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SCENE II. The Earl of GLOSTER'S Castle.

Enter EDMUND, with a letter.

Edmund.

HOU, nature, art my goddess; to thy law
My services are bound. Wherefore should I
Stand in the plague of custom, and permit

The curiosity of nations to deprive me,

For that I am some twelve or fourteen moonshines
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?

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!

Edmund, how now! what news?

Edm. So please your lordship, none.

[Hiding the letter.

Glo. What paper were you reading?
Edm. Nothing, my lord.

Glo. No? What needed, then, that terrible dispatch 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; and for so much as I have perus'd, I find it not fit for your o'er-looking.

B

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.

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. 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 belov'd of your brother, Edgar."

"Sleep till I wak'd him,-you should enjoy half his revenue," My son Edgar! 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. O villain, villain!

Abhorréd 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 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. These late eclipses in the sun and moon portend no good to us. Find out this villain, Edmund; it shall lose thee nothing.

[Exit.

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. Tut, I should have been that I am, had the maidenliest star in the firmament twinkled on my birth.Edgar!-pat he comes, like the catastrophe of the old comedy.

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. The night gone by.

Edm. Spake you with him?

Edg. Ay, two hours together.

Edm. Found you no displeasure in him by word nor 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.

Edg. Some villain hath done me wrong.

Edm. That's my fear. Retire with me to my lodging, from whence I will fitly bring you to hear my lord speak: pray ye, 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; I am no honest man if there be any good meaning toward 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,
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.

B 2

[Exit,

SCENE 3.-Before the Duke of ALBANY'S Castle.

Enter GONERIL and OSWALD.

Goneril.

ID my father strike my gentleman for chiding of his fool?

[blocks in formation]

Gon. By day and night, he wrongs me;

I'll not endure it :

His knights grow riotous, and himself upbraids us On every trifle.-When he returns from hunting,

I will not speak with him; say I am sick.

[Horns within.

Osw. He's coming, madam; I hear him.

Gon. Put on what weary negligence you please,

You and your fellows; I'd have it come to question. Idle old man. Remember what I've said.

Osw. Very well, madam.

Enter KENT, disguised.

Kent. Now, banish'd Kent,

[Exeunt.

If thou canst serve where thou dost stand condem'nd, (So may it come !) thy master, whom thou lov'st, Shall find thee full of labours.

[Horns within.

Enter LEAR, Knights, and Attendants.

Lear. Let me not stay a jot for dinner; go get it

ready.

How now! what art thou?

Kent. A man, sir.

[Exit a Knight.

Lear. What dost thou profess? What wouldst

thou with us?

Kent. I do profess to be no less than I seem; to serve him truly that will put me in trust; to love him that is honest; to converse with him that is wise, and says little; to fear judgment; to fight when I cannot choose; and to eat no fish.

Lear. What art thou?

Kent. A very honest-hearted fellow, and as poor as the king.

Lear. If thou be as poor for a subject, as he is for a king, thou art poor enough. What wouldst thou? Kent. Service.

Lear. Whom wouldst thou serve?

Kent. You.

Lear. Dost thou know me, fellow?

Kent. No, sir; but you have that in your countenance which I would fain call master.

Lear. What's that?

Kent. Authority.

Lear. What services canst thou do?

Kent. I can keep honest counsel, ride, run, mar a curious tale in telling it, and deliver a plain message bluntly.

Lear. How old art thou ?

Kent. Not so young, sir, to love a woman for singing, nor so old to dote on her for any thing: I have years on my back forty-eight.

Lear. Follow me; thou shalt serve me. If I like thee no worse after dinner, I will not part from thee yet. Dinner, ho, dinner!-Where's my knave? my fool?-Go you, and call my fool hither.

Enter OSWALD.

[Exit a Knight.

[Exit. Call the

You, you, sirrah, where's my daughter?

Osw. So please you,―

Lear. What says the fellow there?

clotpoll back. [Exit KENT and a Knight.]-Where's my fool, ho?—I think the world's asleep

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