THE LIBRARY OF THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA GIFT OF PROFESSOR BENJAMIN H. LEHMAN SHAKESPEARE'S TRAGEDY OF C Y M B E L I N E. EDITED, WITH NOTES, WILLIAM J. ROLFE, A.M., FORMERLY HEAD MASTER OF THE HIGH SCHOOL, CAMBRIDGE, MASS. WITH ENGRAVINGS. NEW YORK: HARPER & BROTHERS, PUBLISHERS, FRANKLIN SQUARE. 1884. ENGLISH CLASSICS. EDITED BY WM. J. ROLFE, A.M. Illustrated. i6mo, Cloth, 56 cents per volume ; Paper, 40 cents per volume. bHAKESPJ The Merchant of Venice. Othello. Julius Caesar. A Midsummer-Night's Dream Macbeth. Hamlet. Much Ado about Nothing. Romeo and Juliet. As You Like It. The Tempest. Twelfth Night. The Winter's Tale. King John. Richard II. Henry IV. Part I. Henry IV. Part II. Henry V. Richard III. Henry VIII. King Lear. ;ARE'S WORKS. The Taming of the Shrew. All's Well that Ends Well. Coriolanus. The Comedy of Errors. Cymbeline. Antony and Cleopatra. Measure for Measure. Merry Wives of Windsor. Love's Labour 's Lost. Two Gentlemen of Verona. Timon of Athens. Troilus and Cressida. Henry VI. Part I. Henry VI. Part II. Henry VI. Part III. Pericles, Prince of Tyre. The Two Noble Kinsmen. Venus and Adonis, Lucrece, etc. Sonnets. Titus Andronicus. GOLDSMITH'S SELECT POEMS. GRAY'S SELECT POEMS. PUBLISHED BY HARPER & BROTHERS, NEW YORK. A ny of the above works will be sent by mail, postage prepaid, to any part of the United States, on receipt of the price. Copyright, 1881, by HARPER & BROTHERS. CONTENTS. PAGE INTRODUCTION TO CYMBELINE 9 I. THE HISTORY OF THE PLAY 9 II. THE SOURCES OF THE PLOT 1 1 III. CRITICAL COMMENTS ON THE PLAY 12 CYMBELINE 39 ACT 1 41 " II 67 "III 84 " IV... . no V. 130 NOTES .161 821 VIEW NEAR MILFORD. INTRODUCTION TO CYMBELINE. I. THE HISTORY OF THE PLAY. Cymbeline was first printed in the folio of 1623, where it is the last play in the volume, occupying pages 369-399 (mis- printed 993) in the division of " Tragedies." The earliest allusion to it that has been discovered is in Dr. Simon For- man's MS. Diary (see Richard II. p. 13, M. N. D. p. 10, and W. T. p. 10), which belongs to the years 1610 and 1611. His sketch of the plot (not dated) is as follows :* * As given in the New Shaks. Soc, Transactions for 1875-6, p. 417. I0 CYMBELINE. " Remember also the storri of Cymbalin king of England, in Lucius tyme, howe Lucius Cam from Octauus Cesar for Tribut, and being denied, after sent Lucius wM a greate Arme of Souldiars who landed at milford hauen, and Affter wer vanquished by Cimbalin, and Lucius taken prisoner, and all by means of 3 outlawes, of the w^/ch 2 of them were the sonns of Cimbalim, stolen from him when they but 2 yers old by an old man whom Cymbalin banished, and he kept them as his own sonns 20 yers w/t/ him in A caue. And howe [one] of them slewe Clotan, that was the quens sonn, goinge To milford hauen to sek the loue of Innogen the kingly daughter, whom he had banished also for louinge his daughter, and howe the Italian that cam from her loue con- o veied him selfe into A Cheste, and said yt was a chest of plate sent from her loue & others, to be presented to the kinge. And in the depest of the night, she being aslepe, he opened the cheste & cam forth of yt, And vewed her in her bed, and the markes of her body, & toke a-wai her braslet, & after Accused her of adultery to her loue, &c. And in thend howe he came w/t the Remains into England & was taken prisoner, and after Reueled to Innogen who had turned her self into mans apparrell & fled to mete her loue at milford hauen, & chanchsed to fall on the Caue in the wod^f wher her 2 brothers were, & howe by eating a sleping Dram they thought she had bin deed, & laid her in the wod^r, & the body of cloten by her in her loues apparrell that he left be- hind him, & howe she was found by lucius, &c." The play was probably a new one when Forman saw it in 1610 or 1611. Drake dates it in 1605, Chalmers in 1606, Malone in 1609 (after having at first assigned it to 1605), Fleay (Introd. to Shakespearian Study) "circa 1609," White " 1609 or 1610," Delius, Furnivall, and Stokes in 1610, Dow- den and Ward at about the time when Forman saw it. The internal evidence of style and metre indicates that it was one of the latest of the plays. INTRODUCTION. T t Cymbeline is badly printed in the folio, and the involved style makes the correction of the text a task of more than usual difficulty. The critics generally agree that the vision in v. 4 cannot be Shakespeare's. Ward considers that " there is no reason, on account of its style, which reminds one of the prefatory lines to the cantos of the Faerie Queene, to im- pugn Shakespeare's authorship of it;" but it seems to us very clearly the work of another hand. Cf. the rhymed epi- sode in A. Y. L. v. 4. 113 fol., and see oui ed. p. 199 (note on 136). II. THE SOURCES OF THE PLOT. The poet took the names of Cymbeline and his two sons from Holinshed, together with a few historical facts concern- ing the king ; but the story of the stealing of the princes and of their life in the wilderness appears to be his own.* The story of Imogen, which is so admirably interwoven with that of the sons of Cymbeline, was taken, directly or in- directly, from the Decamerone of Boccaccio, in which it forms the ninth novel of the second day. No English translation of it is known to have been made in Shakespeare's time. A version appeared in a tract entitled Westward for Smelts, which was published in 1620. Malone speaks of an edition of 1603 \ but this is probably an error, as the book was not entered upon the Stationers' Registers until 1619-20. This translation, moreover, lacks some important details which the play has in common with the Italian original.f * It has been pointed out by K. Schenkl that the incidents of Imogen's seeking refuge in the wilderness and her deathlike sleep occur in the Ger- man fairy-tale of Schtteewittchen. f For an outline of Boccaccio's novel, see the extract from Mrs. Jame- son below. The chief incidents of the story had been used in a French miracle-play of the Middle Ages, and also in the old