from proof as strong as my grief, and as certain as I expect my revenge. That part, thou, Pisanio, must act for me, if thy faith be not tainted with the breach of hers. Let thine own hands take away her life: I shall give thee opportunities at Milford Haven: she hath my letter for the purpose; Where, if thou fear to strike, and to make me certain it is done, thou art the pander to her dishonour, and equally to me disloyal.

Pis. What shall I need to draw my sword? the

Poor I am stale, a garment out of fashion;
And, for I am richer than to hang by the walls,*
I must be ripp'd :-to pieces with me!-O,
Men's vows are women's traitors! All good seeming,
By thy revolt, O, husband, shall be thought
Put on for villany; not born, where't grows;
But worn, a bait for ladies.

Pis.
Good madam, hear me.
Imo. True honest men being heard, like false
Æneas,

Were, in his time, thought false: and Sinon's
weeping

Did scandal many a holy tear: took pity From most true wretchedness: So, thou, humus,

A little witness my obedience: Look!
draw the sword myself: take it; and hit
The innocent mansion of my love, my heart:
Fear not: 'tis empty of all things, but grief:
Thy master is not there: who was, indeed,
The riches of it; Do his bidding strike.
Thou may'st be valiant in a better cause;
But now thou seem'st a coward.
Pis.

Hence, vile instrument!

Thou shalt not damn my hand.

Imo.

Why, I must die;
And if I do not by thy hand, thou art
No servant of thy master's: Against self-slaughter
There is a prohibition so divine,
That cravens my weak hand. Come, here's my
heart;

Something's afore't: Soft, soft; we'll no defence;
Obedient as the scabbard.-What is here?
The scriptures" of the loyal Leonatus,
All turn'd to heresy? Away, away,
Corrupters of my faith you shall no more
Believe false teachers: Though those that are be-
Be stomachers to my heart! Thus may poor fools

tray'd

Do feel the treason sharply, yet the traitor
Stands in worse case of wo.

And thou, Posthumus, thou that didst set up
My disobedience 'gainst the king my father,
And make me put into contempt the suits
Of princely fellows, shalt hereafter find
It is no act of common passage, but
A strain of rareness: and I grieve myself,
To think, when thou shalt be disedg'd by her
That now thou tir'st on, how thy memory
Will then be pang'd by me.-Pr'ythee, despatch:
The lamb entreats the butcher: Where's thy knife?
Thou art too slow to do thy master's bidding,
When I desire it too.
Pis.
O, gracious lady,
Since I receiv'd command to do this business,
I have not slept one wink.
Imo.

Do't, and to bed then,
Pis. I'll wake mine eyeballs blind first.19
Imo.

Wherefore then

Didst undertake it? Why hast thou abus'd
So many miles with a pretence? this place?
Post-Mine action, and thine own? our horses' labour?
The time inviting thee? the perturb'd court,
For my being absent; whereunto I never
Purpose return? Why hast thou gone so far,
To be unbent,11 when thou hast ta'en thy stand,
The elected deer before thee?

Wilt lay the leaven on all proper men:
Goodly, and gallant, shall be false and perjur'd,
From thy great fail.-Come, fellow, be thou honest:
Do thou thy master's bidding: when thou seest
him,

1 It has already been observed that worm was the general name for all the serpent kind. See Antony and Cleopatra, Act v. Sc. 2

2 i. e. persons of the highest rank.

Steevens

above three thousand dresses behind her.
once saw one of these repositories at an ancient mansion
in Suffolk, which (thanks to a succession of old maids!)
had been preserved with superstitious reverence for al-
most a century and a half.

5 Wilt lay the leaven on all proper men.' 3 Putta, in Italian, signifies both a jay and a whore. The leaven is, in Scripture phraseology, the whole We have the word again in The Merry Wives of Wind-wickedness of our sinful nature.' See 1 Corinthians, v. sor:- Teach him to know turtles from jays. Some jay of Italy, whose mother was her painting, i. e. made by art; the creature not of nature, but of painting. In this sense painting may be said to be her mother. Steevens met with a similar phrase in some old play :- A parcel of conceited feather-caps, whose fathers were their garments,'

4 That is, to be hung up as useless among the neglect

ed contents of a wardrobe. So in Measure for Mea

sure:

That have, like unscour'd armour, hung by the wall. Clothes were not formerly, as at present, made of slight materials, were not kept in drawers, or given away as soon as lapse of time or change of fashion had impaired their value. On the contrary, they were hung up on wooden pegs, in a room appropriated to the sole purpose of receiving them; and though such cast off things as were composed of rich substances were occasionally ripped for domestic uses, articles of inferior quality were suffered to hang by the walls till age and moths had destroyed what pride would not permit to be worn by servants or poor relations :

Comitem horridulum trita donare lacerna,' seems not to have been customary among our ancestors. When Queen Elizabeth died, she was found to have left

6, 7, 8. Thy failure, Posthumus, will lay falsehood to the charge of men without guile : make all suspected.' 6 That makes me afraid to put an end to my own Hamlet exclaims :

life.'

O, that the everlasting had not fix'd
His canon 'gainst self-slaughter.'

is an opposition intended between scripture, in its com
7 Shakspeare here means Leo..atus's letters, but there
mon signification, and heresy.

8 Fellows for equals; those of the same princely rank with myself.

9

when thou shalt be disedg'd by her That now thou tir'st on."

It is probable that the first, as well as the last, of these metaphorical expressions is from falconry. A bird of prey may be said to be disedged when the keenness of its appetite is taken away by tiring, or feeding, upon some object given to it for that purpose. Thus in Hamlet:-

Oph. You are keen, my lord, you are keen. Ham. It would cost you a groaning to take off mine edge.'

10 Blind, which is not in the old copy, was supplied by Hanmer.

11 To have thy bow unbent, alluding to a hunter So