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 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 gen'rous, and my shape as true,

As honest madam's issue? why brand they us
With base? with baseness? bastardy? base, base?
Our father's love is to the bastard Edmund,
As to th'legitimate Edgar; fine word—legitimate—
Well, my legitimate, if this letter speed,
And my invention thrive, Edmund the base
Shall be th' legitimate—I grow, I prosper;
Now, gods, stand up for bastards! To him enter Glocester.

Glo.

Edmund, how now? What paper were you reading?

Edm.

Nothing, my lord.

Glo.

No! what needed then that terrible dispatch of it into your pocket? let me see.

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 o'er-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 taste, of my virtue.

Glo. [reads.]

“This policy and reverence of ages 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 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.”

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! Go, seek him; I'll apprehend him. Abominable villain! where is he?

Edm.

I do not well know, my lord. 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.

Edm.

Nor is not, sure.

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; tho' the wisdom of nature can reason it thus and thus, yet nature finds itself scourg'd by the frequent 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. We have seen the best of our time. Find out this villain, Edmund; and it shall lose thee nothing; do it carefully —and the noble and true-hearted Kent banished! his offence, Honesty. 'Tis strange.

Edm.

This is the excellent foppery of the world, that, when we are sick in fortune, (often the surfeits of our own behaviour) we make guilty of our disasters, the sun, the moon and stars; as if we were villains on necessity; fools by heavenly compulsion; knaves, thieves, and treacherous, by spherical predominance; drunkards, lyars and adulterers, by an inforc'd obedience of planetary influence; and all that we are evil in, by a divine thrusting on. An admirable evasion of whoremaster man, to lay his goatish disposition on the charge of a star! I should have been what I am, had the maidenhest star in the firmament twinkled on my Bastardizing.

Pat!—he comes, like the catastrophe of the old comedy; my cue is villainous melancholy, with a sigh like Tom o' Bedlam—O, these eclipses portend these divisions!

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?

Edm.

I promise you, the effects he writes of succeed unhappily. When saw you my father last?

Edg.

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 have offended him: and, at my intreaty, forbear his presence, until 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; if you do stir abroad, go armed.

Edg.

Armed, brother!

Edm.

Brother, I advise you to the best; 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 Edg.
A credulous father, and a brother noble,
Whose nature is so far from doing harms,
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.

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