French romances of La Violette and Flore etjehanne ; but we have no reason to suppose that Shakespeare made any use of these. In one of the romances the lady has a mole upon her right breast ; in Boccaccio, as in Shakespeare, it is on her left breast. This mark is not mentioned at all in Westward for I2 CYMBELINE. But, as Verplanck remarks, " from whatever source the idea of the plot might have been immediately drawn, the poet owes to his predecessors nothing more than the bare outline of two or three leading incidents. These he has raised, refined, and elevated into a higher sphere ; while the characters, dialogue, circumstances, details, descriptions, the lively interest of the plot, its artful involution and skilful development, are entirely his own. He has given to what were originally scenes of coarse and tavern-like profligacy a dignity suited to the state and character of his personages, and has poured over the whole the golden light, the rainbow hues, of imaginative poetry." III. CRITICAL COMMENTS ON THE PLAY. [From SchlegePs "Dramatic Literature" *] Cymbeline is one of Shakspeare's most wonderful compo- sitions. He has here combined a novel of Boccaccio's with traditionary tales of the ancient Britons, reaching back to Smelts. In the latter, moreover, the person corresponding to lachimo conceals himself under the bed in the lady's chamber, while in the French and Italian versions he is conveyed thither in a chest. White has noted another circumstance which seems to show that Shakespeare went directly to Boccaccio, and that the Winter's Tale and Cymbeline were composed at about the same period : " In Boccaccio's novel the convicted slanderer is condemned by the Sultan to be anointed with honey, and exposed to the rays of the sun, tied to a stake upon some elevated spot, and to remain there until his flesh falls away from his bones. From this doom it seems quite clear that Shakespeare took the hint for that mock sentence which Autolycus passes upon the young clown in W. T. iv. 4. 812 : ' He has a son who shall be flayed alive ; then 'nointed over with honey . . . then, raw as he is, and in the hottest day prognostication proclaims, shall he be set against a brick wall, the sun looking with a southward eye upon him, where he is to behold him with flies blown to death.' " Westward for Smelts is reprinted in the "Variorum" ed. of 1821, vol. xiii., and in Collier's Shakespeare^s Library -, vol. ii. * Lectures on Dramatic Art and Literature, by A. W. Schlegel ; Black's translation, revised by Morrison (London, 1846), p. 397 fol. INTRODUCTION. !^ the times of the first Roman Emperors, and he has contrived, by the most gentle transitions, to blend together into one harmonious whole the social manners of the newest times with olden heroic deeds, and even with appearances of the gods. In the character of Imogen no one feature of female excellence is omitted : her chaste tenderness, her softness, and her virgin pride, her boundless resignation, and her mag- nanimity towards her mistaken husband, by whom she is un- justly persecuted, her adventures in disguise, her apparent death, and her recovery, form altogether a picture equally tender and affecting. The two Princes, Guiderius and Ar- viragus, both educated in the wilds, form a noble contrast to Miranda and Perdita. Shakspeare is fond of showing the superiority of the natural over the artificial. Over the art which enriches nature, he somewhere says, there is a higher art created by nature herself. As Miranda's unconscious and unstudied sweetness is more pleasing than those charms which endeavour to captivate us by the brilliant embellish- ments of a refined cultivation/so in these two youths, to whom the chase has given vigour and hardihood, but who are ignorant of their high destination, and have been brought up apart from human society, we are equally enchanted by a naive heroism which leads them to anticipate and to dream of deeds of valour, till an occasion is offered which they are irresistibly compelled to embrace.! When Imogen comes in disguise to their cave ; when, with all the innocence of child- hood, Guiderius and Arviragus form an impassioned friend- ship for the tender boy, in whom they neither suspect a fe- male nor their own sister \ when, on their return from the chase they find her dead, then " sing her to the ground," and cover the grave with flowers these scenes might give to the most deadened imagination a new life for poetry. If a tragical event is only apparent in such case, whether the spectators are already aware of it or ought merely to suspect it, Shakspeare always knows how to mitigate the impres- I4 CYMBELINE. sion without weakening it: he makes the mourning musical, that it may gain in solemnity what it loses in seriousness. With respect to the other parts, the wise and vigorous Be- larius, who after long living as a hermit again becomes a hero, is a venerable figure ; the Italian lachimo's ready dis- simulation and quick presence of mind is quite suitable to the bold treachery which he plays ; Cymbeline, the father of Imogen, and even her husband Posthumus, during the first half of the piece, are somewhat sacrificed, but this could not be otherwise ; the false and wicked Queen is merely an in- strument of the plot; she and her stupid son Cloten (the only comic part in the piece) whose rude arrogance is por- trayed with much humour, are, before the conclusion, got rid f^of by merited punishment. As for the heroical part of the \ fable, the war between the Romans and Britons, which brings J on the denouement, the poet in the extent of his plan had so i little room to spare that he merely endeavours to represent it <^as a mute procession. But to the last scene, where all the numerous threads of the knot are untied, he has again given its full development, that he might collect together into one focus the scattered impressions of the whole. This example and many others are a sufficient refutation of Johnson's as- sertion, that Shakspeare usually hurries over the conclusion of his pieces. Rather does he, from a desire to satisfy the feelings, introduce a great deal which, so far as the under- standing of the denouement requires, might, in a strict sense, be justly spared : our modern spectators are much more im- patient to see the curtain drop, when there is nothing more to be determined, than those of his day could have been. [From Drake^s " Shakespeare and his Times" *] This play, if not in the construction of its fable one of the most perfect of our author's productions, is, in point of poetic * Shakespeare and his Ttmes,by Nathan Drake, M.D. (London, 1817), vol. ii. p. 466. INTRODUCTION. 