Why brand they us
With "base," with "baseness," "bastardy," "base," "base?"
– William Shakespeare
King Lear, Act 1, Scene 2. Sometimes you can even feel sympathy for a villain, like Edmund in this case. He feels deeply hurt and stigmatized by being classed a bastard due to his accident of birth. His repetition of the word "base" – meaning lowlife or worthless – shows us how upset and angry he is with the injustice of his status.