Page:Wit, humor, and Shakspeare. Twelve essays (IA cu31924013161223).pdf/118

 the object of the journey: this converts the beguiling note into something false, unlike her husband, inexplicable. She has thrust it into her bosom: there it lies. "Come, here's my heart," as she invites Pisanio to perform his duty. Then her hand comes into contact with the paper which she had put there. It shall not stand in the way: "The scriptures of the loyal Leonatus all turned to heresy?" That is, she has put the note in a place where it might divert the stroke which the spirit of the note intended:—

"Away, away, Corrupters of my faith! You shall no more Be stomachers to my heart!"

The constant and innocent wife disdains even the slight chance that a bit of paper might turn or deaden the stroke despatched by a loyal husband. She is as loyal as he, but he knows it not: so it is better to die at once than live on thus misconceived. For what is life without the confidence of a loyal husband? The canon against self-slaughter is so divinely engraven in the conscience that it suspends her own hand. Therefore, since life is no longer of value and interest to her, let Pisanio finish. This is the drift of Imogen's speech.

But Heraud imputes to Shakspeare a theological motive in the use of the word "scriptures," as if he meant to include, by secondary allusion, the Bible; and he adds that Shakspeare, although "a critical reader of the Bible and an extreme Protestant," felt the danger of letting the Reformation lapse, by the abuse of reason, into heresies, the only preventive of which was the