Act 1. Scene II - Page 2

revenue for ever, and live the beloved of your
brother, EDGAR.'
Hum--conspiracy!--'Sleep till I waked him,--you
should enjoy half his revenue,'--My son Edgar!
Had he a hand to write this? a heart and brain
to breed it in?--When came this to you? who
brought it?

EDMUND
It was not brought me, my lord; there's the
cunning of it; I found it thrown in at the
casement of my closet.

GLOUCESTER
You know the character to be your brother's?

EDMUND
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.

GLOUCESTER
It is his.

EDMUND
It is his hand, my lord; but I hope his heart is
not in the contents.

GLOUCESTER
Hath he never heretofore 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 declining, 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 apprehend him: abominable 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 shall 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 wrote this to feel my
affection to your honour, and to no further
pretence of danger.

GLOUCESTER
Think you so?

EDMUND
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.

GLOUCESTER
He cannot be such a monster--

EDMUND
Nor is not, sure.

GLOUCESTER
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.

EDMUND
I will seek him, sir, presently: convey the
business as I shall find means and acquaint you withal.

GLOUCESTER
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
scourged by the sequent effects: love cools,
friendship falls