5. Cymbeline, by William Shakespeare, pp. 122-151

Act IV 

 
Scene I

Cloten has arrived in Wales, dressed in Posthumus's clothes and ready to do his dirty work:

Posthumus, thy head (which now is growing upon thy shoulders) shall within this hour be off, thy mistress enforced, thy garments cut to pieces before thy face: and all this done, spurn her home to her father, who may (haply) be a little angry for my so rough usage: but my mother, having power of his testiness, shall turn all into my commendations.

The bit about the head is a nicely obvious bit of dramatic irony.

Scene II

Over at Belarius's cave, Imogen, or rather Fidele, isn't feeling well, so Belarius, Guiderius, and Arviragus tell her to stay there while they go off hunting. The boys are getting strangely fond of their new adopted brother. Arviragus tells Belarius, "I know not why / I love this youth, and I have heard you say, / Love's reason's without reason." The feeling is reciprocated to some extent by Imogen, who is taken with their gentility: "Gods, what lies I have heard! / Our courtiers say all's savage but at court; / Experience, O, thou disprov'st report!" But before she goes into the cave, she decides to take the Queen's drug that Pisanio had given her.

Belarius and the boys are about to set off on their hunting when Cloten enters. He has gotten lost. Belarius recognizes him immediately, even though it has been twenty years since he saw Cloten at court. He immediately suspects that Cloten is with a party searching for them. Guiderius tells Belarius and Arviragus to go and scout out what others may be nearby, while he deals with Cloten.

Cloten challenges Guiderius as "a robber, / A law-breaker, a villain," but Guiderius throws the challenge back at him: "Say what thou art; / Why I should yield to thee." Cloten replies, "Know'st me not by my clothes?" which presumably means that Posthumus's clothes, which Cloten is wearing, identify him as a man of the court. But his dress means nothing to Guiderius, who replies, "Thou art some fool, / I am loath to beat thee." And when Cloten asserts, "I am son to th' queen," Guiderius doesn't care: "I am sorry for't: not seeming / So worthy as thy birth." Cloten threatens to post Guiderius's head "on the gates of Lud's town," and they exit fighting.

Belarius and Arviragus return, having found no sign of others supporting Cloten, and it isn't long before Guiderius rejoins them, carrying Cloten's head. Belarius is appalled: "We are all undone." But Guiderius says he'll take the head and throw it in the creek "and let it to the sea, / And tell the fishes he's the queen's son, Cloten." Belarius praises Guiderius's valor, but wishes he hadn't done it.

Still, what's done is done, so Belarius sends Arviragus back to the cave to check on Fidele while Guiderius takes care of Cloten's head. While they're gone, Belarius praises

   these two princely boys: they are as gentle 
As zephyrs blowing below the violet, 
Not wagging his sweet head; and yet, as rough, 
(Their royal blood enchaf'd) as the rud'st wind 
That by the top doth take the mountain pine 
And make him stoop to th' vale. 'Tis wonder 
That an invisible instinct should frame them 
To royalty unlearn'd, honor untaught, 
Civility not seen from other, valour 
That wildly grows in them, but yields a crop 
As if it had been sow'd. 

Nature, it seems, has this time triumphed over nurture.

Guiderius comes back from sending "Cloten's clotpoll down the stream," but suddenly there is the sound of what the interpolated stage direction calls "Solemn music."  Belarius ascribes it to his "ingenious instrument," which is probably a wry Shakespearean pseudo-explanation of the use of offstage instrumentals. In any case, the instrument hasn't been heard since the death of Euriphile, whom the boys think of as their mother.

The reason for the solemn music comes when Arviragus enters with the "dead" Imogen/Fidele in his arms. Arviragus vows to "sweeten" Fidele's "sad grave" with flowers. Belarius remembers that they also have the headless body of Cloten as well, and should do it some honor: "Our foe was princely, / And though you took his life, as being our foe, / Yet bury him, as a prince." Guiderius agrees that "Thersites' body is as good as Ajax', / When neither are alive," so while Belarius goes to fetch Cloten's body, he and Arviragus sing the most familiar verses from Cymbeline, the dirge that begins "Fear no more the heat o' th' sun."

