For that reason, going mad is the perfect punishment. He led his mind into falsehoods through anger, and his mind essentially rebelled. In this light, it is somewhat ironic when Cordelia -- whose banishment was the source for Lear's madness, in this reading -- exclaims "he was met even now / As mad as the vexed sea" (IV, iv, 1-2). His madness brings her compassion, and ultimately his salvation.

Just so, Gloucester would not let himself see what his treatment of the bastard Edmond was doing to his son early in the play, and was easily fooled into seeing his noble son as a sort of traitor. These tricks of the eye made him blind, and he actually wishes he were mad: "Better I were distract. / So should my thoughts be severed from my griefs, / And woes by wrong imaginations lose / The knowledge of themselves." (IV, iv,...
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