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King Lear · William Shakespeare · c. 1606
EDMUND
The younger, illegitimate son of an earl. Charming in company; this is what he is like when the company leaves.
The speech148 words · 5 beats
0:00 / 1:22
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?
Well then,
Legitimate Edgar, I must have your land.
Our father's love is to the bastard Edmund
As to the legitimate. Fine word, 'legitimate'!turn
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!
- Speaking to
- The audience. He likes us, which is the problem.
- What just happened
- His father has just introduced him to a guest as a bastard, cheerfully, as a joke he's told many times. Everyone laughed. They've gone in to dinner.
- Objective
- To recruit us — to make us agree that the rule is stupid before he breaks it.
- The turn
- 'Well then' — argument stops, plan starts.
- Watch out for
- Villain introductions die when played as villainy. He is right about the injustice; that's what makes the rest work.