serve il Soldano; ritrova l'ingannatore, e Bernabo conduce in Alessandria, dove l'ingannatore punito, ripreso habito feminile col marito ricchi si tornano a Genova." This tale includes one circumstance only found there and in Shakespeare's play: we allude to the mole which Iachimo saw on the breast of Imogen. The parties are all merchants in Boccaccio, excepting towards the close of his novel, where the Soldan is introduced: the villain, instead of being forgiven, is punished by being anointed with honey, and exposed in the sun to flies, wasps, and mosquitoes, which eat the flesh from his bones. A modification of this production seems to have found its way into our language at the commencement of the seventeenth century. Steevens states that it was printed in 1603, and again in 1620, in a tract called "Westward for Smelts." If there be no error as to the date, the edition of 1603 has been lost, for no copy of that year now seems to exist in any public or private collection. Mr. Halliwell, in his reprint of The First Sketch of "The Merry Wives of Windsor," (for the Shakespeare Society) p. 135, has expressed his opinion that Steevens must have been mistaken, and that "Westward for Smelts" was not published until 1620 : only one copy even of this impression is known'; and if, in fact, it were not, as Steevens supposes, a reprint, of course Shakespeare could not have resorted to it: however, he might, without much difficulty, have gone to the original; or some version may then have been in existence, of which he availed himself, but which has not come down to our day. The incidents in "Westward for Smelts" are completely anglicised, and the scene is laid in this country in the reigns of Henry VI. and Edward IV. In the French and Italian versions, Iachimo (or the person answering to him) is conveyed to Imogen's chamber in a chest, but in "Westward for Smelts," where the tale is in other respects vulgarised, he conceals himself under her bed. Some German critics, whose opinions are often entitled to the most respectful consideration, have supposed that “Cymbeline" was written in 1614 or 1615, not adverting to the circumstance that Shakespeare had then relinquished all connection with the stage, and had retired from the metropolis. Malone thought that 1609 was the year which could be most probably fixed upon, and although we do not adopt his reasoning upon the point, we are strongly inclined to believe that this drama was not, at all events, written at an earlier period. Forman, the astrologer, was present when "Cymbeline" was acted, most likely, in 1610 or 1611, but he does not in his Diary insert the date when, nor the theatre where, he saw it. His brief Among Capell's books, which he gave to Trinity College, Cambridge, and which are there preserved with care proportionate to their value. account of the plot, in his "Booke of Plaies and Notes thereof" (MS. Ashmol. No. 208), is in the following terms :— "Remember, also, the story of Cymbeline, king of England in Lucius' time : how Lucius came from Octavius Cæsar for tribute, and being denied, after sent Lucius with a great army of soldiers, who landed at Milford Haven, and after were vanquished by Cymbeline, and Lucius taken prisoner; and all by means of three outlaws, of the which two of them were the sons of Cymbeline, stolen from him when they were but two years old, by an old man whom Cymbeline banished; and he kept them as his own sons twenty years with him in a cave. And how one of them slew Cloten, that was the queen's son, going to Milford Haven to seek the love of Imogen, the king's daughter, whom he had banished also for loving his daughter. "And how the Italian that came from her love conveyed himself into a chest, and said it was a chest of plate, sent from her love and others to be presented to the king. And in the deepest of the night, she being asleep, he opened the chest and came forth of it, and viewed her in her bed, and the marks of her body, and took away her bracelet, and after accused her of adultery to her love, &c. And in the end, how he came with the Romans into England, and was taken prisoner, and after revealed to Imogen, who had turned herself into man's apparel, and fled to meet her love at Milford Haven; and chanced to fall on the cave in the woods where her two brothers were: and how by eating a sleeping dram they thought she had been dead, and laid her in the woods, and the body of Cloten by her, in her love's apparel that he left behind him, and how she