Lear's madness now becomes itself an emblem, a touchstone, for the madness that afflicts so many others in the play. And this madness is a condition we have seen before in Shakespeare. Hamlet feigned madness (or was it feigned?). And what of Othello? And Ophelia? And (shortly) Lady Macbeth? What is this disease of madness, and what is its function in drama? Most evidently, and perhaps most importantly, madness permits the maddened victim to speak the truth, like a licensed fool,
