When we come to Posthumus again almost at the end of the play we find that his anger with Imogen has burned itself out. He is angry now with Pisanio for having executed his order and murdered her; he should have “saved the noble Imogen to repent.” Surely the poet Shakespeare and not the outraged lover speaks in this epithet, “noble.”
Posthumus describes the battle in which he took so gallant a part in Shakespeare's usual manner. He falls into rhyme; he shows the cheap modesty of the conventional hero; he tells of what others did, and nothing of his own feats; Belarius and the two striplings, he says:
“With their own nobleness ... gilded pale looks.”
Unfortunately one is reminded of the exquisite sonnet line:
“Gilding pale streams with heavenly alchemy.”
“Gild” is one of Shakespeare's favourite words; he uses it very often, sometimes indeed as in this case, ineffectively.
But the scene which reveals the character of Posthumus beyond all doubt is the prison scene in the fifth act. His soliloquy which begins:
“Most welcome, bondage, for thou art a way,
I think, to liberty “—
is all pure Shakespeare. When he determines to give up life, he says:
“O Imogen!
I'll speak to thee in silence,”