They lay Imogen and the headless Cloten side by side and scatter flowers over them, then depart. As soon as they have gone, Imogen awakes, somewhat deliriously thinking that she is asking her way to Milford-Haven, but soon realizing that she is lying on the ground, covered with flowers, next to a headless corpse. She begins to remember that she has been "a cave-keeper, / And cook to honest creatures." And then she recognizes Posthumus's clothes on the body, and persuades herself that its arms and legs are those of her husband. She blames Pisanio, accusing him of conspiring with Cloten, of forging Posthumus's letters, and of drugging her. Smearing Cloten's blood on her face, "That we the horrider may seem to those / Which chance to find us," she falls on the body in a paroxysm of grief.

Now Caius Lucius, accompanied by his captains and a soothsayer, enters to plan the attack on Britain at Milford-Haven. A captain assures him that soldiers commanded by "bold Iachimo" will soon arrive, and the soothsayer claims that success is at hand:

I saw Jove's bird, the Roman eagle, wing'd 
From the spongy south to this part of the west, 
There vanish'd in the sunbeams, which portends
(Unless my sins abuse my divination) 
Success to th' Roman host.

But Lucius interrupts this questionable interpretation of the soothsayer's dream because he has spotted Cloten's body with Imogen lying atop it. She rouses herself from her swoon to tell him that the body is that of her "master, / A very valiant Briton, and a good, / That here by mountaineers lies slain." She decides not to tell Lucius the truth, and claims that her master was Richard du Champ, though she continues to call herself Fidele.

Lucius asks if, since her master is dead, she will join his service, and she agrees. First, however, she asks that they bury him, and they take Cloten's body away for interment.

Scene III

Back at Cymbeline's palace, we learn that the Queen is so upset at Cloten's disappearance that she has a "fever.... A madness, of which her life's in danger." Cymbeline reflects on this sorrow, added to Imogen's disappearance and the threat of war with Rome. He threatens to torture Pisanio to find out if he is really ignorant of Imogen's whereabouts. Pisanio assures him he is, and the First Lord testifies to Pisanio's loyalty. Meanwhile, the First Lord says, "The Roman legions, all from Gallia drawn, / Are landed on your coast." Regretting that loss of "the counsel of my son and queen," Cymbeline goes off to make preparations, and Pisanio reflects that he hasn't heard from either Posthumus or Imogen, and prepares himself to fight against the Romans.

Scene IV

Back at the cave, Belarius is trying to persuade Guiderius and Arviragus to go higher into the mountains to avoid the conflict between the Britons and Romans. He tells them that there are "many in the army" who would recognize him. But Guiderius wants to join the fight, assuring him that so much time has passed that he won't be recognized, and in any case, "I and my brother are not known." And Arviragus wants to fight, feeling that his manhood has never been tested in battle: "I never / Did see man die, scarce ever look'd on blood, / But that of coward hares, hot goats, and venison!" Both of them beg Belarius to give them leave to fight in the war, and he reluctantly agrees.
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Act IV of this 1982 BBC-TV production begins at about 1:40:18.

Richard Johnson as Cymbeline; Helen Mirren as Imogen; Michael Pennington as Posthumus; Claire Bloom as the Queen; Paul Jesson as Cloten; Robert Lindsay as Iachimo; John Kane as Pisanio; Hugh Thomas as Cornelius; Geoffrey Lumsden as Philario; Patsy Smart as Helen; Alan Hendrick as the Frenchman; Graham Cowden as Caius Lucius; Michael Gough as Belarius; Geoffrey Burridge as Guiderius; David Creedon as Arviragus; Marius Goring as Sicilius Leonatus: Michael Hordern as Jupiter

4. Cymbeline, by William Shakespeare, pp. 78-121

Act III 

Scene I

Accompanied by the Queen and Cloten, Cymbeline meets with Caius Lucius, the emissary from Augustus Caesar, about the demand for tribute. Lucius's message is that when Julius Caesar defeated Cymbeline's uncle, Cassibelan, Rome was promised an annual tribute of three thousand pounds, but that Cymbeline has neglected to pay it. The Queen and Cloten chime in to say that Cymbeline has been quite right in withholding the payment, with the Queen voicing some British pride in being an island nation and claiming that Julius Caesar never really conquered the isles.

