Have I not pawn’d to you my majesty?”
But Constance answers with great severity,—
“You have beguiled me with a counterfeit
Resembling majesty, which being touch’d and tried,
Proves valueless: you are forsworn, forsworn.”
One instance more shall close the subject;—it is from the Coriolanus (act iv. sc. 1, l. 44, vol. vi. p. 369), and contains a very fine allusion to the testing of true metal; the noble traitor is addressing his mother Volumnia, his wife Virgilia, and others of his kindred,—
“Fare ye well:
Thou hast years upon thee; and thou art too full
Of the wars’ surfeits, to go rove with one
That’s yet unbruised: bring me but out at gate.