Phi.

All sworn and honorable:-they induced to steal
it!

And by a stranger!-No he hath enjoy'd her:
The cognizance of her incontinency

Is this: she hath bought the name of whore thus
dearly.
There, take thy hire; and all the fiends of hell
Divide themselves between you!
Sir, be patient:
This is not strong enough to be believed
Of one persuaded well of-

Post.

Never talk on 't;

If you seek

She hath been colted by him.

Iach.

130

For further satisfying, under her breast-
Worthy the pressing-lies a mole, right proud
Of that most delicate lodging: by my life,

I kiss'd it, and it gave me present hunger
To feed again, though full. You do remember
This stain upon her?

Post.

Aye, and it doth confirm
Another stain, as big as hell can hold,
Were there no more but it.

140

Will you hear more?

Iach.
Post. Spare your arithmetic; never count the turns;
Once, and a million!

Iach.

I'll be sworn

125. "sworn and honorable"; it was anciently the custom for the servants of great families (as it is now for the servants of the king) to take an oath of fidelity on their entrance into office.— H. N. H.

132. "Of one persuaded well"; by one convinced of (his lady's virtue).-C. H. H.

Post.

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.

Iach.

I'll deny nothing.

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 pervert the present wrath
He hath against himself.

Iach.

152

With all my heart. [Exeunt.

SCENE V

Another room in Philario's house.

Enter Posthumus.

Post. 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, venge-
ance!

Me of my lawful pleasure she restrain❜d,

149. "besides"; beyond.-C. H. H.

2. "half-workers"; sharers in the work.-C. H. H.

And pray'd me oft forbearance; did it with 10
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,—was 't 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

16. "full-acorned boar"; hereby hangs one of the most curious tales of misprinting and correcting that we remember to have met with. The original reads thus: "Like a full Acorn'd Boare, a Iarmen on." There can be no doubt that on is for one, as the word was very often so printed. But what to do with Iarmen, that is the question. Pope and Warburton betook themselves to the strange reading, "a churning on." Malone turned Iarmen into German, and such has been the reading of every edition, we believe, published since. Yet, why Posthumus should speak of a German boar, is more than anyone can tell. And the reading has been acquiesced in probably because none other was thought of that would bear any sort of scrutiny. Mr. Collier's second folio has foaming, which is indeed a great improvement on German. But Collier's foaming has done something far better yet, in having drawn forth the following note from Mr. Singer: "There can be no doubt that the misprinted word was brimmen, or brimeing. Thus Bullokar: 'Brime, a term among hunters, when the wild boar goeth to the female.' Shakespeare has everywhere displayed his knowledge of and fondness for terms of the chase. I am told the word still lingers in the purlieus of the New Forest, and elsewhere provincially." The verb brime, from the Anglo-Saxon bremman, means to be hot, furious, rampant. To the authority produced by Singer we may add the following from Holland's Pliny: "They stand lightly to the first brimming, but by reason that they are subject to cast their pigges they had need to be brimmed a second time." Also this, from Holland's Plutarch: "For the same reason they take the sow to be a prophane and unclean beast, for that ordinarily she goeth a brimming and admitteth the boar, when the moon is past the full." So that brimeing accords perfectly with the sense of full-acorn'd.-H. N. H.

The woman's part in me! For there's no mo

tion

That tends to vice in man but I affirm

20

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, dis-
dain,

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 30
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.

35. "devils cannot plague him better"; "God could not lightly do a man more vengeance, than in this world to grant him his own foolish wishes" (Sir T. More's Comfort against Tribulation).—H. N. H.

ACT THIRD

SCENE I

Britain. A hall in Cymbeline's palace.

Enter in state, 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 conquer'd 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

Ere such another Julius. Britain is

A world by itself, and we will nothing pay

For wearing our own noses.

Queen.

That opportunity,