"For who so firm that cannot be seduced?" Where is the verb in this Shakespeare quotation?

Question

He says:

... Therefore it is meet
  That noble minds keep ever with their likes,
  For who so firm that cannot be seduced?
  (Julius Caesar, Act 1, Scene 2)

Roughly means that you shouldn't pal around with bad guys, because they'll eventually seduce you into bad deeds.

Why is the verb in the italicized sentence omitted? Was/Is there an underlying rule to that?

Draconis · Answer

It's not as common in modern usage, but especially in poetry, copulae ("is", "are") and subject pronouns ("he", "they") can be omitted when the context makes the meaning clear. The clause could also be written

for who is so firm that they cannot be seduced?

But this doesn't fit into the meter. (Shakespeare liked iambic meters, i.e. lines of alternating unstressed-stressed syllables: "for who so firm that cannot be seduced?")

"For who so firm that cannot be seduced?" Where is the verb in this Shakespeare quotation?

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