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Glos.

No! What needed, then, that terrible dispatch of it into your pocket? The quality of nothing hath not such

need to hide itself.

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 perused, I find it not fit for your o'erlooking.

Glos.

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.

Glos.

Let's see, let's see!

Edm.

[Gloster takes letter.

I hope, for my brother's justification, he wrote this but as an assay or taste of my virtue.

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"This policy and reverence of age make the world bitter to the best of our times; keep our fortunes from us, till our oldness cannot relish 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 I 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.

Glos.

You know the character to be your brother's?

Edm.

It is his hand, my lord; but I hope his heart is not in the contents.

Glos.

O, villain! villain! abhorrèd villain! unnatural, detested, brutish villain! worse than brutish!-Go, sirrah, seek him; I'll apprehend him—abominable villain!

Edm.

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.

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If your honour judge it meet, I will place you where you shall hear us confer, this very evening.

Glos.

He cannot be such a monster.

Edm.

Nor is not, sure.

Glos.

To his father, that so tenderly and entirely loves him. These late eclipses in the sun and moon portend no good to us. Love cools, friendship falls off, brothers divide: in cities, mutinies; in countries, discord; and the bond cracked between son [crosses R.] and father. Find out this villain, Edmund; it shall lose thee nothing.

[Exit Gloster R. I. E.

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. An admirable evasion of virtuous man, to lay his devilish disposition to the charge of a star. Tut! I should have been that I am, had the maidenliest star in the firmament twinkled on my birth. Edgar

Edm.

When saw you my father last?

[Enter Edgar L. I. E.

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Parted you in good terms?

in good terms? Found you no displeasure

in him, by word or countenance ?

None at all.

Edgar.

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.

Edgar.

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; pray you go; you do stir abroad, go armed.

if

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Brother, I advise you to the best; I am no honest man, if there be any good meaning towards you; pray you,

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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 R. I. E.

Scene Third.

BEFORE THE DUKE OF ALBANY'S CASTLE.
ARCH C. ENTRANCE TO CASTLE R.
RUDE STONE SEAT C.

STONE WALL L.

[Enter Goneril, two ladies, Oswald, and two lords c.

Gon.

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

Ay, madam.

Osw.

Gon.

By day and night he wrongs me; every hour
He flashes into one gross crime or other,
That sets us all at odds: 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;

If you come slack of former services,

You shall do well; the fault of it I'll answer.

Osw.

[Horns heard within, pp.

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:

If he distaste it, let him to my sister,

Whose mind and mine, I know, in that are one,

Not to be over-ruled.

Remember what I have said.

Well, madam.

Osw.

Gon.

And let his knights have colder looks among you.
What grows of it, no matter; advise your fellows so:
I would breed from hence occasions, and I shall,
That I may speak; I'll write straight to my sister,
To hold my course.

[Exeunt Goneril, Oswald, lords, and ladies into
Castle R. Enter Kent, disguised, c.

Kent.

If but as well I other accents borrow,
That can my speech diffuse, my good intent
May carry through itself to that full issue

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