"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. The last line
here, because it is a little superfluous, a little emphatic, seems to me
likely to have a personal application. When Shakespeare's mistress had
her will, did she fall to misery, I wonder?

I may be allowed to notice here how intensely characteristic all this
play is of Shakespeare. In the third scene of the third act, life in the
country is contrasted to its advantage with life at Court; and then gold
is treated as dirt by the princely brothers--both these, the love of
country life, and the contempt of gold, are, as we shall see later,
abiding peculiarities of Shakespeare.

When we come to Posthumus again almost at the end of the play we find
that his anger with Imogen has burned itself out. He is angry now with
Pisanio for having executed his order and murdered her; he should have
"saved the noble Imogen to repent." Surely the poet Shakespeare and not
the outraged lover speaks in this epithet, "noble."

Posthumus describes the battle in which he took so gallant a part in
Shakespeare's usual manner. He falls into rhyme; he shows the cheap
modesty of the conventional hero; he tells of what others did, and
nothing of his own feats; Belarius and the two striplings, he says:

"With their own nobleness ... gilded pale looks."

Unfortunately one is reminded of the exquisite sonnet line: