| ACT II SCENE V | Another room in Philario's house. | |
| | 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 | 5 |
| | 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 | 10 |
| | 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?-- | 15 |
| | 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 | 20 |
| | 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; | 25 |
| | 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 | 30 |
| | 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: | 35 |
| | The very devils cannot plague them better. | |
| | Exit | |
