James Boswell [1821], The plays and poems of William Shakspeare, with the corrections and illustrations of various commentators: comprehending A Life of the Poet, and an enlarged history of the stage, by the late Edmond Malone. With a new glossarial index (J. Deighton and Sons, Cambridge) [word count] [S10201].
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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-workers6 note
? We are all bastards7 note;
-- 90 --
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 counterfeit8 note
: 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 Saturn9 note
; that I thought her
-- 91 --
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 one1 note
,
Cry'd, oh! and mounted2 note
: 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;
Ambitions, covetings, change of prides, disdain,
Nice longings, slanders, mutability,
All faults that may be nam'd3 note
, nay, that hell knows,
-- 92 --
Why, hers, in part, or all; but, rather, all:
For ev'n 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 better5 note
.
[Exit.
James Boswell [1821], The plays and poems of William Shakspeare, with the corrections and illustrations of various commentators: comprehending A Life of the Poet, and an enlarged history of the stage, by the late Edmond Malone. With a new glossarial index (J. Deighton and Sons, Cambridge) [word count] [S10201].
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