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In his wise discussion of forgiveness, Akhtar (2002) reminds us of the common counsel “forgive and forget,” as he describes the intrapsychic changes that allow one to forgive and so to move on. I am reminded of one of the most affecting, though not the earliest, recordings of this expression.
Near the end of King Lear (Shakespeare 1606), the old king, having lost everything in a night of depression and madness out in the storm, is reunited with his devoted daughter, Cordelia, whom he had cruelly and mistakenly disowned.
He barely remembers her:
Methinks I should know you …Yet I am doubtful: for I am mainly ignorantWhat place this is, and all the skill I haveRemembers not these garments; nor I know notWhere I did lodge last night ….
As his memory begins to return, he says to Cordelia:
I know you do not love me; for your sisters