Both Uses of
forswear
in
The Winter's Tale
- —To do this deed, Promotion follows: if I could find example Of thousands that had struck anointed kings And flourish'd after, I'd not do't; but since Nor brass, nor stone, nor parchment, bears not one, Let villainy itself forswear't.†
Scene 1.2 *
- Never saw I Wretches so quake: they kneel, they kiss the earth; Forswear themselves as often as they speak: Bohemia stops his ears, and threatens them With divers deaths in death.†
Scene 5.1
Definitions:
-
(1)
(forswear as in: forswear my country of birth) to decide to stop doing something; or to renounce or disavow something
-
(2)
(meaning too rare to warrant focus) More rarely (especially in the UK), forswear can also mean to commit perjury.