King Lear

With base? With baseness? Bastardy? Base, base?

Who in the lusty stealth of nature take¹¹

More composition and fierce quality¹²

Than doth within a dull, stale, tirèd bed,

Go to th’creating a whole tribe of fops¹⁴

Got¹⁵ ’tween a sleep and wake? Well then,

Legitimate Edgar, I must have your land:

Our father’s love is to the bastard Edmund

As¹⁸ to th’legitimate — fine word, ‘legitimate’ —

Well, my legitimate, if this letter speed¹⁹

And my invention²⁰ thrive, Edmund the base

Shall to th’legitimate²¹. I grow, I prosper:

Now, gods, stand up for bastards!

Enter Gloucester

GLOUCESTER    Kent banished thus? And France in choler parted²³?

And the king gone tonight? Prescribed²⁴ his power,

Confined to exhibition²⁵? All this done

Upon the gad²⁶? Edmund, how now? What news?

Hides the letter

EDMUND    So please your lordship, none.

GLOUCESTER    Why so earnestly seek you to put up²⁸ that letter?

EDMUND    I know no news, my lord.

GLOUCESTER    What paper were you reading?

EDMUND    Nothing, my lord.

GLOUCESTER    No? What needed, then, that terrible dispatch³² 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.

EDMUND    I beseech you, sir, pardon me: it is a letter from my

brother that I have not all o’er-read; and for³⁷ so much as I

have perused, I find it not fit for your o’erlooking³⁸.

GLOUCESTER    Give me the letter, sir.

EDMUND    I shall offend either to detain or give it: the contents,

as in part I understand them, are to blame.

Edmund gives the letter

GLOUCESTER    Let’s see, let’s see.

EDMUND    I hope for my brother’s justification he wrote this

but as an essay or taste⁴⁴ of my virtue.

GLOUCESTER    Reads ‘This policy and reverence of age⁴⁵ makes the

world bitter to the best of our times, keeps our fortunes⁴⁶ from

us till our oldness cannot relish them. I begin to find an idle⁴⁷

and fond⁴⁸ bondage in the oppression of aged tyranny, who

sways, not as it hath power, but as it is suffered⁴⁹. 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.’

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 you to this?

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 closet⁵⁸.

GLOUCESTER    You know the character⁵⁹ to be your brother’s?

EDMUND    If the matter⁶⁰ were good, my lord, I durst swear it

were his, but in respect of that I would fain⁶¹ think it were not.

GLOUCESTER    It is his.

EDMUND    It is his hand, my lord, but I hope his heart is not in

the contents.

GLOUCESTER    Has he never before sounded you in this business?

EDMUND    Never, my lord: but I have heard him oft maintain it

to be fit that, sons at perfect age and fathers declined⁶⁷, the

father should be as ward to the son, and the son manage his

revenue.

GLOUCESTER    O villain, villain! His very opinion in the letter!

Abhorred villain! Unnatural, detested, brutish villain! Worse

than brutish! Go, sirrah, seek him: I’ll apprehend⁷² him.

Abominable⁷³ villain, where is he?

EDMUND    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 proceed⁷⁷ 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 down⁸⁰ my life for him, that he hath

writ this to feel⁸¹ my affection to your honour, and to no other

pretence⁸² of danger.

GLOUCESTER    Think you so?

EDMUND    If your honour judge it meet⁸⁴, I will place you where

you shall hear us confer of this, and by an auricular⁸⁵

assurance have your satisfaction⁸⁶, and that without any

further delay than this very evening.

GLOUCESTER    He cannot be such a monster. Edmund, seek him

out: wind me into him, I pray you: frame⁸⁹ the business after

your own wisdom. I would unstate myself to be in a due⁹⁰

resolution.

EDMUND    I will seek him, sir, presently: convey⁹² the business as

I shall find means and acquaint you withal⁹³.

GLOUCESTER    These late⁹⁴ eclipses in the sun and moon portend no

good to us: though the wisdom of nature⁹⁵ can reason it thus

and thus, yet nature finds itself scourged by the sequent⁹⁶

effects: love cools, friendship falls off, brothers divide: in

cities, mutinies; in countries, discord; in palaces, treason;

and the bond cracked ’twixt son and father. This villain of

mine comes under the prediction: there’s son against father.

The king falls from bias of nature¹⁰¹: there’s father against

child. We have seen the best of our time: machinations,

hollowness, treachery, and all ruinous disorders follow us