Cymbeline: 'Tis Slander, Whose Edge is Sharper Than the Sword’

Philip Rowe (0:09)

Welcome to The History Of European Theatre podcast, and thanks for joining me on this journey through millennia of theatrical history. Episode 232, Cymbeline, Tislanda, whose edge is sharper than the sword.

Last time, Coriolanus presented a story concerned with the Patricians and the plebeians of ancient Rome and the disagreements between them that led to something close to civil war. Although Coriolanus is officially Shakespeare's last Roman tragedy, his next play, Cymbeline, is set in the Roman period but in England, and suggests that Shakespeare was still deeply attracted to Roman history, although in this case his plundering of that history was not directly from Plutarch, but another of his favourite sources. There are some themes in Cymbeline that you will find familiar from Coriolanus, and well encounter again in The Tempest. But once again, we have a play from Shakespeare that's not quite like any other of his, despite some shared themes with later plays. For many, Cymbeline remains an enigmatic play, or a flawed experiment, or an example of the work of a playwright growing tired with his work, and perhaps something of all of that is present in the play. But there is, I think, a good argument that Shakespeare was in fact still experimenting with form and content and responding to concerns of his time in his plays, just as he had always done.

For Cymbeline, we have just one record of an early performance. Simon Forman noted seeing it in April 1611 His recollections focus on the plot lines and unfortunately give no idea about the performance, the staging, or what he thought of the play. But at least we get a reasonable dating from that record. Most scholars accept that the play was probably fairly new in April 1611 and that it was most likely first produced in 1610 That dating is supported by the fact that the play is clearly influenced by Beaumont and Fletcher's Philasta, which was on the public stage in 1609 Both plays belonged to a Jacobean trend for tragicomedy, and Shakespeare would go on to work with Fletcher on his last plays, so safe to assume that he had an interest in the younger playwright's work. I plan to look at Beaumont and Fletcher's work in the next season of the podcast, so no further mention of them at the moment.

The text we have for the play is that printed in the first folio, which is considered to be a good one, probably taken from a scribed copy of the prompt book. An item of particular note from Simon Foreman's record is that he refers to the heroine of the play as Innogen, I-n-n-o-g-e-n, whereas the folio version has her as Imogen. Innogen is also the name used in Hollingshurst Chronicles, one of the sources of the play. So it seems certain that the character name was originally Innogen and was probably translated to Imogen in error. But it was an error that stuck for much of the life of the play since. And today you will find either version of the name used. I'm going to stick with Imogen.

To construct his play, Shakespeare primarily used Hollingshurst Chronicles for his account of the semi-legendary British king. The part of the plot that deals with the heroic defence of a narrow pass comes from the Scottish section of Hollingshurst that Shakespeare was already familiar with from his work on Macbeth. Other details in the play suggest that he was familiar with A Mirror for Magistrates, a 1578 collection of poetry concerned with the lives of great men, and A New Chronicle for England and France by Robert Fabian that was published in 1516 The plot concerning the wager over Imogen's virtue is taken from The Decamron by Boccaccio. Some other detail might also have been taken from the play Rare Triumphs of Love and Fortune, an anonymous piece that dates from 1589, which shows a blend of medieval morality play and Renaissance period romantic adventure. The play includes Jupiter, aka Jove, as a character and two lovers, one of whom is called Fidelia.

Not surprisingly, given the various sources, the plot of Cymbeline is one of Shakespeare's more complex constructions, which includes some very dramatic reveals and revelations in the closing moments of the play. So buckle up, here's a brief synopsis of the play, which I will make as clear as I possibly can.

Imogen, the only living child of King Cymbeline, has secretly married commoner Leonatus Posthumus, who had been part of the king's household since the death of his parents, preferring him to her stepmother's son, the foolish Cloten, who was the preferred choice of her parents. Posthumus is banished, and their farewells are interrupted by an angry Cymbeline. Posthumus' servant, Pisano, remains with Imogen while he departs for Rome. Cloten and Posthumus argue and then fence, with Cloten coming off the loser, while his supporting lords laugh at him behind his back. In Rome, Posthumus gets involved in a wager with an Italian and a Frenchman over the chastity of women. Posthumus bets the diamond ring that Imogen gave him and 10,000 ducats that Iachimo would not be able to seduce Imogen.