indeed, sir, a son for her cradle ere she had a husband for her bed. Do you smell a fault? Kent. I cannot wish the fault undone, the issue of it being so proper. Glo. But I have, sir, a son by order of law, some year elder than this, who yet is no dearer in my account. Though this knave came somewhat saucily into the world before he was sent for, yet was his mother fair: there was good sport at his making, and the whoreson must be acknowledged. -Do you know this noble gentleman, Edmund? Edm. No, my lord. Glo. My lord of Kent: remember him hereafter as my honourable friend. Edm. My services to your lordship. Kent. I must love you, and sue to know you better. Edm. Sir, I shall study deserving. Glo. He hath been out nine years, and away he shall again. The King is coming. [Trumpets sound within. Enter LEAR, CORNWALL, ALBANY, GONERIL, No less than life, with grace, health, beauty, honour: As much as child e'er loved, or father found. A love that makes breath poor, and speech unable; Beyond all manner of so much I love you. Cor. What shall Cordelia do? Love, and be silent. [Aside. Lear. Of all these bounds, even from this line to this, With shadowy forests and with champains riched, With plenteous rivers and wide-skirted meads, We make thee lady. To thine and Albany's issue Be this perpetual.—What says our second daugh ter, Our dearest Regan, wife to Cornwall? Speak. Reg. I am made of that self metal as my sister, And prize me at her worth. In my true heart I find she names my very deed of love: Only she comes too short,—that I profess Myself an enemy to all other joys Which the most precious square of sense possesses, And find I am alone felicitate In your dear highness' love. Then poor Cordelia! [Aside. Cor. Lear. To thee and thine, hereditary ever, Come not between the dragon and his wrath : So be my grave my peace, as here I give Call Burgundy.-Cornwall and Albany, course, With reservation of an hundred knights, The sway, Revénue, execution of the rest, Beloved sons, be yours: which to confirm, Lear. Hear me, recreant! Since thou hast sought to make us break our vow Kent. Fare thee well, King: since thus thou wilt appear, Freedom lives hence, and banishment is here.The gods to their dear shelter take thee, maid, [TO CORDELIA. That justly think'st, and hast most rightly said.And your large speeches may your deeds approve, [To REGAN and GONERIL. That good effects may spring from words of love.— Pardon me, royal sir: Election makes not up on such conditions. Lear. Then leave her, sir: for, by the power that made me, I tell you all her wealth.-For you, great king, [TO FRANCE. I would not from your love make such a stray, To match you where I hate: therefore beseech you To avert your liking a more worthier way, Than on a wretch whom nature is ashamed Almost to acknowledge hers. France. This is most strange! That she, that even but now was your best object, The argument of your praise, balm of your age, Most best, most dearest, should in this trice of time Commit a thing so monstrous, to dismantle So many folds of favour! Sure her offence Must be of such unnatural degree That monsters it, or your fore-vouched affection Fall into taint: which to believe of her, Must be a faith that reason, without miracle, Could never plant in me. Cor. I yet beseech your majesty (If for I want that glib and oily art, To speak and purpose not; since what I well intend, I'll do 't before I speak), that you make known It is no vicious blot, murder, or foulness, No unchaste action or dishonoured step, That hath deprived me of your grace and favour: But even for want of that for which I am richer: Most choice, forsaken; and most loved, despised! My love should kindle to inflamed respect.— Thy dowerless daughter, King, thrown to my chance, Is queen of us, of ours, and our fair France: Lear, Thou hast her, France: let her be thine; for we Have no such daughter, nor shall ever see [Flourish. Exeunt LEAR, BURGUNDY, CORN- Gon. Prescribe not us our duties. Reg. [Exeunt FRANCE and CORDELIA. Gon. Sister, it is not a little I have to say, of what most nearly appertains to us both. I think our father will hence to-night. Reg. That's most certain, and with you: next month with us. Gon. You see how full of changes his age is: the observation we have made of it hath not been little. He always loved our sister most: and with what poor judgment he hath now cast her off, appears too grossly. Reg. 