(pocketing the letter) So please your lordship, none.
EDMUND
(pocketing the letter) No news, my lord.
GLOUCESTER
Why so earnestly seek you to put up that letter?
GLOUCESTER
Why are you hiding that letter?
EDMUND
I know no news, my lord.
EDMUND
I don't have any news to report, my lord.
GLOUCESTER
30
What paper were you reading?
GLOUCESTER
What's that paper you were reading?
EDMUND
Nothing, my lord.
EDMUND
It's nothing, my lord.
GLOUCESTER
No? What needed, then, that terrible dispatch of it into
your pocket? The quality of nothing hath not such need to
hide itself. Let's see.—Come, if it be nothing, I shall not
35
need spectacles.
GLOUCESTER
No? Then why did you have to stick it in your pocket in such a hurry? If it were nothing, you wouldn't need to hide it. Let's see it. Come on, if it's nothing, I won't need glasses to read it.
EDMUND
I beseech you, sir, pardon me. It is a letter from my brother
that I have not all o'er-read. And for so much as I have
perused, I find it not fit for your o'erlooking.
EDMUND
Please, sir, I beg you. It's a letter from my brother that I haven't finished reading yet. But judging from the bit I have read, it's not fit for you to see.
GLOUCESTER
Give me the letter, sir.
GLOUCESTER
Give me that letter, sir.
EDMUND
40
I shall offend, either to detain or give it. The contents, as in
part I understand them, are to blame.
EDMUND
Now I'll offend you whether I give it to you or not. The problem is in what the letter says, as far as I can tell.
GLOUCESTER
(taking the letter) Let's see, let's see.
GLOUCESTER
(taking the letter) Let's see, let's see.
EDMUND
I hope, for my brother's justification, he wrote this but as an
essay or taste of my virtue.
EDMUND
I hope for my brother's sake that he just wrote it to test my honor.
GLOUCESTER
45
(reads)
“This policy and reverence of age makes the world
bitter to the best of our times, keeps our fortunes from
us till our oldness cannot relish them. I begin to find
an idle and fond bondage in the oppression of aged
50
tyranny, who sways not as it hath power but as it is
GLOUCESTER
(reads)
“The custom of respecting the elderly makes it hard for the young and healthy to live well, and keeps us without our inheritance until we are so old we can't enjoy our happiness anyway. The
