# Shakespeare - First Folio facsimile (1910)/The Tragedy of King Lear/Act 1 Scene 2

Scena Secunda.
Enter Bastard.
Bast. Thou Nature art my Goddesse, to thy Law My seruices are bound, wherefore should I Stand in the plague of custome, and permi The curiosity of Nations, to depriue me? For that I am some twelue, or fourteene Moonshines Lag of a Brother? Why Bastard? Wherefore base? When my Dimensions are as well compact, My minde as generous, and my shape as true As honest Madams issue? Why brand they vs With Base? With basenes Bastardie? Base, Base? Who in the lustie stealth of Nature, take More composition, and fierce qualitie, Then doth within a dull stale tyred bed Goe to th' creating a whole tribe of Fops Got 'tweene a sleepe, and wake? Well then, Legitimate Edgar, I must haue your land, Our Fathers loue, is to the Bastard Edmond, As to th'legitimate: fine word: Legitimate.
Well, my Legittimate, if this Letter speed, And my inuention thriue, Edmond the base Shall to'th'Legitimate: I grow, I prosper: Now Gods, stand vp for Bastards.
Enter Gloucester.
Glo Kent banish'd thus? and France in choller parted? And the King gone to night? Prescrib'd his powre, Confin'd to exhibition? All this done Vpon the gad? Edmond, how now? What newes?
Bast. So please your Lordship, none.
Glou. Why so earnestly seeke you to put vp y$^t$ Letter?
Bast. I know no newes, my Lord.
Glou. What Paper were you reading?
Bast. Nothing my Lord.
Glou. No? what needed then that terrible dispatch of it into your Pocket? The quality of nothing, hath not such neede to hide it selfe. Let's see: come, if it bee nothing, I shall not neede Spectacles.
Bast. I beseech you Sir, pardon mee; it is a Letter from my Brother, that I haue not all ore‐read; and for so much as I haue perus'd, I finde it not fit for your ore‐looking.
Glou. Giue me the Letter, Sir.
Bast. I shall offend, either to detaine, or giue it: The Contents, as in part I vnderstand them, Are too blame.
Glou. Let's see, let's see.
Bast. I hope for my Brothers iustification, hee wrote this but as an essay, or taste of my Vertue.
Glou. reads. This policie, and reuerence of Age, makes the world bitter to the best of our times: keepes our Fortunes from vs, till our oldnesse cannot rellish them. I begin to finde an idle and fond bondage, in the oppression of aged tyranny, who sw ayes not as it hath power, but as it is suffer'd. Come to me, that of this I may speake more. If our Father would sleepe till I wak'd him, you should enioy halfe his Reuennew for euer, and liue the beloued of your Brother.Edgar. Hum? Conspiracy? Sleepe till I wake him, you should enioy halfe his Reuennew: my Sonne Edgar. had hee a hand to write this? A heart and braine to breede it in? When came you to this? Who brought it?
Bast. It was not brought mee, my Lord; there's the cunning of it. I found it throwne in at the Casement of my Closset.
Glou. You know the character to be your Brothers?
Bast. If the matter were good my Lord, I durst swear it were his: but in respect of that, I would faine thinke it were not.
Glou. It is his.
Bast. It is his hand, my Lord: but I hope his heart is not in the Contents.
Glo. Has he neuer before sounded you in this busines?
Bast. Neuer my Lord. But I haue heard him oft maintaine it to be fit, that Sonnes at perfect age, and Fathers declin'd, the Father should bee as Ward to the Son, and the Sonne manage his Reuennew.
Glou. O Villain, villain: his very opinion in the Letter. Abhorred Villaine, vnnaturall, detested, brutish Villaine; worse then brutish: Go sirrah, seeke him: Ile apprehend him. Abhominable Villaine, where is he?
Bast. I do not well know my L. If it shall please you to suspend your indignation against my Brother, til you can deriue from him better testimony of his intent, you shold run a certaine course: where, if you violently proceed against him, mistaking his purpose, it would make a great gap in your owne Honor, and shake in peeces, the heart of his obedience. I dare pawne downe my life for him, that he hath writ this to feele my affection to your Honor, & to no other pretence of danger.
