She reads that her lord appoints a meeting-place at Milford Haven, little dreaming that she is summoned there only to be murdered:
"O for a horse with wings!—Hear'st thou, Pisanio?
He is at Milford Haven: read, and tell me
How far 'tis thither. If one of mean affairs
May plod it in a week, why may not I
Glide thither in a day?—Then, true Pisanio,
(Who long'st, like me, to see thy lord; who long'st,—
O let me 'bate!—but not like me;—yet long'st,—
But in a fainter kind:—O not like me,
For mine's beyond beyond) say, and speak thick,
(Love's counsellor should fill the bores of hearing,
To the smothering of the sense), how far it is
To this same blessed Milford: and, by the way,
Tell me how Wales was made so happy as
To inherit such a haven: but, first of all,
How we may steal from hence; and, for the gap
That we shall make in time, from our hencegoing
And our return, to excuse: but first, how get hence:
Why should excuse be born or e'er begot?
We'll talk of that hereafter.... Prithee, speak,
How many score of miles may we well ride
'Twixt hour and hour?
Pis. One score, 'twixt sun and sun,
Madam's, enough for you: [Aside] and too much too.
Imo. Why, one that rode to's execution, man,
Could never go so slow; I have heard of riding wagers,
Where horses have been nimbler than the sands
That run i' the clock's behalf. But this is foolery:
Go bid my woman feign a sickness."
These outbursts are beyond all praise; but quite on a level with them stands her answer when Pisanio shows her Posthumus's letter to him, denouncing her with the foulest epithets, and the whole extent of her misfortune becomes clear to her. It is then she utters the words (iii. 4) which Sören Kierkegaard admired so deeply:
"False to his bed! what is it to be false?
To lie in watch there and to think on him?
To weep 'twixt clock and clock? if sleep charge nature
To break it with a fearful dream of him
And cry myself awake? that's false to's bed, is it?"
It is very characteristic that she never for a moment believes that Posthumus can really think it possible she should have given herself to another. She seeks another explanation for his inexplicable conduct:
"Some jay of Italy,
Whose mother was her painting, hath betray'd him."
This is scant comfort to her, however, and she implores Pisanio, who would spare her, to strike, for life has now lost all value for her. As she is baring her breast to the blow, she speaks these admirable words:
"Come, here's my heart:
Something's afore't:—soft, soft! we'll no defence;
Obedient as the scabbard.—What is here?
The scriptures of the loyal Leonatus,
All turn'd to heresy? Away, away,
Corrupters of my faith! you shall no more
Be stomachers to my heart."
With the same intentness, or rather with the same tenderness, has Shakespeare, all through the play, imbued himself with her spirit, never losing touch of her for a moment, but lovingly filling in trait upon trait, until at last he represents her, half in jest, as the sun of the play. The king says in the concluding scene:
"See,
Posthumus anchors upon Imogen;
And she, like harmless lightning, throws her eye
On him, her brothers, me, her master, hitting
Each object with a joy: the counterchange
Is severally in all."