Indeed, it should here be borne in mind, that this form of obtestation, in the age and country wherein this scene is laid, was a very different matter from swearing "by Jove" now-a-days: the oath by the father of the gods had a real and awful solemnity: and it is worthy of remark, that the dramatist, with subtle propriety, has made even the unscrupulous Iachimo employ it only this once, and in support of an assertion which, though not substantially, is literally true, "I had it from her arm."

When Posthumus has hurried on to his conclusion, and given him the ring

There, take thy hire; and all the fiends of hell

Divide themselves between you!

his Italian deceiver, like a perfect master of his art, seeing his dupe's imagination thoroughly on fire, thinks it worth his while to "make assurance double sure" by casting a little more fuel on the flame; describing to him the "mole, right proud of that most delicate lodging," and still asking, "Will you hear more?"-until the unhappy husband is maddened into exclaiming,

I will kill thee, if thou dost deny
Thou hast made me cuckold!

It is worth observing, too, regarding the question as to the reasonableness of Posthumus's conviction, that his own Italian friend Philario acquiesces in it at last, by saying to Iachimo "you have won."

Once arrived at this point, all the rage, despair, and desire of revenge, that we find bursting from the lips of the miserable husband, are intelligible enough. And here we must observe, how seriously the acting play is mutilated by entirely omitting that soliloquy of Posthumus which immediately follows. Shakespeare's dramatic purpose in it is evident and essential -to lay clearly open to us that stormy desolation, those volcanic heavings of a noble heart, our full conception of which can alone make us tolerate the purpose of sanguinary vengeance which is to be

formed and pursued by his hero. That Elysian prospect of life which had opened to his view through the rich and roseate light of a noble and a happy love, is, by one dread thunderburst, darkened and devastated. By the force of contrast, the hell that now surrounds him calls up in more maddening brightness the smiling image of the heaven he has lost. Yet even here, from the very gulf of torture, the dramatist, in all his matchless and exquisite might, has drawn forth a tribute, the proudest and most delicate, to that purity and dignity of the very voluptuousness of virtuous love, which give the crowning charm to the interest of this delightful drama. No spirit less noble or less refined than that of Shakespeare himself, could have made the suffering husband's ruminations, on such an occasion, serve to cast the loveliest tints of all over the purity of Imogen-dewy and pearly— even as a reflection from the scarf of Iris on the bosom of Venus:

:

Me of my lawful pleasure she restrain❜d,

And pray'd me, oft, forbearance: did it with

A pudency so rosy, the sweet view on't

Might well have warm'd old Saturn; that I thought her
As chaste as unsunn'd snow!

Then the fierce contrast into which his imagination runs, as is ever the case when early faith in moral beauty is thus violently overthrown—

This yellow Iachimo, in an hour-was't not?

Or less-at first. Perchance he spake not, &c.—

all terminating in that fine tirade against the sex, which might serve as a standing text for all that amiable class of writers who are disposed to pen formal satires against feminine frailty, and contrasts so strikingly with the quiet answer which, in the banquet scene, he had given to Iachimo's assertion of what he "durst attempt against any lady in the world," "You are a great deal abused in too bold a persuasion:" this is the man who is now worked up into telling us :

Could I find out

The woman's part in me! For there's no motion
That tends to vice in man, but I affirm

It is the woman's part. Be it lying, note it,
The woman's; flattering, hers; deceiving, hers;
Ambitions, covetings, change of prides, disdain,
Nice longings, slanders, mutability,

All faults that may be nam'd, nay, that hell knows,
Why, hers in part, or all; but rather, all;

For, even to vice

They are not constant, but are changing still
One vice but of a minute old, for one

Not half so old as that. I'll write against them,
Detest them, curse them. Yet 'tis greater skill
In a true hate, to pray they have their will-

The

very devils cannot plague them better!

