me sick offence within your mind,
Which by the right and virtue of my place
I ought to know of: and, upon my knees, 270
I charm you, by my once-commended beauty,
By all your vows of love and that great vow
Which did incorporate and make us one,
That you unfold to me, yourself, your half,
Why you are heavy, and what men to-night 275
Have had resort to you; for here have been
Some six or seven, who did hide their faces
Even from darkness.

[Note 263: /dank/ | danke F1 | darke F2 | dark F3 F4.]

[Note 267: /his/ | hit F1]

[Note 271: /charm/ F3 F4 | charme F1 F2 | charge Pope.]

[Note 261: /physical:/ wholesome, salutary. Cf. _Coriolanus_,
I, v, 19.]

[Note 266: 'Rheumy' here means that state of the air which
causes the unhealthy issue of 'rheum,' a word which was
specially used of the fluids that issue from the eyes or
mouth. So in _Hamlet_, II, ii, 529, we have 'bisson rheum' for
'blinding tears.' So in _A Midsummer Night's Dream_, II, i,
105, Titania speaks of the moon as washing "all the air, That
rheumatic diseases do abound."]

[Note 271: /charm:/ conjure, appeal by charms. So in
_Lucrece_, l. 1681.]

[Page 62]

BRUTUS. Kneel not, gentle Portia.

PORTIA. I should not need, if you were gentle Brutus.
Within the bond of marriage, tell me, Brutus, 280
Is it excepted I should know no secrets
That appertain to you? Am I yourself
But, as it were, in sort or limitation,
To keep with you at meals, comfort your bed,
And talk to you sometimes? Dwell I but in the suburbs 285
Of your good pleasure? If it be no more,
Portia is Brutus' harlot, not his wife.

[Note 280: /the/ | tho F1.]

[Note 279: This speech, and that beginning with l. 291, follow
Plutarch very closely: "His wife Porcia[A] ... was the
daughter of Cato, whom Brutus married being his cousin, not a
maiden, but a young widow after the death of her first husband
Bibulus, by whom she had also a young son called Bibulus, who
afterwards wrote a book of the acts and gests of Brutus ....
This young lady, being excellently well seen[B] in philosophy,
loving her husband well, and being of a noble courage, as she
was also wise: because she would not ask her husband what he
ailed before she had made some proof by her self: she took a
little razor, such as barbers occupy to pare men's nails, and,
causing her maids and women to go out of