15 beauty, of variety and truth of character, and in the display of sentiment and emotion, one of the most lovely and inter- esting. Nor can we avoid expressing our astonishment at the sweeping condemnation which Johnson has passed upon it ; charging its fiction with folly, its conduct with absurdity, its events with impossibility ; terming its faults too evident for detection and too gross for aggravation. Of the enormous injustice of this sentence, nearly every page of Cymbeline will, to a reader of any taste or discrimi- nation, bring the most decisive evidence. That it possesses many of the too common inattentions of Shakspeare, that it exhibits a frequent violation of costume, and a singular con- fusion of nomenclature, cannot be denied ; but these are tri- fles light as air when contrasted with its merits, which are of the very essence of dramatic worth, rich and full in all that breathes of vigour, animation, and intellect, in all that elevates the fancy and improves the heart, in all that fills the eye with tears or agitates the soul with hope and fear. Imogen, the most lovely and perfect of Shakspeare's fe- male characters the pattern of connubial love and chastity, by the delicacy and propriety of her sentiments, by her sen- sibility, tenderness, and resignation, by her patient endurance of persecution from the quarter where she had confidently looked for endearment and protection irresistibly seizes upon our affections. The scenes which disclose the incidents of her pilgrimage ; her reception at the cave of Belarius ; her intercourse with her lost brothers, who are ignorant of their birth and rank ; her supposed death, funeral rites, and resuscitation, are wrought up with a mixture of pathos and romantic wildness peculiarly characteristic of our author's genius, and which has had but few successful imitators. Among these few stands pre-eminent the poet Collins, who seems to have trod- den this consecrated ground with a congenial mind, and who has sung the sorrows of Ficlele in strains worthy of their sub- !6 CYMBELINE. ject, and which will continue to charm the mind and soothe the heart "till pity's self be dead." When compared with this fascinating portrait, the other personages of the drama appear but in a secondary light. Yet are they adequately brought out and skilfully diversified : the treacherous subtlety of lachimo ; the sage experience of Belarius ;^the native nobleness of heart and innate heroism I of mind which burst forth in the vigorous sketches of Guide- rius and Arviragusj) the temerity, credulity, and penitence of Posthumus ; the uxorious weakness of Cymbeline ; the hypocrisy of his Queen ; and the comic arrogance of Cloten, half fool and half knave, produce a striking diversity of ac- tion and sentiment. Poetical justice has been strictly observed in this drama ; the vicious characters meet the punishment due to their crimes ; while virtue, in all its various degrees, is propor- tionably rewarded. The scene of retribution, which is the closing one of the play, is a masterpiece of skill ; the devel- opment of the plot, for its fulness, completeness, and inge- nuity, surpassing any effort of the kind among our author's contemporaries, and atoning for any partial incongruity which the structure or conduct of the story may have previously displayed. [From Mrs. Jameson 's " Characteristics of Women" *] Others of Shakspeare's characters are, as dramatic and poetical conceptions, more striking, more brilliant, more pow- erful; but of all his women, considered as individuals rather than as heroines, Imogen is the most perfect. Portia and Juliet are pictured to the fancy with more force of contrast, more depth of light and shade ; Viola and Miranda, with more aerial delicacy of outline; but there is no female por- ^j trait that can be compared to Imogen as a woman none in which so great a variety of tints are mingled together into * American ed. (Boston, 1857), p. 253 fol. INTRODUCTION. ! 7 such perfect harmony, fin her, we have all the fervour of youthful tenderness, all the romance of youthful fancy, all the enchantment of ideal grace the bloom of beauty, the bright- ness of intellect, and the dignity of rank taking a peculiar hue from the conjugal character which is shed over all, like a consecration and a holy charm. I In Othello and the Win- ter's Tale^ the interest excited for Desdemona and Hermione is divided with others ;V.but in Cymbeline, Imogen is the angel of light, whose lovely presence pervades and animates the whole piece. ) The character altogether may be pronounced finer, more complex in its elements, and more fully devel- oped in all its parts, than those of Hermione and Desde- mona; but the position in which she is placed is not, I think, so fine at least, not so effective, as a tragic situation. Shakspeare has borrowed the chief circumstances of Imo- gen's story from one of Boccaccio's tales. A company of Italian merchants who are assembled in a tavern at Paris are represented as conversing on the subject of their wives. All of them express themselves with levity, or scepticism, or scorn, on the virtue of women, except a young Genoese merchant named Bernabo, who maintains that by the especial favour of Heaven he possesses a wife no less chaste than beautiful. Heated by the wine, and excited by the arguments and the coarse raillery of another young merchant, Ambrogiolo, Bernabo proceeds to enumerate the various perfections and accomplishments of his Zinevra. He praises her loveliness, her submission, and her discretion her skill in embroidery, her graceful service, in which the best trained page of the court could not exceed her; and he adds, as rarer accomplishments, that she could mount a horse, fly a hawk, write and read, and cast up accounts, as well as any merchant of them all. His enthusiasm only excites the laughter and mockery of his companions, particularly of Am- brogiolo, who, by the most artful mixture of contradiction and argument, rouses the anger of Bernabo, and he at length ex- B l8 CYMBELINE. claims that he would willingly stake his life, his head, on the virtue of his wife. This leads to the wager which forms so important an incident in the drama. Ambrogiolo bets one thousand florins of gold against five thousand that Zinevra, like the rest of her sex, is accessible to temptation that in less than three months he will undermine her virtue, and bring her husband the most undeniable proofs of her false- hood. He sets off for Genoa in order to accomplish his pur- pose; but on his arrival, all that he learns, and all that he be- holds with his own eyes, of the discreet and noble character of the lady, make him despair of success by fair means ; he therefore has recourse to the basest treachery. By bribing an old woman in the service of Zinevra, he is conveyed to her sleeping apartment concealed in a trunk, from which he issues in the dead of the night; he takes note of the furniture of the chamber, makes himself master of her purse, her morn- ing robe, or cymar, and her girdle, and of a certain mark on her person. He repeats these observations for two nights, and, furnished with these evidences of Zinevra's guilt, he re- turns to Paris, and lays them before the wretched husband. Bernabo rejects every proof of his wife's infidelity except that which finally convinces Posthumus. When Ambrogiolo men- tions the " mole, cinque-spotted," he stands like one who has received a poniard in his heart; without further dispute he pays down the forfeit, and filled with rage and despair both at the loss of his money and the falsehood of his wife, he re- turns towards Genoa. He retires to his country-house, and sends a messenger to the city with letters to Zinevra, desiring that she would come and meet him, but with secret orders to the man to despatch her by the way. The servant prepares to execute his master's command, but overcome by her en- treaties for mercy and his own remorse, he spares her life, on condition that she will fly from the country forever. He then disguises her in his own cloak and cap, and brings back to her husband the assurance that she is killed, and that her INTRODUCTION. ! 9 body has been devoured by the wolves. In the disguise of a mariner, Zinevra then embarks on board a vessel bound to the Levant, and on arriving at Alexandria she is taken into the service of the Sultan of Egypt, under the name of Sicurano. She gains the confidence of her master, who, not suspecting her sex, sends her as captain of the guard which was ap- pointed for the protection of the merchants at the fair of Acre. Here she accidentally meets Ambrogiolo, and sees in his possession the purse and girdle, which she immediately recognizes as her own. In reply to her inquiries, he relates with fiendish exultation the manner in which he had obtain- ed possession of them, and she persuades him to go back with her to Alexandria. She then sends a messenger to Genoa in the name of the Sultan, and induces her husband to come and settle in Alexandria. At a proper opportunity, she summons both to the presence of the Sultan, obliges Am- brogiolo to make a full confession of his treachery, and wrings from her husband the avowal of his supposed murder of her- self; then, falling at the feet of the Sultan, discovers her real name and sex, to the great amazement of all. Bernabo is pardoned at the prayer of his wife, and Ambrogiolo is con- demned to be fastened to a stake, smeared with honey, and left to be devoured by the flies and locusts. This horrible sentence is executed; while Zinevra, enriched by the pres- ents of the Sultan and the forfeit wealth of Ambrogiolo, re- turns with her husband to Genoa, where she lives in great honour and happiness, and maintains her reputation of virtue to the end of her life. These are the materials from which Shakspeare has drawn the dramatic situation of Imogen. He has also endowed her with several of the qualities which are attributed to Zinevra; but for the essential truth and beauty of the individual char- acter, for the sweet colouring of pathos, and sentiment, and poetry interfused through the whole, he is indebted only to nature and himself. . . . 20 CYMBELINE. When Ferdinand tells Miranda that she was " created of every creature's best," he speaks like a lover, or refers only to her personal charms: the same expression might be ap- plied critically to the character of Imogen ; for, as the por- trait of Miranda is produced by resolving the female charac- ter into its original elements, so that of Imogen unites the greatest number of those qualities which we imagine to con- stitute excellency in woman. Imogen, like Juliet, conveys to our mind the impression of extreme simplicity in the midst of the most wonderful complexity. To conceive her aright, we must take some peculiar tint from many characters, and so mingle them that, like the combination of hues in a sunbeam, the effect shall be as one to the eye. We must imagine something of the romantic enthusiasm of Juliet, of the truth and constancy of Helen, of the dignified purity of Isabel, of the tender sweet- ness of Viola, of the self-possession and intellect of Portia combined together so equally and so harmoniously that we can scarcely say that one quality predominates over the oth- er. But Imogen is less imaginative than Juliet, less spirited and intellectual than Portia, less serious than Helen and Isa- bel; her dignity is not so imposing as that of Hermione it stands more on the defensive; her submission, though un- bounded, is not so passive as that of Desdemona ; and thus, while she resembles each of these characters individually, she stands wholly distinct from all. It is true that the conjugal tenderness of Imogen is at once the chief subject of the drama and the pervading charm of her character; but it is not true, I think, that she is mere- ly interesting from her tenderness and constancy to her hus- band. We are so completely let into the essence of Imo- gen's nature that we feel as if we had known and loved her before she was married to Posthumus, and that her conjugal virtues are a charm superadded, like the colour laid upon a beautiful groundwork. Neither does it appear to me that INTRODUCTION. 