KENT Is not this your son, my lord? I have so often blushed to acknowledge him, that now I am brazed to it. KENT I cannot conceive you. Do you smell a fault? KENT I cannot wish the fault undone, the issue of it being so proper.
Do you know this noble gentleman, Edmund? KENT I must love you, and sue to know you better. The king is coming. Wherefore should I Stand in the plague of custom, and permit The curiosity of nations to deprive me, For that I am some twelve or fourteen moon-shines Lag of a brother?
When my dimensions are as well compact, My mind as generous, and my shape as true, As honest madam's issue? Why brand they us With base? Who, in the lusty stealth of nature, take More composition and fierce quality Than doth, within a dull, stale, tired bed, Go to the creating a whole tribe of fops, Got 'tween asleep and wake?
Well, then, Legitimate Edgar, I must have your land: Our father's love is to the bastard Edmund As to the legitimate: Well, my legitimate, if this letter speed, And my invention thrive, Edmund the base Shall top the legitimate.
I grow; I prosper: Now, gods, stand up for bastards! 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. Now, banish'd Kent, If thou canst serve where thou dost stand condemn'd, So may it come, thy master, whom thou lovest, Shall find thee full of labours.
