| Posthumus |
Is there no way for men to be but women |
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Must be half-workers? We are all bastards; |
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And that most venerable man which I |
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Did call my father, was I know not where |
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When I was stamp'd; some coiner with his tools |
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Made me a counterfeit: yet my mother seem'd |
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The Dian of that time; so doth my wife |
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The nonpareil of this. O, vengeance, vengeance! |
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Me of my lawful pleasure she restrain'd |
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And pray'd me oft forbearance; did it with |
10 |
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A pudency so rosy the sweet view on't |
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Might well have warm'd old Saturn; that I thought
her |
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As chaste as unsunn'd snow. O, all the devils! |
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This yellow Iachimo, in an hour,--wast not?-- |
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Or less,--at first?--perchance he spoke not, but, |
15 |
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Like a full-acorn'd boar, a German one, |
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Cried 'O!' and mounted; found no opposition |
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But what he look'd for should oppose and she |
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Should from encounter guard. Could I find out |
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The woman's part in me! For there's no motion |
20 |
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That tends to vice in man, but I affirm |
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It is the woman's part: be it lying, note it, |
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The woman's; flattering, hers; deceiving, hers; |
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Lust and rank thoughts, hers, hers; revenges, hers; |
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Ambitions, covetings, change of prides, disdain, |
25 |
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Nice longing, slanders, mutability, |
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All faults that may be named, nay, that hell knows, |
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Why, hers, in part or all; but rather, all; |
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For even to vice |
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They are not constant but are changing still |
30 |
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One vice, but of a minute old, for one |
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Not half so old as that. I'll write against them, |
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Detest them, curse them: yet 'tis greater skill |
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In a true hate, to pray they have their will: |
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The very devils cannot plague them better. |
35 |
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