Cymbeline

This article is about Shakespeare's play. For other uses, see Cymbeline (disambiguation).

Cymbeline, one of William Shakespeare's plays, tells the story of a British king, Cymbeline, and his three children, presented as though they are in a fairy tale. The secret marriage of Cymbeline's daughter, Imogen, triggers much of the action, which includes villainous slander, homicidal jealousy, cross-gender disguise, a deathlike trance, and the appearance of Jupiter in a vision.

Kidnapped in infancy, Cymbeline's two sons are raised in a Welsh cave. As young men, they rescue a starving stranger (Imogen in disguise); kill Cymbeline’s stepson; and fight with almost superhuman valor against the Roman army. The king, meanwhile, takes on a Roman invasion rather than pay a tribute. He too is a familiar figure—a father who loses his children and miraculously finds them years later; a king who defeats an army and grants pardon to all.

Cymbeline displays unusually powerful emotions with a tremendous charge. Like some of Shakespeare's other late work—especially The Winter's Tale and The Tempest—it is an improbable story lifted into a nearly mythic realm.

Shakespeare is thought to have written Cymbeline in 1609–10; an observer saw it performed in 1611. The play was published in the 1623 First Folio. Sources for Cymbeline include Raphael Holinshed's Chronicles (1587), The Mirror for Magistrates, Boccaccio’s Decameron, and The Rare Triumphs of Love and Fortune.

Productions at the Folger

• Cymbeline (Fiasco Theater, 2014)

Early editions

First Folio

LUNA: First Folio: 2z3r - 3b6r

Hamnet: STC 22273 Fo.1 no.68

Second Folio

LUNA: Second Folio: 3b1r - 3d4v

Hamnet: STC 22274 Fo.2 no.07

Modern editions

Cymbeline can be read online with Folger Digital Texts and purchased from Simon and Schuster.

Hamnet link to Folger Edition: PR2753 .M6 copy 2 v.06

Notes

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