Cymbeline, an underrated Shakespeare play

 

Painting of Imogen by Wilhelm Ferdinand Souchon

1/ I often say we cannot know Shakespeare the way we know other writers, because his plays have such different visions and depict such a wide range of perspectives and views—he is elusive. But we may notice his obsessions, we may notice the themes that keep recurring in the plays. Forced marriage is one example, which can be found in Romeo and Juliet, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, The Merry Wives of Windsor, and now Cymbeline. Father-daughter relationship, especially a difficult one, is in those plays and also in King Lear, Othello, Much Ado About Nothing, The Taming of the Shrew, Hamlet, The Tempest, The Winter’s Tale, The Merchant of Venice, and probably some other plays I haven’t read. 

Let’s look at Cymbeline. 

“CYMBELINE That mightst have had the sole son of my queen. 

IMOGEN O blessed that I might not! I chose an eagle 

And did avoid a puttock. 

CYMBELINE Thou took’st a beggar, wouldst have made my throne 

A seat for baseness. 

IMOGEN No, I rather added 

A luster to it.” 

(Act 1 scene 1) 

I like that.

Here’s the plot: King Cymbeline wants his daughter Imogen to marry his second wife’s son Cloten (strictly this isn’t incest, but still rather weird) but Imogen secretly marries a guy called Posthumus Leonatus, adopted as an orphan and raised in Cymbeline’s family (also kinda weird—no?). Cymbeline imprisons his daughter, as one does, and banishes Posthumus. In Italy, Posthumus meets a bunch of guys and one Iachimo, believing that all women could be seduced, makes a wager that if he can “[enjoy] the dearest bodily part of [Posthumus’s] mistress”, he can keep the diamond ring Posthumus got from Imogen, and if he loses, he has to give him 10,000 ducats. 

Pleasant guy, that Iachimo.

There are many elements in Cymbeline that make me think of other plays: the wager and the ring make me think of The Merchant of Venice and All’s Well That Ends Well; the potion reminds me of Romeo and Juliet; the chastity theme echoes Much Ado About Nothing and contrasts with Troilus and Cressida; the separation and adoption are later echoed by The Winter’s Tale; the banishment is reminiscent of King Lear and The Tempest; the father’s ghost makes me think of Hamlet. Cymbeline has the jealousy theme, as in Much Ado About Nothing, Othello, and The Winter’s Tale; it also has the theme of appearance vs reality, and slander (the danger of words), two of Shakespeare’s obsessions. 

“PISANIO […] The paper 

Hath cut her throat already. No, ‘tis slander, 

Whose edge is sharper than the sword, whose tongue 

Outvenoms all the worms of Nile, whose breath

Rides on the posting winds and doth belie 

All corners of the world. Kings, queens, and states,

Maids, matrons, nay, the secrets of the grave

This viperous slander enters…” 

(Act 3 scene 4) 

And of course, like every other Shakespeare play, Cymbeline has disguise. 

2/ Look at this line: 

“CLOTEN […] If you can penetrate her with your fingering, so; we’ll try with tongue too…” 

(Act 2 scene 3) 

HAHAHAHAHAHA. If that doesn’t persuade you to read Cymbeline (or just Shakespeare in general), I don’t know what will.

This is Cloten talking to the musicians.

I don’t know what Jane Austen thought about Cymbeline, but I imagine that she would have enjoyed the foolish Cloten’s courtship of Imogen.

A critic (I forgot which one) has pointed out that Shakespeare often has his characters cling to, and become fixated on, a word or a phrase that they say over and over again. An example is here, when Cloten keeps repeating “his garment” and “his meanest garment” before Imogen, only because she says “His meanest garment/ That ever hath but clipped his body is dearer/ In my respect than all the hairs above thee/ Were they all made such men” (ibid.). 

3/ Imogen’s soliloquy when she’s alone in Wales in men’s clothes (before she meets Belarius, Guiderius, and Arviragus) has 3 things I find interesting. 

