In a brief scene marked by dark comedy, Posthumous argues about his eternal fate with a Jailer, who has been ordered by the King to execute the Roman prisoners of war. Here, Shakespeare employs a common Renaissance allegory that imagines the abstract concept of “Death” as a skeletal human figure:
JAILER
For, look you, sir, you know not which way you shall go.POSTHUMUS
Yes, indeed do I, fellow.JAILER
Your Death has eyes in ’s head, then. I have not
seen him so pictured. You must either be directed
by some that take upon them to know, or to take
upon yourself that which I am sure you do not
know, or jump the after-inquiry on your own peril.
And how you shall speed in your journey’s end,
I think you’ll never return to tell one.
The Jailer is surprised by Posthumus’s seeming indifference to his own imminent execution. He reminds his young prisoner that he does not know “which way” he will go after death, alluding to the Christian concepts of heaven and hell despite the pre-Christian setting. Posthumus, however, who feels certain that he has been damned to hell for his role in the apparent murder of Imogen, simply states that he does know what direction his soul will take. The Jailer, annoyed at his presumptuousness, draws upon the conventional allegorical image of Death as a skeletal reaper. “Your Death,” he notes, “has eyes in 's head,” though he himself has never seen Death “pictured” in this manner. Here, he subtly rebukes Posthumus, suggesting that Death, a skeleton, has no eyes and therefore even Death does not know where he will lead the souls of the dead. Mortals, then, should certainly not presume to know in advance the state of their souls.