21 Posthumus is unworthy of Imogen, or only interesting on Imogen's account. His character, like those of all the other persons of the drama, is kept subordinate to hers; but this could not be otherwise, for she is the proper subject the heroine of the poem. Everything is done to ennoble Post- humus and justify her love for him; and though we certain- ly approve him more for her sake than for his own, we are early prepared to view him with Imogen's eyes, and not only excuse, but sympathize in her admiration of one "Who sat 'mongst men like a descended god; ****** who liv'd in court Which rare it is to do most prais'd, most lov'd ; A sample to the youngest, to the more mature A glass that feated them." . . . One thing more must be particularly remarked, because it serves to individualize the character from the beginning to the end of the poem. We are constantly sensible that Imogen, besides being a tender and devoted woman, is a princess and a beauty, at the same time that she is ever su- perior to her position and her external charms. There is, for instance, a certain airy majesty of deportment a spirit of accustomed command breaking out every now and then the dignity, without the assumption, of rank and royal birth, which is apparent in the scene with Cloten and elsewhere; and we have not only a general impression that Imogen, like other heroines, is beautiful, but the peculiar style and char- acter of her beauty is placed before us. We have an image of the most luxuriant loveliness, combined with exceeding delicacy, and even fragility, of person; of the most refined elegance and the most exquisite modesty, set forth in one or two passages of description; as when lachimo is contem- plating her asleep: " Cytherea, How bravely thou becom'st thy bed ! fresh lily, And whiter than the sheets ! 22 CYMBELINE. 7 T is her breathing that Perfumes the chamber thus. The flame o' the taper Bows toward her, and would underpeep her lids To see the enclosed lights, now canopied Under those windows, white and azure, lac'd With blue of heaven's own tinct !" The preservation of her feminine character under her masculine attire; her delicacy, her modesty, and her timid- ity, are managed with the same perfect consistency and un- conscious grace as in Viola. And we must not forget that her " neat cookery," which is so prettily eulogized by Guide- rius " He cut our roots in characters, And sauc'd our broths, as Juno had been sick, And he her dieter" formed part of the education of a princess in those remote times. . . . The catastrophe of this play has been much admired for the peculiar skill with which all the various threads of inter- est are gathered together at last, and entwined with the des- tiny of Imogen. It may be added that one of its chief beau- ties is the manner in which the character of Imogen is not only preserved, but rises upon us to the conclusion with added grace: her instantaneous forgiveness of her husband before he even asks it, when she flings herself at once into his arms " Why did you throw your wedded lady from you?" and her magnanimous reply to her father, when he tells her that by the discovery of her two brothers she has lost a king- dom " No I have got two worlds by 't " clothing a noble sentiment in a noble image, give the finish- ing touches of excellence to this most enchanting portrait. On the whole, Imogen is a lovely compound of goodness, truth, and affection, with just so much of passion and intel- INTRODUCTION. 2 ^ lect and poetry as serve to lend to the picture that power and glowing richness of effect which it would otherwise have wanted; and of her it might be said, if we could condescend to quote from any other poet with Shakspeare open before us, that " her person was a paradise and her soul the cherub to guard it."* [From Charles Coivden- Clarke' 's " Shakespeare- Characters"^ It is not my purpose to enter upon a discussion of the small dramatic proprieties, as these are observed or ignored in the play of Cymbeline. They who are interested in the rigidities, perhaps the fussiness, of criticism, who take more pleasure in detecting a lapse in the unity of such a composi- tion as this, who would rather pride themselves upon ex- posing a deficiency in its chronology than in displaying its incomparable force and beauty of passion and fancy, of ten- derness, imagery, and splendour of language, are referred to the supplementary notices of the Johnsonian school of criticism. For myself, I care not one straw about the viola- tion of the unities : I am content to be wafted on the wings of the poet's imagination, and to be with him to-day in Rome and to-morrow watching the weary pilgrimage of the divine Imogen towards Milford-Haven. It is enough for me that the play is one of the most romantic and interesting of Shakespeare's dramas; and this we say of every drama of his, as we read them in succession. The romance itself of this story is sublimated by an intensity of passion and heart- ennobling affection and endurance that I have yet to see ex- celled. Of all his heroines, no one conveys so fully the ideal of womanly perfection as Imogen. We have full faith in the love and steadfast endurance of Desdemona: we believe that * Dryden. t From the unpublished "Second Series" of the