Cymbeline (Modern)
Peer Reviewed
[2.5]
¶
Enter Posthumus
¶Posthumus Is there no way for men to be but women
¶Must be half-workers? We are all bastards,
1340And that most venerable man which I
¶Did call my father was I know not where
¶When I was stamped. Some coiner with his tools
¶Made me a counterfeit, yet my mother seemed
¶The Dian of that time; so doth my wife
1345The nonpareil of this. Oh, vengeance, vengeance!
¶Me of my lawful pleasure she restrained
¶And prayed me oft forbearance, did it with
¶A pudency so rosy the sweet view on't
¶As chaste as unsunned snow. Oh, all the devils!
¶This yellow Iachimo in an hour, was't not?
¶Or less? At first perchance he spoke not but
¶Like a full-acorned boar, a German one,
1355Cried "Oh" and mounted; found no opposition
¶But what he looked 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
1360It 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 --
1365All faults that [have a] 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,
1370Detest 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