The Elizabethan Imogen 13
standable, but might be somewhat puzzled when we recall
that Imogen is married to Posthumus, even from the open-
ing of the play. Imogen, however, recognizes that marriage
does not alter this duty, when she says to Posthumus,
My dearest husband,
I something fear my father’s wrath; but nothing—
Always reserved my holy duty—what
His rage can do on me.5s
And she is upheld in this conception of her duty by Lu-
dovicus Vives’ precepts on the education of young ladies?9
On the other hand, the King must bear some responsibility
for her imperfection. Imogen says to him:
It is your fault that I have loved Posthumus:
You bred him as my playfellow, and he is
A man worth any woman.”
This error is made more clear when we turn once again to
the work of Vives. Speaking of the rearing of the female
child, he writes: “After that she is ones Weaned and begyn-
neth to speke and go∕let all her play & pastyme be with
maydes of her owne age∕and within the presence either of
her mother or of her nurce or some other honeste woman of
sad age. . . . Auoyde all mânes kyn away from her: nor let
her nat Ieme to delite among men. For naturally our loue
Contynueth the longest toward them∕with whom we haue
passed our tyme in youth.”6’
Poor Imogen! Although she is a model of the wifely virtues
and a paragon of faithfulness, and although an actress and
critic of the last century could say that in drawing Imogen
Shakespeare Tas made his masterpiece; and of all heroines
of poetry or romance, who can be named beside her?”62—
nevertheless, she would serve the Elizabethans, along with
Juliet and Desdemona, as another warning to fair women