“IMOGEN I see a man’s life is a tedious one…” 

(Act 3 scene 4)

In Shakespeare’s plays, there are many women who disguise themselves as men, and generally they then have more power and are more in control—see Portia in The Merchant of Venice or Rosalind in As You Like It. With Imogen, Shakespeare shows that it’s not always the case.

“IMOGEN […] To lapse in fulness

Is sorer than to lie for need, and falsehood

Is worse in kings than beggars. My dear lord, 

Thou art one o’ th’ false ones…”

(ibid.) 

I like that. 

“IMOGEN […] I were best not call; I dare not call. Yet famine, 

Ere clean it o’erthrow nature, makes it valiant. 

Plenty and peace breeds cowards; hardness ever

Of hardiness is mother…” 

(ibid.) 

That is very true.

Later: 

“IMOGEN […] Gods, what lies I have heard!

Our courtiers say all’s savage but at court. 

Experience, O, thou disprov’st report!” 

(Act 4 scene 2) 

In his essay, Tony Tanner points out that there are many secrets in Cymbeline; Imogen is in a unique plight, compared to other Shakespeare heroines, in that she is unaware of many secrets, and also doesn’t have anyone to guide her like Isabella has Vincentio in Measure for Measure; and no character knows much. 

The last point I think is interesting. In Measure for Measure, Vincentio knows and stages everything; it’s the same for Helena in All’s Well That Ends Well, Portia in The Merchant of Venice, and Prospero in The Tempest. In Othello, Iago is the one with secrets and plots everything—the only thing he doesn’t know is the love his wife is capable of. In King Lear, Edmund knows most secrets, except Edgar’s disguise. Other plays tend to have one big secret that one character or more know.

Cymbeline is a play full of secrets and each character only knows a bit. It’s a fog-bound play. 

4/ The jealousy theme in Cymbeline is different from that of other plays in that the slanderer doesn’t point towards someone else: in Much Ado About Nothing, Don John tells Claudio that Don Pedro woos Hero for himself and later makes him think that Hero has sex with Borachio; in Othello, Iago poisons his mind and leads him to think Desdemona has sex with Cassio; whereas in Cymbeline, Iachimo claims that he has had sex with Imogen. But why?

Is Iachimo evil, like Iago? Or is he a callous, thoughtless man who wants to prove a point and makes a wager, and once he fails, cheats so as not to lose money, without thinking about consequences for others?

I’m inclined to think Iachimo is callous, thoughtless, and even misogynistic rather than evil—I don’t think he aims to destroy Posthumus and Imogen—he seems to think it’s a harmless game. Posthumus is the one who wants to have Imogen killed. Considered from every perspective, it is wrong, and it’s even more inappropriate when Imogen is a princess (currently the only heir to the king, as Cymbeline’s sons are long lost), Posthumus is socially inferior to her, their marriage doesn’t seem to be official, and he is banished. What right does he have to kill her?

However, he later repents and tries to kill himself. 

“POSTHUMUS […] You married ones, 

If each of you should take this course, how many 

Must murder wives much better than themselves 

For wrying but a little!” 

(Act 5 scene 1) 

This is interesting because at this point, Posthumus doesn’t know that Imogen was innocent. He is filled with guilt and remorse, whereas Othello doesn’t regret killing Desdemona until he realises that she never did anything wrong. It doesn’t justify his order for Pisanio, but there’s a difference and it must be said.   

5/ Apparently one of the common complaints about Cymbeline, and one of the reasons it’s not very popular, is that it has too much plot. Samuel Johnson, going even further, calls it “unresisting imbecility” (he’s wrong). 

The complex plot, with various secrets, doesn’t really bother me till Act 5, when it becomes rather messy. 

When the ghost of the father appears, I think, wait, is this Hamlet?

Then some time after, a character says “The Queen is dead” (Act 5 scene 5), and I think, is this turning into Macbeth? 

“CORNELIUS With horror, madly dying, like her life, 

Which, being cruel to the world, concluded 

Most cruel to herself…” 

(ibid.) 

That sounds like Lady Macbeth. But no. Cornelius goes on about the Queen’s confessions before death.

