Page:King Lear (1917) Yale.djvu/33

King Lear, I. ii

Edm. I will seek him, sir, presently; convey

the business as I shall find means, and acquaint

you withal.

Glo. 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 off, brothers divide: in

cities, mutinies; in countries, discord; in palaces,

treason; and the bond cracked between 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 banished! his

offence, honesty! 'Tis strange!

Edm. This is the excellent foppery of the

world, that, when we are sick in fortune,—often

the surfeit of our own 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

 112 presently: instantly

114 withal: therewith

116 wisdom of nature: natural philosophy

132 excellent foppery: exceeding folly

138 spherical: planetary

141 thrusting on: impulsion