Shakespeare\u2019s Cymbeline Commentary Alfred J. Drake, Ph.D.<\/title><meta name= \"description\" content= \"Cymbeline commentary addresses major themes, major characters such as Cymbeline, Arviragus, Guiderius, Cloten, Imogen, Iachimo, literary analysis, drama theory.\"><\/head><\/p>\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading has-text-align-center\">Commentaries on Shakespeare’s Romance Plays<\/h3>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-uagb-buttons uagb-buttons__outer-wrap uagb-btn__default-btn uagb-btn-tablet__default-btn uagb-btn-mobile__default-btn uagb-block-4f6cdd05 uag-hide-mob\"><div class=\"uagb-buttons__wrap uagb-buttons-layout-wrap \">\n<div class=\"wp-block-uagb-buttons-child uagb-buttons__outer-wrap uagb-block-dcba7b2a wp-block-button\"><div class=\"uagb-button__wrapper\"><a class=\"uagb-buttons-repeater wp-block-button__link\" aria-label=\"\" href=\"https:\/\/www.ajdrake.com\/shakespeare\/\" rel=\"follow noopener\" target=\"_self\" role=\"button\"><div class=\"uagb-button__link\">HOME<\/div><\/a><\/div><\/div>\n\n\n\n<div 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target=\"_self\" role=\"button\"><div class=\"uagb-button__link\">GUIDES<\/div><\/a><\/div><\/div>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-uagb-buttons-child uagb-buttons__outer-wrap uagb-block-d5da63d7 wp-block-button\"><div class=\"uagb-button__wrapper\"><a class=\"uagb-buttons-repeater wp-block-button__link\" aria-label=\"\" href=\"https:\/\/www.ajdrake.com\/shakespeare\/shakespeare-links\/\" rel=\"follow noopener\" target=\"_self\" role=\"button\"><div class=\"uagb-button__link\">LINKS<\/div><\/a><\/div><\/div>\n<\/div><\/div>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-uagb-buttons uagb-buttons__outer-wrap uagb-btn__default-btn uagb-btn-tablet__default-btn uagb-btn-mobile__default-btn uagb-block-19d28286\"><div class=\"uagb-buttons__wrap uagb-buttons-layout-wrap \">\n<div class=\"wp-block-uagb-buttons-child uagb-buttons__outer-wrap uagb-block-69502be5 wp-block-button\"><div class=\"uagb-button__wrapper\"><a class=\"uagb-buttons-repeater wp-block-button__link\" aria-label=\"\" href=\"#act1\" rel=\"follow noopener\" target=\"_self\" role=\"button\"><div class=\"uagb-button__link\">ACT 1<\/div><\/a><\/div><\/div>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-uagb-buttons-child uagb-buttons__outer-wrap uagb-block-0ec42142 wp-block-button\"><div class=\"uagb-button__wrapper\"><a class=\"uagb-buttons-repeater wp-block-button__link\" aria-label=\"\" href=\"#act2\" rel=\"follow noopener\" target=\"_self\" role=\"button\"><div class=\"uagb-button__link\">ACT 2<\/div><\/a><\/div><\/div>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-uagb-buttons-child uagb-buttons__outer-wrap uagb-block-6ac70dcb wp-block-button\"><div class=\"uagb-button__wrapper\"><a class=\"uagb-buttons-repeater wp-block-button__link\" aria-label=\"\" href=\"#act3\" rel=\"follow noopener\" target=\"_self\" role=\"button\"><div class=\"uagb-button__link\">ACT 3<\/div><\/a><\/div><\/div>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-uagb-buttons-child uagb-buttons__outer-wrap uagb-block-bfd6ecc9 wp-block-button\"><div class=\"uagb-button__wrapper\"><a class=\"uagb-buttons-repeater wp-block-button__link\" aria-label=\"\" href=\"#act4\" rel=\"follow noopener\" target=\"_self\" role=\"button\"><div class=\"uagb-button__link\">ACT 4<\/div><\/a><\/div><\/div>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-uagb-buttons-child uagb-buttons__outer-wrap uagb-block-55716ff6 wp-block-button\"><div class=\"uagb-button__wrapper\"><a class=\"uagb-buttons-repeater wp-block-button__link\" aria-label=\"\" href=\"#act5\" rel=\"follow noopener\" target=\"_self\" role=\"button\"><div class=\"uagb-button__link\">ACT 5<\/div><\/a><\/div><\/div>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-uagb-buttons-child uagb-buttons__outer-wrap uagb-block-0246bad9 wp-block-button\"><div class=\"uagb-button__wrapper\"><a class=\"uagb-buttons-repeater wp-block-button__link\" aria-label=\"\" href=\"#endnotes\" rel=\"follow noopener\" target=\"_self\" role=\"button\"><div class=\"uagb-button__link\">ENDNOTES<\/div><\/a><\/div><\/div>\n<\/div><\/div>\n\n\n\nShakespeare, William. Cymbeline, King of Britain.<\/em> (The Norton Shakespeare: Romances and Poems<\/em>, 3rd ed. 207-301).<\/p>\n\n\n\nOf Interest: <\/strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.rsc.org.uk\/cymbeline\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">RSC Resources<\/a> | <a href=\"https:\/\/internetshakespeare.uvic.ca\/Library\/Texts\/Cym\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">ISE Resources<\/a> | <a href=\"https:\/\/www.shakespeare-online.com\/sources\/cymbelsources.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">S-O Sources<\/a> | <a href=\"https:\/\/www.folger.edu\/explore\/shakespeare-in-print\/first-folio\/bookreader-68\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">1623 Folio 879-909 (Folger)<\/a> | <a href=\"https:\/\/babel.hathitrust.org\/cgi\/pt?id=hvd.32044004536116&seq=7\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Shakespeare\u2019s Holinshed: Chronicle and … Plays Compared<\/em><\/a> | <a href=\"https:\/\/english.nsms.ox.ac.uk\/Holinshed\/texts.php?text1=1587_0155\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Holinshed\u2019s Chronicles … <\/em>\u201cKymbeline\u201d<\/a> | <a href=\"https:\/\/www.gutenberg.org\/files\/23700\/23700-h\/23700-h.htm#THE_NINTH_STORY2\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Boccaccio\u2019s Decameron Day 2.9<\/a> | <a href=\"https:\/\/www.digitale-sammlungen.de\/en\/view\/bsb11188201?q=%28The+Rare+Triumphs+of+Love+and+Fortune%29&page=152,153\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Rare Triumphs of Love and Fortune<\/em> (1589)<\/a> | <a href=\"https:\/\/www.digitale-sammlungen.de\/en\/view\/bsb10746660?q=%28%22Sir+Clyomon+and+Sir+Clamydes%22%29&page=502,503\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Peele\u2019s Sir Clyomon and Sir Clamydes<\/em><\/a> <\/p>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\" id=\"act1\">ACT 1<\/h3>\n\n\n\nAct 1, Scene 1 (221-25, Cymbeline has banished Posthumus for marrying his daughter Imogen; Imogen rightly distrusts the Queen and stands up to her father; she and Posthumus exchange love tokens\u2014a ring and a bracelet, respectively; Posthumus will go stay with Philario in Rome; Cloten makes an unsuccessful attempt to assault Posthumus.)<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\nAn irrational old King vexed with his virtuous but stubborn daughter, surrounded by an untrustworthy royal family\u2014this should sound familiar to anyone who has seen or read King Lear, <\/em>in which Lear and Cordelia are torn asunder while vulture-like Regan and Goneril gobble up their fortuitously enlarged helpings of British land to rule. Posthumus Leonatus has a problem similar to that of Edmund of Gloucester in King Lear<\/em>\u2014not that he\u2019s illegitimate, but his less than royal lineage makes him persona non grata <\/em>at Cymbeline\u2019s court.<\/p>\n\n\n\nImogen\u2019s vocabulary is much more expansive, however, than Cordelia\u2019s stubborn, if honest, repetitions of \u201cnothing. Cymbeline\u2019s daughter fights back spiritedly when the King derides her suitor with the phrase \u201cbasest thing\u201d (224, 1.1.125) and banishes him. Cymbeline, says Imogen, has failed to realize that bringing the two of them up together might lead to this situation, and the situation is worsened by his refusal to recognize merit as anything but a property of noble birth.<\/p>\n\n\n\nLooking forward, however, we will find that in Cymbeline <\/em>law and custom only seem <\/em>implacable. In true comic fashion, they can be revoked with a change of heart and a word or two. Lear\u2019s decrees are not reversible in time to do anyone good, but Cymbeline\u2019s are. The analogue of the faithful servant Kent in King Lear <\/em>would be the wronged but ultimately loyal Belarius, who\u2014having spitefully kidnaped Cymbeline\u2019s two young sons some twenty years previously\u2014returns them to the King when he least expects it, thereby ushering in the play\u2019s happy ending.<\/p>\n\n\n\nNone of this is to suggest that Cymbeline <\/em>is on a par with the masterpiece King Lear. <\/em>Indeed, Dr. Johnson wrote that pointing out the play\u2019s many flaws would be \u201cto waste criticism upon unresisting imbecility, upon faults too evident for detection, and too gross for aggravation.\u201d <a href=\"#_edn1\" id=\"_ednref1\">[1]<\/a> <\/p>\n\n\n\nIn our own day, Harold Bloom has insisted that Cymbeline <\/em>is deliberate self-parody, repeating in a tired manner certain silly plot contrivances that the Swan of Avon may have become too fond of over the years. There\u2019s a foolish but still magnificent sovereign; a decapitation; a massive violation of the so-called unity of time since the action seems to shuttle back and forth between ancient Britain and Renaissance Italy; identity switches and disguisings sufficient to make a viewer\u2019s head spin; a gender-bending heroine; a presumptuous husband with a potentially lethal Madonna\/whore complex.<\/p>\n\n\n\nBut wait\u2014there\u2019s more! There\u2019s a loquacious villain who does evil\u2014oh, we don\u2019t know why; a foppish aristocratic oaf who stands on his unimpressive masculinity and threatens Tarquin-ravishment against a chaste woman; a potion that induces a death-like coma; an ultra-unlikely family reunion; and a final-act virtual symphony of improbabilities. <a href=\"#_edn2\" id=\"_ednref2\">[2]<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\nOf course, this is Shakespeare <\/em>we\u2019re talking about: even if the critics are correct that in Cymbeline <\/em>the playwright is making fun of his worst tendencies, the results are by no means to be despised. That would be true even if only for Imogen\u2019s sake: a memorable heroine, she rises above the dramatic environment in which Shakespeare has placed her. It\u2019s a high-class problem to have, this \u201crising above,\u201d and as Harold Bloom would be quick to tell us, it\u2019s one she shares with Hamlet, Prince of Denmark. <a href=\"#_edn3\" id=\"_ednref3\">[3]<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\nTo open the play, we are told that Cymbeline adopted the orphan Posthumus and raised him as a close servant (221-22, 1.1.28-50). Imogen has married the young man only to see him banished by her father the King because of the great gap between the two in rank.<\/p>\n\n\n\nIt seems as if everyone except Cymbeline can see the truth, which is that Posthumus is a worthier match for his daughter than Cloten, the buffoonish son of Cymbeline\u2019s new Queen. The courtiers may not say so to their master\u2019s face, but all of them are \u201cGlad of the thing they scowl at\u201d (221, 1.1.14), meaning the frustration of Cloten in his suit for Imogen\u2019s hand in marriage.<\/p>\n\n\n\nAs for the new Queen, she is a master dissembler who feigns affection for her daughter-in-law while secretly seething at her for failing to accept her son as husband and heir to Cymbeline\u2019s throne. Imogen, however, is not fooled: \u201cO dissembling courtesy!