sV' ■3 "? -O \\ ' « 4 '/V. A X ,s V I X ^. -7 *£ s, ' V . v - ,<3 <> -> fv ^ "^ x ^ _ ^ o 3 ^ o ^ ^ >5 V ,^' V> * *, ^ r ^^ %>*' o ° . * I 1 A » # SHAKESPEARE'S TRAGEDY OR CYMBELINE INTRODUCTION, AND NOTES EXPLANATORY AND CRITICAL. FOR USE IN SCHOOLS AND FAMILIES. V' y\ Rev. HENRY N. HUDSON, PROFESSOR OF SHAKESPEARE IN BOSTON UNIVERSITY. BOSTON: PUBLISHED BY GINN, HEATH, & CO. 1883. J?8 3 Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1881, by Henry N. Hudson, ••• • " in the office of the Librarian ®f!!Congressr*at Washington. ... By Transfer 10 25 iyo? Ginn & Heath: J. S. Cushing, Printer,. 16 Hawley Street, Boston. INTRODUCTION. SHAKESPEARE in his policy of authorship just reverses that of the popular fiction-writers of our day. Niggard of space, prodigal of thought, he uses the closest compres- sion, thej' the widest expansion : his aim is to crowd the greatest possible wealth of mind into a given time ; theirs, to fill the largest possible time with a certain modicum of mat- ter. The difference is greatly owing, ho doubt, to the differ- ent spirit of the present age, which requires the popular author to be a miser of his own time, and a spendthrift of the reader's; The Poet's structure of language and mode of expression are in keeping with this policy, and indeed took their growth under its discipline. Nor is this all. His whole cast of dramatic architecture and composition proceeds by the same laws. In studying a work of his, the mind, if really alive, does not stop with the work itself; for indeed this stands in vital continuity with a world outside of itself. He so keeps the relations of things, that besides what is expressed a great many things are suggested, and far more is inferred than is directly seen. Whatever matter he has specially in hand to bring forward and press upon the atten- tion, the delineation opens out into a broad and varied background and a far-stretching perspective, with seed- points of light shooting through it in all directions. Thus, if we look well to it, we shall find that in one of his dramatic 4 CYMBELINE. groups the entire sphere of social humanity is represented, though sometimes under one aspect, sometimes under an- other ; for the variety of these is endless ; and the mind, instead of being held to what is immediately shown, is sug- gested away, as by invisible nerves of thought, into a vast field of inference and reflection. This is because the part of nature, as he gives it, is relative to the whole of nature ; isolated to the eye indeed, for so it must be, but not to the mind. Hence, in reading one of his plays the hundredth time, one finds not only new thoughts, but new trains of thought springing up within him. For indeed what he opens to us is not a cask, but a fountain, and is therefore literally inexhaustible. And this habit of mind, if that be the right name for it, grew upon the Poet as he became older and more himself, or more practised in his art. It may almost be said indeed that his later works would be better, if they were not so good ; they being so overcharged with life and power as rather to numb the common reader's apprehensive faculties than kindle them ; and in fact it is doubtful whether the majority of those who read Shakespeare ever grow to a hearty relish of them. For average readers, he was better when less himself; and so I have commonly found such readers preferring his earlier plays. And it is remarkable that even some of his critics and editors, especially those of the last age, thought he must have been past his prime and in the decadence of his powers, when he wrote Antony and Cleopatra, which is perhaps his crowning instance of workmanship overcharged with poetic valour and potency. But, generally, in the plays of his latest period, we have his fiery force of intellect concentrating itself to the highest intensity which the language could be made to bear, and INTRODUCTION. 5 often exceeding even its utmost capacity ; while in turn the language in his use became as a thing inspired, developing an energy and flexibility and subtilty such as may well make him at once the delight and the despair of all who under- take to write the English tongue. For he here seems a perfect autocrat of expression, moulding and shaping it with dictatorial prerogative ; all this too, with the calmness of a spontaneous omniloquence. In his hands, indeed, the language is like a grand cathedral organ, with its every touch at his instant command, from the softest notes which the most delicate spirit of sense can apprehend, to the lord- liest harmonies that mortal hearing is able to sustain. Date of the Composition. The Tragedy of Cymbeline, as it is called in the origi- nal copy, belongs, both by internal and external marks, to the last ten years of the Poet's life, — the same period which produced Othello, Coriolanus, Antony and Cleopatra, The Tempest, and The Winter 's Tale. The only contempo- rary notice we have of it is from the Diary of Dr. Simon Forman, who gives with considerable detail the leading inci- dents of the play as he saw it performed somewhere between April, 1610, and May, 161 1. It may be well to add that Cymbeline, as we learn by an entry of Sir Henry Herbert, Master of the Revels, was acted at Court in January, 1633, and was "well liked by the King" ; which is to me an inter- esting fact in reference to that ill-starred Prince, Charles the First, who, whatever may be thought of him as a statesman and ruler, was undoubtedly a man of royal tastes in litera- ture and art. There is no reason to doubt that Cymbeline was fresh 6 CYMBELINE. from the mint when Forman saw it. It has the same gen- eral characteristics of style and imagery as The Tempest and The Winter's Tale ; while perhaps no play in the series abounds more in those overcrammed and elliptical passages which show too great a rush and press of thought for the author's space. The poetry and characterization, also, are marked by the same severe beauty and austere