was found by Lucius," &c. We have certainly no right to conclude that "Cymbeline" was a new piece when Forman witnessed the performance of it; but various critics have concurred in the opinion (which we ourselves entertain) that in style and versification it resembles "The Winter's Tale," and that the two dramas belong to about the same period of the poet's life. Forman saw "The Winter's Tale" on 17th May, 1611, and, perhaps, he saw "Cymbeline" at the Globe in the spring of the preceding year. However, upon this point, we have no evidence to guide us, beyond the mere mention of the play and its incidents in Forman's Diary. That it was acted at court at an early date is more than probable, but we are without any record of such an event until 1st January, 1633 (Vide Hist. of Engl. Dram. Poetry and the Stage, vol. ii. p. 57); under which date Sir Henry Herbert, the Master of the Revels, registers that it was performed by the King's Players, and that it was "well liked by the King." The particular allusion in Act ii. sc. 4, to "proud Cleopatra" on the Cydnus, which "swell'd above his banks," might lead us to think that "Antony and Cleopatra" had preceded " Cymbeline." It is the last of the "Tragedies" in the folio of 1623, and we have reason to suppose that it had not been printed at any earlier date. The divisions of acts and scenes are throughout regularly marked. DRAMATIS PERSONÆ1. CYMBELINE, King of Britain. CLOTEN, Son to the Queen by a former Husband. LEONATUS POSTHUMUS, Husband to Imogen. BELARIUS, a banished Lord, disguised under the name of Morgan. GUIDERIUS, Sons to Cymbeline, disguised under the names of ARVIRAGUS, Polydore and Cadwal, supposed Sons to Belarius. PHILARIO, Friend to Posthumus, IACHIMO, Friend to Philario, } Italians. A French Gentleman, Friend to Philario. CAIUS LUCIUS, General of the Roman Forces. A Roman Captain. Two British Captains. PISANIO, Servant to Posthumus. CORNELIUS, a Physician. Two Gentlemen. Two Jailors. QUEEN, Wife to Cymbeline. IMOGEN, Daughter to Cymbeline by a former Queen. HELEN, Woman to Imogen. Lords, Ladies, Roman Senators, Tribunes, Apparitions, a Soothsayer, a Dutch Gentleman, a Spanish Gentleman, Musicians, Officers, Captains, Soldiers, Messengers, and other Attendants. SCENE, sometimes in Britain, sometimes in Italy. No list of characters is found in any of the old editions, and it was first added by Rowe. CYMBELINE. ACT I. SCENE I. Britain. The Garden behind CYMBELINE's Palace. Enter Two Gentlemen. 1 Gent. You do not meet a man, but frowns: our bloods No more obey the heavens, than our courtiers Still seem as does the king'. 2 Gent. But what's the matter? 1 Gent. His daughter, and the heir of's kingdom, whom He purpos'd to his wife's sole son, (a widow That late he married) hath referr'd herself Is outward sorrow, though, I think, the king 2 Gent. None but the king? 1 Gent. He that hath lost her, too: so is the queen, That most desir'd the match; but not a courtier, Although they wear their faces to the bent 1 Still seem as does the KING.] All the commentators have stumbled at the threshold of this play: the difficulty has been occasioned by an apparent error in the folio, 1623, (repeated in the later folios) where "king" is printed kings: omit a single letter, as Tyrwhitt proposed, and the passage is then sufficiently perspicuous. Coleridge (Lit. Rem. vol. ii. p. 126) conjectured that "courtiers might be a misprint for countenances, but the measure would thereby be destroyed, and the meaning not much elucidated. Of the king's looks, hath a heart that is not 2 Gent. And why so? 1 Gent. He that hath miss'd the princess is a thing Too bad for bad report; and he that hath her, (I mean, that married her,―alack, good man!— And therefore banish'd) is 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. 2 Gent. You speak him far2. 1 Gent. I do extend him, sir, within himself; Crush him together, rather than unfold His measure duly. 2 Gent. What's his name, and birth? 1 Gent. I cannot delve him to the root. His father Was call'd Sicilius, who did join his honour Died with their swords in hand; for which their father 2 You speak him FAR.] We might suspect that "far" is a misprint for fair; but as the sense of "far" is not only clear, but stronger than that afforded by fair, we of course adhere to the old reading. The gentleman does more than speak Posthumus fair; he speaks him "far," or carries his praise to an extreme. The next speech confirms this explanation, if confirmation be needed. |