\u201d (223, 1.1.84), she exclaims after speaking with this deceptive woman.<\/p>\n\n\n\nPosthumus informs Imogen that he is about to depart to the home of Philario, a friend of his deceased father (223, 1.1.97-99). Imogen and he exchange tokens of their love: she gives him a ring, and he gives her a bracelet (223-24, 1.1.109-24). But the young man must be gone in haste when Cymbeline storms in and declares him \u201cThou basest thing\u201d and his daughter a \u201cdisloyal thing\u201d (224, 1.1.125, 131).<\/p>\n\n\n\nThe King is wrong: Imogen is by no means disloyal. In fact, her main virtue is her loyalty towards Posthumous, and through the perilous adventures she undertakes, she will only reconfirm the excellence that resides within her. In the romance world, adventure and happenstance have magic properties all their own. In a broadly Christian scheme, they turn out to be providential with regard to the discovery of truth and the partial fulfillment of desire.<\/p>\n\n\n\nAs William Hazlitt suggests in his essay on Cymbeline <\/em>in Characters of Shakespeare\u2019s Plays <\/em>(1817), <a href=\"#_edn4\" id=\"_ednref4\">[4]<\/a> Imogen\u2019s faithfulness to Posthumus Leonatus sets the play\u2019s tone and centers its action: the reigning passion is loyalty. Imogen shows herself to be as headstrong as her imperious father when she defies his will: \u201cSir, \/ It is your fault that I have loved Posthumus. \/ You bred him as my playfellow, and he is \/ A man worth any woman\u2026\u201d (224, 1.1.143-46). These are not the words of a woman who would submit meekly to an unjust royal prerogative.<\/p>\n\n\n\nAs for the departure of Posthumus, there is some drama when Cloten tries to engage the banished husband in a sword fight, but nothing much comes of it (225, 1.1.161-64).<\/p>\n\n\n\nThis departure will profoundly alter the life of Imogen as well as Posthumus. The romance genre emphasizes the necessity of alienation: you don\u2019t know the value of a person, quality, or happy situation until you are threatened with its loss. Alienation is one of the main ways people discover who they are. The time will come when Imogen herself must leave the court in order to return to it on a firmer basis, after many accidents.<\/p>\n\n\n\nIn this first act generally, Imogen confirms the quality of her character: what we can expect isn\u2019t so much growth and development on her part but rather confirmation of and insight into what she already is.<\/p>\n\n\n\nNone of this reassurance about Imogen\u2019s goodness, it is worth noting, fits neatly within the characters\u2019 tendency early on to define others in terms of untested superlatives and absolutes.<\/p>\n\n\n\nPosthumus, for example, swears to Imogen, \u201cI will remain \/ The loyal\u2019st husband that did e\u2019er plight troth\u201d (223, 1.1.95-96). And at the play\u2019s outset, the first gentleman speaks effusively about Posthumus, reporting him as \u201ca creature such \/ As to seek through the regions of the earth \/ For one his like, there would be something failing \/ In him that should compare\u201d (221, 1.1.19-22). <a href=\"#_edn5\" id=\"_ednref5\">[5]<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\nThis sort of language says very little about those who are praised, but it says considerably more about the turbulence in Cymbeline\u2019s court. Hyperbolic praise is an instrument Shakespeare uses to expose the hollowness and unsustainability of courtly environments and political dispensations. A healthy society or state can tolerate some degree of linguistic exuberance and even flattery, but when it is wholly dependent on such tendencies, that is a sign that all is not well.<\/p>\n\n\n\nAct 1, Scene 2 (225-26, Cloten preens himself and waxes jealous against the now absent Posthumus while his assistant the second lord cuts him down to size.)<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\nThe second scene is a comic introduction to the Queen\u2019s villainous son Cloten, who shows himself to us as a puffed up, foppish oaf amply given his comeuppance by a wisecracking second lord who undercuts him throughout, though not in a way that makes Cloten himself aware of the undercutting.<\/p>\n\n\n\nIt is not difficult to see what is eating away at Cloten: he decries the intolerable fact that his love object Imogen \u201cshould love this fellow and refuse me!\u201d (226, 1.2.22) When people tell us who they are, as Maya Angelou used to say, we had best believe them. The laws of Cloten\u2019s being are envy, cupidity, and seething resentment.<\/p>\n\n\n\nAct 1, Scene 3 (226-27, Imogen\u2019s loyalty to Posthumus shines: she regrets that their parting could not last longer.)<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\nImogen\u2019s loyalty to Posthumus is touching in his absence, and she relates how her parting from her new husband was interrupted by Cymbeline: \u201ccomes in my father, \/ And, like the tyrannous breathing of the north, \/ Shakes all our buds from growing\u201d (227, 1.3.35-37).<\/p>\n\n\n\nWith regard to the metaphor she employs, in romance, if winter comes, spring can\u2019t be far behind: the organicism implied by this metaphor implies the acceptance of loss and death in exchange for the possibility of regeneration and reconciliation. We know that Imogen\u2019s father the King, though he acts like the stark north wind, will eventually give way and participate in the play\u2019s harmonies and reconciliations. The question is, how much will be lost before he comes round?<\/p>\n\n\n\nAct 1, Scene 4 (227-31, Giacomo draws Posthumus into a quarrel over the comparative value of Italian women and Imogen, and lays down a \u201ctrial of virtue\u201d wager: Posthumus\u2019s ring for Imogen\u2019s compromised honor.)<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\nGiacomo introduces himself to us, and we immediately understand that he is not given to crediting the grand praise that others have apparently been showering upon Posthumus Leonatus, about whom he says, among other things, \u201cI have seen him in France. We had very many \/ there could behold the sun with as firm eyes as he\u201d (228, 1.4.9-10).<\/p>\n\n\n\nWhatever we may gather about Giacomo, we also quickly see that Posthumus has learned little from experience in his relatively short life thus far. Immediately after recounting a quarrel he fell into with a Frenchman over the relative qualities of English and French females, he allows Giacomo to tempt him into making the same argument, except that now the ladies for comparison are Italian.<\/p>\n\n\n\nThis clever man needles Posthumus, \u201cI have not seen the most precious \/ diamond that is, nor you the lady\u201d (229, 1.4.63-64). In other words, he mocks Posthumus for his na\u00efve ideals about feminine virtue. Giacomo boasts that without much ado he will strip Imogen of her virtue and win the ring her husband wagers: upon only a second meeting with her, he insists, he will take away \u201cthat honour of hers which you imagine so \/ reserved\u201d (230, 1.4.114-15).<\/p>\n\n\n\nPosthumus raises the stakes as high as he can, promising that if Giacomo fails in his attempt, he will answer for the insult to Imogen in a duel (230, 1.4.139-45).<\/p>\n\n\n\nAs for this \u201ctrial of virtue\u201d plot, as Professor Harold Toliver of UC Irvine pointed out years ago, it is a medieval commonplace, probably because of the martyrdom patterns established in Christian narratives. Chaucer\u2019s \u201cClerk\u2019s Tale,\u201d which validates the Marquis Walter\u2019s long and painful testing of his wife Griselde, illustrates this penchant for putting female virtue to the test. Posthumus decides to put Imogen\u2019s virtue to a similar test, and allows Giacomo to tempt her.<\/p>\n\n\n\nWe may well question Posthumus\u2019s judgment: the man\u2019s actions at this point are bound to disappoint us. As Albany says in Act 1, Scene 4 of King Lear, <\/em>\u201cStriving to better, oft we mar what\u2019s well.\u201d <a href=\"#_edn6\" id=\"_ednref6\">[6]<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\nFor all his protestations about her innocence, Posthumus\u2019s proof-by-temptation scheme seems ethically dubious. Shakespeare\u2019s regard for this old plot device doesn\u2019t seem wholehearted. No less a moral authority than Jesus led his flock in prayer, \u201cLead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.\u201d <a href=\"#_edn7\" id=\"_ednref7\">[7]<\/a><\/sup> It\u2019s hard to argue with a statement like that. In modern times, we would call what Posthumus does to Imogen \u201centrapment.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\nAnd then there\u2019s Posthumus\u2019s exhibition of that green-eyed, smothering monster jealousy. <\/em>In Act 3, Scene 3 of Othello, <\/em>Iago pins down this passion with his lines about Desdemona\u2019s misplaced handkerchief: \u201cTrifles light as air \/ Are to the jealous confirmations strong \/ As proofs of holy writ.\u201d <a href=\"#_edn8\" id=\"_ednref8\">[8]<\/a> Once indulged, such a powerful feeling admits of no going back, and Posthumus must act upon it. Only the fullness of romance time will allow this situation to be made good, at least to a great extent.<\/p>\n\n\n\nAct 1, Scene 5 (231-33, the Queen demands poisonous substances from Cornelius, who gives her a potion that only causes deathlike sleep; the Queen gives this potion to Pisanio, whom she attempts to win away from Posthumus; she threatens absent Imogen with death if she does not relent and give in to Cloten.)<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\nCornelius conscientiously asks the Queen what she wants with the \u201cpoisonous compounds\u201d she has ordered (231, 1.5.8), and he does not like the answer he receives, which is that she plans to use them on defenseless animals and note the effects the poison has upon them (231, 1.5.18-23). He knows her for what she is, and resolves not to give her what she wants, but rather a simulacrum that will \u201cstupefy and dull the sense a while\u201d (232, 1.5.37).<\/p>\n\n\n\nThe Queen next sets to work on Pisanio, the servant of Posthumus, trying to win him away from his master towards Cloten and giving him a box filled with Cornelius\u2019s fake poison that she hopes Pisanio himself will swallow, thinking it a remedy. The Queen threatens absent Imogen, who, she says, \u201cExcept she bend her humor, shall be assured \/ To taste of [the drug] too\u201d (233, 1.5.81-82).<\/p>\n\n\n\nAct 1, Scene 6 (233-38, Giacomo comes to Cymbeline\u2019s court and slanders Posthumus as a playboy; Imogen believes him but is uninterested in repaying Posthumus in kind, so Giacomo pretends he was testing Imogen\u2019s faith in her husband and asks if she will store a chest allegedly containing gifts for Cymbeline.)