sweetness as in the other plays just named : therewithal the moral senti- ment of the piece comes out, from time to time, in just those electric starts which indicate, to my mind, the Poet's last and highest stage of art. The play was first printed in the folio of 1623, where it makes the last in the volume. It is there placed in the division of Tragedies, as The Winter's Tale is in that of Comedies ; though the two might, I think, with more pro- priety be set apart in a class by themselves. For in these instances the Poet gave himself up more unreservedly than ever to the freedom and variety of Nature, ordering the elements of dramatic interest in utter disregard of dramatic precedent. For the divisions of Tragedy and Comedy are arbitrary ; there is nothing answering to them in human life : and why should the Drama be tied to any other conditions than those of human life? And Shakespeare seems to have thought that there was no reason or law of Art why all the forms of human transpiration should not run together just as freely in the Drama as they do in fact. If he had ""been a pedant, he would not have thought so ; but he was not a pedant. Nor have we any reason to suppose that the folio arrangement of the plays was of his ordering : it was the work, no doubt, of the Editors, who classed the plays ac- cording to their general affinities ; and signs are not wanting that they were sometimes at a loss how to place them. INTRODUCTION. Sources of the Plot. In its structure, Cymbeline is more complex and involved than any other of the Poet's dramas. It includes no less than four distinct groups of persons, with each its several interest and course of action. First, we have Imogen, Post- humus, Pisanio, and Iachimo, in which group the main in- terest is centred ; then, the King, the Queen, and Prince Cloten, the Queen's shrewd blockhead of a son, who carry- on a separate scheme of their own ; next, the Imperial rep- resentative, Lucius, who comes first as Roman Ambassador to reclaim the neglected tribute, and then as general with an army to enforce it ; last, old Belarius and the two lost Princes, who emerge from their hiding-place to bear a fad- ing part in bringing about the catastrophe. All these groups however, though without any concert or any common pur- pose of their own, draw together with perfect smoothness and harmony in working out the author's plan ; the several threads of interest and lines of action being woven into one texture, richly varied indeed, but seeming as natural as life itself; the more so perhaps, that the actors themselves know not how or why they are thus brought together. The only part of the drama that has any historical basis is that about the demanding and enforcing of the Roman tribute. This Shakespeare derived, as usual in matters of British history, from Holinshed, who places the scene in the reign of the Emperor Augustus, and a few years before the beginning of the Christian era. The domestic part of the King's action, with all that relates to the Queen and Cloten, except the name of the latter, is, so far as we know, a pure invention of the Poet's ; as is also the entire part of Bela- rius and the King's two sons, except that the names Guide- 8 CYMBELINE. rius and Arviragus were found in Holinshed. The main plot *of the drama, except the strong part which Pisanio has in it, is of fabulous origin, the story however being used with the Poet's customary freedom of enrichment and adaptation. What source Shakespeare drew directly from in this part of the work, is not altogether clear. During the Middle Ages, and under the Feudal system, heads of families were liable to be away from home, often for a long while together, in wars and military expeditions. Then too the hospitalities of those times were large and free, the entertainment of strangers and travellers being made much of in the code of ancient chivalry. Of course the fidelity both of husbands and wives was liable to be sorely tried during these long separations, the former by those whom they were meeting or visiting, the latter by those whom they were entertaining. It might well be, that absent husbands, full of confidence in those to whom and by whom the sacred pledge had been given, sometimes laid wagers on their fidelity, and encour- aged or permitted trials of it to be made. Doubtless, also, there was many a polished libertine who took special pride in provoking some arrangement of the kind, or in making such trials without any arrangement. Thus questions turn- ing on that point came to be matter of common and familiar interest, entering into the serious thoughts of people far more than is the case in our time. So that there was no extrava- gance in the incident on which the main plot of this drama turns. The chief points in the story seem to have been a sort of common property among the writers of Mediaeval Romance. The leading incidents — as the wager, the villain's defeat, his counterfeit of success, the husband's scheme of revenge by the death of the wife, her escape, his subsequent dis- INTRODUCTION. 9 covery of the fraud, the punishment of the liar, and the final reunion of the separated pair — are found in two French romances of the thirteenth century, and in a French miracle- play of still earlier date. There are two or three rather curi- ous indications that the miracle-play was known to Shake- speare, though this could hardly be, unless he read French. A rude version, also, of the story was published in a book called Westward for Smelts, and was entitled "The Tale told by the Fishwife of the Stand on the Green " ; placing the scene in England in the reign of Henry the Sixth, and making the persons all English. This, however, cannot be / traced further back than the year 1620,, and there is no like- lihood that the Poet had any knowledge of it. But the com.