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 banished! his offence, honesty!-Strange! strange! [Exit.

Edm. This is the excellent foppery of the world! that, when we are sick in fortune (often the surfeit of our behaviour,) we make guilty of our disasters, the sun, the moon, and the stars: as if we were villains by necessity; fools, by heavenly compulsion; knaves, thieves, and treachers, by spherical predominance; 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 evasion of whoremaster man, to lay his goatish disposition to the charge of a star! My father compounded with my mother under the dragon's tail; and my nativity was under ursa major2 so that it follows, I am rough and lecherous.-Tut, I should have been that I am, had the naidenliest star in the firmament twinkled on my bastardizing. Edgar

Enter Edgar.

and pat he comes, like the catastrophe of the old comedy: My cue is villanous melancholy, with a sigh like Tom o'Bedlam.-O, these eclipses do portend these divisions! fa, sol, la, mi.3

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

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

(1) Traitors.

(2) Great Bear, the constellation so named.

(3) These sounds are unnatural and offensive in

music.

Edg. Do you busy yourself with that?

Edm. I promise you, the effects he writes of succeed unhappily; as of unnaturalness between the child and the parent; death, dearth, dissolutions of ancient amities; divisions in state, menaces and maledictions against king and nobles; needless diffidences, banishment of friends, dissipation of cohorts, nuptial breaches, and I know not what. Edg. How long have you been a sectary astronomical?

Edm. Come, come; when saw you my father last?

Edg. Why, the night gone by.
Edm. Spake you with him?
Edg. Ay, two hours together.

Edm. Parted you in good terms? Found you no displeasure in him, by word or countenance? Edg. None at all.

pre

Edm. Bethink yourself, wherein you may have offended him and at my entreaty, forbear his sence, till some little time hath qualified the heat of his displeasure; which at this instant so rageth in him, that with the mischief of your person it would scarcely allay.

Edg. Some villain hath done me wrong.

Edm. That's my fear. I pray you, have a continent2 forbearance, 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 hear my lord speak: Pray you, go; there's my key:-If you do stir abroad, go armed.

Edg. Armed, brother?

Edm. Brother, I advise you to the best: go armed; I am no honest man, if there be any good meaning towards you: I have told you what I have seen and heard, but faintly; nothing like the image and horror of it: Pray you, away.

(1) For cohorts some editors read courts. (2) Temperate.

Edg. Shall I hear from you anon? Edm. I do serve you in this business.— [Exit Edgar. A credulous father, and a brother noble, Whose nature is so far from doing harms, That he suspects none; on whose foolish honesty My practices ride easy!-I see the business.--Let me, if not by birth, have lands by wit: All with me's meet, that I can fashion fit. [Exit. SCENE III-A room in the Duke of Albany's palace. Enter Goneril and Steward.

Gon. Did my father strike my gentleman for chiding of his fool?

Stew. Ay, madam.

Gon. By day and night! he wrongs me; every hour

He flashes 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 slack of former services,
You shall do well; the fault of it I'll answer.
Stew. He's coming, madam; I hear him.

[Horns within. Gon. Put on what weary negligence you please, You and your fellows; I'd have it come to question; If he dislike it, let him to my sister,

Whose mind and mine, I know, in that are one,
Not to be over-rul'd. Idle old man,

That still would manage those authorities,
That he hath given away!-Now, by my life,
Old fools are babes again; and must be us'd
With checks, as flatteries,-when they are seen

abus'd.

Remember what I have said.

Stew.

Very well, madam.

Gon. And let his knights have colder looks among

you;

What grows of it, no matter; advise your fellows so:
I would breed from hence occasions, and I shall,
That I may speak :-I'll write straight to my sister,
To hold my very course :-Prepare for dinner.
[Exeunt.

SCENE IV-A hall in the same. Enter Kent,

disguised.

Kent. If but as well I other accents borrow, That can my speech diffuse, my good intent May carry through itself to that full issue For which I raz'd2 my likeness. Now, banish'd

Kent,

If thou canst serve where thou dost stand condemn'd (So may it come!) thy master, whom thou lov'st, Shall find thee full of labours.

Horns within. Enter Lear, Knights, and Attend

ants.

Lear. Let me not stay a jot for dinner; go, get it ready. [Exit an Attendant.] How now, what art thou?

Kent. A man, sir.

Lear. What dost thou profess? What wouldest thou with us?

Kent. I do profess to be no less than I seem; to serve him truly, that will put me in trust; to love him that is honest; to converse3 with him that is wise, and says little; to fear judgment; to fight, when I cannot choose; and to eat no fish.

Lear. What art thou?

Kent. A very honest-hearted fellow, and as poor as the king.

Lear. If thou be as poor for a subject, as he is for a king, thou art poor enough. What wouldest thou?

Kent. Service.

(1) Disorder, disguise. (2) Effaced. (3) Keep company.

Lear. Who wouldest thou serve?

Kent. You.

Lear. Dost thou know me, fellow?

Kent. No, sir; but you have that in your coun⚫ tenance, which I would fain call master.

Lear. What's that?

Kent. Authority.

Lear. What services canst thou do?

Kent. I can keep honest counsel, ride, run, mar a curious tale in telling it, and deliver a plain message bluntly that which ordinary men are fit for, I am qualified in; and the best of me is diligence. Lear. How old art thou?

Kent. Not so young, sir, to love a woman for singing; nor so old, to dote on her for any thing: I have years on my back forty-eight.

Lear. Follow me; thou shalt serve me; if I like thee no worse after dinner, I will not part from thee yet.-Dinner, ho, dinner!-Where's my knave? my fool? Go you, and call my fool hither :-

Enter Steward.

You, you, sirrah, where's my daughter?
Stew. So please you,—

[Exit.

Lear. What says the fellow there? Call the clotpoll back.-Where's my fool, ho?--I think the world's asleep.-How now? where's that mongrel? Knight. He says, my lord, your daughter is not well.

Lear. Why came not the slave back to me, when I call'd him?

Knight. Sir, he answer'd me in the roundest manner, he would not.

Lear. He would not!

Knight. My lord, I know not what the matter is; but, to my judgment, your highness is not entertained with that ceremonious affection as you were wont; there's a great abatement of kindness appears, as well in the general dependants, as in the duke himself also, and your daughter.