The name is absent

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

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