- pletest form of the story is in one of Boccaccio's Novels, the Ninth of the Second Day, where we have the trunk used for conveying the villain into the lady's bedchamber, his dis- covery of a private mark on her person, and her disguise in male attire. As these incidents are not found in any other version of the tale, they seem to establish a connection between the novel and the play. Boccaccio is not known to have been accessible to the Poet in English ; but then it is quite probable, and indeed almost certain, that he was able to read Italian books in the original. The substance of the story is soon told. Several Italian merchants, meeting in Paris, went to talk- ing about their wives. All agreed in speaking rather dispar- agingly, except Bernabo, of Genoa, who said his wife was perfectly beautiful, in the flower of youth, and of unassaila- ble honour. At this, Ambrogiulo became very loose-spoken, boasting that he would spoil her honour, if opportunity were given him. The wager was then proposed and accepted. Going to Genoa, the intriguer soon found that Ginevra had IO CYMBELINE. not been overpraised, and that his wager would be lost unless he could prevail by some stratagem. So he man- aged to have his chest left in her keeping, and placed in her private chamber. When she was fast asleep, with a taper burning in the room, he crept from his hiding, made a sur- vey of the furniture, the pictures, and at last discovered a mole and a tuft of golden hair on her left breast. Then, taking a ring, a purse, and other trifles, he crept back into the chest. Returning to Paris, he called the company together and produced his proofs of success. Bernabo was convinced, and went to seeking revenge. Arriving near home, he sent for his wife, and gave secret orders to have her put to death on the road. The servant stopped in a lonely place, and told her of his master's orders ; she protested her innocence, and begged his compassion ; so he spared her life, and re- turned with some of her clothes, saying he had killed her. Ginevra then disguised herself in male attire, and got into the service of a gentleman who took her to Alexandria, where she gained the Sultan's favour, and was made captain of his guard. Not long after, she was sent with a band of soldiers to Acre, and there, going into the shop of a Vene- tian merchant, she saw a purse and girdle which she recog- nized as her own. On her asking whose they were, and whether they were for sale, Ambrogiulo stepped forth and said they were his, and asked her to accept them as a gift ; at the same time telling her they had been presented to him by a married lady of Genoa. Feigning pleasure at the tale, she pursuaded him to go with her to Alexandria. Her next care was to have her husband brought thither. Then she prevailed on the Sultan to force from Ambrogiulo a public recital of his villainy ; whereupon Bernabo owned that he INTRODUCTION. II had caused his wife to be murdered. She now assures the Sultan that, if he will punish the villain and pardon Bernabo, the lady shall appear ; and on his agreeing to this she throws off her disguise, and declares herself to be Ginevra, and the mole on her breast soon confirms her word : Ambro- giulo is put to death, and all his wealth given to the lady : the Sultan makes her rich presents of jewels and money besides, and furnishes a ship in which she and Bernabo depart for Genoa. It may be gathered from this brief outline that in respect of character Imogen really has nothing in common with Ginevra. And indeed the Poet took none of his character from the novel, for this can hardly be said to have any thing of the kind to give ; its persons being used only for the sake of the story, which order is just reversed in the play. But the novel presented certain obvious points of popular interest : these the Poet borrowed as a framework of cir- cumstances to support his own original conceptions, evidently caring little for the incidents, as we care little for them, but in reference to this end. General Characteristics of the Play. I have spoken of the difficulty of classing Cymbeline, as it has too much of the tragic to be called a comedy, and yet not enough of it to be fairly ranked as a tragedy. Per- haps it may be taken as proof that the Gothic Drama, like the Gothic Architecture, is naturally capable of more variety than can be embraced within the ordinary rules of dramatic classification. Hazlitt describes it as a " dramatic romance" ; which description probably fits it as well as any that can be given. For it has just enough of historical or traditionary 12 CYMBELINE. matter to give it something of a legendary character, while its general scope admits and even invites the freest playing- in of whatsoever is wild and wonderful and enchanting in old Romance. By throwing the scene back into the reign of a semi-fabulous king, the Poet was enabled to cast around the work an air of historical dignity, and yet frame the whole in perfect keeping with the deep, solemn, and all but tragic pathos in which it is keyed. A confusion of times, places, and manners, with the ceremonial of old mythology and the sentiments of Christian chivalry, the heroic deeds of earlier and the liberal ideas of later periods, all blended together without restraint and in the order merely of in- herent fitness, the play has indeed some improbable inci- dents ; yet the improbability is everywhere softened by distance, and even made grateful by the romantic sweetness, the sober wisdom, and the pathetic tenderness that spring up fresh and free in its course. All which may sufficiently account for the strong sentence some have put in against this play, and also for the equally strong and far wiser judgment of the poet Campbell, who regards it as " perhaps the fittest in Shakespeare's whole theatre to illustrate the principle, that great dramatic genius can occasionally ven- ture on bold improbabilities, and yet not only shrive the offence, but leave us enchanted with the offender." Schlegel pronounces Cymbeline " one of Shakespeare's most wonderful compositions." Few will deny that he has chosen the right word for the impression which the play leaves strongest in the mind. Several indeed surpass it in grandeur and vastness of design, but probably none in grace and power of execution. I cannot well conceive how a finer and more varied display of poetry and character could be reduced within the same compass. Except the vision anc INTRODUCTION. 