And he concludes as self-depreciating Hamlet would have concluded:
“And sweetest, fairest,
As I my poor self did exchange for you,
To your so infinite loss, so in our trifles
I still win of you; for my sake wear this:
It is a manacle of love; I'll place it
Upon this fairest prisoner.
{Putting a bracelet on her arm.}”
In his fight with Cloten he is depicted as a rare swordsman of wonderful magnanimity. Pisanio says:
“My master rather played than fought,
And had no help of anger.”
I call this gentle kindness which Posthumus displays, the birthmark of Shakespeare; he had “no help of anger.” As the play goes on we find Shakespeare's other peculiarities, or Hamlet's. Iachimo represents Posthumus as “merry,” “gamesome,” “the Briton reveller”; but curiously enough Imogen answers as Ophelia might have answered about Hamlet:
“When he was here,
He did incline to sadness; and ofttimes
Not knowing why.”
This uncaused melancholy that distinguishes Romeo, Jaques, Hamlet, Macbeth, and Vincentio is not more characteristic of the Hamlet-Shakespeare nature than the way Posthumus behaves when Iachimo tries to make him believe that he has won the wager. Posthumus is convinced almost at once; jumps to the conclusion, indeed, with the heedless rapidity of the naïve, sensitive, quick-thinking man who has cultivated his emotions and thoughts by writing in solitude, and not the suspicions and distrust of others which are developed in the market-place. One is reminded of Goethe's famous couplet:
“Es bildet ein Talent sich in der Stille,
Sich ein Charakter in dem Strom der Welt.”
Posthumus is all in fitful extremes; not satisfied with believing the lie, he gives Iachimo Imogen's ring as well, and bursts into a diatribe:
“Let there be no honour
Where there's beauty; truth, where semblance; love,
Where there's another man,”