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Thou, nature, art my goddess, to thy law
My services are bound; wherefore should I
Stand in the plague of custom, and permit
The courtesy of nations to deprive me,
For that I am some twelve, or fourteen moonshines
Lag of a brother? Why bastard? wherefore base?
When my dimensions are as well compact,
My mind as gen'rous, and my shape as true
As honest madam's issue? Why brand they thus
With base? with baseness? bastardy, base? base?
Who, in the lusty stealth of nature, take
More composition and fierce quality,
Than doth, within a dull, stale, tired bed,
Go to creating, a whole tribe of fops,
Got' 'tween a-sleep and wake?
Shakespeare, King Lear I,2
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