Description:‘Thou Nature art my goddess’: evil in Shakespeare.
In the 'quarto' edition Edmund, the eldest son of the Earl of Gloucester, is named Bastard in the speech headings, perhaps reflecting the way in which contemporary readers might recognise him for his character rather than by name.
This is from Act 1 at the end of scene 1 and the first part of scene 2. The quarto edition does not mark act and scene breaks. The page reads:
Regan. We shall further think on't.
Gon.[eril] We must do something, and i' the heat [i.e. with all haste]. Exeunt.
Enter Bastard Son
Bast[ard, i.e. 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 12. or 14. moon-shines 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? Base bastardy? who, in the lusty stealth of nature, take more composition and fierce quality than doth within a stale, dull, lied bed, go to the creating a whole tribe of fops got between sleep and wake? Well, the legitimate Edgar, I must have your land, our father's love is to the bastard Edmund as to the legitimate: well, my legitimate, if this letter speed and my invention thrive Edmund the base shall to the legitimate. I grow; I prosper: now, gods, stand up for bastards!
Enter GLOCESTER
Glost[er] Kent banish'd thus? and France in choler parted,
And the...
See: King Lear, 1,2, lines 1-22
Full title: William Shakespeare, his true chronicle history of the life and death of King Lear and his three daughters. As was plaid before the Kings Majesty, [London], printed [by William Jaggard] for Nathaniel Butter, 1608 [1619].