Cyp. Nay, good lord, leave this allegoric speech,
And give me knowledge from a plainer phrase.
Epire. Then plainly thus: your bed is press'd with lust,
I know you do not credit—nay, what's more,
I know you hate me for my virtuousness:
Your queen behaves her like a courtesan:
I know you hold me for a vile impostor!
O foolish zeal, that makes me be so fond
To leave my faith unto black censuring.
O, she hath sinn'd, and done a double wrong
To you and to her[204] sacred chastity.
Cyp. Duke, thou art valiant, and with a valiant mind
Slander is worse than theft or sacrilege,
Nay more, than murder or the height of treason—
A step beyond the utmost plagues in hell.
Then thou, which in that nature wrong'st a queen,
Deserv'st a scourge beyond their punishments;
Virtue should kill thee now.
Epire. Nay, do: my breast is bare unto thy steel.
Kill me, because I love thee and speak true.
Is this the merit of a Roman faith?
For this have I observ'd, pry'd in unto,
And search'd each secret shift of vanity?
Nay, pray you kill me; faith, I'll patient stand.
Live still a monster, hold shame in your hand.
Cyp. Speak a word more! a king shall be thy death.
Epire. Death is a slave to him that is resolv'd,
And my soul loathes this servile flattery,
Nor will I cover such intemperate sin,
But to the world make them and that transparent,
Unless yourself will seek to right yourself.
Cyp. Thou hast awak'd me, and thy piercing words
Have split my sense in sunder: yet what ground
Remains whereon to ground suspicion?
A cuckold, cuckold, ha!
Epire. Your absence is the bawd to her desires,
For their masques, dancings, gaming, banquetting,
Strange private meetings, and all toils in love,
As wanton speeches to stir appetite,
And all enchantments that inflame desire:
When you return, then all is hush'd and still,
And she demurely walks like virtue's ghost.
Before your face she's like a puritan:
Behind your back a blushless courtesan.
Cyp. O, I have drank in poison at mine ears,
Which makes my blood boil with unquenched flames.
But speak, who is it that dishonours me?
Epire. He that you prize a line before your life;
I know you will not credit—faith you will not.