1.124). The former is being subject to the king's outbursting ire and is doomed to banishment. But the ever – devoted and dutiful Kent is determind on adhering to his master. In order to do that, he decides to change his exterior disguising himself as Caius: "If but as well I other accents borrow That can my speach defuse, my good intent/ May carry through itself to that full issue." (1.4.1-3). .
A "progress narrative" underlies the interpretation of other characters' motives for disguising themselves in the Shakespearean corpus. In As You Like It Rosalind and Celia, like Kent in King Lear, are liable to banishment by their patron, Duke Frederick. Like Edgar of King Lear Whose face he "grime[s] with Filt" (2.3.9), Celia "with a kind of umber smirch[es] [her] face" (1.3.110). Rosalind decides to cross-dress: .
Because that I am more than common tall/ That I did suit me all pointes like a man?/ A gallant curtle-ax upon my thigh,/ A boar-spear in my hand. (1.3.113-116). .
The decision of the two female heroins to change outward (and sexual) form is attributable to the same concern that guides Edgar in King Lear, self preservation. The text of As You Like It explicitly refers to that: .
Also, what danger will it be to us,/ Maids as we, to travel forth so far !/ Beauty provoketh thieves sooner than gold. .I'll put myself in poor an mean attire. The like do you; so shall we pass along/ And never stir assailants (1.3.106-108, 109, 110-112).
Yet, to regard the disguise motif in Shakespeare's plays in terms of a "progress narrative" only in insufficient. The shakespearean play is more than the sum of sequential events or the literal plot. The "progress narrative" approach concentrates on the story line, that is, the verbal representation of events. A character does X to achieve Y. From the point of view of the plot, for example, Edgar disguises himself so he can survive his father's will to kill him.
