Post. Spare your arithmetic; never count the turns:

Once, and a million!

Iach.

Post.

If

I'll be sworn,

No swearing. lie;

I will deny nothing.

you will swear you have not done't, you And I will kill thee, if thou dost deny Thou hast made me cuckold.

Iach.

Post. O that I had her here, to tear her limb-meal! I will go there, and do't; i'the court; before Her father.-I'll do something

Phi.

[Exit.

Quite besides The government of patience!-You have won. Let's follow him, and pervert1 the present wrath He hath against himself.

Iach.

With all my heart.

[Exeunt.

SCENE V. 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 bastards all;
And 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
The nonpareil of this.-O 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

Might well have warmed old Saturn; that I thought her
As chaste as unsunned snow.-O, all the devils!-
This yellow Iachimo, in an hour,—was't not?——
Or less, at first. Perchance he spoke not; but,

1 i. e. avert his wrath from himself; prevent him from injuring himself in his rage,

Like a full-acorned boar, a German one,

Cryed, 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

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 longings, slanders, mutability,

All faults that may be named, 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.

ACT III.

SCENE I. Britain. A Room of State in
Cymbeline's Palace.

Enter CYMBELINE, Queen, CLOTEN, and Lords, at one door; and at another, CAIUS LUCIUS, and Attendants.

Cym. Now say what would Augustus Cæsar with us? Luc. When Julius Cæsar (whose remembrance yet Lives in men's eyes; and will to ears, and tongues, Be theme, and hearing ever) was in this Britain, And conquered it, Cassibelan, thine uncle, (Famous in Cæsar'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 untendered.

A world by itself; and we will nothing pay,
For wearing our own noses.

Queen.

That opportunity,
Which then they had to take from us, 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, ribbed and paled in
With rocks unscalable, and roaring waters;

With sands, that will not bear your enemies' boats,
But suck them up to the top-mast. A kind of conquest
Cæsar made here; but made not here his brag
Of, came, and saw, and overcame: with shame
(The first that ever touched him,) he was carried
From off our coast, twice beaten; and his shipping,
(Poor ignorant baubles!) on our terrible seas,
Like egg-shells moved upon their surges, cracked
As easily 'gainst our rocks; for joy whereof,
The famed Cassibelan, who was once at point
(O giglot1 fortune!) to master Cæsar's sword,
Made Lud's town with rejoicing fires bright,
And Britons strut with courage.

Clo. Come, there's no more tribute to be paid. Our kingdom is stronger than it was at that time; and, as I said, there is no more such Cæsars: other of them may have crooked noses; but, to owe such straight arms, none.

Cym. Son, let your mother end.

Clo. We have yet many among us can gripe as hard as Cassibelan; I do not say I am one; but I

1 A giglot was a strumpet. The Poet has transferred to Cassibelan an adventure which happened to his brother Nennius. See Holinshed, book iii. ch. xiii.

have a hand.-Why tribute? why should we pay tribute? If Cæsar can hide the sun from us with a blanket, or put the moon in his pocket, we will pay him tribute for light; else, sir, no more tribute, pray you now.

Cym. You must know,

Till the injurious Romans did extort
This tribute from us, we were free. Cæsar's ambition,
(Which swelled so much, that it did almost stretch
The sides o'the world,) against all color,1 here
Did put the yoke upon us; which to shake off,
Becomes a warlike people, whom we reckon
Ourselves to be. We do say then to Cæsar
Our ancestor was that Mulmutius, which

Ordained our laws; (whose use the sword of Cæsar
Hath too much mangled; whose repair, and franchise,
Shall, by the power we hold, be our good deed,
Though Rome be therefore angry;) Mulmutius made
our laws,

Who was the first of Britain which did put
His brows within a golden crown, and called
Himself a king.

Luc.

I am sorry, Cymbeline,
That I am to pronounce Augustus Cæsar
(Cæsar, that hath more kings his servants, than
Thyself domestic officers) thine enemy.

Receive it from me, then :-War, and confusion,
In Cæsar's name pronounce I 'gainst thee; look
For fury not to be resisted. Thus defied,

I thank thee for myself.

Cym.
Thy Cæsar knighted me; my youth I spent
Much under him; 2 of him I gathered honor;
Which he, to seek of me again, perforce,
Behoves me keep at utterance.3 I am perfect,*

Thou art welcome, Caius.

1 i. e. without any pretence of right.

2 Some few hints for this part of the play are taken from Holinshed. 3 i. e. at the extremity of defiance. So in Helyas Knight of the Swanne, blk. 1. no date:-"Here is my gage to sustain it to the utterance, and befight it to the death."

4 Well-informed.

That the Pannonians and Dalmatians, for
Their liberties, are now in arms; a precedent
Which, not to read, would show the Britons cold.
So Cæsar shall not find them.

Let proof speak.

Luc. Clo. His majesty bids you welcome. Make pastime with us a day or two longer. If you seek us afterwards in other terms, you shall find us in our salt-water girdle: if you beat us out of it, it is yours; if you fall in the adventure, our crows shall fare the better for you; and there's an end.

Luc. So, sir.

Cym. I know your master's pleasure, and he mine; All the remain is, welcome.

[Exeunt.

SCENE II. Another Room in the same.

Enter PISANIO.

Pis. How! of adultery? Wherefore write you not What monster's her accuser?-Leonatus!

O master! what a strange infection

Is fallen into thy ear! What false Italian
(As poisonous-tongued, as handed) hath prevailed
On thy too ready hearing ?-Disloyal? No.
She's punished for her truth; and undergoes,
More goddess-like than wife-like, such assaults
As would take in1 some virtue.-O my master!
Thy mind to her is now as low, as were

Thy fortunes. How! that I should murder her?
Upon the love, and truth, and vows, which I
Have made to thy command?-I, her?—her blood?
If it be so to do good service, never

Let me be counted serviceable. How look I,
That I should seem to lack humanity,

1 To take in is to conquer.

2 Thy mind, compared to hers, is now as low as thy condition was compared to hers. According to modern notions of grammatical construction, it should be, "thy mind to hers."