1 3 what pertains to it, in the fifth Act, of which I am to speak further presently, the most improbable of the incidents were, as we have seen, borrowed from general circulation, the story having been cast into divers forms, and already fixed in the popular belief. The incidents being granted, Shakespeare's ordering of them to his use, the whole framing and managing of the plot so as to work out the result proposed, are ex- ceedingly skilful and judicious. Take, for instance, the circumstances of the King's two sons having their home with the noble old exile in the mountain- cave, and of the heroine straying thither in disguise, faint and weary, and entering the rock in quest of food and rest, and what follows in her intercourse with the princely boys ; — what could be more delightful, what more inspiring of truth and purity than all this ? Will any one say that the sweet home-breathings of Nature which consecrate these delectable scenes do not a thousand times make up for the strangeness of the inci- dents ? Of course the leading purpose of the play is to be sought for in the character of Imogen. Around this, how- ever, are ranged a number of subordinate purposes, running out into a large diversity of matter and person ; yet all are set off with such artful blendings and transitions of light and shade, and grouped with such mastery of perspective and such picturesque effect, that every thing helps every other thing, and nothing seems out of place. It is to be noted, also, that the persons, for the most part, have each their several plot, and are all at cross-aims with one another, so that the ground-work of the drama presents little else than a tissue of counter-plottings. And all are thwarted in their turn, and, what is more, the final result is brought about by their defeat ; as if on purpose to illustrate again and again that men are not masters of their lot ; and 14 CYMBELINE. that, while they are each intent on their several plans, a higher Power is secretly working out other plans through them. Accordingly, if the bad thrive for a while, it is that they may at last be the more effectually caught and crushed in their own toils ; if the good are at first cast down, it is that they may be uplifted in the end, and " happier much by their affliction made." And so, while the drama is brist- ling throughout with resolves and deeds, nevertheless all of them miscarry, all fail. It is the very prevalence, in part, of what we call chance over human design, that gives the work such a wild, romantic, and legendary character ; mak- ing the impression of some supernatural power putting to confusion the works of men, that its own agency may be the more manifest in the order that finally succeeds. Some Parts of it not Shakespeare's. The play, notwithstanding, has one very serious and de- cided blemish. I refer to that piece of dull impertinence in the fifth Act, including the vision of Posthumus while asleep in the prison, the absurd " label" found on his bosom when he awakes, and the Soothsayer's still more absurd interpretation of the label at the close. For nothing can well be plainer than that the whole thing is strictly irrel- evant : it does not throw the least particle of light on the character or motive of any person ; has indeed no business whatever with the action of the drama, except to hinder and embarrass it. This matter apart, the denouement is perfect, and the preparation for it made with consummate judgment and skill. And it is a noteworthy fact that, if the apparition, the dialogue that follows with the Jailer, the tablet, and all that relates to it, be omitted, there will INTRODUCTION. 1 5 appear no rent, no loose stitch, nor any thing wanting to the completeness of the work. It is difficult to believe that Shakespeare wrote the pas- sages in question at any time ; impossible, that he did so at or near the time when the rest of the play was written. For I think every discerning student will perceive at once that the style of this matter is totally different from that of all the other parts. How, then, came it there ? Some consider it a relic of an older drama, perhaps one written by Shakespeare in his youth. But the more common opinion is, that it was foisted in by the players, the Poet himself having nothing to do with it. There is no doubt that such things were some- times done. Still I am inclined to think that it was supplied by some other hand at the time, and that the Poet himself worked it in with his own noble matter, perhaps to gratify a friend ; for he was a kind-hearted, obliging fellow, and prob- ably did not see the difference between his own workmanship and other men's as we do. At all events, I am sure it must have got into the play from motives that could have had no place with him as an artist. And how well the matter was adapted to catch the vulgar wonder and applause of that day, may be judged well enough from the thrift that waits on di- vers absurdities of the stage in our time. Doubtless, in his day, as in ours, there were many who, for the sake of this blemishing stuff, would tolerate the glories of the play. — All the lines which are judged to fall under this exception are here marked with asterisks. Imogen the Organic Force of the Play. In Shakespeare's characteristic plays (for some of his earlier ones proceeded rather from imitation than character) there is always some one governing thought or organic idea, 1 6 CYMBELINE. which serves, secretly perhaps, but not the less effectively, both as a centre of interest and as a law in the composition. This governing thought is often difficult, sometimes impossi- ble to be