GLOUCESTER [Reads]: "This policy and reverence of age makes the world bitter to the best of our times; keeps our fortunes from us till our oldness cannot relish them. I begin to find an idle and fond bondage in the oppression of aged tyranny; who sways, not as it hath power, but as it is suffered. Come to me, that of this I may speak more. If our father would sleep till I waked him, you should enjoy half his revenue for ever, and live the beloved of your brother, Edgar."
Hum? Conspiracy? "Sleep till I waked him, you should enjoy half his revenue," – My son Edgar! Had he a hand to write this? a heart and brain to breed it in? – When came this to you? Who brought it?
– William Shakespeare
King Lear, Act 1, Scene 2. The letter forged by Edmund and purporting to come from Edgar proposes that the brothers kill their father so that they can enjoy his "revenue" (wealth). Although Edgar is Gloucester’s son and heir so they must have a close and caring relationship, Gloucester appears a little too ready to believe that he is involved in a diabolical murder plot. But Gloucester is too blind to see through Edmund’s wicked subterfuge and recognize Edgar’s innocence of any betrayal of his father.