SCENE VII.
To him, Enter Glo'ster.
Glo.
Kent banish'd thus! and France in choler parted!
And the King gone to-night! 1 note
subscrib'd his pow'r!
Confin'd to 2 noteexhibition! 3 note
all this done
Upon the gad!—Edmund, how now? what news?
-- 21 --
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?
Edm.
Nothing, my Lord.
Glo.
No! what needed then that terrible dispatch 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'er read; and
for so much as I have perus'd, 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 essay, or 4 note
taste of my virtue.
Glo. reads.]
5 note
This policy and reverence of age makes
the world bitter to the best of our times; keeps our fortunes
from us, till our oldness cannot relish them. I begin
to find an 6 noteidle and fond bondage in the oppression of
aged tyranny; which sways, not as it hath power, but
-- 22 --
as it is suffered. Come to me, that of this I may speak
more. If our father would sleep, till I wak'd him, you
should enjoy half his revenue for ever, and live the beloved
of your brother Edgar.—Hum—Conspiracy!—
sleep, till I wake 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; I hope, his heart is
not in the contents.
Glo.
Has he never before sounded you in this business?
Edm.
Never, my Lord. But I have heard him
oft maintain it to be fit, that sons at perfect age, and
fathers declining, the father should be as a 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?
Edm.
I do not well know, my Lord. If it shall
please you to suspend your indignation against my brother,
'till you can derive from him better testimony of
his intent, you should 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
-- 23 --
feel my affection to your Honour, and to no other
7 note
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.
Edm.
Nor is not, sure.
Glo.
To his Father, that so tenderly and entirely
loves him—Heav'n and Earth! Edmund, seek him
out; 8 notewind me into him, I pray you. Frame the business
after your own wisdom; 9 note
I would unstate myself,
to be in a due resolution.
Edm.
I will seek him, Sir, presently, 1 note
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; tho' 2 notethe wisdom of nature can
reason it thus and thus, yet nature finds itself scourg'd
-- 24 --
by the sequent effects. Love cools, friendship falls off,
brothers divide. In cities, mutinies; in countries, discord;
in palaces, treason; and the bond crack'd 'twixt
son and father. This villain of mine comes under the
prediction, there's son against father; the King falls
from biass of nature, there's father against child. We
have seen the best of our time. Machinations, hollowness,
treachery, and all ruinous disorders follow us
disquietly to our graves!—Find out this villain, Edmund;
it shall loose thee nothing, do it carefully—
and the noble and true-hearted Kent banish'd! his offence,
Honesty. 'Tis strange.
[Exit.
Samuel Johnson [1765], The plays of William Shakespeare, in eight volumes, with the corrections and illustrations of Various Commentators; To which are added notes by Sam. Johnson (Printed for J. and R. Tonson [and] C. Corbet [etc.], London) [word count] [S11001].
