixion's wheel as the wheel of fortune in In Somnuim Scioponis, X, 14-15.

10. de Laboribus Herculis, ed. B. L. Ullman (Zurich, 1951), I, 217-28.

11. Natalis Comitis Mythologiae, sive Explicationes Fabularum Libri Decem (Lyons, 1602), pp. 613-17 (V, xvi), and—for centaurs—pp. 709-13 (VII, iv); G. Stephanus, Dictionarium Historicum, Geographicum, Poeticum (Cologne, 1618), ss. vv. Ixion and centaur; Alexander Ross, Mystagogus Poeticus, or The Muses Interpreter (London, 1648), pp. 55-57 and 223-26.

12. Works, tr. Sir John Sandys (Cambridge: Harvard Univ. Press, Loeb Classical Library, 1924), second Pythian Ode, ll. 21 ff.

13. Dictionarium, s.v. Ixion.

14. Mystagogus Poeticus, p. 224.

15. See Fulgentius, Mitologiarum, II, xiv; Boccaccio, Genealogiae, IX, xxviii; Comes, Mythologiae, pp. 615-16.

16. Fulgentius Metaforalis, in Studien der Bibliotek Warburg, IV, 124. Compare Physiologus Latinus, ed. Carmody (Paris, 1939), p. 26, which relates the image of the centaur to that of the siren.

17. Mystagogus Poeticus, p. 225.

18. Mitologiarum, p. 38. For a more detailed discussion see Vincenzio Cartari, Imagini de i Dei degli Antichi (Padua, 1602), pp. 160-78.

19. Mystagogus Poeticus, p. 215.

20. Works, ed. C. H. Hereford and Percy Simpson (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1925-52), VII, 217.

21. de Laboribus Herculis, I, 219.

22. Quoted from the reprint of the play in Shakespeare's Library (London, 1875), vi, 308. In the versions in Holinshed's Chronicles, The Mirror for Magistrates, and the Gesta Romanorum, Lear arranges to have his daughters inherit the throne after his death but is overthrown by rebellion; in the anonymous ballad version and in The True Chronicle Historie, Lear surrenders the throne, but for laudable motives.

23. Mystagogus Poeticus, p. 225.

24. E.g., Mystagogus Poeticus, p. 215. The tradition is as old as Fulgentius; cf. Mitologiarum, p. 38: “[Juno] … regnis praeesse dicitur, quod haec vita divitiis tandum studeat; ideo etiam cum sceptro pingitur, quod divitiae regnis sint proximae. …”

25. Mystagogus Poeticus, p. 215.

26. Boccaccio, Genealogiae, II, 469.

27. V. Cartari, Imagini, p. 174.

28. Fulgentius Metaforalis, IV, 121.

29. The comparison is found, for example, in Physiologus Latinus, p. 26; and Andrea Alciati, Emblemata (Padua, 1621), p. 489. Ben Jonson, Works, vii, 343, wrote: “Among the ancients the kind, both of the Centaures and Satyres, is confounded; and common with eyther. …” Claudius Minois, the principal commentator in the 1621 edition of Alciati, compares centaurs and sirens in respect to lust, but also interprets the sirens as symbols of flattery. The latter interpretation obviously applies to Lear's daughters and may explain the apparent fusion of the centaur image with that of the siren in IV. vi. 120 ff.

30. Erwin Panofsky, “The Early History of Man in a Cycle of Paintings by Piero di Cosimo,” Journal of the Warburg and Cortauld Institutes, 1 (1937-38), 12-30; R. L. Douglas, Piero di Cosimo (Chicago: Univ. of Chicago Press, 1946), p. 33.

31. de Laboribus Herculis, I, 223.

32. Mystagogus Poeticus, p. 56.

33. de Laboribus Herculis, I, 217.

34. Mystagogus Poeticus, p. 56.

35. Madeleine Doran, “Elements in the Composition of King Lear,” SP, 30 (1935), 46.

36. Mystagogus Poeticus, p. 56. This was sometimes explained by the idea that Chiron was not a child of Ixion like the other centaurs, but of Saturn. See Salutati, de Laboribus Herculis, III, xi.

37. de Laboribus Herculis, I, 207.

38. Cf. however, Hyginus, Astronomica, II, 27 and 38.

39. Mytagogus Poeticus, p. 56.

40. Apologie for Poetrie, in James H. Smith and Edd W. Parks, The Great Critics (New York: Norton, 1939), pp. 200-1. The critical tradition behind this passage has long been recognized by scholars. See especially Giovanni Giovannini, “Historical Realism and the Tragic Emotions in Renaissance Criticism,” PQ, 23 (1953), 304-20, and “Agnolo Segni and a Renaissance Definition of Poetry,” MLQ, 6 (1945), 167-73.