"Her beams anatomize me, nerve by nerve,
And lay me bare, and make me blush to see
My hidden thoughts."
What an angelic impossibility of hearing is Imogen's! She has nothing that ever dreamed to itself of the covert meaning of his words. Without a second's interval of parley, not even time enough for natural astonishment, one peremptory instant annihilates his hope.
It is not every woman, even of the irreproachable kind, who wields so prompt a lightning of her chastity. And here Shakspeare has marked the difference between unconsciousness and prudery. I think that Isabella would have understood Iachimo much earlier, for the matter of her virtue was constantly in her thoughts, as a thing to be guarded against an undermining world. Her indignation is voluble; and she undertakes to reason in a priggish fashion with Angelo. But Imogen simply calls her servant that Iachimo may be taken in an instant out of the room. Many a woman whose life has been without a stain is still less intolerant than Isabella, and more complaisant than Imogen. Race and climate are largely implicated in these natural differences.
When Madame de Sévigné heard of her husband's infidelities, it was through the interested malice of her cousin, Bussy-Rabutin, who was in love with her. He proposed that she should seek to be revenged: "I will go halves in your revenge; for, after all, your interests are as dear to me as my own." She quietly replied: "I am not so exasperated as you think."
Iachimo said,—
"Revenge it.
I dedicate myself to your sweet pleasure,
And will continue fast to your affection."
Imogen's white-heat of honor shrivels up the wit of the French lady. Her mind can make but one motion, to cry out, "What ho, Pisanio!"
"Away!—I do contemn mine ears, that have
So long attended thee."
Thou dost solicit a lady