Cloten keeps breaking in to babble jingoist boasts as well, though Cymbeline urges him to let his mother to the talking. Finally, Cymbeline says that since Mulmutius established the laws of Britain and made himself king, they recognize no authority that Rome has over the country. This leaves Lucius with no recourse but to pronounce a state of war between Rome and Britain. So be it, replies Cymbeline, and cordially invites Lucius to stay a day or two longer before going back to Rome with his reply.

Scene II

Pisanio enters reading a letter from Posthumus and exclaiming in astonishment at the charge that Imogen has been unfaithful, and even more at his master's command that Pisanio should murder her. When Imogen enters, he decides not to reveal what is in his letter -- "I am ignorant in what I am commanded" -- but to give her the letter that Posthumus has addressed to her.

She reads it, and is delighted to learn that he is in Wales (Cambria) at Milford-Haven. She begins to make plans to go there to see him, telling Pisanio to have her attendant woman pretend that she needs to go home to see her ailing father, and to get Imogen some inexpensive riding clothes.

Scene III

We go to Wales, and the cave where the banished lord Belarius lives with Cymbeline's two kidnapped sons, Guiderius and Arviragus, under other names: Belarius is Morgan, Guiderius is Polydore, and Arvirgus is Cadwal. Belarius is full of praise of the simple life, claiming that living in a cave makes one appreciate the skies above.

                                              The gates of monarchs 
Are arch'd so high that giants may jet through 
And keep their impious turbans on, without 
Good morrow to the sun. Hail, thou fair heaven!

Guiderius and Arviragus echo his salutation, "Hail, heaven!" though not, we suspect, with quite so much relish. When Belarius starts going on about how much nobler this pastoral life is than that of currying favor at court, Guiderius points out that since they've never been to court, they don't have much to compare with the life they've always known. Arviragus agrees:

                                             We have seen nothing: 
We are beastly: subtle as the fox for prey, 
Like warlike as the wolf for what we eat: 
Our valour is to chase what flies: our cage 
We make a quire, as doth the prison'd bird, 
And sing our bondage freely.

But Belarius says they're better off not having gone through what he did. His "body'd mark'd / With Roman swords," he says, and when he was a soldier he was a favorite of Cymbeline's. But then "two villains, whose false oaths prevail'd / Before my perfect honour, swore to Cymbeline / I was confederate with the Romans." And so he has lived in exile for twenty years.

Then he sends them off up into the hills to drive down the game, while he remains below in the valley to kill it. When they leave, he soliloquizes about how they don't know they are actually the sons of the king, whom he kidnapped when Guiderius was three and Arviragus was two, trying to deprive Cymbeline of an heir to the crown. They think that their nurse, Euriphile, who was his accomplice, was their mother, "And every day do honour to her grave," and that he is their father. He exits to pursue the game that the men have flushed.

Scene IV

Nearby, Pisanio and Imogen have arrived. She is hoping to see Posthumus soon, but Pisanio is forced to reveal the truth. He shows her the letter Posthumus sent to him, accusing her of having "played the strumpet in my bed," and commanding Pisanio to "let thine own hands take away her life." Thunderstruck, she nevertheless immediately suspects Iachimo of the slander. She denounces the falseness of men, though not quite as vehemently as Posthumus did that of women, and draws Pisanio's sword, ordering him to "take it, and hit / The innocent mansion of my love, my heart."

Pisanio refuses to do the deed, and she, echoing Hamlet, hesitates to commit suicide: "Against self-slaughter / There is a prohibition so divine / That cravens my weak hand." When Pisanio continues to refuse to kill her, she asks why he came all this way with her. He says it was "to win time / To lose so bad employment, in the which / I have consider'd of a course." He says he is sure that "some villain, / Ay, and singular in his art, hath done you both / This cursed injury." So he proposes to send Posthumus "Some bloody sign" that Imogen is dead.

He tells her that "th' ambassador, / Lucius the Roman, comes to Milford-Haven / To-morrow." He proposes that she disguise herself as a boy and find a way to join the service of Lucius, which will get her "near / The residence of Posthumus." Presumably she'll find a way once she gets to Rome to disabuse Posthumus of both her death and her infidelity. And finally, he gives her the box with the not-quite-fatal potion Cornelius had prepared for the Queen:

Here is a box, I had it from the queen, 
What's in't is precious: if you are sick at sea, 
Or stomach-qualm'd at land, a dram of this 
Will drive away distemper.