<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\nBy letter, Posthumus recommends Giacomo to Imogen (234, 1.6.22-24), and the Italian promptly makes mostly excellent use of his first conversation with the lady. He paints a picture of a feckless, adulterous Posthumus living it up in Italy, exhibiting the opposite of the chief qualities Imogen thinks he possesses: earnestness and fidelity. He is known, says Giacomo, simply as \u201cThe Briton Reveller\u201d (234, 1.6.60).<\/p>\n\n\n\nGiacomo\u2019s wicked suit almost fails, first when he overdoes the run-up portion of his gambit and Imogen bluntly (and hilariously) asks him \u201cAre you well?\u201d (234, 1.6.49), and then when he boldly urges revenge and utters the sentence, \u201cI dedicate myself to your sweet pleasure\u201d (236, 1.6.135). This latter declaration causes Imogen to denounce him outright: \u201cIf thou wert honorable \/ Thou wouldst have told this tale for virtue\u2026\u201d (236-37, 1.6.141-42).<\/p>\n\n\n\nBut Giacomo is more than up to the occasion, protesting boldly that he meant only to test the strength of Imogen\u2019s virtue (237, 1.6.162-64). With the addition of a simple device\u2014namely, a request to store a chest full of plate and jewels meant as a gift for Cymbeline\u2014Giacomo\u2019s diabolical plot is set (237-38, 1.6.184-92).<\/p>\n\n\n\nGiacomo\u2019s assault on Imogen, we should note, is in some ways similar, and in some ways different, from the more famous one detailed by Shakespeare\u2019s source here, the Roman historian Titus Livius (Livy) in Ab Urbe Condita, <\/em>Book 1.57-59.<\/p>\n\n\n\nIn Livy\u2019s account, the villainous Sextus Tarquinius is said to be \u201cinflamed by the beauty and purity of Lucretia,\u201d and while he tries to seduce the faithful Roman wife of Collatinus with pleadings calculated \u201cto influence a female heart,\u201d in the end he is reduced to making a stark threat to disgrace her by killing Lucretia and placing the body of a slave next to her corpse, thereby tricking the Romans into believing she had been cut down in the midst of adultery. <a href=\"#_edn9\" id=\"_ednref9\">[9]<\/a> <\/p>\n\n\n\nThat threat is what convinces Lucretia that there\u2019s no way out of the dire situation, and suicide soon becomes her response. Giacomo\u2019s attempt upon Imogen is also \u201ccalculated\u201d in this way, and it fails just as miserably, at least in the most immediate sense.<\/p>\n\n\n\nGiacomo\u2019s calculation, however, is perhaps worse than Tarquin\u2019s in its contemptuous a priori<\/em> construction of female nature as easily moved to uncontrollable, complicit lust. Even Tarquin probably didn\u2019t quite believe about Lucretia what Giacomo apparently does about his \u201cmark\u201d Imogen.<\/p>\n\n\n\nWe may recall that Giacomo didn\u2019t initiate his wager with Posthumus because he was \u201cinflamed by the beauty and purity\u201d of Imogen, as Tarquin was smitten by the description of Lucretia (or as Angelo is driven to act against the saintly Isabella in Measure for Measure<\/em>), but instead because he wanted to prove a cynical, abstract proposition about female humanity.<\/p>\n\n\n\nFor us today, it\u2019s hard to avoid equating Giacomo\u2019s actions with the most obnoxious sort of \u201cpickup artists\u201d who plague the internet with their macho posing and vulgar assumptions about women as bottomless wells of lustfulness or suckers for a deceptive, fast-talking man.<\/p>\n\n\n\nEven as this play has given us so much rhetoric proclaiming various characters\u2019 impossibly high pitch of virtue, Giacomo presents as a comic-book villain: he is a stereotypical \u201csupersubtle Italian,\u201d a sexually predatory Machiavel.<\/p>\n\n\n\nThis presentation may be another way in which Shakespeare gets mileage from the otherwise risible violation of the \u201cunity of time\u201d in Cymbeline: <\/em>Giacomo\u2019s sly Renaissance Italian \u201cRape of Imogen\u201d is cast as something like a parody of Livy\u2019s reverse-heroic or high-villain narrative of the Tarquin prince\u2019s \u201cRape of Lucretia.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\nWhat transpires here may remind some readers of Karl Marx\u2019s witticism that history repeats itself\u2014\u201cthe first time as tragedy, the second time as farce.\u201d <a href=\"#_edn10\" id=\"_ednref10\">[10]<\/a> It\u2019s a peculiarly mirthless farce, but a farce all the same.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\" id=\"act2\">ACT 2<\/h3>\n\n\n\nAct 2, Scene 1 (238-39, Cloten again puffs himself up, worries about meeting anyone of lesser rank, including Giacomo; as usual, the second lord mocks him in a witty aside.)<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\nCloten interprets the actions of others as motivated by what drives him: lust, ambition, and avarice. We often find this oppositional representation of love in romance plays: true and charitable love versus the prideful and empty sort (\u201ccupidity\u201d) that we find in Cloten.<\/p>\n\n\n\nThe confrontation of heightened, opposed absolutes seems characteristic of romance. Cloten fears losing face, he fears what he calls \u201cderogation\u201d (239, 2.1.40-41) if he condescends to meet the newly arrived stranger Giacomo. He doesn\u2019t want to mix with those below his station. That fear constitutes the law of his being: it makes him tick, so to speak.<\/p>\n\n\n\nThis tendency in Cloten is interesting since the play in general emphasizes the inherent goodness of aristocratic characters such as Belarius and his sons Guiderius and Arviragus. Shakespeare is careful not to go too far in that direction, but he doesn\u2019t appear to dismiss altogether the claim that blood bestows nobility, that virtue can in part be inherited.<\/p>\n\n\n\nCloten is rather like the dragon in the old romances\u2014he is the monster who must be slain because he would cut off the quest for reunification and reconciliation, and cut short the generosity of romance time. The \u201cknight\u201d who slays him, as it will turn out, is Guiderius.<\/p>\n\n\n\nCloten\u2019s destructive lust and self-love are incurable, unlike the disturbing but less damnable jealousy that besets Posthumus. The second lord has Cloten \u201cpinned and wriggling on the wall\u201d like the imaginary insect in T. S. Eliot\u2019s poem \u201cThe Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock.\u201d <a href=\"#_edn11\" id=\"_ednref11\">[11]<\/a> The clever Queen, he muses, is cursed with a son who \u201cCannot take two from twenty, for his heart, \/ And leave eighteen\u201d (239, 2.1.52-53). Well, as they say, talent skips a generation. Sometimes it skips more than that number.<\/p>\n\n\n\nAct 2, Scene 2 (240-41, Giacomo emerges from the trunk he asked Imogen to store in her bedchamber, taking note of ornaments and structure in the room as well as a mole on sleeping Imogen\u2019s left breast; he takes her bracelet.)<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\nIt is time for Giacomo to carry out his wicked designs upon Imogen\u2019s happiness. Emerging from the trunk in which he has stowed himself, the devious fellow describes himself in the grand style: \u201cOur Tarquin thus \/ Did softly press the rushes ere he wakened \/ The chastity he wounded\u201d (240, 2.2.12-14). He notes various ornamentations and items in Imogen\u2019s chambers, but most damning of all, he remarks a mole on her left breast (241, 2.2.37-38).<\/p>\n\n\n\nAssiduous readers of Shakespeare will feel perfectly at home betting that Giacomo\u2019s perusal of the book Imogen had been studying will yield him Ovid\u2019s recounting of rape and cannibalistic revenge, \u201cThe tale of Tereus\u201d(241, 2.2.45). Giacomo\u2019s brand of evil here consists in foreclosing upon Imogen and Posthumus\u2019s love by means of a deceptive command of the facts: he cheats at his wager with Posthumus, and is able to describe Imogen\u2019s room and her personal characteristics.<\/p>\n\n\n\nIt may seem ironic that Giacomo works his wickedness with the aid of facts: they may be \u201cstubborn things,\u201d but they don\u2019t often matter much in Shakespearean romance, or in the romance world generally. Cymbeline apparently existed around the time of Augustus Caesar, and in fact Raphael Holinshed mentions him in the Chronicles.<\/em> <a href=\"#_edn12\" id=\"_ednref12\">[12]<\/a> But Giacomo is obviously a Renaissance Italian, one who lives and moves slyly in the age of Machiavelli.<\/p>\n\n\n\nThis temporal abyss is so extreme that it lends credence to the view of critics who insist that Cymbeline<\/em> is self-conscious parody. Shelley\u2019s friend the satirist Thomas Love Peacock may have been thinking of this play, with its ancient and modern characters greeting one another across what logic tells us should be a gap of around 1,500 years, when he mocked the Elizabethans for their disregard of the neoclassical unities:<\/p>\n\n\n\n\u201cShakespeare and his contemporaries \u2026 used time and locality merely because they could not do without them, because every action must have its when and where: but they made no scruple of deposing a Roman Emperor by an Italian Count, and sending him off in the disguise of a French pilgrim to be shot with a blunderbuss by an English archer. This makes the old English drama very picturesque \u2026 though it is a picture of nothing that ever was seen on earth except a Venetian carnival.\u201d <a href=\"#_edn13\" id=\"_ednref13\">[13]<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\nShakespeare\u2019s millennium-and-a-half hop-skip to modern Italy is undeniably bizarre, but just as in his early revenge tragedy, that barbarous masterpiece Titus Andronicus, <\/em>he seems determined to unsettle any comfortable notions about the grand qualities that supposedly distinguished ancient Rome from every other place and culture on earth, so in Cymbeline <\/em>he challenges these same notions by means of a deliberately absurd temporal rift between the ancient City and the modern. <a href=\"#_edn14\" id=\"_ednref14\">[14]<\/a> <\/p>\n\n\n\nIt is not so much that Shakespeare represents human nature as essentially the same through the ages as that he appears to resist any idea of a rock-solid, foundational Rome<\/em> upon which to build our conception of history or humanitas.<\/em> The Eternal City has been reinventing itself from time immemorial, aided by an uncanny ability at once to believe and disbelieve its own self-spun legends.<\/p>\n\n\n\nAct 2, Scene 3 (241-45, Cloten orders a serenade for Imogen, who despises him to his face; her insults provoke him to vow revenge; Imogen is almost frantic with the thought that she has lost the bracelet Posthumus gave her.)