Shakespeare- Charac- ters (see 2 Hen. IV. p. 18), kindly sent to us by Mrs. Mary Covvden-Clarke for publication here. 24 CYMBELINE. she would have borne more than her lord's jealousy in her personal love for him; but Imogen has given us the proof that nothing could quench the pure flame of affection and devotedness in her heart; not even the charge of disloyalty and the atrocity of assassination. The triumph of self-re- liance in the consciousness of holy virtue and of artless in- nocence was never more grandly carried out than in Imo- gen's steadfastness of purpose to go on and meet her hus- band after she has read his treacherous letter to their servant Pisanio, enjoining him to put her to death. It may be said, indeed, and for the thousandth time, that "No one ever hit the true perfection of the female character the sense of weakness leaning on the strength of its affections for support, so well as Shakespeare: no one ever so well painted nat- ural tenderness free from affectation and disguise : no one else ever so well showed how delicacy and timidity, when driven to extremity, grow romantic and extravagant;" and there are few who cannot identify this testimony to their character, not, of course, to the letter, but in the full spirit of Imogen's conduct. The homily of dear old Chaucer, when dismissing his narrative of the world-noted Griselda, may well be applied to our nation's Imogen : "This story is said, not for that wives should Follow Grisild' as in humility, For it were importable though they would ; But for that every wight in his degree Shoulde be constant in adversity As was Grisilda ; therefore Petrarc writeth This story, which with high style he inditeth." Before proceeding to the inferior agents in this drama, I would say a few words upon the character of Posthumus. That he was unworthy of the love of such a being as Imo- gen need only be stated. We need only be reminded that when lachimo assays her constancy with the account of her husband's infidelities, she gives utterance to no stronger re- INTRODUCTION. 2 5 ply than the celebrated one, " My lord, I fear, has forgot Britain" not "forgotten me;" not "forgotten his wife:" Imo- gen is too high-souled a lover and woman to utter a selfish reproach. Yet, when Posthumus receives the scandal of her disloyalty, it should be borne in mind that the proofs pro- duced, and sworn to, by lachimo were enough to stun even a devout lover. Real charity (or love), it is true, " endureth all things, hopeth all things," and Posthumus should still have proved for himself: but what I mainly feel to be an incon- sistency in his character is that he is not reconcilable with himself a perilous charge to venture against even the hum- blest of Shakespeare's creations, and which I would gladly fail to substantiate : nevertheless, in the first scene of the play, a friend describes him as "a creature such As to seek through the regions of the earth For one his like, there would be something failing In him that should compare : I do not think So fair an outward, and such stuff within, Endows a man but he." "You speak him far" (says the Second Gentleman). "I do extend him, sir, within himself; Crush him together, rather than unfold His measure duly." This fair report he certainly justifies in his leave-taking with Imogen; and subsequently maintains it in the wager with lachimo for the inviolability of her honour and truth. In short, he gives every proof of being noble and magnani- mous to the core. Is it then reconcilable with rational prob- ability that a man so endowed should so damn himself as, with the same ink, and the self-same pen, to write a treacher- ous letter to the woman he had adored, appointing her to meet him, and another to their servant, suborning him to be her murderer? His first resolution, upon encountering lachi- mo's proofs, that in the torment of his passion he would re- turn to her father's court and " tear her limb-meal," is not 26 CYMBELINE. irreconcilable with a generous, although an ungovernable temper; but coolly, and deliberately, and upon reflection to turn assassin by deputy! Can such a contradiction exist in a man so described as Posthumus has been described to us? The man who could reflectively compass the life of her whom he had adored beyond all the beings on earth was not the character to dismiss her slanderer, and the author of all their misery, with so godlike a punishment as this: *' The power that I have on you is to spare you ; The malice towards you to forgive you : live, And deal with others better." The divine spirit of this conclusion (as Mr. Charles Knight says) "is perfect Shakespeare." It is so; but I cannot feel it to be perfect Posthumus. In the original story of Boccaccio, from whence the play was taken, the punishment of the slanderer better accords with the revengeful nature of Posthumus ; and, indeed, with the frightful spirit of retribution that crowns the otherwise perfect the divine tales of the great Florentine. " He was fastened naked to a stake, smeared with honey, and left to be devoured by flies and locusts:' 7 a revenge in character; for the Italians have a proverb, actually inculcating the vice of revenge as a virtue: it is, " He who cannot revenge him- self is weak; he who will not is despicable." Imogen (thank Heaven!) was one of our own women. And yet, with all the objection here suggested against his character-structure, I am in candour bound (and I rejoice in my duty) to testify that Posthumus, in the clearing of his wife's innocence, does prostrate his soul in the very mire of self-reproach and de- spair. His rejoinder to the confession of lachimo's treach- ery is enormous in its remorse ; and, I must acknowledge, atoning and complete; as, in its spirit, it harmonizes with the impulsiveness of his nature. But, good Heaven ! how per- fectly divine is the scene of their reunion ! She, with her char- INTRODUCTION. 