Thou, Nature, art my goddess. To thy law

336My services 305are bound. Wherefore should I

337Stand in the plague of custom 306and permit

338The curiosity of nations to deprive me,

339For that I am 307some twelve or fourteen moonshines

340Lag of a brother? Why "bastard"? 308Wherefore "base,"

341When my dimensions are as well compact,

342My 309mind as generous, and my shape as true

343As honest madam's issue?

310Why brand they us 344with "base," "base bastardy,"

345Who, in the lusty 311stealth of nature, take

346More composition and fierce quality

347Than 312doth within a stale, dull-eyed bed

348Go to the creating of a whole 313tribe of fops

349Got 'tween asleep and wake. Well, then,

350Legitimate 314Edgar, I must have your land.

351Our father's love is to the bastard 315Edmund

352As to the legitimate.

353Well, my legitimate, if this letter 316speed

354And my invention thrive, Edmund the base

355Shall to th'317legitimate. I grow, I prosper.

356Now, gods, stand up for bastards!

Kent banished thus, and France in choler parted?

359And 320the king gone tonight, subscribed his power,

360Confined to 321exhibition? All this done

361Upon the gad?--Edmund, how now? 322What news?

[Pockets the letter.] So please your lordship, none.

Why so earnestly seek you to put up that letter?

I know no news, my lord.

What paper were you reading?

Nothing, my lord.

No? What needs then that terrible dispatch of 368it into 329your pocket? The quality of nothing hath not 369such need to hide 330itself. Let's see. Come, if it be 370nothing I shall not need 331spectacles.

I beseech you, sir, pardon me. It is a letter 372from my brother 333that I have not all o'er-read. For so 373much as I have perused, I find it 334not fit for your 374liking.

Give me the letter, sir.

I shall offend either to detain or give it. 377The contents, 337as in part I understand them, 378are to blame.

Let's see, let's see!

I hope, for my brother's justification, he wrote 381this but 340as an assay or taste of my virtue.

390349Hum, conspiracy! "Slept till I waked him," "You should 391enjoy half 350his revenue"? My son Edgar? Had he a 392hand to write this? A 351heart and brain to breed it in? 393When came this to you? Who 352brought it?

It was not brought me, my lord, there's the 395cunning of 354it. I found it thrown in at the casement of 396my closet.

You know the character to be your brother's?

If the matter were good, my lord, I durst swear 399it were 357his; but in respect of that I would fain think it 400were not.

It is his?

It is his hand, my lord, but I hope his heart is 403not in 360the contents.

Hath he never heretofore sounded you in this business?

Never, my lord, but I have often heard him 406maintain 363it to be fit that sons at perfect age, and fathers 407declining, his father 364should be as ward to the son, and 408the son manage the 365revenue.

O villain, villain! His very opinion in the 410letter. 367Abhorred villain. Unnatural, detested, brutish 411villain, worse than 368brutish. Go sir, seek him. Ay, 412apprehend him, abominable villain. 369Where is he?

I do not well know, my lord. If it shall please you to 414371suspend your indignation against my brother till you can 415derive 372from him better testimony of this intent, you should 416run a 373certain course; where, if you violently proceed 417against him 374mistaking his purpose, it would make a great 418gap in your own 375honor and shake in pieces the heart of 419his obedience. I dare pawn 376down my life for him, 420he hath wrote this to feel my affection 377to your honor, and 421to no further pretense of danger.

Think you so?

If your honor judge it meet, I will place you 424where 380you shall hear us confer of this, and by an 425auricular assurance 381have your satisfaction--and that without 426any further delay than 382this very evening.

He cannot be such a monster.

Nor is not, sure.

6To his father, that so tenderly and entirely loves him. 427.3386Heaven and earth! 7Edmund, seek 428him out. Wind me into him. I 387pray you, frame your 429business after your own wisdom. I would 388unstate 430myself to be in a due resolution.

I shall seek him sir, presently, convey the 432business as I 390shall see means, and acquaint you withal.

11These late eclipses in the sun and moon 434portend 392no good to us. Though the wisdom of nature can 435reason thus 393and thus, yet nature finds itself scourged 436by the sequent effects. 394Love cools, friendship falls off, 437brothers divide. In cities 395mutinies, in countries 438discords, palaces treason; the bond cracked 396between 439son and father. 13 This villain of mine comes under the 440prediction--there's son against father. The King falls from 441bias of nature--there's father against child. We have 442seen the best of our time. Machinations, hollowness, 443treachery, and all ruinous disorders follow us disquietly 444to our graves. 12Find out this villain, Edmund. It shall 397lose 445thee nothing. Do it carefully. And the noble and 446398true-hearted Kent banished, his offence honesty. Strange, strange!

This is the excellent foppery of the world, that 448when 400we are sick in fortune--often the surfeit of our own 449behavior--401we make guilty of our disasters the sun, the 450moon, and the 402stars, as if we were villains by necessity, 451fools by 403heavenly compulsion, knaves, thieves, and 452treacherers by spiritual 404predominance; drunkards, 453liars, and adulterers by an enforced 405obedience of planetary 454influence; and all that we are evil in 406by a divine 455thrusting on. An admirable evasion of whoremaster 407man, 456to lay his goatish disposition to the charge of stars. 457"My 408father compounded with my mother under the 458dragon's tail, 409and my nativity was under Ursa Major, so 459that it follows I am 410rough and lecherous." Fut! I should 460have been that I am had the 411maidenliest star of the 461firmament twinkled on my bastardy. Edgar--

463--and out he comes like the catastrophe of the old 414comedy. 464Mine is villainous melancholy, with a sigh like them of 465415Bedlam. --Oh, these eclipses do portend these 466divisions.

How now, 467brother Edmund. What serious 468417contemplation are you in?

I am thinking, brother, of a prediction I read this 470other 419day, what should follow these eclipses.

Do you busy yourself about that?

I promise you the effects he writ of 18succeed 473unhappily19, 473.1422as of unnaturalness between the child and the parent, death, 423dearth, dissolutions of ancient amities, divisions in state, 473.2424menaces and maledictions against king and nobles, needless 473.3425diffidences, banishment of friends, dissipation of cohorts, nuptial 473.4426breaches, and I know not what.

How long have you been a sectary astronomical?

20Come, come, 474when saw you my father last?

Why, 475the night gone by.

Spake you with him?

Two hours together.

Parted you in good terms? Found you no 479displeasure 433in him by word or countenance?

None at all.

Bethink yourself wherein you may have 482offended 436him, and at my entreaty forbear his presence till 483some little 437time hath qualified the heat of his displeasure, 484which at this 438instant so rageth in him that with the 485mischief of your person it 439would scarce allay.

Some villain hath done me wrong.

That's my fear, brother. I advise you to the best. 491Go 442armed. 493I am no honest 494man if there be any good meaning 443towards you. I have told 495you what I have seen and heard but 444faintly, nothing 496like the image and horror of it. Pray you, away!

Shall I hear from you anon?

I do serve you in this business.

499447A credulous father and a brother noble,

500448Whose nature is so far from doing harms

501449That he suspects none; on whose foolish honesty

502450My practices ride easy. I see the business.

503451Let me, if not by birth, have lands by wit.

504452All with me's meet that I can fashion fit.