"That disdains
Thee and the devil alike."
Iachimo now pretends that he was only making trial of her by a false
report and by a counterfeited overture,--and all for the sake of the
love he bore her husband. This is quite enough: her frankness returns
as suddenly as it was dismissed. For, as Iachimo well said,--
"The gods made you,
Unlike all others, chaffless."
And that is a statement of the limit placed by Nature to her womanly
shrewdness of observation.
In the historical dramas, Shakspeare seldom introduces women in order
to make them convey to us impressions of character, traits of mind or
heart. They are not so much feminine shapes as persons implicated in
the play by the accident of relationship to the men. The parts are not
particularized by them. Lady Percy, with one or two light touches of
eager inquisitiveness, hints her fond and simple love. Queen Katherine
fills out the proportions of a pathetic figure. But in "Henry V." Mrs.
Quickly monopolizes all the point and savor: the Queen of France and
her daughter are only lay-figures of the plot. In "1, 2 Henry IV.," it
is the same. In "Richard II." the Queen seems merely born to this,--
"That my sad look
Should grace the triumph of great Bolingbroke."