Internet Shakespeare Editions

Toolbox




Jump to line
Help on texts
About this text
Print this page

About this text

  • Title: King Lear (Quarto 1, 1608)
  • Editor: Michael Best
  • Textual editors: James D. Mardock, Eric Rasmussen
  • Coordinating editor: Michael Best

    • ISBN: 978-1-55058-463-9

    Copyright Michael Best. This text may be freely used for educational, non-profit purposes; for all other uses contact the Editor.
    Author: William Shakespeare
    Editor: Michael Best
    Not Peer Reviewed

    King Lear (Quarto 1, 1608)

    The Historie of King Lear.
    Glost. O villaine, villaine, his very opinion in the let410ter, ab-
    horred villaine, vnnaturall detested brutish villaine, worse then
    brutish, go sir seeke him, I apprehend him, abhominable villaine
    where is he?
    Bast. I doe not well know my Lord, if it shall please you to
    suspend your indignation against my brother, til you can 415deriue
    from him better testimony of this intent: you should run a cer-
    taine course, where if you violently proceed against him, mi-
    staking his purpose, it would make a great gap in your owne
    honour, & shake in peeces the heart of his obediẽce, I dare pawn
    downe my life for him, 420he hath wrote this to feele my affection
    to your honour, and to no further pretence of danger.
    Glost. Thinke you so?
    Bast. If your honour iudge it meete, I will place you where
    you shall heare vs conferre of this, and by an auri425gular assurance
    haue your satisfaction, and that without any further delay then
    this very euening.
    Glost. He cannot be such a monster.
    427.1Bast. Nor is not sure.
    Glost. To his father, that so tenderly and intirely loues him,
    heauen and earth! Edmund seeke him out, wind mee into him, I
    pray you frame your busines after your own wisedome, I would
    vnstate my 430selfe to be in a due resolution.
    Bast. I shall seeke him sir presently, conuey the businesse as I
    shall see meanes, and acquaint you withall.
    Glost. These late eclipses in the Sunne and Moone portend
    no good to vs, though the wisedome of nature can 435reason thus
    and thus, yet nature finds it selfe scourg'd by the sequent effects,
    loue cooles, friendship fals off, brothers diuide, in Citties mu-
    tinies, in Countries discords, Pallaces treason, the bond crackt
    betweene sonne and father; find out this villaine Edmund, it shal
    loose 445thee nothing, doe it carefully, and the noble and true har-
    ted Kent banisht, his offence honest, strange strange!
    Bast. This is the excellent foppery of the world, that when
    we are sicke in Fortune, often the surfeit of our owne behauiour,
    we make guiltie of our disasters, the Sunne, the 450Moone, and the
    Starres, as if we were Villaines by necessitie, Fooles by heauen-
    ly compulsion, Knaues, Theeues, and Trecherers by spirituall
    predomina-
    About
    Contact us
    Content quality
    Site guide
    © Internet Shakespeare Editions
    Copyright details
    Privacy policy
    This site is supported by:
    University of Victoria
    Friends of the ISE
    SSHRC