“CORNELIUS […] She did confess she had

For you a mortal mineral, which, being took, 

Should by the minute feed on life and, ling’ring,

By inches waste you. In which time she purposed, 

By watching, weeping, tendance, kissing, to 

O’ercome you with her show and, in time, 

When she had fitted you with her craft, to work 

Her son into th’ adoption of the crown…” 

(ibid.) 

What is going on? Is this Hamlet? 

I can’t help thinking that Shakespeare is doing something in Cymbeline but I don’t know what it is—there are lots of parallels to his other plays. Self-parody?  

But finally, when Shakespeare ties up all the loose ends (there are much more here than in other plays, as far as I remember), all details fit together and somehow it all makes sense: Imogen casually tells Cloten that he can’t even compare to Posthumus’s clothes so he puts on those clothes and seeks her (with the intention of raping her); he wears Posthumus’s clothes and gets beheaded, so Imogen thinks Posthumus is dead; Cloten dies so the Queen dies (admittedly she doesn’t know he’s dead, only that he’s gone missing), and it has to be Guiderius who kills Cloten so Belarius has to tell Cymbeline who they are, etc.

Act 5 is messy, but it gets all tidied up. Perfectly. 

As Tony Tanner puts it: 

“And yet, in what seems like the last few minutes of this very long play, everything is resolved, clarified, unified, without a loose end left behind. Never was a more dazzling feat of tidying-up.” (Introduction) 

6/ I myself love Cymbeline. If you like the play, read Tony Tanner’s essay. If you don’t, read it and see if he may change your mind. 

For example, he says that the scene of Imogen (as Fidele) next to the headless body of Cloten “must be the strangest scene in Shakespeare”. 

“She not only assumes that it is Posthumus but identifies the body, part by part, as that of her beloved—yet it is the body of the figure she most abhorred, on which she proceeds to throw herself. What is this telling us? Is it the head alone (=quality of mind, refinement of intelligence and understanding) which differentiates man from man?” (ibid.)

When I read the scene myself, I thought it was an implausible, fairytale-logic scene—how could Imogen not recognise that it’s not Posthumus’s body, even if she’s somewhat dazed from the potion? But she clearly identifies the body, part by part. There’s something odd here. 

Tony Tanner goes on: 

“Take off the heads or ‘tops’, and is there then no difference between Posthumus and Cloten? And didn’t we see Posthumus effectively ‘lose his head’ in Rome, succumbing figuratively to what has overtaken Cloten literally? This point was nicely made by Robert Hunter, who suggested that, since we see the insanely jealous Posthumus adopting the mindless savagery of Cloten, during Posthumus’s two-act absence Cloten provides us with a present parody of him. Others have suggested that the execution of Cloten in Posthumus’s clothes acts as a vicarious or symbolic (or substitute) death of Posthumus’s bad self. However you take it, there is certainly an odd continuity between Posthumus and Cloten; and, despite what looks like their all too obvious oppositeness, a curious kind of heads-and-tails identity.” (ibid.)

As he points out, they are never on stage together—it would be funny if a production has the same actor play both Posthumus and Cloten.

Are these good interpretations, or far-fetched? But clearly there is something here—Shakespeare deliberately has Imogen identify the body parts as Posthumus’s. 

This is how Tony Tanner ends his essay: 

“Shakespeare has taken an assortment of the most disparate, incongruous, intractable material imaginable, all concerning important matters—sexual, familiar, dynastic, political, imperial, and proceeds to show with what a light touch it can be handled. He allows it to puddle and fog together to the point of hopeless chaos, and then—whoosh! it’s all significantly related and cleared up. And suddenly the play seems to have been like Imogen’s dream: 

‘Twas but a bolt of nothing, shot at nothing,

Which the brain makes of fumes.

(IV, ii, 300-301) 

Our pleasure should be tragical-historical-comical-pastoral-romantical, and also, theatrical-magical, Cymbeline, it seems to me, is the most extra-ordinary play that Shakespeare ever wrote. How does he do it! Staggering!” (ibid.)