IACHIMO.
Two creatures heartily.
IMOGEN.
Am I one, sir?
You look on me: what wreck discern you in me
Deserves your pity?
IACHIMO.
Lamentable! What,
To hide me from the radiant sun and solace
I’ th’ dungeon by a snuff?
IMOGEN.
I pray you, sir,
Deliver with more openness your answers
To my demands. Why do you pity me?
IACHIMO.
That others do,
I was about to say, enjoy your—But
It is an office of the gods to venge it,
Not mine to speak on’t.
IMOGEN.
You do seem to know
Something of me, or what concerns me; pray you,
Since doubting things go ill often hurts more
Than to be sure they do; for certainties
Either are past remedies, or, timely knowing,
The remedy then born—discover to me
What both you spur and stop.
IACHIMO.
Had I this cheek
To bathe my lips upon; this hand, whose touch,
Whose every touch, would force the feeler’s soul
To th’ oath of loyalty; this object, which
Takes prisoner the wild motion of mine eye,
Fixing it only here; should I, damn’d then,
Slaver with lips as common as the stairs
That mount the Capitol; join gripes with hands
Made hard with hourly falsehood (falsehood as
With labour): then by-peeping in an eye
Base and illustrious as the smoky light
That’s fed with stinking tallow: it were fit
That all the plagues of hell should at one time
Encounter such revolt.
IMOGEN.
My lord, I fear,
Has forgot Britain.
IACHIMO.
And himself. Not I
Inclin’d to this intelligence pronounce
The beggary of his change; but ’tis your graces
That from my mutest conscience to my tongue
Charms this report out.
IMOGEN.
Let me hear no more.