Previous - Next

I
found it thrown in at the casement of my closet.
Glou. You know the character to be your brother's?
Edm. If the matter were good, my lord, I durst swear it were
his;
but in respect of that, I would fain think it were not.
Glou. It is his.
Edm. It is his hand, my lord; but I hope his heart is not in
the
contents.
Glou. Hath he never before sounded you in this business?
Edm. Never, my lord. But I have heard him oft maintain it to be
fit
that, sons at perfect age, and fathers declining, the father
should be as ward to the son, and the son manage his
revenue.
Glou. O villain, villain! His very opinion in the letter!
Abhorred
villain! Unnatural, detested, brutish villain! worse than
brutish! Go, sirrah, seek him. I'll apprehend him.
Abominable
villain! Where is he?
Edm. 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 proceed 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 down my
life
for him that he hath writ this to feel my affection to your
honour, and to no other pretence of danger.
Glou. Think you so?
Edm. If your honour judge it meet, I will place you where you
shall
hear us confer of this and by an auricular assurance have
your
satisfaction, and that without any further delay than this
very
evening.
Glou. He cannot be such a monster.
Edm. Nor is not, sure.
Glou. To his father, that so tenderly and entirely loves him.
Heaven and earth! Edmund, seek him out; wind me into him, I
pray
you; frame the business after your own wisdom. I would
unstate
myself to be in a due resolution.
Edm. I will seek him, sir, presently; convey the business as I
shall find means, and acquaint you withal.
Glou. These late eclipses in the sun and moon portend no good
to
us. Though the wisdom of nature can reason it thus and thus,
yet
nature finds itself scourg'd by the sequent effects. Love
cools,
friendship falls off, brothers divide. In cities, mutinies;
in
countries, discord; in palaces, treason; and the bond
crack'd
'twixt son and father. This villain of mine comes under the
prediction; there's son against father: the King falls from
bias
of nature; 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; it shall lose thee nothing; do it
carefully. And the noble and true-hearted Kent banish'd! his
offence, honesty! 'Tis strange. Exit.

Previous - Next