Enter KENT, GLOSTER, and EDMUND. Kent. I thought, the king had more affected the duke of Albany, than Cornwall. Glo. It did always seem so to us: but now, in the division of the kingdom, it appears not which of the dukes he values most; for equalities are so weigh'd, that curiosity in neither can make choice of either's moiety. Kent. Is not this your son, my lord? Glo. His breeding, sir, hath been at my charge: I have so often blush'd to acknowledge him, that now I am brazed to it. Kent. I cannot conceive you. Glo. Sir, this young fellow's mother could: whereupon she grew round-wombed; and had, indeed, sir, a son for her cradle, ere she had a husband for her bed. Do you smell a fault? Kent. I cannot wish the fault undore, the issue of it being so proper. Glo. But I have, sir, a son by order of law, some year elder than this, who yet is no dearer in my account: though this knave came somewhat saucily into the world before he was sent for, yet was his mother fair; there was good sport at his making, and the whoreson must be acknowledged. Do you know this noble gentleman, Edmund ? 837 Edm. No, my lora. Glo. My lord of Kent: remember him hereafter as my honourable friend. Edm. My services to your lordship. Kent. I must love you, and sue to know you better. Edm. Sir, I shall study deserving. Glo. He hath been out nine years, and away he shall again - The king is coming. [Trumpets sound within. Lear. Of all these bounds, even from this line to this, With shadowy forests and with champains rich'd, Reg. I am made of that self metal as my sister, that I profess Myself an enemy to all other joys, Which the most precious square of sense possesses; And find, I am alone felicitate In your dear highness' love. Cor. Then poor Cordelia! Aside. And yet not so; since, I am sure, my love's More richer than my tongue. Lear. To thee, and thine, hereditary ever, Remain this ample third of our fair kingdom; No less in space, validity, and pleasure, Than that confirm'd on Goneril. — Now, our joy, Although the last, not least; to whose young love The vines of France, and milk of Burgundy, Strive to be interess'd; what can you say, to draw A third more opulent than your sisters? Speak. Cor. Nothing, my lord. Lear. Nothing? Cor. Nothing. Lear. Nothing can come of nothing: speak again. Lest it may mar your fortunes. That lord, whose hand must take my plight, shall carry Half my love with him, half my care, and duty: Sure, I shall never marry like my sisters, To love my father all. Lear. But goes this with thy heart? For, by the sacred radiance of the sun; From whom we do exist, and cease to be; And as a stranger to my heart and me Hold thee, from this, for ever. The barbarou Scythian, Or he that makes his generation messes To gorge his appetite, shall to my bosom Kent. Lear. Peace, Kent! Good my liege, — Kent. Let it fall rather, though the fork invade The region of my heart: be Kent unmannerly, When Lear is mad. What would'st thou do, old man? Think'st thou, that duty shall have dread to speak. When power to flattery bows? To plainness honour's bound, When majesty stoops to folly. Reverse thy doom ; And, in thy best consideration, check This hideous rashness: answer my life my judgment, Thy youngest daughter does not love thee least; Nor are those empty-hearted, whose low sound Reverbs no hollowness. pride, Hear me, recreant! On thine allegiance hear me ! Thy banish'd trunk be found in our dominions, Kent. Fare thee well, king: since thus thou wilt appear, I would not from your love make such a stray, This is most strange! France. That monsters it, or your fore-vouch'd affection Cor. I yet beseech your majesty, (If for I want that glib and oily art, Better thou Lear. Had'st not been born, than not to have pleas'd me better. France. Is it but this? a tardiness in nature, Which often leaves the history unspoke, That it intends to do? - My lord of Burgu Bur. Royal Lear, Lear. Nothing: I have sworn; I am firm. Cor. Peace be with Burgund Since that respects of fortune are his love, I shall not be his wife. France. Fairest Cordelia, that art most rich, being poor; Most choice, forsaken; and most lov'd, despis'd! Thee and thy virtues here I seize upon : Be it lawful, I take up what's cast away. Gods, gods! 'tis strange, that from their cold'st neglect My love should kindle to inflam'd respect. Lear. Thou hast her, France: let her be thine, for we Have no such daughter, nor shall ever see [Flourish. Exeunt LEAR, BURGUNDY, CORNWALL, ALBANY, GLOSTER, and Attendants. France. Bid farewell to your sisters. eyes Cor. The jewels of our father, with wash'd Cordelia leaves you: I know you what you are; And, like a sister, am most loath to call Your faults, as they are nam'd. Use well our father: To your professed bosoms I commit him: But yet, alas! stood I within his grace, I would prefer him to a better place. So farewell to you both. Gon. Prescribe not us our duties. Let your study Who cover faults, at last shame them derides. France. Come, my fair Cordelia. [Exeunt FRANCE and CORDELIA. Gon. Sister, it is not a little I have to say, of what most nearly appertains to us both. I think, our father will hence to-night. Reg. That's most certain, and with you; next month with us. Gon. You see how full of changes his age is; the observation we have made of it hath not been little he always loved our sister most; and with what poor judgment he hath now cast her off, appears too grossly. Reg. 