Page:King Lear (1917) Yale.djvu/34

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18
King Lear, I. ii

his goatish disposition to the charge of a star!
My father compounded with my mother under
the dragon's tail, and my nativity was under
ursa major; so that it follows I am rough
and lecherous. 'Sfoot! I should have been that
I am had the maidenliest star in the firmament
twinkled on my bastardizing. Edgar— 149

Enter Edgar.

and pat he comes, like the catastrophe of the
old comedy: my cue is villainous melancholy,
with a sigh like Tom o' Bedlam. O, these
eclipses do portend these divisions! Fa, sol,
la, mi.

Edg. How now, brother Edmund! What
serious contemplation are you in? 156

Edm. I am thinking, brother, of a prediction
I read this other day, what should follow these
eclipses.

Edg. Do you busy yourself with that? 160

Edm. I promise you the effects he writes of
succeed unhappily; [as of unnaturalness between
the child and the parent; death, dearth, dissolu-
tions of ancient amities; divisions in state;
menaces and maledictions against king and
nobles; needless diffidences, banishment of
friends, dissipation of cohorts, nuptial breaches,
and I know not what. 168

Edg. How long have you been a sectary
astronomical?

Edm. Come, come;] when saw you my father
last? 172


145 dragon's tail; cf. n.
147 'Sfoot: God's foot!
153 Fa; cf. n.
166 diffidences: suspicions
169 sectary astronomical: member of the astronomical sect