Lag of a brother? Why baftard? wherefore bafe? To him, Enter Glo'ster. Glo. Kent banish'd thus! and France in choler parted! And the King gone to night! fubfcrib'd his pow'r! Confin'd to exhibition! all is gone Upon the gad! Edmund, how now? what news? Edm. So please your lordship, none.. [Putting up the letter. Glo. Why fo earnestly feek you to put up that letter? Edm. I know no news, my lord. Glo. What paper were you reading? Edm. Nothing, my lord. Glo. No! what needed then that terrible difpatch of it into your pocket? the quality of nothing hath not fuch need to hide it felf. Let's fee; come, if it be nothing, I fhall not need fpectacles. Edm. I befeech you, Sir, pardon me, it is a letter from my brother, that I have not all o'er-read; and for fo much as I have perus'd, I find it not fit for your overlooking. Glo. Give me the letter, Sir. Edm. I fhall offend, either to detain, or give it; the contents, as in part I understand them, are to blame. Glo Glo. Let's fee, let's fee. Edm. I hope, for my brother's juftification, he wrote this but as an effay, or tafte 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 an idle and fond bondage in the oppreffion of aged tyranny; which ways, not as it hath power, but as it is fuffered. Come to me, that of this I may speak more. If our father would fleep, till I wak'd him, you should enjoy half his revenue for ever, and live the beloved of your brother Edgar. Confpiracy! fleep, 'till I wake him you should enjoy half his revenue My fon Edgar! had he a hand to write this! a heart and brain to breed it in! When came this to you? who brought it? - Hum Edm. It was not brought me, my lord; there's the cunning of it. I found it thrown in at the cafement of my closet. Glo. You know the character to be your brother's? Edm. If the matter were good, my lord, I durft fwear, it were his; but in refpect 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 founded you in this business ? Edm. Never, my lord. But I have heard him oft maintain it to be fit, that fons at perfect age, and fathers declining, the father should be as a ward to the fon, and the fon manage his revenue. Glo. O villain, villain! his very opinion in the letter. Abhorred villain! unnatural, detefted, brutish_villain! worse than brutish! Go, firrah, feek him; I'll apprehend him. Abominable villain! where is he? Edm. I do not well know, my lord; if it fhall please you to fufpend your indignation against my brother, 'till you can derive from him better teftimony of his intent, you should run a certain courfe; where, if you violently proceed against him, miftaking his purpose, it would make make a great gap in your own honour, and fhake in pieces the heart of his obedience. 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 fo? Edm. If your Honour judge it meet, I will place you where you shall hear us confer of this, and by an auricular affurance have your fatisfaction: and that, without any further delay than this very evening. Glo. He cannot be such a monster. Edm. Nor is not, fure. Glo. To his Father, that fo tenderly and entirely loves him Heav'n and Earth! Edmund, feek him out; wind me into him, I pray you; frame the bufiness after your own wisdom. I would unftate my felf, to be in a due refolution. Edm. I will feek him, Sir, prefently convey the business as I fhall find means, and acquaint you withal. Glo. These late eclipfes in the fun and moon portend no good to us; tho' the wisdom of nature can reafon it thus and thus, yet nature finds it felf fcourg'd by the fequent effects. Love cools, friendship falls off, brothers divide. In cities, mutinies; in countries, difcord ; in palaces, treason; and the bond crack'd 'twixt fon and father. This villain of mine comes under the prediction, there's fon against father; the King falls from biafs of nature, there's father against child. We have feen the best of our time. Machinations, hollowness, treachery, and all ruinous diforders follow us difquietly to our graves! Find out this villain, Edmund; it fhall lofe thee nothing, do it carefully-and the noble and true-hearted Kent banish'd! his offence, Honefty. 'Tis ftrange. [Exit. Manet Edmund. Edm. This is the excellent foppery of the world, that, when we are fick in fortune, (often the furfeits of our own behaviour) we make guilty of our difafters, the fun, the moon and ftars; as if we were villains on neceffity; fools, by heavenly compulfion; 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 thrufting on. An admirable evafion of whoremafter Man, to lay his goatifh difpofition on the charge of a far! my father compounded with my mother under the Dragon's tail, and my nativity was under Urfa major; fo that it follows, I am rough and lecherous. I fhould have been what I am, had the maidenlieft ftar in the firmament twinkled on my bastardizing. To him, Enter Edgar. Pat!- he comes, like the Catastrophe of the old comedy; my cue is villainous Melancholy, with a figh like Tom o Bedlam O, thefe eclipfes portend thefe divifions! fa, fol, la, me Edg. How now, brother Edmund, what ferious contemplation are you in? Edm. I am thinking, brother, of a prediction I read this other day, what fhould follow thefe eclipfes. Edg. Do you bufie your felf with that? Edm. I promife you, the effects, he writes of, fucceed unhappily. When faw you my father laft? Edg. The night gone by. Edm. Spake you with him? Edg. Ay, two hours together. Edm. Parted you in good terms, found you no dif pleasure in him, by word or countenance ? Edg. None at all, Edm. Bethink your felf, wherein you have offended him and, at my intreaty, forbear his prefence, until fome little time hath qualified the heat of his difplea fure; which at this inftant fo rageth in him, that with the mischief of your perfon it would fcarcely allay. Edg. Some villain hath done me wrong. Edm. That's my fear; I pray you, have a continent forbearance 'till the fpeed of his rage goes flower; and, as I fay, retire with me to my lodging, from whence I will fitly bring you to hear my lord fpeak: pray you, you, go, there's my key: if you do ftir abroad, go arm'd. Edg. Arm'd, brother! Edm. Brother, I advise you to the beft; I am no honeft man, if there be any good meaning toward you: L 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 ferve you in this bufinefs: A credulous father, and a brother noble, Gon. [Exit. [Exit. SCENE, the Duke of Albany's Palace. ID my father ftrike my gentleman for chid Ding of his fool? Ster. Ay, madam. Gon. By day and night, he wrongs me; every hour He flashes into one grofs crime or other, That fets us all at odds; I'll not endure it: His Knights grow riotous, and himself upbraids us You fhall do well; the fault of it I'll answer. Whofe mind and mine, I know, in that are one, That (4) Idle old Man,] The following Lines, as they are fine in themselves, and very much in Character for Gonerill, I have re fter'd |