Publisher's Synopsis
Enter EDMUND with a letter.EDMUND.Thou, Nature, art my goddess; to thy lawMy services are bound. Wherefore should IStand in the plague of custom, and permitThe curiosity of nations to deprive me?For that I am some twelve or fourteen moonshinesLag of a brother? Why bastard? Wherefore base?When my dimensions are as well compact, My mind as generous, and my shape as trueAs honest madam's issue? Why brand they usWith base? With baseness? bastardy? Base, base?Who, in the lusty stealth of nature, takeMore composition and fierce qualityThan doth within a dull stale tired bedGo to the creating a whole tribe of fopsGot 'tween asleep and wake? Well then, Legitimate Edgar, I must have your land: Our father's love is to the bastard EdmundAs to the legitimate: fine word: legitimate!Well, my legitimate, if this letter speed, And my invention thrive, Edmund the baseShall top the legitimate. I grow, I prosper.Now, gods, stand up for bastards!Enter GLOUCESTER.GLOUCESTER.Kent banish'd thus! and France in choler parted!And the King gone tonight! Prescrib'd his pow'r!Confin'd to exhibition! All this doneUpon the gad!-Edmund, how now! What news?EDMUND.So please your lordship, none.[Putting up the letter.]GLOUCESTER.Why so earnestly seek you to put up that letter?EDMUND.I know no news, my l
