TROILUS & CRESSIDA by William Shakespeare

Author:William Shakespeare [Shakespeare, William]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9788027234189
Publisher: Musaicum Books
Published: 2017-12-09T00:00:00+00:00

‘Cymbeline.’

In ‘Cymbeline’ Shakespeare freely adapted a fragment of British history taken from Holinshed, interweaving with it a story from Boccaccio’s ‘Decameron’ (day 2, novel ix.) Ginevra, whose falsely suspected chastity is the theme of the Italian novel, corresponds to Shakespeare’s Imogen. Her story is also told in the tract called ‘Westward for Smelts,’ which had already been laid under contribution by Shakespeare in the ‘Merry Wives.’ [249 ] The by-plot of the banishment of the lord, Belarius, who in revenge for his expatriation kidnapped the king’s young sons and brought them up with him in the recesses of the mountains, is Shakespeare’s invention. Although most of the scenes are laid in Britain in the first century before the Christian era, there is no pretence of historical vraisemblance. With an almost ludicrous inappropriateness the British king’s courtiers make merry with technical terms peculiar to Calvinistic theology, like ‘grace’ and ‘election.’ [250 ] The action, which, owing to the combination of three threads of narrative, is exceptionally varied and intricate, wholly belongs to the region of romance. On Imogen, who is the central figure of the play, Shakespeare lavished all the fascination of his genius. She is the crown and flower of his conception of tender and artless womanhood. Her husband Posthumus, her rejected lover Cloten, her would-be seducer Iachimo are contrasted with her and with each other with consummate ingenuity. The mountainous retreat in which Belarius and his fascinating boy-companions play their part has points of resemblance to the Forest of Arden in ‘As You Like It;’ but life throughout ‘Cymbeline’ is grimly earnest, and the mountains nurture little of the contemplative quiet which characterises existence in the Forest of Arden. The play contains the splendid lyric ‘Fear no more the heat of the sun’ (IV. ii. 258 seq.) The ‘pitiful mummery’ of the vision of Posthumus (V. iv. 30 seq.) must have been supplied by another hand. Dr. Forman, the astrologer who kept notes of some of his experiences as a playgoer, saw ‘Cymbeline’ acted either in 1610 or 1611.

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