Cymbeline

This Act builds the pace and stakes of the action towards a climax. As in Act I, many short scenes are used to allow events to unfold rapidly. The protagonists (conceptual and human) are placed in situations of increasing danger: Britain is threatened as it is established that war is guaranteed, and Imogen ends up in literal wilderness, reflecting her emotional turmoil as she is forced to exist outside both the world of the court and her marriage. This rising action creates a sense of danger and drama as everything is in a position of risk.

Shakespeare uses Pisanio’s character to ensure that the logistics of the plot developments are also thematically relevant. As a servant, he facilitates many of these events, arranging travel, communication, and handing over Cornelius’s potion and Imogen’s disguise. However, all of these actions are accompanied by a moral dilemma, which adds an extra dimension to the theme of The Complexities of Honor in Love and War. Where this theme is generally the domain of the nobility in the play, Shakespeare uses Pisanio’s character to explore the parallel idea of duty, which is presented as a working-class equivalent of the main characters’ concern for honor. Where Imogen, Posthumus, and others express moral rectitude in martial or marital “honor,” Pisanio’s moral virtue is expressed through the honesty and loyalty of his service. He takes his duty very seriously and considers it an important part of his identity: “If it be so to do good service, never / Let me be counted serviceable” (III.2.14-15). His character shows that honor or moral worth is not just the domain of the nobility.

Pisanio also shows that honor or moral rectitude can be complex, and contain contradictions. He is caught between his different obligations. He serves his country and plans to fight for it, but sends Imogen to the Romans. He serves Posthumus, but is morally opposed to his order to kill Imogen. Cloten also demands his service, which he is entitled to as prince, directly contradicting Pisanio’s duty to Imogen and Posthumus. These competing demands shape Pisanio into a character of contradictions: He is proactive in trying to save Imogen, and his moral drive is clear in his monologues, but he ultimately takes a passive stance of doing what he needs to and hoping that higher powers ensure it works out. His character shows the challenges of trying to live a moral life in the complex real world, in which much is beyond an individual’s control.

As well as the personal plot, this Act also develops the political part of the plot, through which the play explores different models of The Nature of British Identity. These differing models are presented through the juxtaposition of the bad forces in Cymbeline’s tainted court with the pure world of his true heirs in the Welsh mountains. In negotiations over the tribute, Cloten, the Queen, and Cymbeline all present different arguments about why Britain should not pay. Cloten’s arguments largely relate to putting down the Roman Empire and Caesar in comparison to Britain. His use of prose rather than courtly verse reflects the crudeness of his approach, which establishes British identity only in comparison to another force rather than in its own right. 

Cymbeline tells him to let the Queen speak instead, suggesting embarrassment. The Queen’s speech, in contrast, is in verse, with the form reflecting her intelligence. Her poetic description of Britain as a natural fortress blessed by Neptune recalls John of Gaunt’s famous “sceptred isle” speech in Richard II: She invokes a sense that Britain is a hallowed, inherently superior place. However, this speech is undercut by dramatic irony: The audience knows that she wants absolute power for herself, not for the sake of the country, and in Richard II, John of Gaunt’s speech is actually a prophetic warning of the country’s fall because of internal corruption. Shakespeare suggests that there are flaws in asserting a British identity that is built in relation to its perceived external enemies, or that makes an uncritical assumption of superiority.

In contrast, Cymbeline’s arguments suggest a model of British identity focused on Britain’s legal and cultural heritage independent of external pressures, as he asserts that his governance must honor the sovereignty of ancient law and the people of Britain. Later in this Act, the real heirs are revealed living in the mountains, hunting their food themselves and humbly thanking the gods each day for their bounty. Their purity and nobility contrast with Cloten’s selfishness and ineptitude. In contrast to the Queen, they are not materialistic, scorning Imogen’s offer of gold. Their independence matches Cymbeline’s description of his subjects’ wish for sovereignty, and their simpler lifestyle in the natural world recalls his citation of ancient times before the trappings of empire. They offer a model of British identity that can exist in an international arena, but that is not formed in opposition to it—rather, it is based on core values such as honor and strength.

Through the characters of Guiderius and Arviragus the play also makes a link between the themes of The Relationship Between Appearance and Reality and The Influence of Nature Versus Nurture on Character. Superficially, the outer appearance of their lives and behavior reflects their upbringing: They feel they are “beastly,” hunting for their food and knowing nothing of the wider world. However, the reality of their noble nature is actually apparent to the outside eye: Belarius exclaims, “How hard it is to hide the sparks of nature!” (III.3.79, emphasis added). They and Imogen even cast themselves as siblings: Although their true identities are hidden from each other, and in the brothers’ case from themselves, they feel a natural familial tie. Their superficial context thus cannot hide the reality of their relationship to each other.