Cymbeline

“ In place of greater state. I'll meet you in the valleys.
Exeunt GUIDERIUS and ARVIRAGUS
How hard it is to hide the sparks of nature!
These boys know little they are sons to th' King,
Nor Cymbeline dreams that they are alive.
They think they are mine; and though train'd up thus meanly
I' th' cave wherein they bow, their thoughts do hit
The roofs of palaces, and nature prompts them
In simple and low things to prince it much
Beyond the trick of others. This Polydore,
The heir of Cymbeline and Britain, who
The King his father call'd Guiderius- Jove! ”

“ His favour is familiar to me. Boy, Thou hast look'd thyself into my grace, And art mine own. I know not why, wherefore To say 'Live, boy.' Ne'er thank thy master. Live; And ask of Cymbeline what boon thou wilt, Fitting my bounty and thy state, I'll give it; Yea, though thou do demand a prisoner, The noblest ta'en. IMOGEN. I humbly thank your Highness. LUCIUS. I do not bid thee beg my life, good lad, And yet I know thou wilt. IMOGEN. No, no! Alack, There's other work in hand. I see a thing Bitter to me as death; your life, good master, Must shuffle for itself. ”

“ For the rest, the starting-point of Cymbeline vaguely resembles that of Lear. Cymbeline is causelessly estranged from Imogen, as Lear is from Cordelia; there is something in Cymbeline's weakness and folly that recalls the unreason of Lear. But in the older play everything is tragically designed and in the great manner, whereas here the whole action is devised with a happy end in view.
The consort of this pitiful king is a crafty and ambitious [Pg 623] woman, who, by alternately flattering and defying him, has got him entirely under her thumb. ”

“ If that thy gentry, Britain, go before
This lout as he exceeds our lords, the odds
Is that we scarce are men, and you are gods.
[Exit.]
The battle continues; the Britons fly; Cymbeline is taken. Then enter to his rescue Belarius, Guiderius and Arviragus.
BELARIUS.
Stand, stand! We have th’ advantage of the ground;
The lane is guarded; nothing routs us but
The villainy of our fears.
GUIDERIUS and ARVIRAGUS.
Stand, stand, and fight!
Enter Posthumus and seconds the Britons; they rescue Cymbeline and exeunt. Then re-enter Lucius and Iachimo with Imogen. ”

“ From 1767 to 1793 eight revivals of Cymbeline occurred along our Atlantic seaboard, three in New York, two in Philadelphia, one in Boston, one in Annapolis, and one in Charleston, South Carolina. One hundred years later Cymbeline again became popular on the American stage. Mary Shaw Hamblin, who died in 1873, was a famous Imogen in the sixties. Adelaide Neilson in the seventies, Modjeska in the eighties, and Margaret Mather in the nineties kept the play familiar to American audiences. ”

“ How Cymbeline's wicked queen, through despair of bringing her projects to pass, and touched with remorse of conscience, sickened and died, having first lived to see her foolish son Cloten slain in a quarrel which he had provoked, are events too tragical to interrupt this happy conclusion by more than merely touching upon. It is sufficient that all were made happy, who were deserving ”

“ So Cæsar shall not find them.
LUCIUS.
Let proof speak.
CLOTEN.
His majesty bids you welcome. Make pastime with us a day or two, or longer. If you seek us afterwards in other terms, you shall find us in our salt-water girdle. If you beat us out of it, it is yours; if you fall in the adventure, our crows shall fare the better for you; and there’s an end.
LUCIUS.
So, sir.
CYMBELINE.
I know your master’s pleasure, and he mine;
All the remain is, welcome.
[Exeunt.]
SCENE II. Britain. Another room in Cymbeline’s palace. Enter Pisanio reading of a letter. ”

“ Cymbeline's queen kills herself. Posthumus is taught that Iachimo deceived him. Imogen is restored to him. The lost sons are restored to Cymbeline. Prophecy is fulfilled and pardon given. All ends happily.
It seems possible that Cymbeline was begun as a tragedy during the great mood of tragical creation, then laid aside unfinished, from [224] some failure in the vision, or change in the creative mood, and brought to an end later in a new spirit, perhaps in another place, in the country, away from the life which makes writing alive. It is the least perfect of the later plays. ”

