Of all the daughters of his imagination, which did Shakespeare love
the best? Perhaps we shall not err if we say one of the latest born of
them all,--our English Imogen. And what most clearly shows us how
Shakespeare loved Imogen is this--he has given her faults, and has
made them exquisite, so that we love her better for their sake. No one
has so quick and keen a sensibility to whatever pains and to whatever
gladdens as she. To her a word is a blow; and as she is quick in her
sensibility, so she is quick in her perceptions, piercing at once
through the Queen's false show of friendship; quick in her contempt
for what is unworthy, as for all professions of love from the
clown-prince, Cloten; quick in her resentment, as when she discovers
the unjust suspicions of Posthumus. Wronged she is indeed by her
husband, but in her haste she too grows unjust; yet she is dearer to
us for the sake of this injustice, proceeding as it does from the
sensitiveness of her love. It is she, to whom a word is a blow, who
actually receives a buffet from her husband's hand; but for Imogen it
is a blessed stroke, since it is the evidence of his loyalty and zeal
on her behalf. In a moment he is forgiven, and her arms are round his
neck.
Shakespeare made so many perfect women unhappy that he owed us some
_amende_. And he has made that _amende_ by letting us see one perfect
woman supremely happy. Shall our last glance at Shakespeare's plays
show us Florizel at the rustic merry-making, receiving blossoms from
the hands of Perdita? or Ferdinand and Miranda playing chess in
Prospero's cave, and winning one a king and one a queen, while the
happy fathers gaze in from the entrance of the cave? We can see a more
delightful sight than these--Imogen with her arms around the neck of
Posthumus, while she puts an edge upon her joy by the playful
challenge and mock reproach--
"Why did you throw your wedded lady from you?
Think that you are upon a rock, and now
Throw me again;"
and he responds--
"Hang there like a fruit, my soul,
Till the tree die."
We shall find in all Shakespeare no more blissful creatures than these
two.