Scene V

Lucius is making his departure from court, apologizing "that I must report ye / My master's enemy," and requesting an escort to Milford-Haven. When he is gone, Cymbeline observes that Imogen hasn't made an appearance lately, and sends an attendant to summon her. The Queen notes that she has been withdrawn since Posthumus's banishment.

The attendant returns to report that Imogen's chambers are locked and no one answers when they knock on the door. Cloten also mentions that Pisanio hasn't been seen lately either. The Queen sends him off to look for Pisanio, then observes to herself that Pisanio has the drug she gave him, and hopes he has taken it. If Imogen is gone, all the better: "I have the placing of the British crown."

Cloten returns to say that it's evident Imogen is gone, and sends his mother to cheer up Cymbeline. When she's gone, he reflects on how he loves Imogen but hates her for "throwing favours on / The low Posthumus." Then Pisanio enters and Cloten challenges him: "Villain, / Where is thy lady?" Pisanio gives him the letter in which Posthumus claims he is in Milford-Haven. Cloten says he will reward Pisanio if he agrees to serve him. Pisanio says he will, so Cloten asks if he has any of the clothing Posthumus left behind. Pisanio agrees to fetch them, and while he's gone, Cloten vows, "With that suit upon my back, will I ravish her: first kill him, and in her eyes; there shall she see my valour, which will then be a torment to her contempt."

Pisanio returns with the clothes, and Cloten rushes off to put them on.

Scene VI

A weary Imogen, dressed as a boy, comes across Belarius's cave and, seeking food, enters it.

Scene VII

Belarius, Guiderius, and Arviragus return from the hunt with what they have killed, and discover Imogen in the cave. She explains that she was on her way to Milford-Haven to see "a kinsman who / Is bound for Italy," and that she was so hungry and tired she stopped to rest in the cave. Her name, she tells them, is Fidele. They welcome her, and in an aside she wishes "that they / Had been my father's sons," because then there would have been less pressure on her to marry someone who could inherit Cymbeline's throne, and thus less objection to her marrying Posthumus.

Scene VIII

Two Senators and a Tribune discuss the pending war between Rome and Britain.
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Act III of this 1982 BBC-TV production begins at about 1:05:06.

Richard Johnson as Cymbeline; Helen Mirren as Imogen; Michael Pennington as Posthumus; Claire Bloom as the Queen; Paul Jesson as Cloten; Robert Lindsay as Iachimo; John Kane as Pisanio; Hugh Thomas as Cornelius; Geoffrey Lumsden as Philario; Patsy Smart as Helen; Alan Hendrick as the Frenchman; Graham Cowden as Caius Lucius; Michael Gough as Belarius; Geoffrey Burridge as Guiderius; David Creedon as Arviragus; Marius Goring as Sicilius Leonatus: Michael Hordern as Jupiter

3. Cymbeline, by William Shakespeare, pp. 47-77

Act II 

Scene I

Cloten has been playing bowls and gambling -- and losing. As usual, the First Lord eggs him on as the Second Lord mutters deprecatory asides. One of Cloten's complaints is that is that some "whoreson jackanapes" had the effrontery to complain about his swearing, but since he was not of Cloten's rank he couldn't challenge him to a duel: "I had rather not be so noble as I am: they dare not fight with me, because of the queen my mother."

The First Lord changes the subject, asking if he has heard of the arrival of Iachimo, "a stranger that's come to court to-night." He is "an Italian ... and 'tis thought one of Leonatus' friends." So Cloten swaggers off to "see this Italian," proposing to gamble with him and win back what he lost at bowls. The Second Lord stays behind to marvel "That such a crafty devil as is his mother / Should yield the world this ass!"

Scene II

Imogen enters "in her bed," which probably means that there is an inner stage with a curtain that can be drawn across it to reveal or conceal a bed (or a throne, or some other cumbersome bit of scenery).  She has been reading and is ready to go to sleep, and asks her lady-in-waiting, whom she calls Helen, what time it is. "Almost midnight," Helen replies, so Imogen tells her to wake her at four.

