The Works of William Shakespeare [Cambridge Edition] [Vol. 8 of 9]Shakespeare, William
General
The Works of William Shakespeare [Cambridge Edition] [Vol. 8 of 9]
Shakespeare, William
English drama
_Glou._ To his father, that so tenderly and entirely loves[2722]
him. Heaven and earth! Edmund, seek him out; wind me[2722][2723]
into him, I pray you: frame the business after your own[2724]
wisdom. I would unstate myself, to be in a due resolution. 95
_Edm._ I will seek him, sir, presently, convey the business[2725]
as I shall find means, and acquaint you withal.[2726]
_Glou._ These late eclipses in the sun and moon portend[2727][2728]
no good to us: though the wisdom of nature can reason it[2729]
thus and thus, yet nature finds itself scourged by the sequent[2730] 100
effects: love cools, friendship falls off, brothers divide:
in cities, mutinies; in countries, discord; in palaces,[2731]
treason; and the bond cracked 'twixt son and father. This[2732][2733]
villain of mine comes under the prediction; there's son[2733]
against father: the king falls from bias of nature; there's[2733] 105
father against child. We have seen the best of our time:[2733]
machinations, hollowness, treachery and all ruinous disorders[2733]
follow us disquietly to our graves. Find out this[2733]
villain, Edmund; it shall lose thee nothing; do it carefully.[2734]
And the noble and true-hearted Kent banished! his offence, 110
honesty! 'Tis strange. [_Exit._[2735]
_Edm._ This is the excellent foppery of the world, that[2736]
when we are sick in fortune--often the surfeit of our own[2737]
behaviour--we make guilty of our disasters the sun, the
moon and the stars: as if we were villains by necessity,[2738] 115
fools by heavenly compulsion, knaves, thieves and treachers,[2739]
by spherical predominance, drunkards, liars and adulterers,[2740]
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 120
disposition to the charge of a star! My father compounded[2741]
with my mother under the dragon's tail, and my nativity
was under Ursa major; so that it follows I am rough and
lecherous. Tut, I should have been that I am, had the[2742]
maidenliest star in the firmament twinkled on my[2743] 125
bastardizing. Edgar--[2744][2745][2746]
_Enter_ EDGAR.
And pat he comes like the catastrophe of the old comedy:[2744][2745]
my cue is villanous melancholy, with a sigh like Tom o'[2745][2747]
Bedlam. O, these eclipses do portend these divisions! fa,[2745][2748][2749]
sol, la, mi.[2749][2750] 130
_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.[2727]
_Edg._ Do you busy yourself about that?[2751] 135
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