SCENE II.
A Hall in the Earl of Gloster's Castle.
Enter Edmund.
Edm.
Thou, nature, art my goddess; to thy law
My services are bound: Wherefore should I14Q1315
Stand in the plague of custom; and permit
The courtesy note 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 note the lusty stealth of nature, take
More composition and fierce quality,
Than doth, within a dull, stale, tired bed, note
Go to the creating a note whole tribe of fops,
Got 'tween asleep note and wake?—Well then,
Legitimate note Edgar, I must have your land:
Our father's love is to the bastard Edmund,
As to the legitimate: Fine word, legitimate! note
Well, my legitimate, if this † letter speed,
And my invention thrive, Edmund the base
Shall top the legitimate note note. I grow; I prosper:—
Now, gods, stand up for bastards!
Enter Gloster.
Glo.
Kent banish'd thus! And France in choler parted!
And the king gone to-night! subscrib'd his note power!14Q1316
Confin'd to exhibition! All this done note
Upon the gad!—Edmund! How now? What news?
Edm.
So please your lordship, none.
Glo.
Why so earnestly seek you to put up that letter?
-- 15 --
Edm.
I know no news, my lord.
Glo.
What paper were you reading?
Edm.
Nothing, my lord.
Glo.
No? What needed then note 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; for note so much
as I have perused, I find it not fit for your o'er-looking. note
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 taste of my virtue.
Glo. [reads]
This policy, and reverence note of age, makes
the world bitter to the best note 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; which 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 wak'd him, you should
enjoy half his revenue for ever, and live the beloved of
your brother
Edgar.
Hum—Conspiracy!—Sleep 'till note I wak'd him, note—you should
enjoy half his revenue.—My son Edgar! Had he a hand
to write this? a heart and brain note to breed it in?—When
came this to you? note 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.
-- 16 --
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 note.
Edm.
It is his hand, my lord; but, note I hope, his heart
is not in the contents.
Glo.
Hath he never heretofore note sounded you in this
business?
Edm.
Never, my lord: But I have heard him oft note
maintain it to be fit, that, sons at perfect age, and fathers
declining, note the father should be as ward to the son,
and the son manage his revenue. note
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 note 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, note you should run note a certain course; where, if you
violently proceed against him, mistaking his purpose,
it would make a great gap in your own note honour, and
shake in pieces the heart of his obedience. I dare pawn
down my life for him, that note he hath writ this note to feel my
affection to your honour, and to no other pretence note 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.
-- 17 --
Glo.
He cannot be such a monster.
Edm.
Nor is not, sure. note
Glo.
To his father, that so tenderly and intirely
loves him. Heaven and earth!—Edmund, seek him out;
wind me into him, I pray you: frame the business note after
your own wisdom: I would unstate14Q1317 myself, to be in a
due resolution.
Edm.
I will seek note him, sir, presently; convey the business
as I shall find means, note 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 note thus and thus, yet nature finds itself scourg'd
by the sequent effects: love cools, friendship falls off,
brothers divide: in cities, mutinies; in countries, discord;
in palaces, treason; and note the bond crack'd between
son note and father. This villain note of mine comes under
the prediction; there's son against father: the king falls
from byas 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 banish'd! his offence, honesty! note
Strange, strange! note
[Exit Gloster.
Edm.
This is the excellent foppery of the world!
that, when we are sick in fortune, (often the surfeit of note
our own behaviour) we make guilty of our disasters,
the sun, the moon, and the stars: note as if we were villains
on necessity note; fools, by heavenly compulsion; knaves,
thieves, and trechers, by spherical predominance note; drunkards,
liars, and adulterers, by an enforc'd obedience
of planetary influence; and all that we are evil in, by
-- 18 --
a divine thrusting on: An admirable evasion of whore-master
man, to lay his goatish disposition to the charge
of stars! note My father compounded with my mother under
the dragon's tail; and my nativity was under ursa major;
so that it follows, I am rough and letcherous:—I
should note have been that I am, had the maidenliest star in
the note firmament twinkl'd on my bastardizing. note
Enter Edgar.
&clquo;Edgar! note Pat;14Q1318 He comes note like the catastrophe of the
old comedy: My cue is note villainous melancholy, with
a sigh like Tom o' Bedlam. note O, these eclipses do portend
these divisions! note&crquo;
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.
Edg.
Do you busy yourself with that? note
Edm.
I promise you, the effects he writes of succeed
unhappily. note When saw you my father last?
Edg.
The note night gone by.
Edm.
Spake you with him?
Edg.
Ay, note two hours together.
Edm.
Parted you in good terms? Found you no displeasure
in him, by word, or countenance note?
Edg.
None at all.
Edm.
Bethink yourself, wherein you may have offended
him: and at my entreaty forbear his presence, 'till
some note little time hath qualify'd the heat of his displeasure; note
which at this instant so rageth in him, that without
the note14Q1319 mischief of your person note it would scarcely allay.
Edg.
Some villain hath done me wrong.
Edm.
That's my fear. I pray you note have a continent
-- 19 --
forbearance, 'till the speed of his rage goes slower; and,
as I say, retire with me to my lodging, from whence I
will fitly bring you to hear my lord speak: Pray you,
go; there's my &dagger2; key:—If you do stir abroad, go
arm'd.
Edg.
Arm'd, brother?
Edm.
Brother, I advise you to the best; go arm'd; note
I am no honest man, if there be any good meaning towards
you: I have told you what I have seen and heard,
but faintly; nothing like the image and horror of it:
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,
That he suspects none; on whose foolish honesty
My practises 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 Edmund.
Edward Capell [1767], Mr William Shakespeare his comedies, histories, and tragedies, set out by himself in quarto, or by the Players his Fellows in folio, and now faithfully republish'd from those Editions in ten Volumes octavo; with an introduction: Whereunto will be added, in some other Volumes, notes, critical and explanatory, and a Body of Various Readings entire (Printed by Dryden Leach, for J. and R. Tonson [etc.], London) [word count] [S10601].