When she is asleep, Iachimo emerges from the trunk she has agreed to stash in her bedroom. He begins to extol her beauty, but forces himself to remember his "design. / To note the chamber: I will write all down." He proceeds to catalog the furnishings of the room, but more particularly to look for some detail that will prove to Posthumus that he has slept with Imogen. He finds what he wants: the bracelet Posthumus gave her, and slips it from her wrist. He also observes "On her left breast / A mole cinque-spotted: like the crimson drops / I' th' bottom of a cowslip." And he notes that she is reading "The tale of Tereus, here the leaf's turn'd down / Where Philomel gave up." The tale from Ovid's Metamorphoses is one of rape, which Iachimo is figuratively committing.Then the clock strikes three and he realizes it's time to get back in the trunk.

Scene III

Cloten has lost at gambling again, though presumably not to Iachimo, who as we have seen has been otherwise occupied. So he comes to woo Imogen, having been "advised to give her music a mornings, they say it will penetrate." And as if we don't know already what he means by "penetrate," he tells the musicians, "Come on, tune: if you can penetrate her with your fingering, so: we'll try with tongue too."

The musicians sing "Hark, hark, the lark at heaven's gate sings," after which Cloten dismisses them. The Second Lord observes that the king is approaching, which pleases Cloten: "I am glad I was up so late, for that's the reason I was up so early." He greets Cymbeline and the Queen, and the king approvingly notes his attempt to woo Imogen.

A messenger arrives to say that ambassadors from Rome have arrived, including Caius Lucius. Cymbeline notes that "he comes on angry purpose" -- we learn that the Romans are there to collect tribute money that the Britons have been withholding. Cymbeline tells Cloten to finish up his wooing and join them at court: "we shall have need / T' employ you towards this Roman."

Left alone again, Cloten plans to worm his way into the favors of Imogen's attendants, but the lady who answers to his knock on the door is wary of him. Imogen appears anyway, but makes it clear that she isn't going to respond to this fool's blandishments:

                                           learn now, for all, 
That I, which know my heart, do here pronounce, 
By th' very truth of it, I care not for you, 
And am so near the lack of charity 
(To accuse myself) I hate you: which I had rather 
You felt than make't my boast.

Cloten reminds her that she should be obedient to her father's wishes, and proceeds with a putdown of Posthumus, "that base wretch, / One bred of alms, and foster'd with cold dishes, / With scraps o' th' court." She retorts that even if he were "the son of Jupiter," Cloten would be "too base / To be his [Posthumus's] groom." Posthumus's "meanest garment, / That ever hath but clipp'd his body, is dearer" to her than Cloten.

She calls for Pisanio, and as Cloten repeatedly sputters, "His garment!" she sends Pisanio to look for the bracelet that she has discovered is missing. And she presciently observes, "I hope it be not gone to tell my lord / That I kiss aught but he." She leaves Cloten still exclaiming "'His mean'st garment!'" and vowing to be revenged.

Scene IV

Back in Rome, Posthumus and Philario are discussing the journey of Caius Lucius to demand the tribute, with Philario expressing his confidence that Cymbeline will yield. Posthumus is not so sure: He thinks there will be war, and that the Britons are not afraid of the Romans. "Our countrymen / Are men more order'd than when Julius Caesar / Smil'd at their lack of skill, but found their courage / Worthy his frowning at."

Iachimo returns, but he has no news of Caius Lucius's mission. Instead, he delivers the news that he has won Posthumus's ring. Posthumus, of course, thinks he's kidding: "The stone's too hard to come by." But Iachimo replies, "Not a whit, / Your lady being so easy." Posthumus warns him not to joke about it, but Iachimo insists that he's serious. He describes the bedchamber with its tapestry of "Proud Cleopatra, when she met her Roman" -- the point being that Iachimo was Imogen's Roman -- and the sculpture on the fireplace of "Chaste Dian, bathing," an ironic jab at Imogen's purported lack of chastity.

Posthumus says that anyone could have described the room to him, but then Iachimo produces the bracelet. Posthumus is thunderstruck, but decides that "May be she pluck'd it off / To send it me." Iachimo asks if she mentions doing so in the letters he has brought Posthumus from Britain. "O, no, no, no, 'tis true," admits Posthumus, and he gives Iachimo the ring.

