6. Cymbeline, by William Shakespeare, pp. 152-196

Act V 

 
Scene I

Posthumus is back in Britain and the Romans have got him. He is wearing "Italian weeds," and is supposed to be fighting on their side. But sometime in the two acts he has been gone, he has somehow undergone a change of heart about Imogen, or at least about having Pisanio kill her: "Every good servant does not all commands: / No bond, but to do just ones." He looks at the "bloody cloth" Pisanio has sent him as evidence that he has done the deed, and wishes that the gods had "saved / The noble Imogen, to repent, and struck / Me, wretch, more worth your vengeance." And so he decides to change his clothes, dress as "a Briton peasant," and "die / For thee, O Imogen," or at least for her country.

Scene II

And look who else has undergone a change of heart: Iachimo, with the Roman army, fights a skirmish in which the disguised Posthumus disarms him but spares his life, leaving him to soliloquize:

The heaviness and guilt within my bosom 
Takes off my manhood: I have belied a lady, 
The princess of this country; and the air on't 
Revengingly enfeebles me, or could this carl, 
A very drudge of Nature's, have subdued me 
In my profession?

The battle resumes when Iachimo exits, but the Britons retreat and Cymbeline is captured. Then Belarius, Guiderius, and Arviragus enter and call on the Brits to stand and fight. Posthumus joins them and the tide of battle turns. They rescue Cymbeline and exit. Then Caius Lucius enters, accompanied by Iachimo and Imogen, who is still disguised as Fidele and has joined Lucius's service. They flee from the victorious Britons.

Scene III

Posthumus enters with a British lord, who had been one of the troops that retreated from the Romans. Posthumus explains how he has come across "an ancient soldier" and "two striplings" who were standing their ground and that he joined them to turn a retreat into a victory. The lord marvels that such a reversal of fortune should have come about with "A narrow lane, an old man, and two boys," but his surprise brings out Posthumus's irritation with the man: "you are made / Rather to wonder at the things you hear / Than to work any." He imagines the lord making up rhymes about it: "Two boys, an old man twice a boy, a lane, / Preserv'd the Britons, was the Romans' bane." The lord gets uneasy at Posthumus's angry sarcasm, especially when Posthumus keeps speaking in rhyme, and exits.

Posthumus now decides that the best thing to do now is die, to end his life "by some means for Imogen," so he puts off his disguise as a British peasant and becomes a Roman again, expecting to be captured by the Britons and executed. Sure enough, two British captains and their soldiers enter, talking about the valor of "the old man, and his sons," as well as the "fourth man, in a silly habit." ("Silly" means "simple" here -- i.e., the peasant clothes Posthumus was wearing.) Posthumus yields to them, and is handed over to the British when Cymbeline and company appear.

Scene IV

Posthumus, in chains, longs to be freed by death. He falls asleep and has a vision in which his father, Sicilius Leonatus, his mother, and his two brothers who were killed in battle appear, and speak a rather ricky-ticky rhyming account of Posthumus's marriage and Iachimo's villainy, then call on Jupiter to right the wrongs done to him. As Nosworthy observes, there are a lot of critics who question whether Shakespeare wrote the scene. Then "Jupiter descends in thunder and lightning, sitting upon an eagle: he throws a thunderbolt. The Ghosts fall on their knees." He admonishes the "petty spirits of region low" for offending his "hearing" -- which maybe hints that Shakespeare knew the verse in their plea wasn't top-notch stuff -- then tells them everything will turn out all right, gives them a "tablet" to lay on Posthumus's breast in which he explains the future, and flies off again, charging them "no farther with your din / Express impatience, let you stir up mine. They leave the document and vanish.

Posthumus wakes from his dream, expecting as usual to find that it was just a dream, but discovers "A book?" He reads the prophecy in it, which has to do with "a lion's whelp" being "embrac'd by a piece of tender air," and "a stately cedar" having its long-dead "lopp'd branches" restored, and decides he is still dreaming because he can't make sense of it.

His jailers enter and tell him to prepare to be hanged. (The First Gaoler is one of those annoyingly garrulous "comic relief" characters like, Nosworthy suggests, the Porter in Macbeth.) Then a messenger arrives to say that Posthumus is to be taken to the king.

Scene V

Nosworthy mentions that one scholar has counted "twenty-four distinct denouements" in this scene. You could say it moves at twenty-four revelations per minute.

We start with Cymbeline wishing that they could find the fourth "poor" soldier who aided Belarius, Guiderius, and Arviragus, but Pisanio says that there's no trace of him. So Cymbeline goes ahead and proclaims the three "the liver, heart, and brain of Britain" and knights them. Then comes the first revelation, when Cornelius arrives to report that the Queen has died. Moreover, on her deathbed she revealed that she never loved Cymbeline, that she had Imogen poisoned, that she was planning to give Cymbeline a slow poison that would weaken him gradually while she made him promise to name Cloten his heir. But when Cloten disappeared she "repented / The evils she hatch'd were not effected: so / Despairing died."

Then the Roman prisoners, including Posthumus and the disguised Imogen, enter. Caius Lucius pleads for Cymbeline to spare his page, "a Briton born," meaning Fidele/Imogen. Cymbeline looks at Fidele and thinks he looks "familiar," and decides not only to pardon him but also to do him a favor, whatever he requests. Lucius tells Fidele not to beg for his master's life, "And yet I know thou wilt," but he's surprised when Imogen says she won't do that: "The boy disdains me," Lucius says, "He leaves me, scorns me." But Imogen asks the king if she can make her request privately.

