The Sources of Cymbeline

We stated in yesterday's post that there are three interwoven plots in Cymbeline:

1.  The Imogen-Posthumus plot

2.  The Belarius-Guiderius-Arviragus pastoral plot

3.  The Cymbeline/Britain-Lucius/Rome war plot

The art displayed in interweaving these complex, incident-laden plots is magnificent, but today I am concerned with giving links, where possible, to the source materials Shakespeare used for these plots, as they are available on the Internet.

The main plot, the Imogen-Posthumus marriage/wager/murder plot, derives basically from Boccaccio's Decameron, Day two, Novella nine.  Boccaccio is well represented on the Internet via the wonderful Decameron Web, from Brown University.  The text, in English, for day 2 novel 9 can be found here.  A facsimile edition of The Decameron, or, Ten Days Entertainment, 1919, Day 2, Novel IX, from Google Book Search, is also available in full view and PDF formats.

In addition to the Decameron novella, Shakespeare made use of a German variant of the story translated into English (1560) with the title Frederick of Jennen.  Unfortunately I have not been able to find a version of this work on the Internet, but it is printed as an Appendix to the 1955 Arden edition of Cymbeline, for those who wish to consult it.

For the Imogen-Posthumus story Shakespeare also used an old, anonymous play titled The Rare Triumphs of Love and Fortune, acted in 1581-1582 ("Enacted by the Earle of
Derbies servauntes"), published in 1589.  I have been able to find a printed version, edited (unfortunately) by the ubiquitous John Payne Collier, and re-issued under the supervision of W. Carew Hazlitt:  The Rare Triumphs of Love and Fortune in Hazlitt, W. Carew, ed. A Select Collection of Old English Plays, London, 1874, vol. VI, p. 143.  The princess in The Rare Triumphs of Love and Fortune is named "Fidelia," which may be the source of Imogen's male-name Fidele.  (Incidentally, the Posthumus character in The Rare Triumphs is named Hermione, oddly enough).  Fidelia is supposed to meet Hermione in a cave, but does not, and wanders about, meeting an old man, like Belarius, who has been banished, forming a link between two of Shakespeare's plots.

The pastoral plot, or rather, sub-plot, then, must take some inspiration from The Rare Triumphs (as certainly does the descent of Jupiter), but the genre of pastoral in general was influenced by works such as Tasso's Jerusalem Delivered (translated by Fairfax in 1600), Sidney's Arcadia (1590), Spenser's Faerie Queene (1596), and plays like Mucedorus (1598 - itself attributed to Shakespeare) and Sir Clyomon and Sir Clamydes (in The Works of George Peele, ed. A. H. Bullen, vol. II, Houghton Mifflin, 1888, p.87), in which Neronis, the Imogen character, dressed as a shepherd boy is saved from suicide over a mistaken belief that her beloved is dead, by Providence descending (from the heavens, one supposes, as does Jupiter in Cymbeline). A similar episode where a beloved is though to have died occurs in The Æthiopica by Heliodorus, translated by Thomas Underdowne in 1587.

The Cymbeline-Lucius plot is taken, of course, from Holinshed, and the ensuing battle at the narrow lane, rallied by the kings two unknown sons, Belarius and Posthumus, who turn Cymbeline's retreating army, is also taken from Holinshed, but in an unusual passage in the History of Scotland dealing with a Scotch battle with the Danes.  The link to the description of the battle in the narrow lane, involving the Scot hero Hay and his two sons, I can only find in facsimile from the SCETI edition of Holinshed's Chronicle: here.  The general description of Cymbeline (or Kymbeline) can be found in Raphael Holinshed, Chronicles: The History of England, Third Book, Chapter XVIII-IX, from Project Gutenberg.  Very little in this passage is used by Shakespeare, however, and it more or less simply gives the background of the time of the play:

"Kymbeline or Cimbeline the sonne of Theomantius was of the Britains made king after the deceasse of his father, in the yeare of the world 3944, after the building of Rome 728, Fabian out of Guido de Columna. and before the birth of our Sauiour 33. This man (as some write) was brought vp at Rome, and there made knight by Augustus Cesar, vnder whome he serued in the warres, and was in such fauour with him, that he was at libertie to pay his tribute or not. Little other mention is made of his dooings, except that during his reigne, the Sauiour of the Christ our saviour borne. world our Lord Iesus Christ the onelie sonne of God was borne of a virgine, about the 23 yeare of the reigne of this Kymbeline, & in the 42 yeare of the emperour Octauius Augustus, 3966. that is to wit, in the yeare of the world 3966, in the second yeare of the 194 Olympiad, after the building of the citie of Rome 750 nigh at an end, after the vniuersall floud 2311, from the birth of Abraham 2019, after the departure of the Israelits out of Egypt 1513, after the captiuitie of Babylon 535, from the building of the temple by Salomon 1034, & from the arriuall of Brute 1116, complet. Touching the continuance of the yeares of Kymbelines reigne, some writers doo varie, but the best approoued affirme, that he reigned 35 years and then died, & was buried at London, leauing behind him two sonnes, Guiderius and Aruiragus."

Note that Holinshed attributes the denial of tribute to the Romans to Guiderius:

"Guiderius the first sonne of Kymbeline (of whom Harison saieth nothing) began his reigne in the seuententh yeere after th' incarnation of Christ. This Guiderius being a man of stout courage, gaue occasion of breach of peace betwixt the Britains and Romans, denieng to paie them tribute, and procuring the people to new insurrections, which by one Caligula. meane or other made open rebellion, as Gyldas saith. "

but for obvious reasons necessitated by the plot Cymbeline needs to be the one to deny it in the play.

Furthermore, certain details seem to derive from The Mirror for Magistrates, both from part I, Higgins "Guiderius," and Blenerhasset's "Guidericus."