Although Iachimo failed to seduce Imogen, therefore losing his bet with Posthumus, Iachimo decides to cheat, sneaking into her bedchamber and making close observations of the furnishings to strengthen this claim that he slept with her. In recounting his tall tale to Posthumus, Iachimo employs rich imagery in his descriptions of Imogen’s bedchamber:
First, her bedchamber—
Where I confess I slept not, but profess
Had that was well worth watching—it was hanged
With tapestry of silk and silver, the story
Proud Cleopatra when she met her Roman
And Cydnus swelled above the banks, or for
The press of boats or pride. A piece of work
So bravely done, so rich, that it did strive
In workmanship and value, which I wondered
Could be so rarely and exactly wrought
Since the true life on ’t was—
He describes a “tapestry of silk and silver” depicting a historical scene in which the Egyptian Queen Cleopatra meets “her Roman,” an allusion to the Roman general Mark Anthony, Cleopatra’s lover. He describes the tapestry with lush visual details, including its depiction of the river that has “swelled above the banks” due to the heavy weight of the boats crossing it. The tapestry is so beautiful, he claims, that he cannot tell if it is more valuable because of the artistic skill used to depict the scene, or the rich materials from which it was made. Further, he claims that the scene appeared as “true life,” or in other words, it was highly lifelike. In this scene, Iachimo uses specific imagery to prove his argument that he saw Imogen's bedchamber with his own eyes.
