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Have turn'd mine eye, and wept.--But, good Pisanio, When shall we hear from him?

Pisa.

With his next vantage*.

Be assur'd, madam,

Imo. I did not take my leave of him, but had
Most pretty things to say: ere I could tell him,
How I would think on him, at certain hours,
Such thoughts, and such; or I could make him
The she's of Italy should not betray
[swear
Mine interest, and his honour; or have charg'd him,
At the sixth hour of morn, at noon, at midnight,
To encounter me with orisons, for then

I am in heaven for him: or ere I could
Give him that parting kiss, which I had set
Betwixt two charming words, comes in my father,
And, like the tyrannous breathing of the north,
Shakes all our buds from growing.

THE BASENESS OF FALSEHOOD TO A WIFE.

Doubting things go ill, often hurts more
Than to be sure they do: For certainties
Either are past remedies: or, timely knowing,
The remedy then born; discover to me
What both you spur and stop‡.

Iach.
Had I this cheek
To bathe my lips upon; this hand, whose touch,
Whose every touch, would force the feeler's soul
To the oath of loyalty; this object, which
Takes prisoner the wild motion of mine eye,
Fixing it only here; should I (damn'd then),
Slaver with lips as common as the stairs

That mount the Capitol; join gripes with hands Made hard with hourly falsehood (falsehood, as

* Opportunity.

+ Meet me with reciprocal prayer. What you seem anxious to utter, and yet withhold.

U

With labour); then lie peeping in an eye,
Base and unlustrous as the smoky light
That's fed with stinking tallow; it were fit,
That all the plagues of hell should at one time
Encounter such revolt.

ACT II.

SCENE. A Bedchamber; in one part of it a Trunk. IMOGEN reading in her Bed; a Lady attending.

Imo. Mine eyes are weak:—

Fold down the leaf where I have left: To bed:
Take not away the taper, leave it burning:
And if thou canst awake by four o'the clock,
I pr'ythee, call me. Sleep hath seiz'd me wholly.
[Exit Lady.
To your protection I commend me, gods!
From fairies, and the tempters of the night,
Guard me, beseech ye!

[Sleeps. IACHIMO, from the Trunk.

Iach. The crickets sing, and man's o'er-labour'd Repairs itself by rest: Our Tarquin thus [sense Did softly press the rushes*, ere he waken'd The chastity he wounded.-Cytherea, How bravely thou becom'st thy bed! fresh lily! And whiter than the sheets! That I might touch! But kiss; one kiss! Rubies unparagon'd, How dearly they do't. 'Tis her breathing that Perfumes the chamber thus: The flame o' the taper Bows toward her; and would underpeep her lids, To see the enclosed lights, now canopied Under these windows: White and azure, lac'd

* It was anciently the custom to strew chambers with rushes.

With blue of heav'n's own tinct*.-But my design? To note the chamber:-I will write all down: Such, and such, pictures;-There the window:Such

The adornment of her bed;-The arrast, figures, Why, such, and such:-And the contents o' the story,

upon

her!

Ah, but some natural notes about her body,
Above ten thousand meaner moveables
Would testify to enrich mine inventory:
O sleep, thou ape of death, lie dull
And be her sense but as a monument,
Thus in a chapel lying!-Come off, come off;
[Taking off her Bracelet.
As slippery, as the Gordian knot was hard!
'Tis mine; and this will witness outwardly,
As strongly as the conscience does within,
To the madding of her lord. On her left breast
A mole cinque-spotted, like the crimson drops
I' the bottom of a cowslip: Here's a voucher,
Stronger than ever law could make: this secret
Will force him think I have pick'd the lock, and ta'en
The treasure of her honour. No more.-To what
Why should I write this down, that's riveted, [end?
Screw'd to my memory? She hath been reading late
The tale of Tereus; here the leaf's turn'd down,
Where Philomel gave up;-I have enough:
To the trunk again, and shut the spring of it.
Swift, swift, you dragons of the night!--that dawn-
May bare the raven's eye: I lodge in fear; [ing
Though this a heavenly angel, hell is here.

[Goes into the Trunk. The Scene closes.

* i. e. The white skin laced with blue veins. + Tapestry

'Tis gold

GOLD.

Which buys admittance; oft it doth; yea, and Diana's rangers false themselves, yield up [makes Their deer to the stand of the stealer; and 'tis gold Which makes the true man kill'd, and saves the thief; Nay, sometime, hangs both thief and true man: What

Can it not do, and undo?

A SATIRE ON WOMEN.

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 stamp'd; some coiner with his tools Made me a counterfeit; Yet my The Dian of that time: so doth

mother seem'd

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
As chaste as unsunn'd snow:

Could I find out

[her

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 longings, slanders, mutability,

All faults that may be nam'd, nay that hell knows,

* Modesty.

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 better.

ACT III.

IMPATIENCE OF A WIFE TO MEET HER HUSBAND.

O, for a horse with wings!-Hear'st thou, Pisanio?
He is at Milford-Haven: Read, and tell me
How far 'tis thither. If one of mean affairs
May plod it in a week, why may not I
Glide thither in a day?-Then, true Pisanio,
(Who long'st, like me, to see thy lord; who long'st,-
O, let me bate, but not like me:-yet long'st,-
But in a fainter kind;-O, not like me;

For mine's beyond beyond), say, and speak thick*
(Love's counsellor should fill the bores of hearing,
To the smothering of the sense), how far it is
To this same blessed Milford: And, by the way,
Tell me how Wales was made so happy, as
To inherit such a haven: But, first of all,
How we may steal from hence; and, for the gap
That we shall make in time, from our hence-going,
And our return, to excuse :--|
:--but first, how get hence;
Why should excuse be born or e'er begot?
We'll talk of that hereafter. Pr'ythee, speak,
How many score of miles may we well ride
Twixt hour and hour.

* Crowd one word on another, as fast as possible.

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