GIACOMO

Sir, I thank her, that.

She stripped it from her arm. I see her yet.

Her pretty action did outsell her gift,

And yet enriched it too. She gave it me,

And said she prized it once.

POSTHUMUS

Maybe she plucked it off

To send it me.

GIACOMO

She writes so to you, doth she?

POSTHUMUS

O, no, no, no—’tis true! Here, take this too.

He gives Giacomo his 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

Of no more bondage be to where they are made

Than they are to their virtues, which is nothing!

O, above measure false!

PILASIO

Have patience, sir,

And take your ring again; ’tis not yet won.

It may be probable she lost it, or

Who knows if one her woman, being corrupted,

Hath stol’n it from her?

POSTHUMUS

Very true,

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

He takes his ring again

Render to me some corporal sign about her

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

GIACOMO

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 induced to steal it?

And by a stranger? No, he hath enjoyed her.

The cognizance of her incontinency

Is this. She hath bought the name of whore thus

dearly.

He gives Giacomo his ring

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

Divide themselves between you!

FILARIO

Sir, be patient.

This is not strong enough to be believed

Of one persuaded well of.

POSTHUMUS

Never talk on’t.

She hath been colted by him.

GIACOMO

If you seek

For further satisfying, under her breast—

Worthy the pressing—lies a mole, right proud

Of that most delicate lodging. By my life,

I kissed 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,

Were there no more but it.

GIACOMO

Will you hear more?

POSTHUMUS

Spare your arithmetic, never count the turns.

Once, and a million!

GIACOMO

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

Thou’st made me cuckold.

GlACOMO

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

FILARIO

Quite besides

The government of patience! You have won.

Let’s follow and pervert the present wrath

He hath against himself.

GIACOMO

With all my heart.

Exeunt

2.5 Enter Posthumus

POSTHUMUS

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 Giacomo in an hour—was’t not?—

Or less—at first? Perchance he spoke not, but

Like a full-acorned boar, a German one,

Cried ‘O!’ 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 longing, slanders, mutability,

All faults that man can 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

3.1 ⌈Flourish.⌉ Enter in state Cymbeline, the 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