machination, intrigue, plotting: –s, hollowness, treachery
Gloucester:
These late eclipses in the sun and
moon portend no good to us: though the wisdom
of nature can reason it thus and thus,
yet nature finds itself scourged by the sequent
effects: love cools, friendship falls off, brothers
divide: in cities, mutinies; in countries,
discord; in palaces, treason; and the bond
cracked ‘twixt son and father. This villain of
mine comes under the prediction; there’s son
against father: the king falls from bias of nature;
there’s father against child. We have
seen the best of our time: machinations, hollowness,
treachery, and all ruinous disorders,
follow us disquietly to our graves. Find out
this villain, Edmund; it shall lose thee nothing;
do it carefully. And the noble and true-hearted
Kent banished! his offence, honesty!
‘Tis strange. [Exit.King Lear, Act I, scene ii
