Scene III.
—A HALL IN THE EARL OF GLOSTER'S CASTLE.
Enter Edmund, with a letter.
Edm.
Thou, nature, art my goddess;28 note to thy law
My services are bound: Wherefore should I
-- 15 --
Stand in the plague of custom,29 note and permit
The curiosity of nations30 note to deprive me,31 note
For that I am some twelve or fourteen moonshines
Lag of a brother? Why branded? Wherefore base?
When my dimensions are as well compact,
My mind as generous, and my shape as true,
As honest madam's issue? 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!
Well, my legitimate, if this letter speed,
And my invention thrive, Edmund the base
Shall top the legitimate. I grow—I prosper.
Enter Gloster.
Glo.
Kent banish'd thus! and France in choler parted!
And the king gone to-night! subscrib'd32 note his power!
Confin'd to exhibition!33 note All this done
Upon the gad!34 note
Edmund! how now? what news?
Edm.
So please your lordship, none.
[Putting up the letter.
Glo.
What paper were you reading?
Edm.
Nothing, my lord.
Glo.
No? What needed, then, that terrible despatch of
it into your pocket? Let's see.
Edm.
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 over-looking.
-- 16 --
Glo.
Give me the letter, Sir.
Edm.
I hope, for my brother's justification, he wrote
this but as an essay or taste of my virtue.35 note
Glo. (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 bondage36 note 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,”
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.
I found it thrown in at the casement of my closet.
Glo.
You know the character to be your brother's?
Edm.
It is his hand, my lord; but I hope his heart is
not in the contents.
Glo.
O villain! villain!—Unnatural villain! Go, sirrah,
seek him; I'll apprehend him. Abominable villain!
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.
To his father, that so tenderly and entirely loves him
—Heaven and earth!—Edmund, seek him out, I pray you;
frame the business after your own wisdom.
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: love cools, friendship falls off, brothers divide;
in cities, mutinies; in countries, discord: in palaces, treason;
and the bond crack'd between son and father.—Find out this
villain, Edmund! it shall lose thee nothing; do it carefully:—
And the noble and true-hearted Kent banish'd! his offence,
honesty!—Strange! strange!
[Exit Gloster.
-- 17 --
Edm.
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 traitors, by spherical predominance;
drunkards and liars, 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!
Enter Edgar.
Edg.
How now, brother Edmund? What serious contemplation
are you in?
Edm.
I am thinking, brother, of a prediction I read this
other day, what should follow these eclipses. When saw
you my father last?
Edg.
Why, the night gone by.
Edm.
Spake you with him?
Edg.
Ay, two hours together.
Edm.
Parted you in good terms? Found you no displeasure
in him, by word or countenance?
Edg.
None at all.
Edm.
Bethink yourself, wherein you may have offended
him: and at my entreaty, forbear his presence, till some little
time hath qualified the heat of his displeasure; which at
this instant so rageth in him, that with the mischief of your
person it would scarcely allay.
Edg.
Some villain hath done me wrong.
Edm.
That's my fear. I pray you, retire with me to my
lodging, from whence I will fitly bring you to hear my lord
speak: Pray you, go; there's my key:—If you do stir
abroad, go arm'd.
Edg.
Arm'd brother?
Edm.
Brother, I advise you to the best; go arm'd; I am
no honest man, if there be any good meaning towards you:
Pray you, away.
Edg.
Shall I hear from you anon?
Edm.
I do serve you in this business.—
[Exit Edgar.
A credulous father, and a brother noble,
Whose nature is so far from doing harms,
-- 18 --
That he suspects none; on whose foolish honesty
My practices ride easy!—I see the business.—
Let me, if not by birth, have lands by wit:
All with me's meet, that I can fashion fit.
[Exit.
Charles Kean [1858], Shakespeare's tragedy of King Lear, arranged for representation at the Princess's Theatre, with historical and explanatory notes, by Charles Kean, F.S.A. as first performed on Saturday, April 17, 1858 (Printed by John K. Chapman and Co. [etc.], London) [word count] [S31100].
