The Arden Shakespeare Complete Works

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The Arden Shakespeare Complete Works Page 109

by William Shakespeare

POSTHUMUS I hope the briefness of your answer made

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  The speediness of your return.

  IACHIMO Your lady,

  Is one the fairest that I have look’d upon –

  POSTHUMUS

  And therewithal the best, or let her beauty

  Look through a casement to allure false hearts,

  And be false with them.

  IACHIMO Here are letters for you.

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  POSTHUMUS Their tenour good, I trust.

  IACHIMO ’Tis very like.

  POSTHUMUS Was Caius Lucius in the Britain court

  When you were there?

  IACHIMO He was expected then,

  But not approach’d.

  POSTHUMUS All is well yet.

  Sparkles this stone as it was wont, or is’t not

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  Too dull for your good wearing?

  IACHIMO If I have lost it,

  I should have lost the worth of it in gold –

  I’ll make a journey twice as far, t’enjoy

  A second night of such sweet shortness which

  Was mine in Britain; for the ring is won.

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  POSTHUMUS The stone’s too hard to come by.

  IACHIMO Not a whit,

  Your lady being so easy.

  POSTHUMUS Make not, sir,

  Your loss your sport: I hope you know that we

  Must not continue friends.

  IACHIMO Good sir, we must

  If you keep covenant. Had I not brought

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  The knowledge of your mistress home, I grant

  We were to question farther; but I now

  Profess myself the winner of her honour,

  Together with your ring; and not the wronger

  Of her or you, having proceeded but

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  By both your wills.

  POSTHUMUS If you can make’t apparent

  That you have tasted her in bed, my hand

  And ring is yours. If not, the foul opinion

  You had of her pure honour gains, or loses,

  Your sword, or mine, or masterless leave both

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  To who shall find them.

  IACHIMO Sir, my circumstances,

  Being so near the truth, as I will make them,

  Must first induce you to believe; whose strength

  I will confirm with oath, which I doubt not

  You’ll give me leave to spare, when you shall find

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  You need it not.

  POSTHUMUS Proceed.

  IACHIMO First, her bedchamber,

  (Where I confess I slept not, but profess

  Had that was well worth watching) it was hang’d

  With tapestry of silk and silver, the story

  Proud Cleopatra, when she met her Roman,

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  And Cydnus swell’d above the banks, or for

  The press of boats, or pride. A piece of work

  So bravely done, so rich, that it did strive

  In workmanship and value; which I wonder’d

  Could be so rarely and exactly wrought,

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  Since the true life on’t was –

  POSTHUMUS This is true:

  And this you might have heard of here, by me,

  Or by some other.

  IACHIMO More particulars

  Must justify my knowledge.

  POSTHUMUS So they must,

  Or do your honour injury.

  IACHIMO The chimney

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  Is south the chamber, and the chimney-piece,

  Chaste Dian, bathing: never saw I figures

  So likely to report themselves; the cutter

  Was as another Nature, dumb; outwent her,

  Motion and breath left out.

  POSTHUMUS This is a thing

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  Which you might from relation likewise reap,

  Being, as it is, much spoke of.

  IACHIMO The roof o’th’ chamber

  With golden cherubins is fretted. Her andirons

  (I had forgot them) were two winking Cupids

  Of silver, each on one foot standing, nicely

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  Depending on their brands.

  POSTHUMUS This is her honour!

  Let it be granted you have seen all this (and praise

  Be given to your remembrance) the description

  Of what is in her chamber nothing saves

  The wager you have laid.

  IACHIMO Then, if you can

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  [showing the bracelet]

  Be pale, I beg but leave to air this jewel: see!

  And now ’tis up again: it must be married

  To that your diamond, I’ll keep them.

  POSTHUMUS Jove! –

  Once more let me behold it: is it that

  Which I left with her?

  IACHIMO Sir (I thank her) that!

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  She stripp’d it from her arm: I see her yet:

  Her pretty action did outsell her gift,

  And yet enrich’d it too: she gave it me,

  And said she priz’d it once.

  POSTHUMUS May be she pluck’d it off

  To send it me.

  IACHIMO She writes so to you? Doth she?

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  POSTHUMUS O, no, no, no, ’tis true. Here, take this too;

  [Gives the ring.]

  It is a basilisk unto mine eye,

  Kills me to look on’t. Let there be no honour

  Where there is beauty: truth, where semblance: love,

  Where there’s another man. The vows of women

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  Of no more bondage be to where they are made

  Than they are to their virtues, which is nothing.