<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\nCloten makes a thoroughly ineffective attempt (if an actual one, unlike Giacomo\u2019s) to win Imogen\u2019s affections. The only good thing that comes of it is the fine air, \u201cHark, hark, the lark at heaven\u2019s gate sings\u2026\u201d (242, 2.3.17-23). Face to face, Cloten declares his love for Imogen, and receives for his reply a measure of her strength: \u201cI care not for you, \/ And am so near the lack of charity \/ To accuse myself I hate you\u2026\u201d (244, 2.3.103-05). One is reminded of Fanny Burney\u2019s witty journal description of a suitor who just couldn\u2019t understand that his attentions were not welcome. <a href=\"#_edn15\" id=\"_ednref15\">[15]<\/a> <\/p>\n\n\n\nStill, while Cloten may be dense, even he gets the point when Imogen tells him the hair on his head isn\u2019t worth the \u201cmeanest garment\u201d ever worn by Posthumus (244, 2.3.128). This scornful flouting elicits from Cloten a desire for revenge (245, 2.3.150-51). Meanwhile, Imogen\u2019s real concern is that (thanks to Giacomo at 240, 2.2.33) she has lost the bracelet given her by Posthumus: \u201cI hope it be not gone to tell my lord \/ That I kiss aught but he\u201d (245, 2.3.142-43).<\/p>\n\n\n\nAct 2, Scene 4 (245-49, Giacomo returns to Rome and declares victory over Imogen and Posthumus, who unwisely believes him especially because of the bodily \u201cevidence\u201d and denounces all womankind.)<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\nAs Philario and Posthumus trade views on the prospects of the Romans getting the tribute they\u2019ve demanded from Cymbeline (245-46, 2.4.10-26), Giacomo enters and triumphantly declares his victory in the contest of female virtue. One doesn\u2019t know whether to laugh or cry at the sight of Posthumus\u2019 pitiful performance here, with Giacomo egging him on and Philario vainly trying to draw the most substantial account possible from Giacomo: \u201ctake your ring again; \u2019tis not yet won\u201d (248, 2.4.114).<\/p>\n\n\n\nEven so, when Giacomo brings out his supposedly irrefutable evidence\u2014Imogen\u2019s bracelet and that unfortunately noted lovely mole on her breast, the game is up, and Posthumus is quite certain that this wily stage Italian has (as the Machiavellian Iago did with Othello), \u201cprove[d his] love a whore.\u201d <a href=\"#_edn16\" id=\"_ednref16\">[16]<\/a> The reaction we get from Posthumus is no better than that of the romantic absolutist Othello: the mole, he avers, \u201cdoth confirm \/ Another stain, as big as hell can hold\u2026\u201d (249, 2.4.139-40).<\/p>\n\n\n\nAct 2, Scene 5 (249-50, Posthumus makes outlandishly misogynistic statements: loss of faith in Imogen has shattered him.)<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\nPosthumus hits enough home runs to make it into the Misogynists\u2019 Cooperstown on the first ballot: \u201cWe are all bastards\u2026\u201d (249, 2.4.2), he whines, and then comes the grand slam: \u201cthere\u2019s no motion \/ That tends to vice in man but I affirm \/ It is the woman\u2019s part\u2026\u201d (250, 2.4.20-22). He imagines the act of copulation between Giacomo and chaste Imogen, proving only the deranged state of his own imagination (250, 2.4.15-17).<\/p>\n\n\n\nFor the moment, at least, Posthumus would make fine company for Othello, Leontes from The Winters\u2019 Tale, <\/em>or Hamlet in that awful conversation with Ophelia in Hamlet, <\/em>Act 3, Scene 1. As for this scene, as Hamlet might say, \u201cGo to, I\u2019ll no \/ more on\u2019t.\u201d <a href=\"#_edn17\" id=\"_ednref17\">[17]<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\" id=\"act3\">ACT 3<\/h3>\n\n\n\nAct 3, Scene 1 (250-52, spurred on by the Queen and Cloten, Cymbeline refuses to pay tribute to the Romans.)<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\nThe Roman ambassador Lucius delivers Augustus Caesar\u2019s demand for tribute from the Britons, but the Queen and Cloten sway Cymbeline from paying the 3,000 pounds Caesar wants.<\/p>\n\n\n\nCloten says arrogantly, \u201cIf Caesar can hide the \/ sun from us with a blanket, or put the moon in his pocket, \/ we will pay him tribute for light\u2026\u201d (251, 3.1.41-43), and Cymbeline himself, while reminding present company that he spent time at Caesar\u2019s court in his youth, comes round to the idea that failure to resist would \u201cshow the Britons cold\u201d (252, 3.1.74), especially because just now the Pannonians and Dalmatians are in open warfare with Roman armies. Cymbeline will not fail to keep up with the barbarian Joneses.<\/p>\n\n\n\nAct 3, Scene 2 (252-54, in separate letters, Posthumus commands Pisanio to kill Imogen and asks Imogen to come to Milford Haven in Cambria, which she at once makes plans to do.)<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\nPisanio is dismayed at the letter Posthumus has sent requiring him to kill Imogen: \u201cThy mind to hers is now as low as were \/ Thy fortunes\u201d (252, 3.2.10-11), he laments. He tries to break this news to Imogen, but only succeeds in rendering her more eager to get to Milford Haven in Cambria than she already was upon reading the deceptive letter Posthumus dedicated to her. Imogen makes her plans, which include a female assistant fetching her \u201ca riding suit no costlier than would fit \/ A franklin\u2019s housewife\u201d (254, 3.2.76-77).<\/p>\n\n\n\nPisanio\u2019s role is similar to that of the banished Kent in King Lear: <\/em>while his immediate goal is to protect Imogen, he also keeps Posthumous from doing harm so long as an insane fit of jealousy drives his actions. In this way, he also resembles Cornelius, who refused to give the Queen the deadly concoctions she sought.<\/p>\n\n\n\nThere is a special sort of fidelity that consists in not <\/em>doing the bidding of a master who has taken leave of his or her senses. It may not be in line with the eighteenth-century Kantian \u201ccategorical imperative\u201d <a href=\"#_edn18\" id=\"_ednref18\">[18]<\/a> that would enforce the keeping of promises no matter the circumstances, but it is rooted in a time-honored sentiment. Authority combined with impulsiveness and immaturity is a deadly combination, and sometimes, stripping away the agency of those thus afflicted is the only way to prevent things from reaching the worst.<\/p>\n\n\n\nAct 3, Scene 3 (254-55, we meet Belarius and his supposed sons Arviragus and Guiderius; Belarius gives us\u2014not the boys\u2014the complete back story as to why they are living in the Welsh countryside; both young men lament their lack of experience.)<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\nCutting off the king\u2019s issue can be a vicious affair in ancient literature\u2014recall Ovid\u2019s tale of Tereus, Procne and Philomela in Metamorphoses<\/em> <a href=\"#_edn19\" id=\"_ednref19\">[19]<\/a>\u2014but in this play things aren\u2019t so bad. Belarius has kidnapped Cymbeline\u2019s two sons and raised them with a healthy distrust of courtly deception, but they subsequently get their chance to prove the nobility that is their birthright.<\/p>\n\n\n\nThe two young men, Arviragus and Guiderius, are understandably reluctant to accept the limitations Belarius has placed upon them. When he says, \u201cthis life \/ Is nobler than attending for a check\u2026\u201d (255, 3.3.21-22), both of these supposed sons chime in with a rebuttal: Guiderius says of his rough existence, \u201cunto us it is \/ A cell of ignorance, traveling abed \u2026\u201d (255, 3.3.32-33). Arviragus adds, \u201cour cage \/ We make a choir, as doth the prisoned bird\u2026\u201d (255, 3.3.42-43).<\/p>\n\n\n\nBoth Guiderius and Arviragus complain of being inexperienced in the wide world and show themselves very impatient to enter it. The narrative that Belarius has fed them does not satisfy anyone but himself, an older man who has already seen too much of that world and paid the price for it.<\/p>\n\n\n\nBelarius provides us with the necessary background information on why he and his two young men are living as hunters in the Welsh countryside, a rough place that always gave even the Romans trouble. It seems that Belarius was taken down by a couple of villains who accused him of treason against Cymbeline on behalf of the Romans. Cymbeline believed the lie and banished Belarius from Britain (256, 3.3.65-69).<\/p>\n\n\n\nOnce the boys have made their exit, Belarius is free to tell us the rest of the story, which is simply that in his anger against Cymbeline\u2019s injustice, he decided to take away the King\u2019s futurity and therefore stole by means of Euriphile his two male children, whose names are now Polydore (Guiderius, the heir to Cymbeline\u2019s throne) and Cadwal (Arviragus, the younger of the two).<\/p>\n\n\n\nBelarius himself is now called Morgan, and the boys believe he really is their father (256, 3.3.79-107). That\u2019s the way he wants to keep it since he has come to regard them as his own sons.<\/p>\n\n\n\nWe might note in passing that Wales is hardly a green world of the Forest of Arden type, and that the court from which Belarius was exiled doesn\u2019t appear to have been particularly corrupt, though it is peopled with some disturbing characters.<\/p>\n\n\n\nThe setting in this romance play is fairly unrealistic in the first place, so there\u2019s no need to escape into a magical world to grow and develop and then return to achieve social reintegration. The main value of the Welsh setting is that it gives Arviragus and Guiderius a martial edge: they are hunters, not shepherds, so when the time comes, they will be admirably prepared to do heroic service against the Roman invaders, which in turn paves the way for them to regain entry to Cymbeline\u2019s court.<\/p>\n\n\n\nAct 3, Scene 4 (257-61, Pisanio reveals the contents of Posthumus\u2019 letter commanding him to kill Imogen; he has a plan to rescue her: she must dress as a young man and enter the service of the Roman Lucius; Pisanio also gives her the potion-box the Queen had given him.)<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\nPisanio takes Imogen part-way to Milford Haven, and at last reveals to her the contents of the letter Posthumus had sent him. Imogen is overwhelmed, and declares herself \u201ca garment out of fashion\u201d that must be ripped to shreds by the owner since it is \u201cricher than to hang by th\u2019 walls \u2026\u201d (258, 3.4.50-51).<\/p>\n\n\n\nPisanio refuses Imogen\u2019s request to run her through with a sword, and reveals his plan to get her out of her predicament: he will deceive Posthumus into thinking that he has indeed killed Imogen. Then she must go to Milford Haven and, dressed as a young man, present herself to the Roman ambassador and general, Lucius, in whose service she may come to a place in Rome not far from where Posthumus is staying (259-60, 3.4.123-79).<\/p>\n\n\n\nOminously, Pisanio passes the Queen\u2019s potion-box along to Imogen, with the innocent advice, \u201ca dram of this \/ Will drive away distemper\u201d (261, 3.4.190-91).<\/p>\n\n\n\nAct 3, Scene 5 (261-65, suspected of helping Imogen escape from court, Pisanio deceives Cloten into expecting to come upon Posthumus at Milford Haven; Cloten sets forth his diabolical plans to murder Posthumus and ravish Imogen.)<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\nThe King begins to miss his daughter, and Cloten points the finger at Pisanio (263, 3.5.54-55), who comes in for much questioning. The Queen, meanwhile, is spinning her wheels in her usual conspiratorial fashion: of Imogen, she says, \u201cGone she is \/ To death or to dishonor, and my end \/ Can make good use of either\u201d (263, 3.5.62-64).