Edmund’s first soliloquy (King Lear)

King Lear: Act 1, Scene 2

Edmund:

Thou, Nature, art my goddess. To thy law

My services are bound. 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 moonshines

Lag of a brother? Why “bastard”? Wherefore “base,”

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”? With baseness? Bastardy? “Base, 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 th’legitimate. Fine word, “legitimate.”

Well, my “legitimate,” if this letter speed

And my invention thrive, Edmund the base

Shall to th’legitimate. I grow, I prosper.

Now, gods, stand up for bastards!