No Fear Shakespeare
King Lear
Get this No Fear to go!
Act 1, Scene 2, Page 6
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EDGAR
How now, brother Edmund? What serious contemplation
are you in?
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EDGAR
Hello, brother Edmund. What are you thinking about so seriously?
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EDMUND
I am thinking, brother, of a prediction I read this other day,
what should follow these eclipses.
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EDMUND
I was thinking about what an astrologer predicted the other day. He wrote about what these eclipses mean.
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EDGAR
Do you busy yourself about that?
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EDGAR
Are you spending your valuable time on that?
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135 |
EDMUND
I promise you, the effects he writes of succeed unhappily —
as of unnaturalness between the child and the parent,
death, dearth, dissolutions 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.
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EDMUND
Oh, I assure you the things he writes about are wretched —things like divisions between parents and children, death, famine, broken friendships, political rebellion, treason against the king and noblemen, exiled friends, dissolved armies, adultery, and I don’t know what else.
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EDGAR
How long have you been a sectary astronomical?
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EDGAR
How long have you believed in astrology?
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EDMUND
Come, come. When saw you my father last?
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EDMUND
Come on. When was the last time you saw my father?
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EDGAR
Why, the night gone by.
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EDGAR
Why, last night.
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EDMUND
Spake you with him?
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EDMUND
Did you speak to him?
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EDGAR
Ay, two hours together.
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EDGAR
Yes, we talked for a couple of hours.
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EDMUND
Parted you in good terms? Found you no displeasure in him
by word or countenance?
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EDMUND
Did you leave on good terms? Did he express any dissatisfaction with you, either in his words or his face?
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EDGAR
None at all.
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EDGAR
No, none at all.
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EDMUND
Bethink yourself wherein you may have offended him. And
at my entreaty forbear his presence till some little time hath
qualified the heat of his displeasure, which at this instant so
rageth in him that with the mischief of your person it would
scarcely allay.
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EDMUND
Try to remember how you might have offended him, and try to avoid spending time with him until his anger has cooled a little. Right now he’s so angry that even if he harmed you physically, he’d still be raging.
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