“ Imogen and the master she served were taken prisoners, and brought before Cymbeline, as was also her old enemy Iachimo, who was an officer in the Roman army; and when these prisoners were before the king, Posthumus was brought in to receive his sentence of death; and at this strange juncture of time, Belarius with Polydore and Cadwal were also brought before Cymbeline, to receive the rewards due to the great services they had by their valour done for the king. Pisanio, being one of the king's attendants, was likewise present. ”

“ In determining the indebtedness, if any, of Cymbeline [390] to Philaster we lack the assistance of authentic dates of composition. The plays were acted about the same time,—Philaster certainly, Cymbeline perhaps, before October 8, 1610. Beaumont and Fletcher's play may have been written as early as 1609; Shakespeare's also as early as 1609 or 1608: in fact, there are critics who assign parts of it to 1606. With regard to the relative priority of Cymbeline and A King and No King, we are more fortunate in our knowledge. ”

“ BELARIUS. Be silent; let's see further. PISANIO. [Aside] It is my mistress. Since she is living, let the time run on To good or bad. [CYMBELINE and IMOGEN advance] CYMBELINE. Come, stand thou by our side; Make thy demand aloud. [To IACHIMO] Sir, step you forth; Give answer to this boy, and do it freely, Or, by our greatness and the grace of it, Which is our honour, bitter torture shall Winnow the truth from falsehood. On, speak to him. IMOGEN. My boon is that this gentleman may render Of whom he had this ring. ”

“ GAOLER.
Unless a man would marry a gallows and beget young gibbets, I never saw one so prone. Yet, on my conscience, there are verier knaves desire to live, for all he be a Roman; and there be some of them too that die against their wills; so should I, if I were one. I would we were all of one mind, and one mind good. O, there were desolation of gaolers and gallowses! I speak against my present profit, but my wish hath a preferment in’t.
[Exit.]
SCENE V. Britain. Cymbeline’s tent. Enter Cymbeline, Belarius, Guiderius, Arviragus, Pisanio, Lords, Officers and Attendants. ”

“ Cuttle, Captain.—A character in Dickens’ Dombey and Son, good-humored, eccentric, pathetic in his simple credulity.
Cymbeline (sim ́be-lin) .—Title and hero of Shakespeare’s play. Imogen, daughter of Cymbeline, king of Britain, married clandestinely Posthumus Leonatus; and Posthumus, being banished for the offense, retired to Rome. One day, in the house of Philario, the conversation turned on the merits of wives, and Posthumus bet his diamond ring that nothing could tempt the fidelity of Imogen. Through the villainy of Iachimo, Cymbeline was forced to believe Imogen untrue. ”

“ To th’ trunk again, and shut the spring of it.
Swift, swift, you dragons of the night, that dawning
May bare the raven’s eye! I lodge in fear;
Though this a heavenly angel, hell is here.
[Clock strikes.]
One, two, three. Time, time!
[Exit into the trunk.]
SCENE III. Cymbeline’s palace. An ante-chamber adjoining Imogen’s apartments. Enter Cloten and Lords.
FIRST LORD.
Your lordship is the most patient man in loss, the most coldest that ever turn’d up ace.
CLOTEN.
It would make any man cold to lose.
FIRST LORD.
But not every man patient after the noble temper of your lordship. ”

“ Enter a MESSENGER
MESSENGER. So like you, sir, ambassadors from Rome; The one is Caius Lucius. CYMBELINE. A worthy fellow, Albeit he comes on angry purpose now; But that's no fault of his. We must receive him According to the honour of his sender; And towards himself, his goodness forespent on us, We must extend our notice. Our dear son, When you have given good morning to your mistress, Attend the Queen and us; we shall have need T' employ you towards this Roman. Come, our queen. Exeunt all but CLOTEN CLOTEN. If she be up, I'll speak with her; if not, Let her lie still and dream. ”

“ These seven lamps of the romantic drama have in them—if I may strain the similitude a little further yet—more of lyric light than could fitly be lent to feed the fire or the sunshine of the worlds of pure tragedy or comedy. There is more play, more vibration as it were, in the splendours of their spheres. Only in the heaven of Shakespeare’s making can we pass and repass at pleasure from the sunny to the stormy lights, from the glory of Cymbeline to the glory of Othello. ”