Glou. Thinke you so?
Bast. If your Honor iudge it meete, I will place you where you shall heare vs conferre of this, and by an Auricular assurance haue your satisfaction, and that without any further delay, then this very Euening.
Glou. He cannot bee such a Monster. Edmond seeke him out: winde me into him, I pray you: frame the Businesse after your owne wisedome. I would vnstate my selfe, to be in a due resolution.
Bast. I will seeke him Sir, presently: conuey the businesse as I shall find meanes, and acquaint you withall.
Glou. These late Eclipses in the Sun and Moone portend no good to vs: though the wisedome of Nature can reason it thus, and thus, yet Nature finds it selfe scourg'd by the sequent effects. Loue cooles, friendship falls off, Brothers diuide. In Cities, mutinies; in Countries, discord; in Pallaces, Treason; and the Bond crack'd, 'twixt Sonne and Father. This villaine of mine comes vnder the prediction; there's Son against Father, the King fals from byas of Nature, there's Father against Childe. We haue seene the best of our time. Machinations, hollownesse, treacherie, and all ruinous disorders follow vs disquietly to our Graues. Find out this Villain, Edmond, it shall lose thee nothing, do it carefully: and the Noble & true‐harted Kent banish'd; his offence, honesty. 'Tis strange.Exit.
Bast. This is the excellent foppery of the world, that when we are sicke in fortune, often the surfets of our own behauiour, we make guilty of our disasters, the Sun, the Moone, and Starres, as if we were villaines on necessitie, Fooles by heauenly compulsion, Knaues, Theeues, and Treachers by Sphericall predominance. Drunkards, Lyars, and Adulterers by an inforc'd obedience of Planatary influence; and all that we are euill in, by a diuine thrusting on. An admirable euasion of Whore‐master‐man, to lay his Goatish disposition on the charge of a Starre, My father compounded with my mother vnder the Dragons taile, and my Natiuity was vnder Vrsa Maior, so that it followes, I am rough and Leacherous. I should haue bin that I am, had the maidenlest Starre in the Firmament twinkled on my bastardizing.
Enter Edgar.
Pat: he comes like the Catastrophe of the old Comedie: my Cue is villanous Melancholly, with a sighe like Tom o'Bedlam. ———O these Eclipses do portend these diuisions. Fa, Sol, La, Me.
Edg. How now Brother Edmond, what serious contemplation are you in?
Bast. I am thinking Brother of a prediction I read this other day, what should follow these Eclipses.
Edg. Do you busie your selfe with that?
Bast. I promise you, the effects he writes of, succeede vnhappily. When saw you my Father last?
Edg. The night gone by.
Bast. Spake you with him?
Edg. I, two houres together.
Bast. Parted you in good termes? Found you no displeasure in him, by word, nor countenance?
Edg. None at all,
Bast. Bethink your selfe wherein you may haue offended him: and at my entreaty forbeare his presence, vntill some little time hath quailfied the heat of his displeasure, which at this instant so rageth in him, that with the mis-
chiefe of your person, it would scarsely alay.
Edg. Some Villaine hath done me wrong.
Edm. That's my feare, I pray you haue a continent forbear ance 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 heare my Lord speake: pray ye goe, there's my key: if you do stirre abroad, goe arm'd.
Edg. Arm'd, Brother?
Edm. Brother, I aduise you to the best, I am no honest man, if ther be any good meaning toward you: I haue told you what I haue seene, and heard: But faintly. Nothing like the image, and horror of it, pray you away.
Edg. Shall I heare from you anon?Exit.
Edm. I do serue you in this businesse: A Credulous Father, and a Brother Noble, Whose nature is so farre from doing harmes, That he suspects none: on whose foolish honestie My practises ride easie: I see the businesse. Let me, if not by birth, haue lands by wit,
All with me's meete, that I can fashion fit.Exit.
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