seized and defined ; a kind of corporate soul ; some- thing too " deeply interfused " to be done up in propositions, or expressed in logical forms. It is like the constitution of a State, which cannot be put into words, nor cribbed up in definitions ; a silent, unwritten law, which is nevertheless felt and obeyed, the more so, perhaps, that nobody can tell why : in fact, it is rather a social power than a law ; a power that governs men most when they are least aware of it. The old Greeks were acquainted with it, or something like it, under the name of " the omnipresent power of King Nomos." And in matters of art Criticism has often damaged both it- self and its subject by undertaking to make definitions of that which naturally is not capable of them. In Cymbeline the governing thought is more accessible to criticism than in most of its compeers ; the very complexity of the work having perhaps caused that thought to be em- phasized the more. For, varied as are the materials^ of the drama, there is notwithstanding a deep principle of inward harmony pervading them all, and binding them together in the strictest coherence. Gervinus, the German critic, was the first, I believe, who rightly apprehended this point. ' " We have only," says he, "to examine its several parts according to their internal nature, and refer to the motives, and we shall catch the idea which links them together, and perceive a work of art whose compass widens and whose background deepens in such a manner, that we can only compare it with the most excellent of all that Shakespeare has produced ! " This "idea," as Gervinus here calls it, has its clearest illus- tration in the heroine. Imogen is an impersonation of the INTRODUCTION. 1/ moral beauty of womanhood. This beauty is the vital cur- rent of the whole delineation, and every thing about her, her form, her features and expression, her dress, her walk, her speech, her every motion, all are steeped in its efficacy. Its leading development takes on the form of a calm, self- centred, immovable fidelity, all her other virtues coming out in the train of this. This virtue radiates from her into others, her presence acting as an inspiration of truth on most of those about her. Her husband is as strong in fidelity to her as she is to him : for it is observable that, while they each believe the other to be false, this belief never so much as tempts either with a thought of becoming so. They may be betrayed, but they will not betray. The same virtue shines out equally in their man Pisanio, whom the Queen rightly describes as " a sly and constant knave, not to be shaked." He deceives her indeed, or tries to do so, but only that he may be the truer where his obligations of truth are higher and more sacred. Nothing can start him from his fidelity. So too with the Court physician, Cornelius, who knows the Queen's character thoroughly, as he also does her feelings towards the Princess ; therefore he distrusts her, and his sharp practice in cheating her is all because he must and will be faithful to those against whom she is plotting. And the studied hypocrisy of the courtiers proceeds from the same cause : not a man of them, Although they wear their faces to the bent Of the King's looks, but hath a heart that is Glad at the thing they scowl at. Whatever else may happen to them, they cannot choose but be true to Imogen. Thus on all sides the heroine's truth begets truth, or finds it ; and the several instances of 1 8 CYMBELINE. departure from it only serve to intensify it, and render it more pronounced. The Queen, to be sure, is deeply false, false to every thing but her son and her own ambition ; while the King is too weak, and Cloten too wayward, to be either false or true. Iachimo, too, begins a thorough-paced con- centration of falsehood ; but he learns a new lesson from Imogen, and catches a soul of truth in his interview with her, which proves a seed of life, and keeps working in him, till it brings him out quite another man. And these excep- tions, again, have the effect of emphasizing the leading thought by contrast, as the other instances' just referred to do by reduplication. Finally, we have another issue of the same thing at bottom, in the stanch old manhood of Bela- rius. Many years back, two villains had falsely accused him to the King, who, preferring flattery to service, had there- upon stripped him of his possessions, and banished him. " Beaten for loyalty excited him to treason." In his first feeling of revenge, he caused the two infant Princes to be stolen from their nursery ; but he has ever since been doing his best to build them up in all manly thoughts and virtues, that he might return them, as he does at last, far nobler men than court-breeding could have made them. Thus his fidel- ity approves itself the stronger and more fruitful in the end, for its temporary lapse ; and he serves the King most truly when excluded from his service. Character of Cymbeline. It is not very apparent why this play should be named as it is. For Cymbeline himself is but a cipher, having no value of his own, and all his value depending on what stands before him ; that is, he has no force but to augment INTRODUCTION. 