He is
convinced upon suspicion, as Othello was, and the very nimbleness of his
Hamlet-intellect, seeing that probabilities are against him, entangles
him in the snare. Even his servant Pisanio will not believe in Imogen's
guilt though his master assures him of it. Shakespeare does not notice
this peculiar imprudent haste of his hero, as he notices, for example,
the hasty speech of Hotspur by letting Harry of England imitate it,
simply because the quick-thinking was his own; while the hurried
stuttering speech was foreign to him. Posthumus goes on to rave against
women as Hamlet did; as all men do who do not understand them:
"For even to vice
They are not constant, but are changing still."
And Posthumus betrays as clearly as ever Hamlet did that he is merely
Shakespeare masquerading:
"I'll write against them,
Detest them, curse them--yet 'tis greater skill
In a true hate, to pray they have their will:
The very devils cannot plague them better."
"Write against them" indeed! This is the same threat which Shakespeare
uses against his dark mistress in Sonnet 140, and every one will admit
that it is more in the character of the poet and man of letters than in
that of the warrior son-in-law of a half-barbarous king.
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