Philario intervenes to urge Posthumus not to be so hasty: Maybe one of Imogen's maids stole it and gave it to Iachimo. But when Iachimo swears, "By Jupiter, I had it from her arm," Posthumus is convinced: Such an oath on the most high god makes him believe that Iachimo is telling the truth, as in fact he is. He doesn't swear that she gave it to him, just that he "had it from her arm." When Philario again counsels Posthumus to "be patient," Iachimo delivers the coup de grâce: Imogen has a mole under her breast.

That's enough for Posthumus. He is so convinced of Imogen's guilt that he tells Iachimo "I will kill thee if thou dost deny / Thou'st made me cuckold." He exits in a fury, only to return after Philario and Iachimo have left and to launch into a maddened soliloquy about the faithlessness of not only Imogen but of all women. There is a note of sexual frustration in all of this, as Posthumus recalls the times when Imogen refused to have sex with him:

Me of my lawful pleasure she restrain'd, 
And pray'd me oft forbearance: did it with 
A pudency so rosy, the sweet view on't 
Might well have warm'd old Saturn; that I thought her 
As chaste as unsunn'd snow. 

But now here she is having sex with "This yellow Iachimo," which awakens in Posthumus prurient imaginings: "Perchance he spoke not, but / Like a full-acorn'd boar, a German one, / Cried 'O!' and mounted." And he storms off in a rage of misogyny.
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Act II of this 1982 BBC-TV production begins at about 36:53.

Richard Johnson as Cymbeline; Helen Mirren as Imogen; Michael Pennington as Posthumus; Claire Bloom as the Queen; Paul Jesson as Cloten; Robert Lindsay as Iachimo; John Kane as Pisanio; Hugh Thomas as Cornelius; Geoffrey Lumsden as Philario; Patsy Smart as Helen; Alan Hendrick as the Frenchman; Michael Gough as Belarius; Geoffrey Burridge as Guiderius; David Creedon as Arviragus; Marius Goring as Sicilius Leonatus: Michael Hordern as Jupiter

2. Cymbeline, by William Shakespeare, pp. 1-46

Act I 

Scene I

We open in Britain, at the palace of King Cymbeline, where two Gentlemen are discussing the news. Actually, the First Gentleman is reporting it, while the Second Gentleman just eggs him on with questions. Cymbeline's daughter has married "a poor but worthy gentleman," much to the king's displeasure: He had planned for her to marry his new wife's son. So he has banished the poor gentleman and imprisoned his daughter.

Everyone at court is upset at the banishment of the gentleman, one Posthumus Leonatus, who is well thought of. The First Gentleman comments, "I do not think / So fair an outward, and such stuff within / Endows a man, but he." His father, Sicilius, fought the Romans with Cymbeline's father, who bestowed on Sicilius the surname Leonatus. Sicilius died broken-hearted when his other two sons were killed in battle, and when his wife died giving birth, Cymbeline decided to raise the baby and called him Posthumus. Cymbeline had two sons of his own, but they were kidnapped from their nursery twenty years ago. Otherwise, he had only the daughter whom Posthumus has married.

Scene II

That daughter enters now. Her name, we will learn, is Imogen. Or maybe it's Innogen, which is the way the name is spelled in Holinshed and in Simon Forman's account of watching the play sometime before his death in 1611. There is also a reference to Innogen, Leonato's wife, in the 1600 quarto of Much Ado About Nothing, though she doesn't actually appear in the play. Given these facts, and the suggestive parallel of Innogen/Leonato with Imogen/Leonatus, many scholars have assumed that Shakespeare wrote "Innogen," and that a transcriber or typesetter misread his -nn- as an -m-. So you'll find the character called Innogen in some recent editions, such as The Oxford Shakespeare. Still, the mistake (if it was one) gave rise to a long theatrical tradition that's hard to break on speculative grounds. "Imogen" has the authority of the First Folio behind it, and out of respect to the late Imogene Coca and the town in Iowa named Imogene, I think we should stick with it.

Anyway, she enters now with her stepmother, the Queen, and Posthumus, who is getting ready for his exile. The Queen assures her that Imogen is not "After the slander of most stepmothers, / Evil-ey'd unto you," and tells Posthumus, "So soon as I can win th' offended king, / I will be known your advocate." Don't buy it for a moment. Imogen certainly doesn't, and when the Queen leaves, she refers to her assurances that she's on their side as "Dissembling courtesy!" She tells Posthumus that he had better hurry and leave, and he tells her that he is going to Rome, to a friend of his father's named Philario.