19 the force of somebody else. But his very impotence per- sonally renders him important dramatically ; that he has no spring in himself makes him in some sort the main-spring of the play. It was because he was weak that he drove Bela- rius into exile, and thus prepared one great source of wealth to the drama. It is for the same cause that he prefers the Queen's rickety, sputtering, blustering lump of flesh for his son-in-law, and banishes Posthumus, and withholds the Roman tribute. Therefore it is, too, that the Queen is able to hoodwink him so completely, that she feels safe in schem- ing against Imogen's life, and to that end gets the cordial which afterwards produces upon her the semblance of death. Hence, also, Cloten, with his empty head and savage heart, is encouraged to that pitch of insolence which prompts the flight and disguise of Imogen, that she may have " no more ado with that harsh, noble, simple nothing, whose love-suit hath been to her as fearful as a siege." Thus the King's weakness proves the seed-plot of the entire action. So that I suspect the play is rightly named, though some have thought otherwise. It is curious to note how consistently the poor King main- tains, throughout, this character of weakness. We have a fine instance of it when he utters what is meant for a curse on his daughter, while he has not force enough really to make it such : " Let her languish a drop of blood a day, and, being aged, die of this folly." By "this folly," he means her love for Leonatus ; and she herself would ask no greater happiness than to die at a good old age of that. Compare this with old Lear's terrible imprecations on his unkind daughters, which seem to steep themselves right into the heart of their objects, poisoning and blasting the inner- most springs of life. Again, in the interview with the Roman 20 CYMBELINE. Ambassador, the Queen and Cloten do the talking, the King merely echoing what they say, and thereby giving it the force of law. So too, when Cloten is off on his mad splurge of proposed murder and ravishment, and his mother's life is in danger with a fever of his absence, and the King finds a war on his hands, he is quite paralyzed, and has barely wit enough to deplore his want of wit : Now for the counsel of my son and Queen ! I am amazed with matter. He is indeed uxorious to the last degree, yet we cannot call him a henpecked husband, for he does not make resistance enough for that process. And the lords and courtiers never think of blaming him for any thing that is done ; in fact, they hardly respect him enough for that. But they know that the Queen has him perfectly under her thumb, and that he sees only with her eyes, and acts only as she plans. And the dotage sticks to him like a chronic disease. On being told how the Queen has been practising against Imogen's life and his own, that she might work her sprawling hopeful into the adoption of the crown ; and how, failing of this, she Grew shameless-desperate ; open'd in despite Of Heaven and men her purposes ; repented The evils she hatch'd were not effected, so, Despairing, died; — still he cannot muster force enough to blame his weakness, but hugs it with the reflection, Mine eyes Were not in fault, for she was beautiful ; Mine ears, that heard her flattery ; nor my heart, That thought her like her seeming : it had been vicious To have mistrusted her. INTRODUCTION. 21 Nor does he learn any thing by experience, his own or any- body's else ; even his acknowledged blunders only strengthen his habit of blundering. Accordingly, at the close, when the missing Cloten is inquired for, and Pisanio relates how he had posted away, " with unchaste purpose, and with oath to violate my lady's honour," and the heroic youth frankly de- clares how and why he has killed the arrogant booby ; still the King, with his mind all imprisoned in regal formulas, and losing the plainest principles of right in a mere literal legality, insists on condemning the valiant stranger to death ; from which he is diverted by the assurance that the youth is his own son. Character of the Queen. Cymbeline's character is further explained by that of the Queen, who rules, or rather misrules him. Her darling by a former husband she has set her heart upon matching with the Princess, who is expected to succeed her father in the kingdom : yet she seeks the match not so much from love of the poor clod as from a thirst of power, and partly be- cause he is a clod, whom she thinks to manage, and thus secure her tenure of power. To this end, she has made the Court a place of incessant intrigue and machination, though in a rather small way. But she defeats her own shrewdness by overdoing it ; like those overcrafty politicians whose ex- cess of art and mystery renders them objects of suspicion and distrust. For she really deceives hardly any one ex- cept him who has most interest in not being deceived. The Princess understands her perfectly ; and all her schemes are shattered in pieces against Imogen's firm, but quiet and unobtrusive discreetness. The courtiers hate and despise and fear the woman all at once ; for they know both her 22 CYMBELINE. malice and her cunning, and that if they openly cross her she will point her shafts against them, and at the same time screen herself behind the irresponsibility of the crown. They therefore smile as the King smiles, and frown as he frowns, because they know that his smiles and frowns ex- press not his own moods, but the Queen's. Thus her ad- vantage over them explains the smooth dissimulation with which they parry her mischief. But their thoughts of her and her son come out, sometimes in their private talk, some- times in pointed asides. At the close of a brief scene with Cloten, one of them soliloquizes the common feeling thus : 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. — Alas, poor Princess, Thou divine Imogen, what thou endurest, Betwixt a father by thy step-dame govern'd, A mother hourly coining plots, a wooer More hateful than the foul expulsion is Of thy dear husband! The Heavens hold firm The walls of thy dear honour ; keep unshaked That temple, thy fair mind ! Prince Cloten. The delineation of Cloten is very rich and full ; partly in what he fumes or rattles out of himself, partly in the com- ments that are made about him. To the lords attending him, he is " a thing too bad for bad report." Yet in his presence they treat him with suppressed laughter and ironi- cal praise ; for he stirs no feeling in them so deep as wrath or even scorn. When he draws his sword on the banished Leonatus, the latter merely plays with him while seeming to INTRODUCTION. 