  O, above measure false!

  PHILARIO Have patience, sir,

  And take your ring again, ’tis not yet won:

  It may be probable she lost it: or

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  Who knows if one of her women, being corrupted,

  Hath stol’n it from her?

  POSTHUMUS Very true,

  And so, I hope, he came by’t. Back my ring,

  Render me some corporal sign about her

  More evident than this: for this was stol’n.

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  IACHIMO By Jupiter, I had it from her arm.

  POSTHUMUS

  Hark you, he swears: by Jupiter he swears.

  ’Tis true, nay, keep the ring, ’tis true: I am sure

  She would not lose it: her attendants are

  All sworn, and honourable: – they induc’d to steal it?

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  And by a stranger? No, he hath enjoy’d her:

  The cognizance of her incontinency

  Is this: she hath bought the name of whore, thus

  dearly.

  There, take thy hire, and all the fiends of hell

  Divide themselves between you!

  PHILARIO Sir, be patient:

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  This is not strong enough to be believed

  Of one persuaded well of.

  POSTHUMUS Never talk on’t:

  She hath been colted by him.

  IACHIMO If you seek

  For further satisfying, under her breast

  (Worthy her pressing) lies a mole, right proud

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  Of that most delicate lodging. By my life,

  I kiss’d it, and it gave me present hunger

  To feed again, though full. You do remember

  This stain upon her?

  POSTHUMUS Ay, and it doth confirm

  Another stain, as big as hell can hold,

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  Were there no more but it.

  IACHIMO Will you hear more?

  POSTHUMUS

  Spare your arithmetic, never count the turns:

  Once, and a million!

  IACHIMO I’ll be sworn –

  POSTHUMUS No swearing:

 
If you will swear you have not done’t you lie,

  And I will kill thee if thou dost deny

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  Thou’st made me cuckold.

  IACHIMO I’ll deny nothing.

  POSTHUMUS

  O, that I had her here, to tear her limb-meal!

  I will go there and do’t, i’th’ court, before

  Her father. I’ll do something – Exit.

  PHILARIO Quite besides

  The government of patience! You have won:

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  Let’s follow him, and pervert the present wrath

  He hath against himself.

  IACHIMO With all my heart. Exeunt.

  Re-enter POSTHUMUS.

  POSTHUMUS Is there no way for men to be, but women

  Must be half-workers? We are all bastards,

  And that most venerable man, which I

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  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!

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  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!

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  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

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  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:

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  Lust, and rank thoughts, hers, hers: revenges, hers:

  Ambitions, covetings, change of prides, disdain,

  Nice longing, slanders, mutability;

  All faults that name, nay, that hell knows, why, hers

  In part, or all: but rather all. For even to vice

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  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:

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  The very devils cannot plague them better. Exit.

  3.1 Enter in state, CYMBELINE, QUEEN, CLOTEN and Lords at one door, and at another, CAIUS LUCIUS and attendants.

  CYMBELINE

  Now say, what would Augustus Caesar with us?

  LUCIUS When Julius Caesar, (whose remembrance yet

  Lives in men’s eyes, and will to ears and tongues

  Be theme and hearing ever) was in this Britain

  And conquer’d it, Cassibelan, thine uncle,

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  (Famous in Caesar’s praises, no whit less

  Than in his feats deserving it) for him,

  And his succession, granted Rome a tribute,

  Yearly three thousand pounds; which (by thee) lately

  Is left untender’d.

  QUEEN And, to kill the marvel,

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  Shall be so ever.

  CLOTEN There be many Caesars ere such another

  Julius: Britain’s a world by itself, and we will nothing

  pay for wearing our own noses.

  QUEEN That opportunity,

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  Which then they had to take from’s, to resume

  We have again. Remember, sir, my liege,

  The kings your ancestors, together with

  The natural bravery of your isle, which stands

  As Neptune’s park, ribb’d and pal’d in

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  With rocks unscaleable and roaring waters,

  With sands that will not bear your enemies’ boats,

  But suck them up to th’ topmast. A kind of conquest

  Caesar made here, but made not here his brag

  Of ‘Came, and saw, and overcame:’ with shame

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  (The first that ever touch’d him) he was carried

  From off our coast, twice beaten: and his shipping

  (Poor ignorant baubles!) on our terrible seas,

 

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