isolation of the visual sense as a kind of blindness.

     It is in the first scene of the play that Lear expresses his 
“darker purpose,” using the Machiavellian cant term. Earlier in 
the first scene the darkness of Nature, as it were, is shown in 
the boasting of Gloucester about the illegitimacy of his 
handsome love-child Edmund: “But I have, sir, a son by order of 
law, some year older than this, who is yet no dearer in my 
account.” The gaiety with which Gloucester alludes to the 
begetting of Edmund is later alluded to by Edgar:

     The dark and vicious place where thee he got 
     Cost him his eyes. (V, iii)

Edmund, the love-child, opens the second scene of the play 
with: