Welcome to Shaketember 2024! Thank you for joining me here. Before we get into the play itself, just want to say quickly, whether you’re interested to know a bit more about Cymbeline and find out if it’s worth reading, or maybe you’ve read it already and can’t wait to have a discussion, I’m really glad you’re here. In this post, Cymbeline part 1, I’m going to give a rough storyline of the first three Acts of Cymbeline and in Cymbeline part 2, to discuss characters and themes in a bit more detail.
Act 1
Cymbeline is the name of a King of Ancient Britain. At the beginning of Act1 Scene 1, two gentlemen explain to us that the court is not in a happy mood because the king is not pleased: his only surviving child, a daughter called Imogen, has married a man against his will.
I find hints of other Shakespeare’s plays in Cymbeline all over the place. Imogen angers her father who is a king, and they have a blazing row right at the beginning of the play. What does this remind you of? It feels very much like Cordelia and King Lear at the beginning of King Lear. She’s quite a fiery girl.
IMOGEN
Sir,
It is your fault that I have lov’d Posthumus.
You bred him as my playfellow, and he is
A man worth any woman… (A1S1)
It’s also interesting to note, Cordelia is one of three children, who is singled out because she’s the true and loving one; Imogen is also one of three children, who is singled out because she’s the only one left. We’re told by the two gentlemen at the beginning that the two older sons of Cymbeline are stolen and lost for the last 20 years.
These two gentlemen tell us so much, it’s a bit of an information overload. Not sure how you feel about it. The story of Cymbeline is pretty complicated overall. The final scene is also full of information and big reveals. Judi Dench said when she played Imogen in that last scene, she ran out of faces to pull.
Back to Act 1 Scene 1. The reason Imogen angers her father is because she married a man of her own choice, called Posthumus, instead of the man her father chooses. Imogen’s husband is then exiled on pain of death as a result. What does this remind you of? Romeo & Juliet. Because of the exile, there is a farewell scene between Imogen and Posthumus, just like the one in Romeo & Juliet. It’s funny for both couples, the women say,
JULIET
Wilt thou be gone? It is not yet near day.
It was the nightingale, and not the lark,
That pierc’d the fearful hollow of thine ear…
… stay yet, thou need’st not to be gone. (Romeo & Juliet, A3S5)
And the men are both super unsentimental. Romeo says,
ROMEO
It was the lark, the herald of the morn,
No nightingale. (Romeo & Juliet, A3S5)
Do you think she doesn’t know? There’s a similar exchange between Imogen and Posthumus, which I find quite funny.
POSTHUMUS
Should we be taking leave
As long a term as yet we have to live,
The loathness to depart would grow. Adieu! (A1S1)
We could spend the rest of our lives saying goodbye, it’ll only make it worse. I’m going, bye!
IMOGEN
Nay, stay a little.
Were you but riding forth to air yourself,
Such parting were too petty. (A1S1)
If you were just going out for some fresh air, a farewell like this would not be good enough, let alone this might be the last time I ever see you. Juliet agrees with Imogen that the farewell is way too hasty and unceremonial, “Are thou gone so? (Romeo & Juliet, A3S5)” Is that it?
In addition to Cymbeline the King, Imogen and Posthumus, We get introduced to a few more characters in Act 1. The Queen and her son Cloten. The two gentlemen in the opening scene tell us that the court judges Posthumus ‘a poor but worthy gentleman’ and Cloten ‘a thing too bad for bad report’. Act 1 Scene 2 shows him to be a comic villain, useless and stupid. Act 2 Scene 3 shows the baseness in his character. Imogen doesn’t want to have anything to do with him but he won’t leave her alone.
CLOTEN
Winning will put any man into courage. If I could get this foolish Imogen, I should have gold enough.
It’s almost morning, is’t not?
FIRST LORD
Day, my lord.
CLOTEN
I would this music would come. I am advised to give her music a mornings; they say it will penetrate. Come on, tune. If you can penetrate her with your fingering, so. We’ll try with tongue too. If none will do, let her remain; but I’ll never give o’er. (A2S3)
He might be the son of a king’s wife, but he’s not a prince.
One character that’s easily missed is the court.
POSTHUMUS
The gods protect you,
And bless the good remainders of the court! (A1S1)
We see it the court in action in Act 1 Scene 2 where one lord flatters Cloten and the other exposes his true character in witty comments. Here’s another example
FIRST GENTLEMAN
… She’s wedded; Her husband banish’d; she imprison’d.
All Is outward sorrow, though I think the King
Be touch’d at very heart.
SECOND GENTLEMAN
None but the King?
FIRST GENTLEMAN
He that hath lost her too. So is the Queen,
That most desir’d the match. But not a courtier,
Although they wear their faces to the bent
Of the King’s looks, hath a heart that is not
Glad at the thing they scowl at. (A1S1)
Not one courtier who is not glad about the match, even though they arrange their face into sadness appropriately to please the king.
There is a sense that the court can tell right from wrong, a good man from a bad. Which is quite different to the situation in King Lear. When Kent protests, he is immediately banished; when the servant challenges Cornwall, he is instantly killed. The situation just goes from bad to worse. There’s no power to check the evil. But not so in Cymbeline, which is so hopeful especially if you happen to be, like me, reading King Lear side by side.
I’m not sure if it’s because I’ve been reading them side by side, I see a lot of similarities between them, I notice themes and keywords in King Lear that are picked up by Cymbeline.
For example, both of them are Jacobean plays, which means they were written later in Shakespeare’s career during the reign of King James, when James tried desperately to unite Scotland and England. So as a play written by a loyal playwright of the King’s Men, we see the nation of Lear and Cymbeline referred to as ‘Britain’ in contrast to ‘England’, as in his Elizabethan plays. And both stories are set in Ancient Britain about mythical kings.
Let’s go back to the characters. Cloten, the court, the Queen. The Queen promises to be a good stepmother to Imogen and to plead with the king for Posthumus’ return. She also allows them extra time to say goodbye. Which is very kind of her. But we find out the King wishes Imogen to marry Cloten because the Queen wishes her to marry Cloten, and that’s because if Imogen marries Cloten, Cloten gets to rule the kingdom. Cymbeline gets led by his new wife all over the place. We’ll see another example where the King goes to war because the Queen thinks it wise to go to war. So that makes us suspicious of her. In addition to that, the first verdict of the Queen is given by the virtuous Imogen. Imogen says the Queen’s kindness is “dissembling courtesy”. Who does ‘dissembling’ remind you of? Richard III. Or Edmund in King Lear. But for me ‘dissemble’ is a character trait that’s most closely associated with Richard III. Even the way she talks is the same,
QUEEN
—For you, Posthumus,
So soon as I can win th’ offended King,
I will be known your advocate.
… Be brief, I pray you.
If the King come, I shall incur I know not
How much of his displeasure. (A1S1)
Richard III says to Clarence,
RICHARD
… I will unto the King,
And whatsoe’er you will employ me in,
Were it to call King Edward’s widow “sister,”
I will perform it to enfranchise you. (Richard III, A1S1)
Enfranchise means to set free. I will plead for your freedom, even though it’s going to cost me dearly. Imogen is soon proved right. We see the Queen showing her true colours by acquiring poison from Doctor Cornelius and giving it to Imogen’s servant, Pisanio, to kill him. She says:
QUEEN
It is a thing I made, which hath the King
Five times redeem’d from death. I do not know
What is more cordial. Nay, I prithee take it;
It is an earnest of a further good
That I mean to thee. (A1S5)
The Queen gives it as poison. Pisanio takes it as cordial. What neither the Queen nor Pisanio knows is that, it’s something else altogether. I see this as the court, as a character, in action. When Doctor Cornelius gives it to her, he says,
CORNELIUS
… Those she has
Will stupefy and dull the sense awhile,
Which first perchance she’ll prove on cats and dogs,
Then afterward up higher. But there is
No danger in what show of death it makes,
More than the locking-up the spirits a time,
To be more fresh, reviving. (A1S5)
The drug will stupefy and dull the senses for a while, there is no danger in the appearance of death that the drug induces, it’ll lock up the spirits for a while, and the person will wake up refreshed. What does the drug remind you of? Yes, Romeo & Juliet again! This is Juliet’s drug! Except Juliet drinks it knowing what the drug does. But who is going to drink this? And since the drug is mentioned, of course it’s going to be swallowed by someone at some point.
The next key character is Iachimo, whom the exiled Posthumus meets in Italy and lays a wager on the honour of Imogen. Iachimo seems to dislike Posthumus for no apparent reason right from the start and their cause for getting into this dangerous gamble is really trivial. The whole affair sounds pretty irrational and beastly to me. Posthumus boasts about Imogen’s honour and goodness. Iachimo boasts that he can easily prove him wrong. Next thing we know, Iachimo arrives at the court in Britain to seduce Imogen.
His first tactic is to alienate Posthumus and Imogen. He lies about how happy Posthumus is in Italy, eating, drinking and merrymaking with prostitutes, implies that Posthumus has forgotten her and offers himself as her lover, for her to revenge. Imogen sees through his game and says, go away now! otherwise you’ll be in so much trouble with my dad. I find it quite sweet how she mentions her dad here in the hour of crisis, even though she’s locked up by him and they’re not speaking.
When his first tactic fails, Iachimo quickly changes course and says that’s just a test, to see how she would respond to his advance. Now he can go back and reassure Posthumus who ‘sits among men like a descended god’, who is the ‘best feather of our wing’. He praises Posthumus to get back into Imogen’s good books. This is his second tactic. If he can’t have real evidence against her, he’ll create some fake evidence to prove her unfaithful. Making up fake evidence against a wife’s innocence to provoke the husband to jealousy, madness and murder – does this remind you of anything? Othello.
The way Iachimo conjures up non-existing but convincing sexual images with provocative language is very similar to Iago.
IACHIMO
O dearest soul, your cause doth strike my heart
With pity that doth make me sick! A lady
So fair, and fasten’d to an empery,
Would make the great’st king double, to be partner’d
With tomboys hir’d with that self exhibition
Which your own coffers yield! with diseas’d ventures
That play with all infirmities for gold
Which rottenness can lend nature! Such boil’d stuff
As well might poison poison! (A1S6)
Act 2
So at night, we see Iachimo appear in sleeping Imogen’s bedchamber. There are a lot of hints about rape which sets up expectations that this might go the same way. Iachimo starts by saying,
IACHIMO
Our Tarquin thus
Did softly press the rushes ere he waken’d
The chastity he wounded. (A2S2)
Tarquin is a Roman who, in the legends, raped Lucretia. It’s the subject of Shakespeare’s long narrative poem The Rape of Lucrece. Lucrece’s husband praises his wife for being beautiful and chaste and straightaway Tarquin goes and rapes Lucretia while the husband is away. There’s a detail in The Rape of Lucrece where Tarquin touches her chest and wakes her up. That’s probably the bit Iachimo is talking about,
IACHIMO
Our Tarquin thus
Did softly press the rushes ere he waken’d
The chastity he wounded. (A2S2)
If the audience knows the story of Tarquin, they’d probably be expecting Imogen to commit suicide because that’s what Lucrece does.
Before Iachimo goes back to his hiding place, he bookends it with another literary allusion to rape,
IACHIMO
She hath been reading late
The tale of Tereus; here the leaf’s turn’d down
Where Philomel gave up. (A2S2)
Tereus is a king in Greek mythology, who raped his wife’s sister Philomel, cut her tongue and held her captive. The story also involves serving one’s own child’s flesh in a meal in revenge. Does it remind you of anything? Titus Andronicus. So if the audience knows the story of Philomel, they’d probably be expecting some kind of revenge.
What does Iachimo do in between?
IACHIMO
Cytherea,
How bravely thou becom’st thy bed! fresh lily,
And whiter than the sheets! That I might touch!