<\/p>\n\n\n\nUnder Cloten\u2019s pressure, Pisanio pretends to accept his proposal that he should become his servant rather than remain the servant of Posthumus, and Cloten\u2019s first order is to bring him the suit the fellow was wearing when he left to begin his banishment (264, 3.5.124-25).<\/p>\n\n\n\nThis villain\u2019s plan is to murder Posthumus at Milford Haven, where he believes (in accordance with the original deceptive letter Pisanio gives him) the man is headed. Afterwards, he will compound his evil by sexually assaulting Imogen: \u201cWith that suit upon my \/ back will I ravish her\u2014first kill him, and in her eyes\u2026\u201d (264, 3.5.133-34).<\/p>\n\n\n\nThis vicious plan will accomplish three objectives: first, Cloten will slake his jealous rage at Posthumus; second, he will pay Imogen back for her contemptuous words to him earlier, where she cast it in his teeth that the \u201cmeanest garment\u201d ever worn by Posthumus was worth more to her than the hair on Cloten\u2019s head (244, 2.3.128-30); third, he will obtain his ultimate objective of forcibly making her his wife, kicking her all the way back to Cymbeline\u2019s court (265, 3.5.138-41).<\/p>\n\n\n\nTo top this for intent to commit a host of villainies, we would need to go straight to Livy\u2019s History of Rome,<\/em> where the author tells the story of Sextus Tarquinius\u2019s rape of the Roman matron Lucretia, or indeed to Shakespeare\u2019s own retelling of that story in The Rape of Lucrece. <\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\nWe could even go to Shakespeare\u2019s own Titus Andronicus<\/em>, where we would meet the self-declared supervillain Aaron the Moor, who brags about digging up dead men and setting them upright at their dear friends\u2019 doors, most likely to mock the key Roman concept of friendship or amicitia.<\/em> <a href=\"#_edn20\" id=\"_ednref20\">[20]<\/a> <\/p>\n\n\n\nOf course, we need not worry too much since this is Cloten, and Cloten never accomplishes anything he sets out to do. He\u2019s no Tarquin, and neither would he pass a class in basic Machiavelli since he manages to make himself a hated object of contempt. <a href=\"#_edn21\" id=\"_ednref21\">[21]<\/a> Even so, his loser-status doesn\u2019t make him any less wicked\u2014the crudely literalistic turn of his mind is characteristic of Shakespeare\u2019s nastiest villains. <a href=\"#_edn22\" id=\"_ednref22\">[22]<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\nAct 3, Scene 6 (265-67, Belarius and his charges light upon disguised Imogen eating their food, and give \u201chim\u201d a warm welcome.)<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\nBelarius, Arviragus and Guiderius light upon the disguised Imogen eating their camp rations, and they respond with surprise when she offers them gold and silver for her dinner. She claims that her name is Fidele. Belarius tenders her an unexpectedly warm welcome: \u201cThink us no churls, nor measure our good minds \/ By this rude place we live in\u201d (266-67, 3.6.62-63), and both brothers experience something like love at first sight: \u201cI\u2019ll love him as my brother \u2026\u201d (267, 3.6.69), declares Arviragus.<\/p>\n\n\n\nAs is usually the case in Shakespeare, we cannot take for granted that the countryside is a less civilized place than the city or the court, and Imogen is pleasantly surprised to stumble upon the same insight. So too with Orlando in As You Like It, <\/em>when, in search of sustenance for his poor old servant Adam, he stumbles upon the exiled Duke Senior\u2019s rustic circle and is shocked to find that his show of pirate-like ferocity is unnecessary. <a href=\"#_edn23\" id=\"_ednref23\">[23]<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\nAct 3, Scene 7 (267-68, Lucius is appointed proconsul and Rome\u2019s general against the Britons.)<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\nLucius is appointed proconsul (provincial governor), with the responsibility of marshaling the Roman forces against Cymbeline\u2019s Britons.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\" id=\"act4\">ACT 4<\/h3>\n\n\n\nAct 4, Scene 1 (268, Cloten admires himself in the mirror and rehearses his evil designs against Posthumus and Imogen.)<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\nCloten admires himself in the mirror and waxes poetical about his coming destruction of Posthumus and rape of Imogen, after which he will \u201cspurn her home to her \/ father\u201d (268, 4.1.16-17) and expect his mother to smooth things over with Cymbeline. This character wants to be a villain, but cannot manage more than to appear a pseudo-courtly fop, a stock character in the Shakespearean canon.<\/p>\n\n\n\nIf Cloten had somewhat better manners, his place would be with dishonest courtiers such as Osric and Oswald from Hamlet<\/em> and King Lear,<\/em> respectively\u2014men who are already very far from acting as the renowned author Baldassare Castiglione prescribes in his Book of the Courtier.<\/em> <a href=\"#_edn24\" id=\"_ednref24\">[24]<\/a> But as mentioned earlier, even though Cloten does not meet the high standards of Shakespeare\u2019s more serious villains, he is not deficient in their degree of innate wickedness.<\/p>\n\n\n\nAct 4, Scene 2 (268-79, Imogen-as-Fidele is ill and takes Pisanio\u2019s potion; Cloten arrives and is beheaded by Guiderius, to the dismay of Belarius; Arviragus carries in the seemingly lifeless body of Imogen-as-Fidele and the brothers lament; alone, Imogen awakens to find the headless Cloten dressed as Posthumus, and blames Pisanio; a soothsayer for Lucius interprets portents favorably to Rome; Lucius finds Imogen-as-Fidele and offers this stranger a chance to join up with the Romans.)<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\nImogen is increasingly impressed at the capacity for decency she finds here away from Cymbeline\u2019s palace: \u201cwhat lies I have heard! \/ Our courtiers say all\u2019s savage but at court\u201d (269, 4.2.32-33). Arviragus falls more deeply in love with Imogen-as-Fidele, while Imogen has taken ill sufficiently to try the supposedly wondrous potion Pisanio gave her (267, 4.2.37-38).<\/p>\n\n\n\nCloten arrives on the scene, and Belarius is stricken with fear because he recognizes him as the Queen\u2019s son (270, 4.2.64-67). Guiderius is left alone to face Cloten, who immediately demands that he yield to him. Guiderius parries the oaf\u2019s threats and insults expertly, and cuts off his head.<\/p>\n\n\n\nBelarius is by no means pleased\u2014he realizes the consequences of killing a Briton royal: \u201cWe are all undone\u201d (272, 4.2.122), he tells Guiderius. But to himself, he marvels at the noble nature of both Guiderius and Arviragus: \u201c\u2019Tis wonder \/ That an invisible instinct should frame them \/ To royalty unlearned \u2026\u201d (273, 4.2.175-77). Guiderius makes what turns out to be an important decision to toss Cloten\u2019s head into the stream nearby (273, 4.2.182-84).<\/p>\n\n\n\nArviragus soon enters with the seemingly lifeless body of Imogen-as-Fidele (274, 4.2.194-96). Belarius instructs the young men that they must restrain their contempt for Cloten and give him the burial that a member of the royal family deserves (275, 4.2.245-49). <a href=\"#_edn25\" id=\"_ednref25\">[25]<\/a> For Imogen-as-Fidele, Guiderius and Arviragus sing a noteworthy refrain: \u201cFear no more the heat o\u2019th\u2019 sun, \/ Nor the furious winter\u2019s rages \u2026\u201d (275, 4.2.257-58; see 275-76, 4.2.257-80). The theme of the song is that in the end, even young lovers must \u201ccome to dust\u201d (276, 4.2.274).<\/p>\n\n\n\nWhen Belarius and the two brothers have departed, Imogen awakens next to the headless body of Cloten, dressed in Posthumus\u2019s clothes: \u201cA headless man? The garments of Posthumus?\u201d (276, 4.2.307) She now blames Pisanio for what she believes to be the murder of Posthumus, on the evidence that the drug he gave her was not the cordial he claimed it to be (277, 4.2.325-28).<\/p>\n\n\n\nA Roman captain informs Lucius that troops from Gaul (\u201cGallia\u201d) and troops led by Giacomo (who is here said to be the Duke of Siena\u2019s brother) have arrived from Italy (277, 4.2.332-41). A soothsayer portends success to the Romans, declaring, \u201cI saw Jove\u2019s bird, the Roman eagle, winged \/ From the spongy south to this part of the west, \/ There vanished in the sunbeams \u2026\u201d (277-78, 4.2.347-51).<\/p>\n\n\n\nLucius catches sight of the headless body before him and also spies the living Imogen-as-Fidele. The upshot of this discovery is that Lucius offers Imogen-as-Fidele a chance to join up with the Romans (278, 4.2.379-81), which she accepts with only the proviso that first the body of the man she supposes to be Posthumus must be buried. Pisanio\u2019s plan has come to fruition almost by accident, after quite an eventful detour.<\/p>\n\n\n\nAct 4, Scene 3 (279-80, the Queen is gravely ill, and Cymbeline is desperately isolated; Pisanio is confused about the current state of affairs, but trusts to time and the gods.)<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\nThe Queen is desperately ill and in a state of madness thanks to the absence of her son Cloten, so Cymbeline is isolated in a time of great need (279, 4.3.1-9): the Romans have now landed in force. Pisanio is in the dark regarding the whereabouts of Posthumus, Imogen and Cloten. His only plan is to fight for the Britons and leave the rest to the heavens: \u201cAll other doubts, by time let them be cleared: \/ Fortune brings in some boats that are not steered\u201d (280, 4.3.45-46).<\/p>\n\n\n\nThis is the correct attitude to take for a character in a comic or romance play: trust to time. <a href=\"#_edn26\" id=\"_ednref26\">[26]<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\nAct 4, Scene 4 (280-81, Guiderius, Arviragus, and Belarius agree to fight for Cymbeline against the Romans.)<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\nBelarius tries to explain to his courageous charges that it would be unwise to expose themselves by volunteering to fight for Cymbeline because Belarius himself would be recognized: \u201cI am known \/ Of many in the army\u201d (280, 4.4.21-22). But his realist argument falls on deaf ears since Arviragus and Guiderius insist on making their mettle appreciated in the coming fight. As Jaques says in As You Like It, <\/em>young men will be \u201cSeeking the bubble reputation \/ Even in the cannon\u2019s mouth.\u201d <a href=\"#_edn27\" id=\"_ednref27\">[27]<\/a> <\/p>\n\n\n\nBelarius ends up declaring, \u201cIf in your country wars you chance to die, \/ That is my bed too, lads, and there I\u2019ll lie\u201d (281, 4.4.51-52). The old man does not make the tragic mistake made in the Aesop\u2019s fable about the King who loves his little son so much that he won\u2019t let him leave his lodgings, only to lose the boy to an infection caused by an injury stemming from his extreme frustration. <a href=\"#_edn28\" id=\"_ednref28\">[28]<\/a> <\/p>\n\n\n\nBelarius can\u2019t keep the young men he took from Cymbeline away from danger forever. The time has come for them to make their mark on the world, come what may.