Kent.
Thus Kent, O princes, bids you all adieu;
He'll shape his old course in a country new. Exit, R. U. E.

Gloster.
Here's France and Burgundy, my noble lord.

Lear.
My lord of Burgundy,
We first address towards you, who with this king
Hath rivall'd for our daughter; sir, there she stands;
If aught with that little, seeming substance,
Or all of it, with our displeasure piec'd,
And nothing more, may fitly like your grace,
She's there, and she is yours.

Burgundy.
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 asham'd
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 favor!

Cordelia. (kneeling to Lear)
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, nor other foulness,
No unchaste action, or dishonor'd step,
That hath depriv'd me of your grace and favor:
But even for want of that, for which I am richer;
A still-soliciting eye, and such a tongue
That I am glad I have not, though not to have it,
Hath lost me in your liking.

Lear.
Better thou
Had'st not been born, than not to have pleas'd me better.

France.
Is it but this? a tardiness in nature,
Which often leaves the history unspoke
That it intends to do?—(crosses) Fairest Cordelia,
Thou art most rich, being poor;
Most choice, forsaken; and most lov'd, despised,
Thee and thy virtues here I seize upon:
Be it lawful, I take up what's cast away. (raises her)
Thy dowerless daughter, king, thrown to my chance,
Is queen of us, of ours, and our fair France.
Not all the dukes of waterish Burgundy,
Shall buy this unpriz'd precious maid of me.—
Bid them farewell, Cordelia, though unkind:
Thou losest here, a better where to find.

Lear.
Thou hast her, France: let her be thine; for we
Have no such daughter, nor shall ever see
That face of hers again:—(Cordelia kneels, and takes hold of his mantle) Therefore be gone,
Without our grace, our love, our bension.
Come, noble Burgundy. (flourish) Banners. Soldiers with shields. Knights. Lear and Burgundy. Albany, Cornwall. Gloster. Physician, Herald, Officer. Knights. Soldiers with spears. Attendants. Exeunt, C. and L.

France.
Bid farewell to your sisters.

Cordel.
The jewels of our father, with wash'd eyes (to Regan and Goneril)
Cordelia leaves you: I know you what you are;
And, like a sister, am most loath to call
Your faults, as they are nam'd. Love well our father:
To your professed bosoms I commit him:
But yet, alas! stood I within his grace,
I would prefer him to a better place
So, farewell to you both.

*Goneril.
Prescribe not us our duty.

*Regan.
Let your study
*Be to content your lord, who hath receiv'd you
*At fortune's alms: you have obedience scanted,
*And well art worth the want that you have wanted.

*Cordelia.
Time shall unfold what plighted cunning hides;
*Who cover faults, at last shame them derides.
*Well may you prosper. Exeunt France and Cordelia, C. and R.—Regan, Goneril, and Ladies C. and L. Scene II. —A Hall in the Earl of Gloster's Castle. (1st grooves). Enter Edmund, with a letter, L. C.

Edmund.
Thou, nature, art my goddess: to thy law
My services are bound: Wherefore should I
Stand in the plague of custom; and permit
The courtesy of nations to deprive me,
For that I am some twelve or fourteen moon-shines
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 lustly 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,
Well then, legitimate Edgar, I must have your land:
Our father's love is to the bastard Edmund,

As to the legitimate: Fine word,—legitimate! (taking letter from pocket)
Well, my legitimate, if this letter speed,
And my invention thrive, Edmund the base
Shall top the legitimate. I grow; I prosper:—
Now, gods, stand up for bastards! (retires to R.) Enter Gloster, L.

Gloster.
Kent banish'd thus! And France in choler parted!
And the king gone to-night! subscrib'd his power!
Confined to exhibition! All this done
Upon the gad!—Edmund! How now; what news?

Edmund.

So please your lordship, none.

Gloster.

Why so earnestly seek you to put up that letter?

Edmund.

I know no news, my lord.

Gloster.

What paper were you reading?

Edmund.

Nothing, my lord.

Gloster.

No! what needed then that terrible despatch of it into your pocket? Let's see.

Edmund.

I beseech you, sir, pardon me: it is a letter from my brother, that I have not all o'er-read: for so much as I have perused, I find it not fit for your overlooking.

Gloster.

Give me the letter, sir.

Edmund.

I shall offend, either to detain or give it. The contents, as I in part understand them, are to blame.

Gloster.

Let's see, let's see.

Edmund.

I hope, for my brother's justification, he wrote this but as an essay or taste of my virtue.

Gloster. (reads)

“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 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?

Edmund.

It was not brought me, my lord; there's the cunning of it; I found it thrown in at the casement of my closet.

Gloster.

You know the character to be your brother's?

Edmund.

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.

Gloster.

It is his?

Edmund.

It is his hand, my lord; but I hope, his heart is not in the contents.

*Gloster.

Hath he never heretofore sounded you in this business?*

*Edmund.

Never, my lord: but I have often heard him maintain it to be fit, that sons at perfect age, and fathers declined, the father should be a ward to the son, and the son manage his revenue.*

Gloster.

O villain, villain! *His very opinion in the letter.* Unnatural villain!—Go, sirrah, seek him; I'll apprehend him:—abominable villain!—Where is he?

Edmund.

If your honor 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.

Gloster.

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.

Edmund.

I will seek him, sir, presently; convey the business as I shall find means, and acquaint you withal.

Gloster.

These late eclipses in the sun and moon portend no good to us. 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 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 lose thee nothing; do it carefully.—And the noble and true-hearted Kent banished! his offence, honesty!—Strange! strange!

Edmund.

This is the excellent foppery of the world! that, when we are sick in fortune, (often the surfeit of our own behaviour,) we make guilty of our disasters, the sun, the moon, and the stars; as if we were villains by necessity; fools, by heavenly compulsion; knaves, thieves, and treachers, by spherical predominance; drunkards, liars, and adulterers, by an enforced obedience of planetary influence; and all that we are evil in, by a divine thrusting on. An admirable evasion of licentious man, to lay his goatish disposition to the charge of a star!—Tut, I should have been that I am, had the maidenliest star in the firmament twinkled on my bastardizing. Edgar—and pat he comes, like the catastrophe of the old comedy: My cue is villainously melancholy, with a sigh like Tom o'Bedlam.—O, these eclipses do portend these divisions! Fa, sol, la, mi.