The Queen returns to tell them to hurry up, and in an aside lets us know that she has tipped off Cymbeline to their whereabouts. When she exits, Imogen gives Posthumus a diamond ring that belonged to her mother and tells him to "keep it till you woo another wife, / When Imogen is dead." He protests against such a morbid thought, and gives her a bracelet, "a manacle of love," in exchange.

They are discovered by the king, who orders Posthumus to be gone, and calls Imogen a "disloyal thing" who's making him age rapidly. She stands her ground and when he says she could have married "the sole son of my queen," replies, "I chose an eagle, / And did avoid a puttock." (I.e., a kite, a lesser bird in the hierarchy of raptors.) She says it's his "fault that I have lov'd Posthumus: / You bred him as my playfellow."

The Queen returns in the midst of this quarrel and tells them to calm down. Cymbeline storms off, and Pisanio, Posthumus's servant enters to report that the Queen's son -- his name, we'll learn, is Cloten -- drew his sword in a challenge to Posthumus, but that Posthumus "rather play'd than fought" and some gentlemen prevented the duel. Imogen expresses her scorn for Cloten, and asks why Pisanio hasn't gone with Posthumus. He tells her that Posthumus sent him to serve Imogen in his absence.

Scene III

Cloten and a pair of attendant lords discuss the set-to with Posthumus, the First Lord urging Cloten to change his shirt because "the violence of action hath made you reek," the Second Lord mocking Cloten in sarcastic asides. It's a brief scene that serves mainly to establish that Cloten is a fool and a braggart.

Scene IV

Pisanio has witnessed Posthumus's departure, and Imogen begs him for a fuller description of what he saw. Then she is summoned to the queen.

Scene V

We are in Rome, where Philario awaits Posthumus's arrival. With him are Iachimo, a Frenchman, a Dutchman, and a Spaniard, but the last two have no lines and are clearly superfluous to any staging of the play. Iachimo reports that he has seen Posthumus in Britain, where his reputation was growing, and asks why he is going to stay with Philario. "His father and I were soldiers together," Philario explains as Posthumus enters.

The Frenchman is already acquainted with Posthumus, having met him when he was a "young traveller" in Orleans. Posthumus and another Frenchman came close to fighting a duel because Posthumus had boasted that the woman he loved, namely Imogen, was "more fair, virtuous, wise, chaste, constant, qualified and less attemptable than any the rarest of our ladies in France."

The account of this earlier quarrel inspires Iachimo to provoke Posthumus to a wager. Noticing the diamond ring that Imogen gave Posthumus, Iachimo suggests that just as the ring might be stolen, so might "a cunning thief, or a (that way) accomplished courtier" steal away Posthumus's beloved's virtue. Posthumus assures him that he's not afraid of losing either his ring or Imogen. Iachimo persists: He will wager half his estate against Posthumus's ring that he can steal Imogen's virtue.

Philario tries to put an end to this bet: "Gentlemen, enough of this, it came in too suddenly, let it die as it was born, and I pray you be better acquainted." But Posthumus won't back down either: "My mistress exceeds in goodness the hugeness of your unworthy thinking. I dare you to this match: here's my ring." Iachimo accepts: "If I bring you no sufficient testimony that I have enjoy'd the dearest bodily part of your mistress, my ten thousand ducats are yours, so is your diamond too." Fine, says Posthumus, and if you don't seduce her, we'll have a sword because you dared insult her.

As they exit, the Frenchman asks if they are really going to go through with this bet, and Philario indicates that Iachimo isn't the type to back down on a wager.

Scene VI

Back in Britain, the Queen meets with a physician named Cornelius who gives her a box of drugs she has requested: "most poisonous compounds, / Which are the movers of a languishing death." She has been studying how to make perfumes and preservatives with Cornelius, and has asked for the chemicals because she wants to "try the forces / Of these thy compounds on such creatures as / We count not worth the hanging (but none human)."

When Pisanio enters, Cornelius reveals in an aside before he exits that he doesn't trust the Queen, and that the drugs he has given her will only "stupefy and dull the sense awhile," and that "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." Meanwhile, the Queen is attempting to persuade Pisanio to help her get Imogen to accept Cloten as her lover, telling him she'll reward him whereas his current master, Posthumus, is a loser.

