QUOTES FROM THE BARD

PLAY: Cymbeline
ACT/SCENE: 2.5
SPEAKER: Posthumus Leonatus
CONTEXT:
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 prudency 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.

DUTCH:
O, vond ik slechts
Wat vrouwlijk is in mij! want ied’re neiging
Tot ondeugd in den man, voorwaar, zij is
Zijn vrouwlijk erfdeel; liegen, ja, het is zoo,
Komt van de vrouw; van haar ‘t gevlei, ‘t bedriegen;
Onkuische lust, van haar; van haar, de wraakzucht;
Van haar de zucht naar grootheid, hoovaardij,
Inbeelding, dwaze lusten, lasterzucht,
Laatdunkendheid en wuftheid, alle kwaad,
Wat maar een naam heeft, wat de hel maar kent,
Van haar, gedeelt’lijk of geheel; of ja, geheel;

MORE:
May be named=That man can name (See Richard III, 1.2 “tongue may name”)
Motion=Impulse
Nice=Fastidious
Compleat:
Motion (instigation)=Aanporring, aandryving
To plague=Plaagen, quellen

Topics: honesty, truth, flattery, deceit, revenge