27 acteristic strength of passion and gentleness, says almost playfully : " Why did you throw your wedded lady from you ? Think that you are upon a rock ; and now Throw me again." [Embracing him.] His heart is too full : he can make no more reply than : " Hang there like fruit, my soul, Till the tree die." The noted soliloquy of Posthumus, after he has received from lachimo the proofs of Imogen's infidelity, a speech that has been objected to, on account of its unrestricted tone of expression and want of harmony with the quality of that conjugal love which had existed between them, appears to me, on the contrary, to be accurately consistent with his im- petuous and engrossing nature. It is the strongest foil the poet could have placed against the exquisite delicacy forbearance of Imogen, whose sharpest speeches are: "Some painted jay of Italy has betray'd him;" and her heaviest re- proach in her affliction : " My dear lord ! Thou art one of the false ones : now I think on thee, My hunger's gone ; but even before, I was At point to sink for food." And but once is she betrayed into an expression of anger: "That drug-damn'd Italy hath out-crafted him." She, the most injured party, is the most forbearing the common re- sult in society and, in short, never was case more trium- phantly carried out between what has been wittily styled the " fair, and the /^-fair sex." The prevailing feature in the play of Cymbeline is that, un- der different phases, it exhibits an enchanting portraiture of the a Affections " in their several varieties. In the two prime agents of the drama (Imogen and Posthumus), we are pre- sented with the passion in its grandest feature : in the broth- 2 8 CYMBELINE. /ers, Guiderius and Arviragus, we have the mysterious instinct / of the fraternal affection; in the stupid addresses of the booby prince, Cloten, a contrast of the animal affection, un- elevated by a spark of the celestial fire, is set forth ; and lastly, the affection of menial attachment, in its most dis- interested form, is exhibited in the beautiful character of Pisanio, the servant to Posthumus, who is one of Shake- speare's favorite class of attendant gentlemen like Horatio and Benvolio; of level understanding, unostentatiously faith- ful and actively devoted. The character of Pisanio is a charming one. And here, while upon the subject of "Affec- tion," rather, perhaps, say of " Friendship," which is only a modified emotion of the same subject (Friendship is Love without his wings), we may observe the different sentiment of Shakespeare as regards menial attachment, and that of Sir Walter Scott, who has so often been compared with him. Shakespeare, who in his love for his species seems to have been a cosmophilanthropist, took an evident pleasure in uniting the several grades of society in the bonds of mutual respect and unselfish attachment. Instances of this might be quoted from his plays to a considerable extent. As he has finely said, " One touch of Nature makes the whole world kin" He has therefore constantly identified both master and man in one common interest ; and in but one instance that I can recall has he personated the mere dogged, un- compromising, mechanically obedient serf, or slave, namely, in the steward to Queen Goneril ; and an admirable con- junction of dominion and servitude that was. The very ap- pointment of such a menial to such a mistress was, in itself, a touch of art. If we retrace the stories of Sir Walter Scott, we, I think, uniformly perceive that his idea of the connec- tion between master and servant is s\x\c\]y feudal. Through- out his writings we scarcely meet with any other idea of their reciprocal duties than that of irresponsible sway and com- mand on the one hand, with mechanical and implicit obedi- INTRODUCTION. 29 ence on the other, and not a spark of free and intrinsic attachment existing between them. He was a kind-hearted man, was Scott, but he was a thorough aristocrat by birth, education, and habit; and this circumstance cramped his prodigious brain, like a Chinese foot ; for he had some- what to seek in the fields of social philosophy. Contrasted with the master-feeling of the " \gf^tW>g" in this play, we are presented with the shocking treachery of the Queen-mother a character so odious, and even outra- geous, as to amount almost to a monstrous anomaly. To my apprehension, there does not appear sufficient ground in the light even of self-indulgence for such wholesale, gratuitous wickedness ; except, indeed, that there is a princi- ple of evil in the great economy of Nature, and that some dispositions draw their sustenance from, and batten upon, stratagem and murder. In the case, however, of Cymbe- line's Queen, Shakespeare has, with his own gentle wisdom, put a characteristic rebuke to her cruelty in the mouth of her physician, Cornelius, whom she has directed to concoct some poison for her. In answer to his inquiry as to her purport in requiring such dangerous compounds, she says she intends trying their effects on "such creatures as we count not worth the hanging." "Your Highmsss &kall from__this. practice but make hardyonr hgarr,," is his gentle remon- strance. This is a little effusion of humanity in relief to the savage craft of the murderess. But the whole detail of this woman (although below even a second-rate character) is per- fectly consistent. . Cymbeline. the Kinp; T is an ordinary specimen of h^man-wui^ ity, invested with irresponsible pnwpr, weak, wilful, an^ vjn- lent; not, however, unimpressible to the emotion of a gener- ous sentiment; for, in the conclusion, he makes a handsome and natural atonement for his previous folly and misrule. The constitutional imbecility of the man is well manifested injiisrequiring the counsel of his stupid step-son, Cloten, at 3 o CYMBELINE. the conference with the ambassador from Rome; and, with his usual tact, Shakespeare has made the blurting ass most forward in the debate. With the true lout-intellect, he tells the ambassador that they "will not pay tribute to Rome for wearing their own noses." And he closes the audience with this elegant peroration: "His Majesty bids you welcome. Make pastime with us a day