Cymbeline by William Shakespeare
Act 2 - Scene 5
Another room in Philario’s house.
Posthumus Leonatus : Is there no way for men to be but women
[p]Must be half-workers? We
are all bastards;
[p]And that most venerable man which I
[p]Did call
my father, was I know not where
[p]When I was stamp'd; some coiner
with his tools
[p]Made me a counterfeit: yet my mother seem'd
[p]The
Dian of that time so doth my wife
[p]The nonpareil of this. O,
vengeance, vengeance!
[p]Me of my lawful pleasure she
restrain'd
[p]And pray'd me oft forbearance; did it with
[p]A pudency
so rosy the sweet view on't
[p]Might well have warm'd old Saturn; that
I thought her
[p]As chaste as unsunn'd snow. O, all the
devils!
[p]This yellow Iachimo, in an hour,--wast not?--
[p]Or
less,--at first?--perchance he spoke not, but,
[p]Like a full-acorn'd
boar, a German one,
[p]Cried 'O!' and mounted; found no
opposition
[p]But what he look'd for should oppose and she
[p]Should
from encounter guard. Could I find out
[p]The woman's part in me! For
there's no motion
[p]That tends to vice in man, but I affirm
[p]It is
the woman's part: be it lying, note it,
[p]The woman's; flattering,
hers; deceiving, hers;
[p]Lust and rank thoughts, hers, hers;
revenges, hers;
[p]Ambitions, covetings, change of prides,
disdain,
[p]Nice longing, slanders, mutability,
[p]All faults that may
be named, nay, that hell knows,
[p]Why, hers, in part or all; but
rather, all;
[p]For even to vice
[p]They are not constant but are
changing still
[p]One vice, but of a minute old, for one
[p]Not half
so old as that. I'll write against them,
[p]Detest them, curse them:
yet 'tis greater skill
[p]In a true hate, to pray they have their
will:
[p]The very devils cannot plague them better.
Previous: Act 2 - Scene 4
Next: Act 3 - Scene 1