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\" id=\"act5\">ACT 5<\/h3>\n\n\n\nAct 5, Scene 1 (281-82, Posthumus believes Imogen is dead at Pisanio\u2019s hands; he will fight for Cymbeline and seek death to honor Imogen.)<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\nPosthumus believes Pisanio\u2019s claim that he carried out his order to execute Imogen, and decides that instead of fighting on the side of the Romans, he will switch over to support Cymbeline and, with any luck, die for Imogen.<\/p>\n\n\n\nHe describes this transformation in part as a casting off of external appearances: \u201cI will begin \/ The fashion\u2014less without and more within\u201d (282, 5.1.32-33). This seems like a welcome turn toward self-reflection for Posthumus, but he manages to dissipate any good will we may feel toward him by continuing to believe that Imogen was, in fact, unfaithful to him, as appears when he says, \u201cYou married ones, \/ If each of you should take this course, how many \/ Must murder wives much better than themselves \/ For wrying but a little?\u201d (281, 5.1.2-5)<\/p>\n\n\n\nThere\u2019s just something unlovable about a man who works himself up to \u201cforgiving\u201d a woman who has done him no wrong.<\/p>\n\n\n\nAct 5, Scene 2 (282-83, Posthumus defeats Giacomo, and Cymbeline is captured but rescued by Belarius, Guiderius, Arviragus, and Posthumus; Lucius tries to protect Imogen-as-Fidele.)<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\nPosthumus fights with and disarms Giacomo, and the Italian immediately feels \u201cheaviness and guilt\u201d (282, 5.2.1) for his base betrayal of Imogen. In the third scene, Cymbeline is captured but is then instantly rescued by Belarius, Guiderius, and Arviragus, who, as they put it, \u201cStand, stand, and fight\u201d (282, 5.2.13). They are joined in the rescue by Posthumus. Lucius tries to safeguard Imogen-as-Fidele from the Briton advance since, in the fog of war, Roman troops are killing their own.<\/p>\n\n\n\nAct 5, Scene 3 (283-85, Posthumus, disheartened by an aristocratic onlooker\u2019s cowardice, turns Roman again and is promptly captured by the Britons; at this point he wishes only for death, to atone for his offense against Imogen.)<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\nPosthumus describes to a lord the bravery of Belarius and others, and rebukes that same lord for treating his story like fiction: \u201cyou are made \/ Rather to wonder at the things you hear \/ Than to work any\u201d (284, 5.5.53-55). Posthumus is so disheartened by this fellow\u2019s chatty cowardice that he decides to turn Roman again, the better to meet his end since Cymbeline\u2019s troops now have the upper hand (285, 5.5.75-83). He is promptly captured by Briton troops.<\/p>\n\n\n\nShakespeare\u2019s treatment of the loquacious lord is another instance of his interest in exploring the balance between representing martial action and indulging in the desire to talk about such things, to spin webs of language about the pathos and glory of war. <a href=\"#_edn29\" id=\"_ednref29\">[29]<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\nAct 5, Scene 4 (285-89, in prison, Posthumus reflects on his debt to Imogen. His departed parents and brothers come to him in a dream, and complain to Jupiter about Posthumus\u2019s fate. Jupiter promises them that all will be well, and provides them with a prophetic tablet that the ghosts place upon the chest of their sleeping family member. A messenger arrives and says that Posthumus must be brought into the presence of Cymbeline.)<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\nCast into prison, Posthumus meditates on his debt to Imogen (348, 5.5.1-29). His departed father, mother and brothers appear to him in a vision as he sleeps. They complain to Jupiter of the wrongs that he has suffered through the villainy of Giacomo, who labored \u201cTo taint his nobler heart and brain \/ With needless jealousy\u201d (287, 5.4.49-50).<\/p>\n\n\n\nTired of their complaining, Jupiter appears and promises a happy ending after explaining \u201cWhom best I love, I cross\u2026\u201d (287, 5.4.71). In the end, says Jupiter, Posthumus \u201cshall be Lord of Lady Imogen, \/ And happier much by his affliction made\u201d (287, 5.4.77-78).<\/p>\n\n\n\nAwakening, Posthumus realizes that a tablet has been placed upon his breast. This is the play\u2019s one apparent instance of the miraculous instead of the merely implausible. He reads a prophecy from the tablet having to do with \u201ca lion\u2019s whelp,\u201d \u201ca piece of tender air,\u201d a \u201cstately cedar,\u201d and branches therefrom. (288, 5.4.108-10)<\/p>\n\n\n\nWhen these things are put together in a meaningful relationship, says the tablet, Britain will thrive. Immediately thereafter, the jailer comes in to tell Posthumus he is to be hung. \u201cOh, the charity of a \/ penny cord!\u201d (289, 5.4.135-36) exclaims the philosophical jailer who duly passes the information along. He seems so disillusioned with his job that we might half-suspect he\u2019s floating his r\u00e9sum\u00e9 in hopes of finding something better. Before his execution, Posthumus will be brought before Cymbeline.<\/p>\n\n\n\nAct 5, Scene 5 (289-301, Cymbeline knights Belarius, Arviragus and Guiderius; Cornelius reports the Queen\u2019s death along with her confessions; Lucius asks that Imogen-as-Fidele be spared death, but Imogen-as-Fidele doesn\u2019t reciprocate; Giacomo reveals the source of the ring he\u2019s wearing and details his villainy; after Posthumus strikes Imogen-as-Fidele, Pisanio identifies Imogen, amazing Cymbeline and Posthumus. Pisanio and Guiderius explain Cloten\u2019s death, forcing Belarius to confess that Arviragus and Guiderius are Cymbeline\u2019s sons; Posthumus admits that he helped rescue the King; Imogen has lost a kingdom but gained two royal brothers; the soothsayer explains the prophecy; Cymbeline pardons everyone, lauds the gods, and agrees to pay tribute to the defeated Romans.)<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\nCymbeline begins this scene by wishing that the brave soldier who assisted Belarius, Guiderius, and Arviragus in rescuing him could be found. This man we know to be Posthumus. But Belarius and his two charges are present, and Cymbeline makes them British knights (290, 5.5.19-22).<\/p>\n\n\n\nCornelius enters and reports that the Queen is dead (290, 5.5.25-27). Not only that, but he runs through a litany of dreadful revelations from the dying Queen: she never loved Cymbeline but only coveted his power; she pretended to feel affection for Imogen but in fact hated her and planned to poison her; and finally, she intended to poison Cymbeline himself (290-91, 5.5.37-61) in order to secure the throne for her son, Cloten. When the latter went missing, however, the Queen was driven to distraction, fell sick, and died.<\/p>\n\n\n\nCymbeline is stunned, but he does not blame himself for being taken in: \u201cMine eyes \/ Were not in fault, for she was beautiful; \/ \u2026 nor my heart \/ That thought her like her seeming\u201d (291, 5.5.62-65). It appears that an ancient, staunchly British King fell victim to the Renaissance Neoplatonist desire to align the beautiful with the good.<\/p>\n\n\n\nLucius the defeated Roman general is brought in, desiring only to spare Imogen-as-Fidele from the death sentence that must befall all Romans present: \u201cNever master had \/ A page so kind, so duteous, diligent \u2026\u201d (291, 5.5.85-86). Imogen surprises Lucius by failing to reciprocate when the King offers her a chance to redeem a prisoner: \u201cThe boy disdains me\u2026\u201d (292, 5.5.105), says Lucius almost in disbelief.<\/p>\n\n\n\nUnderstandably, though, Imogen is more concerned about the tale Giacomo can be constrained to tell about how he got the precious diamond ring he now possesses, and so to undo the reputational harm he has done to Imogen herself.<\/p>\n\n\n\nBelarius, Guiderius and Arviragus are in turn surprised when they recognize their guest Imogen-as-Fidele, whom they thought to have died; but now they behold \u201cThe same dead thing alive\u201d (292, 5.5.123). Pisanio recognizes her as well.<\/p>\n\n\n\nImogen-as-Fidele\u2019s next move is to demand that Giacomo explain where he got the ring he\u2019s wearing (293, 5.5.135-36), and Giacomo confesses that he received it from Posthumus. Cymbeline demands that he explain himself in full, which sparks a comic exchange in which Shakespeare may be making fun of his own tendency towards prolixity, or at least suggesting a lamentable return to the earlier part of the play\u2019s rhetorical excesses.<\/p>\n\n\n\nThe old King hears the word \u201cdaughter\u201d and is on fire to hear the rest of Giacomo\u2019s story, but he proves all but helpless to stop the slow-motion carriage-wreck that is the anguished Giacomo coming clean about his transgressions (293-94, 5.5.153-209).<\/p>\n\n\n\nAt last, the Italian makes himself sufficiently clear: \u201cmy practice so prevailed \/ That I returned with simular proof enough \/ To make the noble Leonatus mad\u2026\u201d (294, 5.5.199-201). By this time, that kind of language passes for pure comprehensibility. Giacomo, as Matthew Arnold cites Fran\u00e7ois Guizot pronouncing sentence on Shakespeare himself, has apparently \u201ctried all styles except that of simplicity.\u201d <a href=\"#_edn30\" id=\"_ednref30\">[30]<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\nWhen Imogen-as-Fidele pleads with Posthumus, who has interrupted Giacomo to declare himself the greater villain and indeed the murderer of Imogen (294-95, 5.5.213-20), Posthumus strikes the supposed page, prompting a reproach from Pisanio, who at last calls Imogen by her name (295, 5.5.231), to the amazement of Cymbeline and Posthumus alike.<\/p>\n\n\n\nWhen Imogen blames Pisanio for her near-death experience, Cornelius interjects, remembering now to mention one of the Queen\u2019s admissions: she had given Pisanio the potion-box, but as we know from near the beginning of the play, Cornelius did not trust her with deadly poison and so gave her only a very strong sedative, one that mimics death. Imogen and Posthumus embrace, and Cymbeline greets her as his child (296, 5.5.263-65). The old King informs Imogen that her stepmother the Queen is dead, but not much attention is paid to that event.<\/p>\n\n\n\nPisanio steps in when the King mentions that Cloten is still missing, explaining his device in passing along to Cloten Posthumus\u2019s deceptive letter addressed to Imogen, which told her to make her way to Milford Haven in Wales. Guiderius adds a simple, \u201cI slew him there\u201d (296, 5.5.286).<\/p>\n\n\n\nCymbeline\u2019s response is not quite what Guiderius was expecting: \u201cthou art condemned\u201d (297, 5.5.297). This dread sentence, of course, forces Belarius to reveal the rest of the story: \u201cThis boy is better than the man he slew\u2026\u201d (297, 5.5.301), which risks enraging Cymbeline.