or two 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 fail in the adventure, our crows shall fare the better for you ; and there 's an end." This speech accurately tallies with the de- scription of the man afterwards given by old Belarius; who, rin his hiding-place in the mountains, recognizes him after years of absence. He says : " By the snatches in his voice, and burst of speaking, it is absolute Cloten." No one like Shakespeare to give the whole of a man's manner in one line. Again, in the opening of the 2d act, a speaking picture of him is presented to us, where he is fuming and fretting, ruffling and vapouring with two courtier lords, after a game at bowls ; in which his temper appears to be as bad as his play had been. In the scene with Pisanio (the 5th of the 3d act) we have yet again full insight into the base soul of the man ; and all by concise yet plenary touches, apparently casual and inadvertent, but carefully and close- ly calculated. He has detected the letter from Posthumus to Pisanio, and taken it from him ; he there finds instruction that Imogen shall meet her husband at Milford-Haven. Having then ordered the servant to fetch him a suit of his master's garments, he falls into soliloquy, pondering his ruf- fianly intention against Imogen. " To the court I '11 knock her back, foot her home again. She hath despised me re- joicingly, and I '11 be merry in my revenge." It will be re- membered that she had rejected with ladylike dignity his swinish suit to her: INTRODUCTION. 31 " I am much sorry, sir, You put me to forget a lady's manners, By being so verbal : and learn now, for all, That I, which know my heart, do here pronounce, By the very truth of it, I care not for you, And am so near the lack of chanty, (To accuse myself) I hate you ; which I had rather You felt, than make 't my boast." In alluding to him in an after-part of the play, she says : "That Cloten, whose love-suit hath been to me As fearful as a siege." Lastly, his reputed animal courage is sagaciously accounted for by Belarius, who imputes it to defective judgment. And this is the solution of much of the headlong bravery that we hear of in the world, which, at times, is referable to phlegm and obtuseness of constitution. Cloten is a masterly varied! specimen in Shakespeare's class of half-witted characters :J he is of the race, yet distinct and original in feature and bearing. One of the lords of the court says of him : " That such a crafty devil as his mother Should yield the world this ass \ a woman that Bears all down with her brain ; and this, her son, Cannot take two from twenty, for his heart, And leave eighteen." This play of Cymbeline* inwoven as it is with the loftiest sentiment, with superb imagery, and with the most condensed truths and worldly axioms, contains yet no scene more fruit- ful in matter for sedate meditation than the one between Posthumus and his gaoler. Some commentator has re- marked that Voltaire himself has nothing comparable to the humorous discussion of the philosophic gaoler in Cymbeline : probably so; but beneath that humour there are speculations calculated to give one pause, and to set one chewing the cud of serious thoughts. Under these quaint and rough exteri- ors, Shakespeare loved to read his brethren a lesson upon the subject most deeply interesting their future-world inter- 32 CYMBELINE. ests; as Rabelais beautifully compared his own broad and coarse humour investing worldly knowledge and wisdom to the old-fashioned jars and bottles of the apothecaries, on the exteriors of which they used to paint grotesque figures and uncouth heads, yet within they contained precious unguents and healing balsams. The scene alluded to (v. 4. 150-201) is short, and not introduced on the stage which it should be. The scenes in which old Belarius and the young princes, Guiderius and Arviragus, his adopted sons, and stolen by him from the king, are engaged, form the sunshine of the play ; and their characters and mountain-life afford a bright relief to the court - treacheries, stormy passions, and heart- sickness of the other portio'nT It is palpable that, whenever our poet places his persons under the open canopy of heav- en, and in the unchartered wilds of rural nature, whether amid the solemn aisles and shadows brown of monumental oak, or on the crags and heathy slopes of the mountains old and bare, their language always takes a tone consonant with their free and primeval domain : as witness all the scenes in the forest of Arden, in As You Like It and so again, in this Cymbeline: these wild huntsmen talk the finest and the most vivid poetry of them all ; and how different is its char- acter and pitch from those of the placid, ruminating shep- herds who compose the still-life, as these mountaineers do romantic and adventurous life, of rudest nature. What vigour is breathed into their every action ! and how finely are discriminated the energy, yet cautious circumspection of the old man, and the impetuosity and recklessness of the young and inexperienced ones: what freshness, and what fancy too, to say nothing of the homely wisdom, in the sweet uses of their mountain life ! " You, Polydore, have prov'd best woodman, and Are master of the feast : Cadwal and I Will play the cook and servant ; 't is our match. The sweat of industry would dry and die, INTRODUCTION. 33 But for the end it works to. Come, our stomachs Will make what 's homely, savoury ; weariness Can snore upon the flint, when resty sloth Finds the down pillow hard." What a superb illustration of the delight of an active em- ployment ! But this division of the play absolutely glitters with these drops of heavenly wisdom, like morning-dew upon the scented hawthorn. Again, what lustre and grandeur in Belarius's description of the dispositions in the two youths : "O thou goddess, Thou divine Nature, how thyself thou blazon'st In 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 the vale." Yet again, we note the plausible advantage taken by the poet to signalize the old prejudice