She gives Pisanio the box of drugs Cornelius brought her, claiming that it contains medicines "which hath the king / Five times redeem'd from death." When he has gone, she calls him "A sly and constant knave" who is loyal to Posthumus, so if he takes the drugs in the box, that will be one less person working to bring Imogen and Posthumus together. And if Imogen doesn't come around to her plan to unite her with Cloten, she'll "taste of" the drugs too.

Scene VII

Imogen soliloquizes about her sad lot: She has "A father cruel, and a step-dame false," and she has "A foolish suitor" in Cloten, even though she is already married. Moreover, her husband has been banished. She wishes she had been kidnapped like her brothers. Then Pisanio enters with Iachimo, whom he describes as "a noble gentleman of Rome," who "Comes from my lord with letters."

She welcomes and thanks Iachimo, who, while she reads her letter, comments in an aside on her beauty: "If she be furnish'd with a mind so rare, / She is alone th' Arabian bird; and I / Have lost the wager." So he has to come up with something quick.

When she is finished with the letter, Iachimo begins to rattle on in praise of her to the point that she finally asks, "Are you well?" Iachimo sends Pisanio away to check on his own manservant whom he describes as "strange and peevish." Imogen asks how Posthumus is doing, and Iachimo tells her he is "merry" and "gamesome" and is known as "The Briton reveller." This doesn't comport with her impression of Posthumous who "did incline to sadness." But Iachimo goes on in this vein, until he says he pities Imogen.

She is puzzled, and demands to know, "Why do you pity me?" She doesn't get a straight answer from him, however, until she insists, "discover to me / What both you spur and stop." So Iachimo tells her that if he had "this cheek / To bathe my lips upon," meaning hers, he wouldn't "Slaver with lips as common as the stairs / That mount the Capitol." He implies that he would be faithful to Imogen whereas Posthumus is consorting with prostitutes. He wouldn't be telling her this, he claims, "but 'tis your graces / That from my mutest conscience to my tongue / Charms this report out."

"Let me hear no more," Imogen urges. But he persists, urging her to "Be reveng'd" on Posthumus for his infidelity. She's astonished at the suggestion: "if it be true, / How should I be reveng'd?" Why, he says, how else but by loving him:

I dedicate myself to your sweet pleasure, 
More noble than that runagate to your bed, 
And will continue fast to your affection,
Still close as sure.

This is too much for Imogen, who calls out for Pisanio. She suddenly realizes what Iachimo is up to:

Away, I do condemn mine ears, that have 
So long attended thee. If thou wert honourable, 
Thou wouldst have told this tale for virtue, not 
For such an end thou seek'st, as base, as strange. 
Thou wrongst a gentleman, who is as far 
From thy report as thou from honour, and 
Solicits here a lady that disdains 
Thee, and the devil alike.

She'll tell the king what Iachimo is, she threatens, and calls out for Pisanio again.

But Iachimo wriggles out of the trap. "O happy Leonatus!" he says. He was just kidding around. Posthumus "is one / The truest manner'd," and he only told her all that "To try your taking of a false report." He begs her pardon, and she gives it.

Then, he says, he had really meant to ask a favor from her: He and Posthumus and "Some dozen Romans" have pooled their money to buy a gift for the emperor, and he needs to store it someplace safe. Well, says Imogen, what could be safer than my bedchamber? So Iachimo says he'll have the trunk in which the gift is stored sent to her room, "only for this night: / I must abroad to morrow." If she has a letter to send to Posthumus, she should do it tonight.

She says she'll write it tonight, and to have the trunk sent to her room.
_____
Cymbeline isn't performed a lot, but there is a BBC-TV production from 1982. The complete film appears below. 
Richard Johnson as Cymbeline; Helen Mirren as Imogen; Michael Pennington as Posthumus; Claire Bloom as the Queen; Paul Jesson as Cloten; Robert Lindsay as Iachimo; John Kane as Pisanio; Hugh Thomas as Cornelius; Geoffrey Lumsden as Philario; Patsy Smart as Helen; Alan Hendrick as the Frenchman; Michael Gough as Belarius; Geoffrey Burridge as Guiderius; David Creedon as Arviragus; Marius Goring as Sicilius Leonatus: Michael Hordern as Jupiter