Cymbeline
·II v 4 ·
Verse
Posthumus Is there no way for men to be, but women Must be half-workers? We are all bastards; all, And that most venerable man which I Did call my father was I know not where When I was stamp'd; some coiner with his tools Made me a counterfeit; yet my mother seem'd The Dian of that time; so doth my wife The nonpareil of this. O! vengeance, vengeance; Me of my lawful pleasure she restrain'd And pray'd me oft forbearance; did it with A pudency so rosy the sweet view on 't Might well have warm'd old Saturn; that I thought her As chaste as unsunn'd snow. O! all the devils! This yellow Iachimo, in an hour,'was 't not? Or less'at first?'perchance he spoke not, but Like a full-acorn'd boar, a German one, Cried 'O!' and mounted; found no opposition But what he look'd for should oppose and she Should from encounter guard. Could I find out The woman's part in me! For there's no motion That tends to vice in man but I affirm It is the woman's part; be it lying, note it, The woman's; flattering, hers; deceiving, hers; Lust and rank thoughts, hers, hers; revenges, hers; Ambitions, covetings, change of prides, disdain, Nice longing, slanders, mutability, All faults that man may name, nay, that hell knows, Why, hers, in part, or all; but rather, all; For even to vice They are not constant, but are changing still One vice but of a minute old for one Not half so old as that. I'll write against them, Detest them, curse them. Yet 'tis greater skill In a true hate to pray they have their will: The very devils cannot plague them better. [Exit.] |