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I would have broke mine eyestrings, cracked them, but
To look upon him till the diminution
Of space had pointed him sharp as my needle;
Nay, followed him till he had melted from
The smallness of a gnat to air; and then
Have turned mine eye and wept. (1.3.22–28)
Imogen speaks these lines after Posthumus has left on a ship for Italy. Pisanio has described how he watched the ship as it sailed away, and Imogen responds by saying that she would have strained her eyes to the point of blindness watching the ship disappear into the distance. Her words have the exaggerated quality of conventional love poetry, which in this case serves to demonstrate the degree of her affection for and commitment to her new husband. The elevated quality of these lines also communicates something of her inherent nobility.
I am much sorry, sir,
You put me to forget a lady’s manners
By being so verbal; and learn now for all
That I, which know my heart, do here pronounce,
By th’ very truth of it, I care not for you,
And am so near the lack of charity
To accuse myself I hate you—which I had rather
You felt than make ’t my boast. (2.3.120–27)
Though Imogen is the very picture of virtue and chastity, she doesn’t suffer fools. She addresses these words to Cloten when he appears at her door with musicians, hoping to woo her in Posthumus’s absence. In a remarkable—and remarkably funny—moment of polite disdain, she essentially tells Cloten that she wishes he hadn’t forced her to say out loud what should already be obvious: namely, “I care not for you.” Her delightfully barbed civility gives her a vitality that might otherwise be lacking if Shakespeare had reduced her to a passive ideal.
O,
Men’s vows are women’s traitors! All good seeming,
By thy revolt, O husband, shall be thought
Put on for villainy, not born where ’t grows,
But worn a bait for ladies. (3.4.55–59)
When Imogen learns from Pisanio that Posthumus has ordered him to kill her, she is, predictably, devastated. Her words here powerfully echo a similar expression of despair that Posthumus uttered in the previous act: “The vows of women / Of no more bondage be to where they are made / Than they are to their virtues, which is nothing” (2.4.139–41). With Imogen’s words, the romance at the heart of the play is broken, the central relationship ruptured. It’s worth noting, however, that Imogen arguably has more of a right to dismiss men’s vows than Posthumus has to dismiss the vows of women. After all, he has condemned Imogen to death on mere circumstantial evidence. Imogen, meanwhile, has just read a death warrant written in Posthumus’s own hand.