“ Arise my knights o' th' battle; I create you
Companions to our person, and will fit you
With dignities becoming your estates.
Enter CORNELIUS and LADIES
There's business in these faces. Why so sadly
Greet you our victory? You look like Romans,
And not o' th' court of Britain.
CORNELIUS. Hail, great King!
To sour your happiness I must report
The Queen is dead.
CYMBELINE. Who worse than a physician
Would this report become? But I consider
By med'cine life may be prolong'd, yet death
Will seize the doctor too. How ended she?
CORNELIUS. With horror, madly dying, like her life ”

“ Hath her life been; the cure whereof, my lord,
'Tis time must do. Beseech your Majesty,
Forbear sharp speeches to her; she's a lady
So tender of rebukes that words are strokes,
And strokes death to her.
Re-enter MESSENGER
CYMBELINE. Where is she, sir? How
Can her contempt be answer'd?
MESSENGER. Please you, sir,
Her chambers are all lock'd, and there's no answer
That will be given to th' loud of noise we make.
QUEEN. My lord, when last I went to visit her,
She pray'd me to excuse her keeping close ”

“ And to those, it may be, he added the organ, to signify that they sound not each separately, but sound together in most harmonious diversity, just as they are arranged in a musical instrument. For even then the saints of God will have their differences, accordant, not discordant, that is, agreeing, not disagreeing, just as sweetest harmony arises from sounds differing indeed, but not opposed to one another.
6. “Praise Him on the well-sounding cymbals, praise Him on cymbals of jubilation” (ver. 5) . Cymbals touch one another in order to sound, and therefore are by some compared to our lips. ”

“ Ay, summon from their dark and dreadful grove
The chaunting, pale-cheeked votaries of love.
Stay now, and hearken! From that far-away
Cymbal on cymbal beats, the fierce horns bray,
Stars in their sapphire fade, 'tis break of day. ”

“ When science comes and the nature of sound itself is understood as a property, instruments are invented and improved by the husbandry of mind until a great variety of musical instruments are developed; thus symphony grows from the soil of time. What, then, is symphony? It is a succession of melodies, every one of which is produced by a group of instruments, one of which may be that of the human voice. Now, as these instruments play in unison, one or another is selected to play the leading melody, and the other instruments are made to play subsidiary melodies in harmony with the leading melody. ”

“ Enter Queen, Posthumus and Imogen.
QUEEN.
No, be assur’d you shall not find me, daughter,
After the slander of most stepmothers,
Evil-ey’d unto you. You’re my prisoner, but
Your gaoler shall deliver you the keys
That lock up your restraint. For you, Posthumus,
So soon as I can win th’ offended King,
I will be known your advocate. Marry, yet
The fire of rage is in him, and ’twere good
You lean’d unto his sentence with what patience
Your wisdom may inform you. ”

“ Cymbals are played, not by clashing them together, but by striking their edges with a sliding movement. Like other art instruments, cymbals may be of fine or of poor quality, producing a brilliant, lastingm and terrifying tone, or an impotent, dull smash, like broken crockery. ”

“ With its warm breath gushing forth in a light cloud which merrily and gracefully ascended a few feet, then hung about the chimney- corner as its own domestic Heaven, it trolled its song with that strong energy of cheerfulness, that its iron body hummed and stirred upon the fire, and the lid itself, the recently rebellious lid—such is the influence of a bright example— performed a sort of jig, and clattered like a deaf and dumb young cymbal that had never known the use of its twin brother. ”

“ But lest any should understand such cymbals as sound without life, therefore I think he added, “on cymbals of jubilation.” For “jubilation” that is, unspeakable praise, proceedeth not, save from life. Nor do I think that I should pass over what musicians say, that there are three kinds of sounds, by voice, by breath, by striking: by voice, uttered by throat and windpipe, when man singeth without any instrument; by breath, as by pipe, or anything of that sort: by striking, as by harp, or anything of that kind. ”

“ As though were flung a cymbal on the grassy ground.
Come, to the forest's marge amid the shade we fare,
The world shall see its image mirrored in thine eyes,
O come and feast thy gaze upon the wine-gold air,
And on the dew that clad the buds in pearly guise.
⁠If, love, thou enviest the dower,
More than thou know'st, the fern upon thy locks will shower.
⁠Or wouldst thou vale-wards go, and see the tints of red,
Decking the moss and leaves, and every ripening haw?
Or art thou timid lest, ere thither we have sped,
Chance haply will avail, my tips to thine to draw? ”