But this, in the maddened husband, is the bitterness of mere despair; and the personal revenge which he meditates should, in this and all such cases, be regarded less as a murder than as a part of suicide. What says he in writing to his servant? "Thy mistress, Pisanio, hath played the strumpet in my bed; the testimonies whereof lie bleeding in me. I speak not out of weak surmises; from proof as strong as my grief, and as certain as I expect my revenge." Revenge, alas! upon the dearest part of himself— made so by virtuous love in his own breast, and therefore never more to be made otherwise, even by her heaviest fault-to be destroyed, it may be, but assuredly to his own destruction :

Yea, bloody cloth, I'll keep thee; for I wish'd

Thou shouldst be colour'd thus. You married ones,
If each of you should take this course, how many
Must murder wives much better than themselves,
For wrying but a little.

I am brought hither

Among the Italian gentry, and to fight

Against my lady's kingdom. "Tis enough

That, Britain, I have kill'd thy mistress. Peace!

I'll give no wound to thee. Therefore, good heavens,
Hear patiently my purpose: I'll disrobe me

Of these Italian weeds, and suit myself
As does a Briton peasant: so I'll fight
Against the part I come with; so I'll die

For thee, O Imogen, even for whom my life
Is, every breath, a death: and thus, unknown,
Pitied nor hated, to the face of peril
Myself I'll dedicate.

After the battle, wherein he earns the praise of
Cymbeline as "the poor soldier that so richly fought,"

Whose rags sham'd gilded arms, whose naked breast
Stepp'd before targe of proof,

we find him pursuing the same desolate strain :-
To-day, how many would have given their honours
To have sav'd their carcases!-took heel to do't;-
And yet died too! I, in mine own woe charm'd,
Could not find death where I did hear him groan,
Nor feel him where he struck. Being an ugly monster,
"Tis strange he hides him in fresh cups, soft beds,
Sweet words, or hath more ministers than we

That draw his knives i' the war. Well, I will find him :
For, being now a favourer to the Roman,
No more a Briton, I have resum’d again
The part I came in. Fight I will no more,
But yield me to the veriest hind that shall

Once touch my shoulder. Great the slaughter is
Here made by the Roman, great the answer be
Britons must take: for me, my ransom's death ;
On either side I come to spend my breath;
Which neither here I'll keep, nor bear again,
But end it by some means for Imogen!

And when his captors have thrown him into prison,
comes the deep climax of his repentant resignation :—
Most welcome, bondage! for thou art a way,

I think, to liberty.

My conscience, thou art fetter'd

More than my shanks and wrists. You good gods, give me
The penitent instrument, to pick that bolt;

Then, free for ever!

For Imogen's dear life, take mine; and though

'Tis not so dear, yet 'tis a life-you coin'd it.

And so, great powers,

If you will take this audit, take this life,
And cancel these cold bonds. O Imogen!
I'll speak to thee in silence !

The total omission of these prison scenes in acting, is another great injury done to the dramatic interest as conducted by the poet. There may, indeed, be

1

valid theatrical reasons for suppressing the vision of Posthumus during the slumber which is supposed to terminate his soliloquy; but the suppression deprives us of the solemnly pathetic effect of that simple chorus, which is plainly introduced in order, by recalling the whole tenour of the story, to remind the auditor that the hero is much more unfortunate than criminal, and to relieve our feelings by announcing an approaching deliverance from adversity, -at the same time that curiosity is kept alive by the mysterious terms in which the prediction is made. The attendant music adds to the soothing solemnity of the scene. How beautiful, too, is the plaintive simplicity of the ballad verses reciting his fortune, chanted by the apparitions of his deceased relatives, not one of whom has he seen in life. Thus, his father Sicilius

Great Nature, like his ancestry,

Moulded the stuff so fair,

That he deserv'd the praise o' the world,

As great Sicilius' heir.

Then, one of his brothers who had fallen in battle against the Romans—

When once he was mature for man,

In Britain where was he

That could stand up his parallel;

Or fruitful object be

In eye of Imogen, that best

Could deem his dignity?

Next, his mother

With marriage wherefore was he mock'd,

To be exil'd, and thrown

From Leonati's seat, and cast

From her his dearest one,
Sweet Imogen?

Then, again, Sicilius

Why did you suffer Iachimo,
Slight thing of Italy,

To taint his nobler heart and brain

With needless jealousy;

And to become the geck and scorn
Of the other's villany?