Act I. Scene 1.
Bastard. Thou Nature art my Goddess, to thy law
My services are bound, why am I then
Deprived of a son’s right because I came not
In the dull road that custom has prescribed?
Why bastard, wherefore base, when I can boast
A mind as gen’rous and a shape as true
As honest madam’s Issue? Why are we
Held base, who in the lusty stealth of Nature
Take fiercer qualities than what compound
The scanted births of the stale marriage-bed? [10]
Well then, legitimate Edgar, to thy right
Of law I will oppose a bastard’s Cunning.
Our father’s Love is to the bastard Edmund
As to legitimate Edgar: with success
I’ve practiced yet on both their easy natures.
Here comes the old man chaf’t with th’ information
Which last I forged against my brother Edgar,
A tale so plausible, so boldly uttered
And heightened by such lucky accidents,
That now the slightest circumstance confirms him, [20]
And base-born Edmund spight of law inherits.
Enter Kent and Gloster
GLOSTER. Nay, good my Lord, your Charity
O’reshoots it self to plead in his behalf;
You are your self a Father, and may feel
The sting of disobedience from a Son
First-born and best Beloved: Oh Villain Edgar!
KENT. Be not too rash, all may be forgery,
And time yet clear the Duty of your Son.
GLOSTER. Plead with the seas, and reason down the winds,
Yet shalt thou ne’re convince me, I have seen [30]
His foul designs through all a father’s fondness:
But be this light and thou my witnesses
That I discard him here from my possessions,
Divorce him from my heart, my blood and name.
BASTARD. It works as I could wish; I’ll show my self.
GLOSTER. Ha Edmund! Welcome Boy. O Kent see here
Inverted Nature, Gloster’s shame and glory,
This by-born, the wild sally of my youth,
Pursues me with all filial offices,
Whilst Edgar, begged of heaven and born in honor, [40]
Draws plagues on my white head that urge me still
To curse in age the pleasure of my youth.
Nay weep not, Edmund, for thy brother’s crimes.
O gen’rous boy, thou shar’st but half his blood,
Yet lov’st beyond the kindness of a brother.
But I’ll reward thy virtue. Follow me.
My Lord, you wait the King who comes resolved
To quit the toils of empire, and divide
His realms amongst his daughters. heaven succeed it,
But much I fear the change. [50]
KENT. I grieve to see him
With such wild starts of passion hourly seized,
As renders majesty beneath it self.
GLOSTER. Alas! ’tis the infirmity of his age,
Yet has his Temper ever been unfixt,
Chol’rick and suddain; hark, they approach.