23 fight, and does not allow so much as his patience to be hurt ; for he knows the poor roll of conceit will attribute his con- duct to fear, and so think himself " alike conversant in gen- eral services, and more remarkable in single oppositions." Imogen bears his persecutions with calm patience, till he lets off an insolent strain of abuse against her exiled husband : then she quickly gives him enough, at the same time regret- ting that he puts her to " forget a lady's manners by being so verbal " ; for she would rather he felt what she thinks of him "than make it her boast." But the shrewdest notes of him are from old Belarius when Cloten intrudes upon his mountain-home. Belarius has not seen him since he was a boy, but there is no mistaking him ; in his case, at least, the man was bound to be just like the boy, only more so : discipline could do nothing for him : Long is it since I saw him, But time hath nothing blurr'd those lines of favour Which then he wore ; the snatches in his voice, And burst of speaking, were as his. Being scarce made up, I mean, to man, he had not apprehension Of roaring terrors ; for the act of judgment Is oft the cause of fear. Though his humour Was nothing but mutation, — ay, and that From one bad thing to worse ; not frenzy, not Absolute madness could so far have raved, To bring him here alone. These sharp sentences touch the marrow of the subject. Cloten, indeed, is a very notable instance of a man or a thing, with not merely a loose screw in the gearing, but with all the screws loose. He has often reminded me of Scott's description of Desborough in Woodstock : " His limbs 24 CYMBELINE. seemed to act upon different and contradictory principles. They were not, as the play says, in a concatenation accord- ingly : the right hand moved as if it were on bad terms with the left, and the legs showed an inclination to foot it in different and opposite directions." Precisely so it is with Cloten's mind* There are the materials of a man in him, but they are not made up : his whole being seems a mass of unhingement, disorder, and jumble, full of unaccountable jerks and spasms ; the several parts of him being at incura- ble odds one with another, each having a will and a way of its own, so that no two of them can pull together. Hence the ludicrous unfitness of all that he does, and most that he speaks. He has indeed some gift of practical shrewdness, is not without flashes of strong and ready sense ; yet even these, through his overweening self-importance of rank and place, only serve to invest him all the more with the air of a conceited, blustering, consequential blockhead. For instance, in the scene with the Ambassador, he says, referring to Julius Caesar, " There is no more such Caesars : other of them may have crooked noses ; but to own such straight arms, none " ; where the pith of his ungeared and loose-screwed genius goes right to the mark, though it goes off out of time. ' It is curious to observe how in this scene his vein of sententious remark has the effect to heighten the ridiculousness of his character, from the St.-Vitus'-dance of mind through which it comes sprawling out. Therewithal he is rude, coarse, boisterous, vain, insolent, ambitious, malignant. Thus ren- dered ludicrous by whatever is best in him, and frightful by whatever is not ludicrous ; savage in feeling, awkward in person, absurd in manners, — a — sputtering jolt-head ; — he is of course the last man that any lady of sense or sensibility could be brought to endure. His- calling Imogen an "im- INTRODUCTION. 25 perceiverant thing," for not appreciating his superiority to Posthumus in the qualities that invite a lady's respect and affection, aptly illustrates the refined irony with which the character is drawn. Cloten was for a long time considered unnatural. But it is nowise unlikely that Shakespeare may have met with pro- totypes of him in his observation of English lordlings and squires. Miss Seward, in one of her letters, describes a military captain whom she once knew ; from which it seems that the character was not wholly obsolete in her time : "The unmeaning frown, the shuffling gait, the bustling in- significance, the fever-and-ague fits of valour, the froward techiness, the unprincipled malice, and, what is most curious, the occasional gleams of good sense amiA the floating clouds of folly which generally darkened and confused the man's brain " ; — in all this, says she, " I saw the portrait of Cloten was not out of nature." And Gervinus speaks of it as " a lasting type of the man of rank and privileges, who has grown up in nothingness, and been trained in self-conceit." The Libertine. Iachimo is a sort of diluted Iago. And I am not sure but the Poet may have meant to intimate as much by the name ; for Iachimo sounds to- me like Iago with the intellec- tual hell-starch washed out. For we can hardly conceive of Iago's being penetrated by the moral beauty even of an Imogen. At the beginning of the play, Iachimo is in that condition where it may be justly said, The wise gods seel our eyes ; make us Adore our errors ; laugh at us, while we strut To our confusion. 26 CYMBELINE. Like others of his class, he prides himself upon those arts in which he has probably had but too much success. Yet his conduct proceeds not so much from positive depravity of heart as because, either from lack of opportunity, or else from stress of youthful impulse, his conversations have not been with good company : or, to speak with more exactness, his atheism of womanly truth and honour is because he really has not met with them, while, again, his not meeting with them is because his tastes have not led him where they were to be found. Of course such men delight in making others do that for which they may scorn and revile them : hence their instincts guide them to frailty, and frailty in turn stuffs them with an opinion of their own strength. For it scarce need he saiclthat this sort of conceit commonly grows by feeding on such experiences as are to be gained among those who dwell at or near the confines of virtue and shame. Thus we find