As Imogen and Cymbeline confer, Belarius, Guiderius, and Arviragus express surprise that Fidele is alive, and Pisanio wonders what she is up to. When they have finished speaking, Cymbeline asks Iachimo to step forward, and Imogen asks his where he got the diamond he is wearing. And Iachimo launches into a florid confession that is, as Nosworthy says, "at once boastful and apologetic." It was "Leonatus' jewel," he says, and he got it by "villainy." He embroiders the tale so much that Cymbeline keeps interrupting is with "Come to the matter" and "Nay, nay, to th' purpose." Among other things, Iachimo says, "mine Italian brain / Gan in your duller Britain operate most vilely," and he pauses to relish his own scheme in obtaining the bracelet: "(O cunning, how I got it!)"

At the end of Iachimo's confession, Posthumus steps forward to reveal his identity, and to denounce not only Iachimo but also himself, breaking down in grief: "O Imogen! / My queen, my life, my wife, O Imogen, / Imogen, Imogen!" But when Imogen steps forward to try to calm him, Posthumus lashes out in his grief, thinking that the "scornful page" has something to do with Iachimo's plot. He hits her and she falls.

Pisanio comes forward then to beg someone to help Imogen and to reveal her identity: "O, my lord Posthumus! / You ne'er kill'd Imogen till now." But when she revives, Pisanio is the one who has some 'splainin' to do. (What? Shakespeare's the one who is turning tragedy into farce, with more revelations than an episode of "I Love Lucy.") She accuses him of trying to poison her with the Queen's drugs. Whereupon Cornelius remembers "one thing which the queen confessed," which is that if Pisanio gave Imogen what the Queen told him was medicine, "she is serv'd / As I would serve a rat." But he goes on to say that he suspected that the Queen was up to no good, so he made up a potion that would produce only the temporary illusion of death.

This revelation causes an aha! moment for Belarius, Guiderius, and Arviragus, who have been wondering how their Fidele, whom they left for dead, has shown up with Caius Lucius. Imogen now embraces Posthumus, who has suddenly recognized that Fidele is really his wife. "Hang there like fruit, my soul," he tells her, "Till the tree die," which was one of Tennyson's favorite Shakespeare lines, Nosworthy tells us.

Meanwhile, Cymbeline is still trying to fit all the missing pieces together, starting with Cloten. Pisanio does what he can to explain Cloten's disappearance, saying that he "came to me / With his sword drawn, foam'd at the mouth, and swore, / If I discover'd not which way she was gone, / It was my instant death." So he gave Cloten the letter in which Posthumus claimed to be in Milford-Haven, and Cloten borrowed Posthumus's clothes and headed off there "With unchaste purpose." Other than that, he doesn't know what happened to him.

Guiderius does know, however, and steps up to say, "I slew him there." Cymbeline, who has just knighted Guiderius, is appalled; this means he'll have to execute Guiderius. Imogen, meanwhile, realizes that the headless body she was lying next to was Cloten's, not Posthumus's. But when Cymbeline orders Guiderius seized, Belarius steps up to tell Cymbeline, "Stay, sir king. / This man is better than the man he slew." At risk of being executed himself, he reveals not only that he is Belarius, "a banish'd traitor" in Cymbeline's words, but that the young men who think they are his sons are in fact Cymbeline's.

The king admits, "I lost my children: / If these be they, I know not how to wish / A pair of worthier sons." Belarius has proof, he says: Arviragus "was lapp'd / In a most curious mantle, wrought by th' hand / Of his queen mother, which for more probation / I can with ease produce." And Cymbeline remembers that "Guiderius had / Upon his neck a mole, a sanguine star," which of course this Guiderius also has. Cymbeline is happy with this denouement, and inclined to forgive Belarius for the kidnapping. His only regret, he says, is that Imogen has "lost  by this a kingdom."

Imogen now wangles a pardon for Caius Lucius, and Iachimo kneels before Posthumus, returning his ring and giving Imogen "the bracelet of the truest princess / That ever swore her faith." Posthumus replies, "The power that I have on you, is to spare you: / The malice towards you, to forgive you. Life / And deal with others better." Cymbeline then pardons the Roman prisoners, but Posthumus has a question for Lucius's soothsayer, whose name turns out to be Philarmonus: What does this message from Jupiter mean?

Philarmonus reads it and explains that the "lion's whelp" is Posthumus himself, whose name, Leonatus, means lion-born. "The piece of tender air," he claims, refers to Imogen, asserting that the Latin for woman, mulier, is derived from mollis (i.e., tender) aer (air). The "stately cedar" is Cymbeline, who has had his "lopp'd branches," Guiderius and Arviragus, restored to him. And finally, he recalls the earlier prophecy that he had interpreted as meaning a Roman victory. In fact, he says, it was a prophecy of a peace between Rome and Britain:

                                      For the Roman eagle, 
From south to west on wing soaring aloft, 
Lessen'd herself and in the beams o' the sun 
So vanish'd; which foreshow'd our princely eagle, 
Th' imperial Caesar, should again unite 
His favor with the radiant Cymbeline, 
Which shines here in  the west. 

So let's go celebrate, says Cymbeline, "Never was a war did cease / (Ere bloody hands were wash'd) with such a peace." 
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Act V of this 1982 BBC-TV production begins at about 2:04:57.

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

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

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