James Rumsey-Merlan
A Ghostlier Demarcation and a Keener Sound
In the opening scene of Lear, the king speaks the line ‘With shadowy forests and with champains riched’ (I. i. 65). This, at least, is what I read in the edition that I have been following. The line as quoted is taken verbatim from the 1623 folio. The 1608 quarto has ‘shady’ for the ‘shadowy’ of the folio. In my opinion, the line of the folio is superior to the first quarto for several reasons. ‘Shadowy’ implies more of the spectral, attaches foreboding to the ‘forests’ and presages the daughterly dastardliness to come. Shadowy also has an obsolete connotation of inaccessibility, which shady does not. Given that Lear is essentially to be barred from his two eldest daughters and their effects, this added richness of meaning seems appropriate.
In a word, shadows are more sinister than shade. While neither term necessarily implies the sinister at all, shadows do seem to announce their proclivity for furtiveness with more abandon than shade, the latter successful only in conjuring up images of piña coladas and Oblomovian languor. Shadows are both, ‘transitory, fleeting; unreal, imaginary’ (OED 2nd ed. s.v. shadowy 1. a.) and ‘spectral, ghostly’ (OED 2nd ed. s.v. shadowy1. b.). They are inconstant and seem more or less than what they are, depending on the time of day. And this is exactly the sense that the images surrounding the one in question seem to convey. ‘With champains riched’ first promises ease and decadence- champagne as tasty beverage and champain as rolling field. But champain also has the sense of battle-ground. ‘Plenteous rivers’ (I. i. 65) means what it says but river also means ‘one who robs’ (OED 2nd ed. s.v. river 2.) and ‘one who rives’ (OED 2nd ed. s.v. river 1.) It seems clear that these images are all tinged with a hint of foreboding. For this reason, if no other, ‘shadowy’ is superior to ‘shady’ here.
There are, though, a few more reasons to privilege ‘shadowy’. In addition to the sense mentioned, shadowy also means ‘screened from observation, retired; hence, remote, inaccessible.’ (OED 2nd ed. s.v shadowy 2. b.) These ‘shadowy forests’ are to be ‘perpetual’ to ‘[Regan’s] and Albany’s issue’ (1. i. 66-67). And soon enough, all of Lear’s former kingdom will be as inaccessible as a shadowy forest to him- not a shady one (which does not have this sense). As well as the difference in content here between the folio and the quarto, there is possibly an interesting difference of form. The first quarto line is a simple iambic pentameter:
X \ X \ X \ X
With shady forests and with etc
Now, shadowy might be spoken in two syllables, shad’wy, as a trochee that fits as neatly into the iambic meter as shady does. But it might also be pronounced as the dactyl that it is. In this case, the meter of the line would be disrupted- a foot with three syllables in effect overlaid on two consecutive disyllabic ones. ‘Shadowy’ as a kind of specter itself, perching on the line perhaps, or at very least a slight disruption of the meter foretelling the coming disruptions to the state. For these reasons of content and form, ‘shadowy’ is preferable here to ‘shady’.