Iachimo at first in just that stage of moraT"""7 sickness that he must be worse before he can be better. Accordingly his next step consists in adding lying to liber- tinism, black perfidy to sensual intrigue. And it is a note- worthy point, that he is all along doubtful of success : per- haps the hero's calmness of tone and bearing has planted this doubt in him : at all events, he manifestly apprehends failure, and so has an alternative ready in case he fail. So that his forging of proofs is deliberate and premeditated ; he has been prepared for it from the start. In his present enterprise he gets a new experience. At the first sight of Imogen, he is struck with unaccustomed fear ; his instincts are not at home there ; and he exclaims, " Boldness, be my friend ! arm me, audacity, from head to foot ! " He soon has need of all the strength he can muster in that kind. He has much difficulty in making her understand his drift ; INTRODUCTION. 2J but, the moment she is sure of his meaning, her whole soul kindles into an overpowering energy of indignant astonish- ment. For the first and only time she uses the language and the gesture of stern insulted majesty, and with one blow of her tongue shatters his armour of audacity all in pieces. That she manifestly had never so much as imagined the pos- sibility of such an assault, puts a second assault utterly out of the question : the villain has no stomach to try that game further ; dare not even think of it. But, though her light- ning instantly burns up his sensual thoughts, still it does not quite disconcert his address ; he has studied his alternative part too well for that. We see the effect of this interview already working upon him in the bedchamber-scene, and in what he soliloquizes over the sleeping Princess. Low-minded libertine as he is, her presence at once charms and chastens him. There he has a second inspiration of truth and manhood, deeper than the first : his thoughts catch the delicacy and purity of their object ; and he dare not utter a foul word even to himself. His description of the sleeper would almost redeem him in our eyes, but that we know the grace of it comes not from him, but from her through him ; and we regard it as some- thing that must be divine indeed, not to be strangled in pass- ing through such a medium. How thoroughly her sweet- ness chastises the gross devil in him, is piercingly indicated by his closing words : Swift, swift, you dragons of the night, that dawning May bare the raven's eye ! I lodge in fear ; Though this a heavenly angel, Hell is here. From this time forward, we feel morally certain that he never again tampers with a woman's honour. Our next 28 CYMBELINE. news of him is in connection with the gentlemen of Italy, who " promise noble service under the conduct of bold Iachimo." What it is that draws him back to Britain to- face the perils of war, appears when Posthumus, disguised as a peasant, encounters him in the battle, " vanquisheth and disarmeth him, and then leaves him" : The heaviness and guilt within my bosom Takes off my manhood : I've 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? Here we learn how, by the laws of moral reaction, the un- accustomed awe of virtue which Imogen struck into him has grasped him the more firmly, and kept working in him all the more powerfully, for the dreadful wrong he has done her. He does not recognize Posthumus ; but an evil con- science attributes to his own sin what is really owing to the superior strength and skill of the conquering arm. And his inward history is told with still more emphasis in the last scene, when he discovers himself, and speaks of " that para- gon for whom my heart drops blood, and my false spirits quail to remember." Thus the character illustrates Shakespeare's peculiar sci- ence and learned dealing in the moral constitution of man. In Iachimo's practice on the wager his disease reaches the extreme point, which, even because it is extreme, starts a process of moral revolution within him ; setting him to a hard diet of remorse and repentance, and conducting him through these to renovation and health. It is, in short, one of those lar^e over-doses of crime which sometimes have the effect of purging off men's criminality. For such is the INTRODUCTION. 29 cunning leech-craft of Nature : out of men's vices she can hatch scorpions, to lash and sting them into virtue. Delineation of Pisanio. Those who think Shakespeare apt to postpone the rights of untitled manhood in favour of conventional aristocracy may be sent to school to Pisanio ; who is, socially, the humblest person in the drama, yet his being is " all com- pact" of essential heroism. It is fairly questionable whether he has not as much of noble stuff in him, as much inward adornment and worth of character, as the hero himself. Nor does the Poet stint him of opportunity ; but gives him an immediate partnership in the deepest interest of the play, and makes him share in the honour of the best charac- ters, by his sympathy with them, and his self-sacrificing love and service to them. And, what is very strange, this is done with most effect in an instance where the man does not himself appear. For, as soon as Imogen understands Iachimo's proposal, the first thing she does is to call out, "What, ho, Pisanio !" as if she felt assured that this faith- ful guardian would instantly physic the devil out of the wretch who has thus dared to insult her ; and she keeps on calling him, till the insult is withdrawn, and a satisfactory reason for it assigned. With a fine instinct of rectitude, which pierces deeper perhaps than the keenest sagacity, Pisanio never misses the right, and never falters in his allegiance to it. His fidelity is tried to the utmost on all sides, but nothing so much as tempts him from it. After the Queen has plied him with offers of wealth and honours, he gives us his mind aside : But, when to my good lord I prove untrue, I'll choke myself: there's all I'll do for you. 3