But kiss; one kiss! Rubies unparagon’d,
How dearly they do’t! (A2S2)
Does he touch her? Does he kiss her? I thought he must have done but curiously the Iachimo in the BBC 1983 production I watched, doesn’t! But somehow it makes the atmosphere more tense. The next thing we naturally expect is violence. To my greatest surprise, he says,
IACHIMO
But my design
To note the chamber. I will write all down:
Such and such pictures; there the window; such
Th’ adornment of her bed… (A2S2)
And he starts to make a list of everything in her room! So he can tell Posthumus, ‘I slept with her, I know the colour of her wallpaper.’ Which I don’t think is very convincing. However, more effectively, he steals Imogen’s bracelet which was given by Posthumus in Act 1 Scene 1, and he notes,
IACHIMO
On her left breast
A mole cinque-spotted, like the crimson drops
I’ th’ bottom of a cowslip. Here’s a voucher
Stronger than ever law could make; this secret
Will force him think I have pick’d the lock and ta’en
The treasure of her honour. (A2S2)
Back goes Iachimo to Italy and tells the gullible Posthumus that he has succeeded. By the end of their conversation, Posthumus believes him so deeply that he says,
POSTHUMUS
If you will swear you have not done’t, you lie;
And I will kill thee if thou dost deny
Thou’st made me cuckold. (A2S4)
You’re lying if you swear that you have NOT slept with my wife, and I will kill you if you deny you HAVE slept with my wife.
POSTHUMUS
O that I had her here to tear her limb-meal! (A2S4)
Just like Othello says,
OTHELLO
I’ll tear her all to pieces. (A3S3)
Act 3
There are conflicts on the personal level as well as on the national level. To make the story more epic, Shakespeare makes sure there’s a war going on between Britain and the Roman Empire, just like there’s a war between France and Britain in King Lear.
I haven’t mentioned my favourite character in the play at all. Pisanio, Posthumus and Imogen’s servant, now appears on stage, sad, because he gets a letter from his master Posthumus ordering him to kill Imogen.
PISANIO
How? of adultery? Wherefore write you not
What monsters her accuse? Leonatus!
O master, what a strange infection
Is fall’n into thy ear! What false Italian,
As poisonous-tongued as handed, hath prevailed
On thy too ready hearing? Disloyal? No.
She’s punished for her truth and undergoes,
More goddesslike than wifelike, such assaults
As would take in some virtue. O my master,
Thy mind to her is now as low as were
Thy fortunes. How? That I should murder her,
Upon the love and truth and vows which I
Have made to thy command? I her? Her blood?
If it be so to do good service, never
Let me be counted serviceable. How look I
That I should seem to lack humanity
So much as this fact comes to? (A3S2)
We’ll talk more about the nature of being a good servant and the significance of it in Cymbeline part 2. But for now, Imogen and Pisanio get to Milford Haven in Wales, where Imogen believes she’ll meet her husband. But Pisanio reluctantly reveals to her the order of murder. She’s heartbroken.
PISANIO
What shall I need to draw my sword?
The paper Hath cut her throat already. (A3S4)
I was really touched when I first heard this line. He understands how she feels. Imogen has no friend or confidant that’s her equal, like Beatrice and Hero, or Rosalind and Celia. Everyone around her is against her. Except Pisanio, who is an anchor in the storm.
IMOGEN
Thou art all the comfort
The gods will diet me with. (A3S4)
His faith in his master and mistress’ innocence and integrity is firmer than theirs for each other.
PISANIO
It cannot be
But that my master is abused. Some villain,
Ay, and singular in his art, hath done
You both this cursed injury.
IMOGEN
Some Roman courtesan?
PISANIO
No, on my life. (A3S4)
He gives her a bold but sensible solution for the difficult situation. He’ll tell Posthumus that she’s dead. She’ll go to seek a position with the Roman Ambassador disguised as a page boy, in order to find out what’s really going on with Posthumus. Remember Posthumus is exiled in Italy. A noblewoman fallen from grace seeks protection from a powerful man in disguise. What does it remind you of? Twelfth Night.
In the pivotal moment, right in the middle of the play, Act 3 Scene 4, where Imogen is supposed to die, she is instead, with the help of Pisanio, transformed into a young man, with new clothes, a new name, carrying a new mission, in a new landscape, the Welsh mountains.
PISANIO
May the gods
Direct you to the best! (A3S5)
With those parting words, Imogen is now truly alone.
The protagonists leaves the city for the countryside and at the end come back to the city. What does it remind you of? There are probably a few examples of this in Shakespeare’s plays, but the one I’m most familiar with is A Midsummer Night’s Dream. Imogen has now left her familiar stifling environment behind and come to a wild and transforming landscape, where she finds kindness but also goes through the depths of hell. As if in a dream, or a fairytale, two noble young men appear with a wise old man living in a cave. I think I’ll stop here.
A Day of Small Things 