Cymbeline - Act 2 Scene 5

Cymbeline

The Same. Another Room in the Same.

Enter POSTHUMUS.

Post. 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.