<\/p>\n\n\n\nHowever, the matter is quickly cleared up when Belarius reveals the remarkable information that, with the help of the boys\u2019 nurse Euriphile, he had, in fact, kidnapped them after his unjust banishment: \u201cBeaten for loyalty \/ Excited me to treason\u201d (298, 5.5.343-44). Cymbeline\u2019s response is entirely positive since he can see these young men\u2019s quality for himself, and the tokens Belarius is able to provide (a mantle and a mole) only increase the King\u2019s certainty.<\/p>\n\n\n\nCymbeline explains to Imogen what this all means for her: \u201cThou hast lost by this a kingdom\u201d (299, 5.5.372), but she does not see the matter that way, preferring instead to dwell upon what she has gained: a pair of long-lost brothers. \u201cI have got two worlds by\u2019t\u201d (299, 5.5.373), says she. Cymbeline doesn\u2019t quite understand it all, and who can blame him? He expresses a desire to hear further details in due time to lessen his wonder (299, 5.5.381-86).<\/p>\n\n\n\nPosthumus is now able to declare that he is the poor soldier who assisted Belarius, Arviragus, and Guiderius in rescuing Cymbeline, and he calls upon Giacomo to verify his story. When this villain makes plain his sudden change of heart and asks for death once he returns the ring and bracelet he wrongly came by (300, 5.5.411-16), Posthumus decides to show mercy: \u201cThe power that I have on you is to spare you \u2026\u201d (300, 5.5.417).<\/p>\n\n\n\nThat decision, in turn, leads Cymbeline to declare a general pardon for everyone, including the Romans (300, 5.5.419-21). <\/p>\n\n\n\nThe soothsayer rounds off the moment by explaining the prophecy that Posthumus\u2019 ancestors had placed upon his chest: Posthumus is the \u201clion\u2019s whelp,\u201d Imogen is the \u201cpiece of tender air,\u201d Cymbeline himself is the \u201clofty cedar,\u201d and of course Guiderius and Arviragus are the two branches (300-01, 5.5.434-56). <a href=\"#_edn31\" id=\"_ednref31\">[31]<\/a> <\/p>\n\n\n\nCymbeline surprises everyone by unilaterally offering to pay the Roman tribute whose refusal had led to the bloody struggle between the two nations, and his final pronouncements are, \u201cLaud we the gods\u201d and \u201clet \/ A Roman and a British ensign wave \/ Friendly together\u201d (301, 5.5.474, 477-79). <a href=\"#_edn32\" id=\"_ednref32\">[32]<\/a> <\/p>\n\n\n\nThis political and military turn of events may seem shocking, but as the Norton editors point out, it probably has to do with Shakespeare\u2019s interest in indulging the increasingly strong desire among the English to see their country as a second Roman Empire, preserving at the same time their sense of being independent agents rather than thralls to the history and image of another powerful nation. Beyond that, as Jean E. Howard suggests in her introduction, a sense of \u201ccontingency\u201d pervades the actions and decisions taken in this historical romance. <a href=\"#_edn33\" id=\"_ednref33\">[33]<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\nBy the end of the play, nearly everything has been set right, with the unaccented exception of the death of the Queen and her mean-spirited, oafish son Cloten. Cymbeline\u2019s wrath was real and his error deep, but the power that had seemed to be so absolute and irrevocable turns out not to be so after all.<\/p>\n\n\n\nIn a romance universe, the march of events is not inexorable, and the price of insight and the recovery of one\u2019s identity isn\u2019t death. At the play\u2019s outset, Cymbeline\u2019s behavior was as irrational as that of King Lear, but time has given him the gift of coming round to a better perspective on love and life.<\/p>\n\n\n\nEven the dread justice of royal absolutism is pushed aside in the final act with a wave of the King\u2019s staff since, of course, Guiderius \u201cjust happens\u201d to be Cymbeline\u2019s son. Giacomo is found out as a villain and seems likely to go to the block, but he simply renounces his villainy and is forgiven, so all is well there, too. <a href=\"#_edn34\" id=\"_ednref34\">[34]<\/a> Generosity is spread all around like butter on hot bread.<\/p>\n\n\n\nIn the end, Jupiter\u2019s prophecy, which had seemed to be nonsense, turns out to be true. Generosity reigns over chaos, and intelligibility reigns over incomprehensibility. Jupiter rules, and so does Shakespeare, the artist as romance magician who can draw mellow happiness from anguish and unity from a cascade of improbabilities.<\/p>\n\n\n\nLike romance works of art generally, Cymbeline <\/em>follows the broad spiritual path of an alienation from identity and then a return to it in a more secure, if by no means permanent, state: romance is for the most part a kindly genre that promotes the magical power of art and adventure to transform the human condition, provided we understand that the losses and sorrows induced by our mistakes cannot simply be wished away or canceled out.<\/p>\n\n\n\nRomance presents to us a world largely disposed to fulfill the fundamental desires that give meaning to and ground a person\u2019s time on earth. The only real bittersweetness in the play\u2019s conclusion\u2014for that is a strong feature of romance, too\u2014lies in the King\u2019s understanding of the pain he has caused Imogen and the many years he lost with his sons thanks to his own unjust treatment of Belarius, who, no doubt, must feel sorrow as well now that his revelation leads him to let go of the young men he has come to think of as his own.<\/p>\n\n\n\nEdition.<\/strong> Greenblatt, Stephen, et al., editors. The Norton Shakespeare: Romances and Poems + Digital Edition.<\/em> Third edition. New York: W. W. Norton, 2016. ISBN-13: 978-0-393-93862-3.<\/p>\n\n\n\nCopyright \u00a9 2024, revised 2025 Alfred J. Drake<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\nDocument Timestamp: 8\/7\/2025 6:42 PM<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\" id=\"endnotes\">ENDNOTES<\/h3>\n\n\n\n<hr class=\"wp-block-separator has-alpha-channel-opacity\"\/>\n\n\n\n*To return to exact part of the text referenced by the endnotes below, left-click on the endnote’s numbered link. By contrast, the blue scroll-up button at the bottom right of the page returns to the top of the document.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<a href=\"#_ednref1\" id=\"_edn1\">[1]<\/a> Johnson, Samuel. <a href=\"https:\/\/www.gutenberg.org\/files\/15566\/15566-h\/15566-h.htm\">Notes to Shakespeare, <\/em>Vol. III. Comments on Cymbeline<\/em><\/a>.<\/em> The Augustan Reprint Society. Accessed 2\/16\/2024.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<a href=\"#_ednref2\" id=\"_edn2\">[2]<\/a> Bloom, Harold. Shakespeare: the Invention of the Human. <\/em>New York: Riverhead Books, 1998. See the essay on Cymbeline, <\/em>614-38.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<a href=\"#_ednref3\" id=\"_edn3\">[3]<\/a> Bloom, Harold. Ibid. <\/em>The essay on Hamlet, <\/em>383-431.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<a href=\"#_ednref4\" id=\"_edn4\">[4]<\/a> Hazlitt, William. <a href=\"https:\/\/www.gutenberg.org\/files\/31132\/31132-h\/31132-h.htm\">Hazlitt on English Literature: An Introduction to the Appreciation of Literature<\/em><\/a>.<\/em> Ed. Jacob Zeitlin. New York and London: Oxford UP, 1913. Accessed 2\/16\/2024.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<a href=\"#_ednref5\" id=\"_edn5\">[5]<\/a> Some of the characters who are so prone to overpraising in this play could stand to read Michel de Montaigne\u2019s essay \u201c<a href=\"https:\/\/www.gutenberg.org\/cache\/epub\/3589\/pg3589-images.html\">Of the Inconstancie of our Actions<\/a>.\u201d In it, the author, as translated by John Florio, writes, \u201cWe float and waver betweene divers opinions: we will nothing freely, nothing absolutely, nothing constantly.\u201d Essays, <\/em>Vol. 2, Ch. 1. Accessed 2\/18\/2024.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<a href=\"#_ednref6\" id=\"_edn6\">[6]<\/a> Shakespeare. The Tragedy of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark. <\/em>Second Quarto with additions from the Folio. The Norton Shakespeare: Tragedies,<\/em> 3rd ed. Combined text 358-447. See 783, 1.4.318.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<a href=\"#_ednref7\" id=\"_edn7\">[7]<\/a> <a href=\"https:\/\/www.biblegateway.com\/passage\/?search=Matthew%206%3A13&version=GNV\">The Gospel according to Saint Matthew<\/em> 6:13<\/a>. Bible Gateway. Accessed 2\/16\/2024.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<a href=\"#_ednref8\" id=\"_edn8\">[8]<\/a> Shakespeare. The Tragedy of Othello, the Moor of Venice.<\/em> Folio. The Norton Shakespeare: Tragedies,<\/em> 3rd ed. 512-86. See 552, 3.3.319-21.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<a href=\"#_ednref9\" id=\"_edn9\">[9]<\/a> Livy. <a href=\"http:\/\/data.perseus.org\/citations\/urn:cts:latinLit:phi0914.phi0011.perseus-eng3:57\">Ab Urbe Condita, <\/em>Book 1.57-59<\/a>. The relevant Latin is, \u201cTarquinium mala libido Lucretiae per vim stuprandae capit; [11] cum forma tum spectata castitas incitat.\u201d and \u201cTarquinius fateri amorem, orare, miscere precibus minas, versare in omnes partes muliebrem animum.\u201d Accessed 2\/15\/2024.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<a href=\"#_ednref10\" id=\"_edn10\">[10]<\/a> Marx, Karl. <a href=\"https:\/\/www.marxists.org\/archive\/marx\/works\/download\/pdf\/18th-Brumaire.pdf\">The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte<\/em><\/a>.<\/em> Accessed 2\/15\/2024.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<a href=\"#_ednref11\" id=\"_edn11\">[11]<\/a> Eliot, T. S. \u201cThe Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock.\u201d In The Waste Land and Other Poems. <\/em>New York, Vintage Classics, 2021. Pp. 5-11.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<a href=\"#_ednref12\" id=\"_edn12\">[12]<\/a> Holinshed, Raphael. <a href=\"https:\/\/english.nsms.ox.ac.uk\/Holinshed\/texts.php?text1=1587_0155\">The Chronicles of England, Scotland, and Ireland<\/em><\/a>. <\/em>1587. Vol. 2, pg. 32. The Third Book of the Historie of England. Accessed 2\/16\/2024.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<a href=\"#_ednref13\" id=\"_edn13\">[13]<\/a> Peacock, Thomas Love. \u201c<a href=\"https:\/\/www.poetryfoundation.org\/articles\/69387\/from-the-four-ages-of-poetry\">The Four Ages of Poetry<\/a>,\u201d 1820. Accessed 2\/16\/2024.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<a href=\"#_ednref14\" id=\"_edn14\">[14]<\/a> We might say the same of Shakespeare\u2019s bloody revenge tragedy, Titus Andronicus, <\/em>which so mingles \u201cbarbarian\u201d with \u201cRoman\u201d qualities that the two terms become all but inextricable.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<a href=\"#_ednref15\" id=\"_edn15\">[15]<\/a> Burney, Frances. From Letters and Journals, <\/em>\u201cMr. Barlow\u2019s Proposal.\u201d In Abrams, M. H. et al, eds. The Norton Anthology of English Literature. <\/em>8th ed., Vol. C. pp. 2812-15. Norton, 2006.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<a href=\"#_ednref16\" id=\"_edn16\">[16]<\/a> Shakespeare. The Tragedy of Othello, the Moor of Venice.