'Tis the infirmity of his age: yet he hath ever but slenderly known himself. Gon. The best and soundest of his time hath been but rash; then must we look to receive from his age, not alone the imperfections of long-engrafted condition, but, therewithal, the unruly waywardness that infirm and cholerick years bring with them. Reg. Such unconstant starts are we like to have from him, as this of Kent's banishment. Gon. There is further compliment of leave-taking between France and him. Pray you, let us hit together: If our father carry authority with such dispositions as he bears, this last surrender of his will but offend us. Reg. We shall further think of it. Gon. We must do something, and i' the heat. SCENE II. [Exeunt. A Hall in the Earl of Gloster's Enter EDMUND, with a letter. Edm. Thou, nature, art my goddess; to thy law For that I am some twelve or fourteen moon-shines Edm. So please your lordship, none. [Putting up the letter. Glo. Why so earnestly seek you to put up that letter? Edm. I know no news, my lord. Glo. What paper were you reading? Glo. No? what needed then that terrible despatch 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 let ter from my brother, that I have not all o'er-read; for so much as I have perused, I find it not fit for your over-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 age, makes the world bitter to the best of our times; keeps our fortunes from us, till our oldness cannot rehist them. I begin to find an idle and fond bondage in the oppression of aged tyranny; who 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 waked him, you should enjoy half his revenue for ever, and live the beloved of your brother, Edgar. Humph Conspiracy! Sleep till 1 waked 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; but I hope, his heart is not in the contents. Glo. Hath he never heretofore sounded you in this business? Edm. Never, my lord: But I have often heard him maintain it to be fit, that, sons at perfect age, and fathers declining, the father should be as ward to the son, and the son manage his revenue. 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 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, you shall run a certain course; where, if you violently proceed 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 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 wou'd 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: Though the wisdom of nature can reason it thus and thus, yet nature finds itself scourged by the sequent effects: love cools, friendship falls off, brothers divide in cities, mutinies; in countries, discord; in palaces, treason; and the ond cracked between son and father. This villain f mine comes under the prediction; there's son against father: the king falls from bias 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 banished! his offence, honesty! Strange! strange! [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: as if we were villains by necessity; fools, by heavenly compulsion; knaves, thieves, and treachers, by spherical predominance; drunkards, liars, and adulterers, by an enforced obedience of planetary influence; and all that we are evil in, by a divine thrusting on: An admirable evasion of whore-master man, to lay his goatish disposition to the charge of a star! 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 lecherous. - Tut, I should have been that I am, had the maidenliest star in the firmament twinkled on my bastardizing. Edgar Enter EDGAR. and 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 do portend these divisions! fa, sol, la, mi. Edg. How now, brother Edmund? What serious contemplation are you in? Edm. I am thinking, brother, of a prediction 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; as of unnaturalness between the child and the parent; death, dearth, dissolutions of | ancient amities; divisions in state, menaces and maledictions against king and nobles; needless diffidences, banishment of friends, dissipation of cohorts, nuptial breaches, and I know not what. Edg. How long have you been a sectary astronomical? Edm. Come, come; when saw you my father last? Edg. Why, the night gone by. 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 may have offended him; and at my entreaty, forbear his presence, till 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, have a continent 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 key: If you do stir abroad, go armed. Edg. Armed, brother? Edm. Brother, I advise you to the best; go armed; 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? [Exit EDGAR. He flashes into one gross crime or other, | If he dislike it, let him to my sister, |