You are a great deal abused in too bold a persuasion; and I doubt not you sustain what you're worthy of, by your attempt. IACHIMO. What's that? POSTHUMUS. A repulse: though your _attempt_, as you call it, deserve more--a punishment too. PHILARIO. Gentlemen, enough of this. It came in too suddenly; let it die as it was born, and I pray you be better acquainted. IACHIMO. Would I had put my estate and my neighbor's on the approbation of what I have said! POSTHUMUS. What lady would you choose to assail? IACHIMO. Yours, whom in constancy you think stands so safe In the interview between Imogen and Iachimo, he does not begin his attack on her virtue by a direct accusation against Posthumus; but by dark hints and half-uttered insinuations, such as Iago uses to madden Othello, he intimates that her husband, in his absence from her, has betrayed her love and truth, and forgotten her in the arms of another. All that Imogen says in this scene is comprised in a few lines--a brief question, or a more brief remark. The proud and delicate reserve with which she veils the anguish she suffers, is inimitably beautiful. The strongest expression of reproach he can draw from her, is only, "My lord, I fear, has forgot Britain." When he continues in the same strain, she exclaims in an agony, "Let me hear no more." When he urges her to revenge, she asks, with all the simplicity of virtue, "How should I be revenged?" And when he explains to her how she is to be avenged, her sudden burst of indignation, and her immediate perception of his treachery, and the motive for it, are powerfully fine: it is not only the anger of a woman whose delicacy has been shocked, but the spirit of a princess insulted in her court. Away! I do condemn mine ears, that have So long attended thee. If thou wert honorable, Thou would'st have told this tale for virtue not For such an end thou seek'st, as base as strange Thou wrong'st a gentleman, who is as far From thy report as thou from honor; and Solicit'st here a lady that disdains Thee and the devil alike. It has been remarked, that "her readiness to pardon Iachimo's false imputation, and his designs against herself, is a good lesson to prudes, and may show that where there is a real attachment to virtue, there is no need of an outrageous antipathy to vice."[59]