As long a term as yet we have to live, The loathness to depart would grow-Adieu ! Nay, stay a little : Were you IMOGEN. but riding forth to air yourself, Such parting were too petty. Look here, love, This diamond was my mother's: take it, heart: Imogen, in whose tenderness there is nothing jealous or fantastic, does not seriously apprehend that her husband will woo another wife when she is dead. It is one of those fond fancies which women are apt to express in moments of feeling, merely for the pleasure of hearing a protestation to the contrary. When Posthumus leaves her, she does not burst forth in eloquent lamentation; but that silent, stunning, overwhelming sorrow, which renders the mind insensible to all things else, is represented with equal force and simplicity. IMOGEN. There cannot be a pinch in death More sharp than this is. CYMBELINE. O disloyal thing, That should'st repair my youth; thou heapest A year's age on me! IMOGEN. I beseech you, sir, Harm not yourself with your vexation; I Am senseless of your wrath; a touch more rare Subdues all pangs, all fears. CYMBELINE. Past grace? obedience ? IMOGEN. Past hope, and in despair-that way past grace. In the same circumstances, the impetuous ex * More rare-i. e. more exquisitely poignant. cited feelings of Juliet, and her vivid imagination, lend something far more wildly agitated, more intensely poetical and passionate to her grief. JULIET. Art thou gone so? My love, my lord, my friend! I must hear from thee every day i' the hour, O by this count I shall be much in years, ROMEO. Farewell! I will omit no opportunity That may convey my greetings, love, to thee. JULIET. O! think'st thou we shall ever meet again? ROMEO. I doubt it not; and all these woes shall serve For sweet discourses in our time to come. JULIET. O God! I have an ill-divining soul: Methinks I see thee, now thou art below, As one dead in the bottom of a tomb; Either my eye-sight fails, or thou look'st pale. We have no sympathy with the pouting disappointment of Cressida, which is just like that of a spoilt child which has lost its sugar-plum, without tenderness, passion, or poetry; and, in short, perfectly characteristic of that vain, fickle, dissolute, heartless woman,-"unstable as water." A woeful Cressid 'mongst the merry Greeks! When shall we see again? TROILUS. Hear me, my love. Be thou but true of heart CRESSIDA. I true! How now? what wicked deem is this? TROILUS. Nay, we must use expostulation kindly, For it is parting from us: I speak not, be thou true, as fearing thee; CRESSIDA. O heavens! be true again O heavens! you love me not. TROILUS. Die I a villain, then! In this I do not call your faith in question, So mainly as my merit -But be not tempted. CRESSIDA. Do you think I will? * In the eagerness of Imogen to meet her hus |