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,
10
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,
15
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,
The Arden Shakespeare Complete Works Page 109