<\/em> Folio. The Norton Shakespeare: Tragedies,<\/em> 3rd ed. 512-86. See 452, 3.3.356.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<a href=\"#_ednref17\" id=\"_edn17\">[17]<\/a> Shakespeare. The Tragedy of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark. <\/em>Second Quarto with additions from the Folio. The Norton Shakespeare: Tragedies,<\/em> 3rd ed. Combined text 358-447. See 398, 3.1.142-43.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<a href=\"#_ednref18\" id=\"_edn18\">[18]<\/a> Kant, Immanuel. \u201cOn a supposed right to lie from philanthropy.\u201d Shakespeare. The Most Lamentable Roman Tragedy of Titus Andronicus.<\/em> Quarto. The Norton Shakespeare: Tragedies,<\/em> 3rd ed. 145-98. See 170, 5.1.135-40.In Practical Philosophy. <\/em>Trans. and ed. Mary J. Gregor. Cambridge and New York, Cambridge UP, 1999. 605-16. At issue is Kant\u2019s famous response to Benjamin Constant\u2019s challenging question as to whether it\u2019s acceptable to lie if a killer with an axe shows up at your home and wants to know if your best friend is there. The answer in light of the Kantian \u201ccategorical imperative\u201d is No <\/em>because it\u2019s always wrong to lie; otherwise, the very idea of truth would soon be undermined.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<a href=\"#_ednref19\" id=\"_edn19\">[19]<\/a> Ovid. Metamorphoses. <\/em>See Book 6, \u201c<a href=\"https:\/\/www.gutenberg.org\/files\/21765\/21765-h\/21765-h.htm\">Tereus, Procne, and Philomela<\/a>.\u201d Trans. Henry T. Riley. New York & London: George Brill & Sons, 1893. Accessed 2\/16\/2024.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<a href=\"#_ednref20\" id=\"_edn20\">[20]<\/a> Shakespeare. The Most Lamentable Roman Tragedy of Titus Andronicus.<\/em> Quarto. The Norton Shakespeare: Tragedies,<\/em> 3rd ed. 145-98. See 170, 5.1.135-40.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<a href=\"#_ednref21\" id=\"_edn21\">[21]<\/a> See, mainly, Machiavelli\u2019s Chapter XIX of The Prince, <\/em>titled \u201c<a href=\"https:\/\/www.gutenberg.org\/files\/1232\/1232-h\/1232-h.htm#chap19\">That One Should Avoid Being Despised and Hated<\/a>.\u201d Accessed 2\/18\/2024.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<a href=\"#_ednref22\" id=\"_edn22\">[22]<\/a> Shakespeare. King Lear.<\/em> Folio with additions from the Quarto. The Norton Shakespeare: Tragedies,<\/em> 3rd ed. Combined text 764-840. In Act 3, Scene 7 of King Lear, <\/em>Lear\u2019s ally Gloucester, when asked why he helped the old King, had said to his tormentors Regan, Goneril, and Cornwall, \u201cBecause I would not see thy cruel nails \/ Pluck out his poor old eyes\u2026\u201d (811, 3.7.56-57). Little did he know that at the beginning of the scene, Goneril had already conjured up exactly that image, so Gloucester\u2019s exclamation only spurs Cornwall to turn the image into literal reality at once. What the old lord Gloucester can scarcely imagine, these fiends eagerly turn into a gory event. Similarly, Posthumus isn\u2019t satisfied with simply raping Imogen\u2014he must rape her while wearing Posthumus\u2019s clothes since, after all, she referred to those clothes when she insulted him earlier in the play.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<a href=\"#_ednref23\" id=\"_edn23\">[23]<\/a> Shakespeare. As You Like It.<\/em> The Norton Shakespeare: Comedies,<\/em> 3rd ed. 673-731. 695, 2.7.88ff.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<a href=\"#_ednref24\" id=\"_edn24\">[24]<\/a> Castiglione, Baldassare. <a href=\"https:\/\/www.gutenberg.org\/files\/67799\/67799-h\/67799-h.htm\">The Book of the Courtier<\/em><\/a>.<\/em> Trans. Leonard E. Opdycke. Accessed 2\/16\/2024.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<a href=\"#_ednref25\" id=\"_edn25\">[25]<\/a> Belarius seems to share the attitude of Thomas More\u2019s narrator in Utopia, <\/em>who in the final chapter of that book (titled \u201cOf the Religions of the Utopians\u201d) questions Raphael Hythloday\u2019s enthusiasm for the communistic utopian society he visited on the grounds that such a society must lack \u201csplendor\u201d and \u201cmajesty,\u201d which he calls \u201cthe true ornaments of a nation.\u201d See More, Thomas. <a href=\"https:\/\/www.gutenberg.org\/files\/2130\/2130-h\/2130-h.htm#chap10\">Utopia<\/em><\/a>. <\/em>Ed. Henry Morley. Accessed 2\/18\/2024.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<a href=\"#_ednref26\" id=\"_edn26\">[26]<\/a> Perhaps the best example of this attitude is the shipwrecked Viola in Shakespeare\u2019s Twelfth Night. <\/em>In Act 1, Scene 2, after devising her scheme to disguise herself as a young male page and offer her services to the Duke of Illyria, Viola says to her fellow survivor the ship\u2019s captain, \u201cWhat else may hap, to time I will commit.\u201d Twelfth Night, or What You Will.<\/em> The Norton Shakespeare: Comedies,<\/em> 3rd ed. 743-97. See 746, 1.2.59.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<a href=\"#_ednref27\" id=\"_edn27\">[27]<\/a> Shakespeare. As You Like It.<\/em> In The Norton Shakespeare: Comedies,<\/em> 3rd ed. 673-731). See 697, 2.7.152-53.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<a href=\"#_ednref28\" id=\"_edn28\">[28]<\/a> Aesop. Fables.<\/em> \u201c<a href=\"https:\/\/fablesofaesop.com\/the-kings-son-and-the-painted-lion.html\">The King\u2019s Son and the Painted Lion<\/a>.\u201d Accessed 2\/7\/2024.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<a href=\"#_ednref29\" id=\"_edn29\">[29]<\/a> The back-and-forth battle scenes make much the same point about human actions being fickle and inconstant, dependent more on circumstance than on any purported firmness of character. As in a previous note, see <a href=\"https:\/\/www.gutenberg.org\/cache\/epub\/3589\/pg3589-images.html\">Montaigne\u2019s Essays, <\/em>Vol. 2, Ch. 1<\/a>. Accessed 2\/18\/2024.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<a href=\"#_ednref30\" id=\"_edn30\">[30]<\/a> Arnold, Matthew. \u201c<a href=\"https:\/\/books.google.com\/books?id=DndNAAAAYAAJ&dq\">Preface to Poems, 1853<\/em><\/a>.\u201d Pg. 12. In Poems by Matthew Arnold. <\/em>London & New York: Oxford UP, 1909. Accessed 2\/18\/2024.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<a href=\"#_ednref31\" id=\"_edn31\">[31]<\/a> Perhaps it\u2019s best to leave aside the fact that this seemingly astute reading depends in part, as the Norton editors point out in a footnote to pg. 300, on a piece of bad etymology.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<a href=\"#_ednref32\" id=\"_edn32\">[32]<\/a> With more self-consciousness to his credit, Cymbeline might adapt Richard the Third\u2019s much-noted question about his improbable success with Lady Anne (\u201cWas ever woman in this humor wooed? \/ Was ever woman in this humor won?\u201d 393, 1.2.214-15) and ask, \u201cDid ever Roman in this humor go scot-free?\u201d See Shakespeare. The Tragedy of King Richard the Third.<\/em> Quarto. The Norton Shakespeare: Histories,<\/em> 3rd ed. 384-465.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<a href=\"#_ednref33\" id=\"_edn33\">[33]<\/a> See Norton editors\u2019 footnotes for Cymbeline<\/em>, Norton Romances and Poems <\/em>3rd ed., pp. 213, 216.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<a href=\"#_ednref34\" id=\"_edn34\">[34]<\/a> Romance, which seems most comfortable dealing with archetypal characters rather than realistic, grounded individuals, need not lean into character development: the characters in Cymbeline <\/em>transform as suddenly and completely as if they were in some modern work grounded in magical realism. This sometimes happens in comedy as well.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Shakespeare\u2019s Cymbeline Commentary Alfred J. Drake, Ph.D. Shakespeare, William. Cymbeline, King of Britain. (The Norton Shakespeare: Romances and Poems, 3rd ed. 207-301). […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_eb_attr":"","_uag_custom_page_level_css":"","_lmt_disableupdate":"no","_lmt_disable":"","site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","ast-disable-related-posts":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"default","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"iawp_total_views":13,"footnotes":""},"categories":[26],"tags":[28,36,29,30,31,32],"wf_page_folders":[9],"class_list":["post-147","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry","category-romance-plays","tag-early-britons","tag-elizabethan-drama","tag-female-villains-shakespearean-heroines-imogen","tag-roman-empire","tag-shakespeares-greek-and-roman-plays","tag-shakespeares-romance-plays"],"uagb_featured_image_src":{"full":false,"thumbnail":false,"medium":false,"medium_large":false,"large":false,"1536x1536":false,"2048x2048":false},"uagb_author_info":{"display_name":"ajd_shxpr","author_link":"https:\/\/www.ajdrake.com\/shakespeare\/author\/ajd_shxpr\/"},"uagb_comment_info":0,"uagb_excerpt":"Shakespeare\u2019s Cymbeline Commentary Alfred J. Drake, Ph.D. Shakespeare, William. Cymbeline, King of Britain. (The Norton Shakespeare: Romances and Poems, 3rd ed. 207-301). […]","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ajdrake.com\/shakespeare\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/147","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ajdrake.com\/shakespeare\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ajdrake.com\/shakespeare\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ajdrake.com\/shakespeare\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ajdrake.com\/shakespeare\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=147"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.ajdrake.com\/shakespeare\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/147\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9954,"href":"https:\/\/www.ajdrake.com\/shakespeare\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/147\/revisions\/9954"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ajdrake.com\/shakespeare\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=147"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ajdrake.com\/shakespeare\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=147"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ajdrake.com\/shakespeare\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=147"},{"taxonomy":"wf_page_folders","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ajdrake.com\/shakespeare\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/wf_page_folders?post=147"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}

{"id":147,"date":"2024-04-13T17:36:10","date_gmt":"2024-04-14T00:36:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.ajdrake.com\/shakespeare\/?page_id=147"},"modified":"2025-08-26T17:06:49","modified_gmt":"2025-08-27T00:06:49","slug":"cymbeline-king-of-britain-2","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/www.ajdrake.com\/shakespeare\/cymbeline-king-of-britain-2\/","title":{"rendered":"Cymbeline, King of Britain"},"content":{"rendered":"