'Tis the infirmity of his age: yet he hath ever but slenderly known himself. Gon. The best and soundest of his time hath been but rash: then must we look to receive from his age, not alone the imperfections of long-engrafted condition, but therewithal the unruly waywardness that infirm and choleric years bring with them. Reg. Such unconstant starts are we like to have from him, as this of Kent's banishment. Gon. There is further compliment of leavetaking between France and him. Pray you, let us hit together: if our father carry authority with such dispositions as he bears, this last surrender of his will but offend us. Reg. We shall further think of it. Gon. We must do something, and i' the heat. [Exeunt. SCENE II-A Hall in the EARL OF GLOSTER'S Castle. Enter EDMUND, with a letter. Edm. Thou, nature, art my goddess; to thy law My services are bound. Wherefore should I Stand in the plague of custom; and permit The curiosity of nations to deprive me, For that I am some twelve or fourteen moonshines Lag of a brother? Why bastard; wherefore base; When my dimensions are as well compact, My mind as generous, and my shape as true, As honest madam's issue? Why brand they us With base; with baseness; bastardy; base, base; Who, in the lusty stealth of nature, take More composition and fierce quality Than doth, within a dull, stale, tired bed, Go to the creating a whole tribe of fops, Got 'tween asleep and wake?-Well then, Enter GLOSTER. Glo. Kent banished thus; and France in choler parted! And the king gone to-night: subscribed his power: Confined to exhibition! All this done Upon the gad!-Edmund! how now? what news? Edm. So please your lordship, none. [Putting up the letter. Glo. Why so earnestly seek you to put up that letter? Edm. I know no news, my lord. Glo. What paper were you reading? Glo. No? what needed, then, that terrible despatch of it into your pocket? the quality of nothing hath not such need to hide itself. Let's see: come, if it be nothing, I shall not need spectacles. Edm. I beseech you, sir, pardon me. It is a letter from my brother, that I have not all o'erread: for so much as I have perused, I find it not fit for your over-looking. Glo. Give me the letter, sir. Edm. I shall offend either to detain or give it. The contents, as in part I understand them, are to blame. Glo. Let's see, let's see. Edm. I hope, for my brother's justification, he wrote this but as an assay or taste of my virtue. GLOSTER reads. "This policy and reverence of age makes the world bitter in the best of our times; keeps our fortunes from us till our oldness cannot relish them. I begin to find an idle and fond bondage in the oppression of aged tyranny; who sways, not as it hath power, but as it is suffered. Come to me, that of this I may speak more. If our father would sleep till I waked him, you should enjoy half his revenue for ever, and live the beloved of your brother, EDGAR." Humph!-Conspiracy!" Sleep till I waked him-you should enjoy half his revenue!"—My son Edgar! Had he a hand to write this? a heart and brain to breed it in?-When came this to you? who brought it? Edm. It was not brought me, my lord; there's the cunning of it: I found it thrown in at the casement of my closet. Glo. You know the character to be your brother's? Edm. If the matter were good, my lord, I durst swear it were his; but in respect of that, I would fain think it were not. Glo. It is his. Edm. It is his hand, my lord; but I hope his heart is not in the contents. Glo. Hath he never heretofore sounded you in this business? Edm. Never, my lord: but I have often heard him maintain it to be fit, that, sons at perfect age, and fathers declining, the father should be as ward to the son, and the son manage his revenue. Glo. O villain, villain !-His very opinion in the letter!-Abhorred villain! Unnatural, detested, brutish villain! worse than brutish!-Go, sirrah, seek him; I'll apprehend him.-Abominable villain!-Where is he? If it Edm. I do not well know, my lord. shall please you to suspend your indignation against my brother till you can derive from him better testimony of his intent, you shall run a certain course where, if you violently proceed against him, mistaking his purpose, it would make a great gap in your own honour, and shake in pieces the heart of his obedience. I dare pawn down my life for him that he hath writ this to feel my affection to your honour, and to no other pretence of danger. Glo. Think you so? Edm. If your honour judge it meet, I will place you where you shall hear us confer of this, and by an auricular assurance have your satisfaction; and that without any further delay than this very evening. Glo. He cannot be such a monster. Glo. To his father, that so tenderly and entirely loves him. Heaven and earth!-Edmund, seek him out; wind me into him, I pray you: frame the business after your own wisdom. I would unstate myself, to be in a due resolution. Edm. I will seek him, sir, presently; convey the business as I shall find means, and acquaint you withal. Glo. These late eclipses in the sun and moon portend no good to us. Though the wisdom of nature can reason it thus and thus, yet nature finds itself scourged by the sequent affects:-love cools, friendship falls off, brothers divide: in cities, mutinies; in countries, discord; in palaces, treason; and the bond cracked between son and father. This villain of mine comes under the prediction; there's son against father: the king falls from bias of nature; there's father |