EDMUND It is his hand, my lord, but I hope his heart is not in
the contents.
GLOUCESTER Has he never before sounded you in this business?
EDMUND Never, my lord: but I have heard him oft maintain it
to be fit that, sons at perfect age and fathers declined67, the
father should be as ward to the son, and the son manage his
revenue.
GLOUCESTER O villain, villain! His very opinion in the letter!
Abhorred villain! Unnatural, detested, brutish villain! Worse
than brutish! Go, sirrah, seek him: I’ll apprehend72 him.
Abominable73 villain, where is he?
EDMUND 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 should
run a certain course, where, if you violently proceed77 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 down80 my life for him, that he hath
writ this to feel81 my affection to your honour, and to no other
pretence82 of danger.
GLOUCESTER Think you so?
EDMUND If your honour judge it meet84, I will place you where
you shall hear us confer of this, and by an auricular85
assurance have your satisfaction86, and that without any
further delay than this very evening.
GLOUCESTER He cannot be such a monster. Edmund, seek him
out: wind me into him, I pray you: frame89 the business after
your own wisdom. I would unstate myself to be in a due90
resolution.
EDMUND I will seek him, sir, presently: convey92 the business as
I shall find means and acquaint you withal93.
GLOUCESTER These late94 eclipses in the sun and moon portend no
good to us: though the wisdom of nature95 can reason it thus
and thus, yet nature finds itself scourged by the sequent96
effects: love cools, friendship falls off, brothers divide: in
cities, mutinies; in countries, discord; in palaces, treason;
and the bond cracked ’twixt son and father. This villain of
mine comes under the prediction: there’s son against father.
The king falls from bias of nature101: 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: it104
shall lose thee nothing. Do it carefully.— And the noble and
true-hearted Kent banished! His offence, honesty! ’Tis
strange.
Exit
EDMUND This is the excellent foppery108 of the world, that when
we are sick in fortune — often the surfeits109 of our own
behaviour — we make guilty of our disasters110 the sun, the
moon111 and stars, as if we were villains on necessity, fools by
heavenly compulsion, knaves, thieves and treachers112 by
spherical predominance113, 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 evasion115
of whoremaster man, to lay his goatish116 disposition on the
charge of a star! My father compounded117 with my mother
under the dragon’s tail and my nativity was under Ursa118
Major, so that it follows I am rough119 and lecherous. I should
have been that I am had the maidenliest120 star in the
firmament twinkled on my bastardizing121.
Enter Edgar
Pat he comes like the catastrophe of the old comedy: my cue122
is villainous melancholy, with a sigh like Tom o’Bedlam123.—
O, these eclipses do portend these divisions! Fa, sol, la, mi124.
EDGAR How now, brother Edmund, what serious
contemplation are you in?
EDMUND I am thinking, brother, of a prediction I read this127
other day, what should follow these eclipses.
EDGAR Do you busy yourself with that?
EDMUND I promise you, the effects he writes of succeed130
unhappily131. When saw you my father last?
EDGAR The night gone by.
EDMUND Spake you with him?
EDGAR Ay, two hours together.
EDMUND Parted you in good terms? Found you no displeasure
in him by word nor countenance136?
EDGAR None at all.
EDMUND Bethink yourself wherein you may have offended
him, and at my entreaty forbear139 his presence until some little
time hath qualified140 the heat of his displeasure, which at this
instant so rageth in him that with the mischief of your141
person it would scarcely allay142.
EDGAR Some villain hath done me wrong.
EDMUND That’s my fear. I pray you have a continent144
forbearance till the speed of his rage goes slower: and, as I
say, retire with me to my lodging, from whence I will fitly146
bring you to hear my lord speak. Pray ye go.
Gives a key
There’s my key: if you do stir abroad148, go armed.
EDGAR Armed, brother?
EDMUND Brother, I advise you to the best: I am no honest
man if there be any good meaning151 toward you: I have told
you what I have seen and heard, but faintly, nothing like the
image and horror153 of it. Pray you away.
EDGAR Shall I hear from you anon154?
Exit
EDMUND I do serve155 you in this business.—
A credulous father and a brother noble,
Whose nature is so far from doing harms
That he suspects none: on whose foolish honesty
My practices159 ride easy. I see the business.
Let me, if not by birth, have lands by wit160:
All with me’s meet that I can fashion fit161.
Exit
Act 1 Scene 3
running scene 3
Enter Goneril and Steward [Oswald]
GONERIL Did my father strike my gentleman for chiding1 of his
fool?
OSWALD Ay, madam.
GONERIL By day and night he wrongs me: every hour
He flashes5 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 slack10 of former services
You shall do welclass="underline" the fault of it I’ll answer11.
Horns within
OSWALD He’s coming, madam: I hear him.
GONERIL Put on what weary negligence you please,
You and your fellows: I’d have it come to question14:
If he distaste15 it, let him to my sister,
Whose mind and mine, I know, in that are one.
Remember what I have said.
OSWALD Well, madam.
GONERIL And let his knights have colder looks among you:
what grows of it, no matter: advise your fellows so. I’ll write
straight to21 my sister, to hold my course. Prepare for dinner.
Exeunt
Act 1 Scene 4
running scene 3 continues