SCENE V. Another room in Philario's house. Cymbeline  Shakespeare homepage  |  Cymbeline  | Act 2, Scene 5 

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 Enter POSTHUMUS LEONATUS  POSTHUMUS LEONATUS  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 

 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,--wast 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 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. 



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