"KENT Is not this your son, my lord?GLOUCESTER His breeding, sir, hath been at my charge: I have so often blushed to acknowledge him, that now I am brazed to it.KENT I cannot conceive you.GLOUCESTER Sir, this young fellow's mother could: whereupon she grew round-wombed, and had, indeed, sir, a son for her cradle ere she had a husband for her bed. Do you smell a fault?KENT I cannot wish the fault undone, the issue of it being so proper.GLOUCESTER But I have, sir, a son by order of law, some year elder than this, who yet is no dearer in my account: though this knave came something saucily into the world before he was sent for, yet was his mother fair; there was good sport at his making, and the whoreson must be acknowledged."

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Added by wikiquote-import-bot
Added on April 10, 2026
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Original Language: English

Sources

Shakespeare, King Lear, act I, scene 1

https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Legitimacy_(family_law)