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The Balance Between Independence and Subjection
Cymbeline’s central political conflict plays out in relation to discourse about British independence and the rejection of Roman oppression. In act 3, when the king finally meets with the Roman representative, Lucius Caius, we learn that Britain has ceased to pay the annual tribute that ensures its protected status as a Roman province. Cymbeline has made this decision under the influence of his wicked Queen and her son. It’s noteworthy that the latter two are the first to speak in act 3, scene 1, arguing vehemently that Britain was never properly conquered and hence cannot suffer further subjection. When the king finally weighs in, he is in perfect agreement with his wife and stepson, and he formally revokes the tribute. Although he officially holds all the power, it’s clear that he’s a puppet mouthing policy developed by his manipulative Queen. From a modern perspective, this discourse of independence is laudable. In the context of the play, however, its status is less obviously positive. The king’s outright refusal leads the country into a bloody war, and though Britain wins, Cymbeline ultimately resumes the tribute. With his wicked Queen no longer influencing him, he realizes that peace lies somewhere between independence and subjection—in what we might call interdependence.
Just as the political narrative centers on a matter of an unpaid debt, it’s notable that the language of debt saturates the play. On a figurative level, everyone seems to be indebted to everyone else. Posthumus is indebted to the king for taking him in as his ward. The Queen and Cloten both believe that Imogen owes them a strategic marriage. Meanwhile, Belarius sees Cymbeline as having an outstanding debt from the time of his unjust exile. He initially took the king’s sons as collateral, but then he raised the boys on his own. He references the debts incurred in the final scene, where he demands the king to “pay me for the nursing of thy sons” (5.5.394). Characters in this play constantly struggle to assert independence in the face of their unpaid debts, which otherwise threaten to keep them subjected to others. The challenge, then, is to rebalance accounts without either “overbuy[ing]” (1.1.177) or being forced to “o’erpay” (2.4.12). For instance, when Posthumus orders Imogen’s death for her apparent infidelity, he is asking far too much. Likewise, his own death sentence, had it been executed, would have exacted too high a price for his trespasses. In the end, all relations of power—both political and interpersonal—must be rebalanced.
The Need for Reunion and Reconciliation
In a way, the enormously detailed plot of Cymbeline could be boiled down to a pattern of dispersion and reunion. Posthumus’s exile initiates the pattern of dispersion. Once he’s sent off to Italy, he meets Iachimo, a man whose villainous actions will eventually force Imogen and Pisanio to leave court and then separate, with Imogen winding up lost in the Welsh wilderness. Cloten then leave court in search of Posthumus (whom he plans to kill) and Imogen (whom he plans to rape and kidnap), only to be killed himself. As if to bring the pattern of dispersion to the height of absurdity, Cloten dies by having his head cloven from his body. Guiderius then sends his head downriver to Britain while burying the rest of his body in Wales. Meanwhile, the war between is heating up, with Roman soldiers invading Britain and British soldiers rushing out to meet them in battle. In the course of the fighting, soldiers switch sides and turn the tides, leading to absolute chaos that results, almost miraculously, with a British victory. At this point, the pattern of dispersion reverses, and in the play’s final scene Shakespeare effects a rapid series of reunions and reconciliations that simultaneously secure the fortunes of family and nation.
What makes this series of reunions and reconciliations possible is, in large part, a set of rebirths that afford the play’s principal characters a necessary reset. Take Imogen as an example. Tangled up in the complexities of a family drama, separated from her beloved, then caught in a web of deceit that threatens her life, she desperately needs to withdraw and start anew. Pisanio offers her just such a chance when he sends her into the Welsh wilderness in disguise. Hence, she is reborn as the boy “Fidele,” who will in turn be reborn when “he” wakes from the sleeping potion and gets swept up in the war. Posthumus also experiences a rebirth. Distraught by having ordered the death of his wife, he enters the battle eager to prove the worthiness that others have praised him for, but which he knows he doesn’t deserve. He fights valiantly for the British, only to let himself get caught in Roman garb, arrested, and sentenced to death. After a bizarre reunion with his dead family members, he is a new man, ready to make a public confession of his sins. These and other rebirths—of Cymbeline, Belarius, Guiderius, and Arviragus—enable the various reunions and reconciliations that mark the play’s culmination.
The Danger of Improper Valuation
In many ways, the complex mayhem of Cymbeline’s plot stems from the way characters improperly evaluate others’ worth. For instance, whereas Imogen immediately sees through what she calls the Queen’s “dissembling courtesy” (1.1.98), her father does not. His failure to see through “her seeming” (5.5.77) is where all the play’s problems start, beginning with Posthumus’s exile and reaching its apex with the war. Improper valuation also creates serious problems for the romance between Imogen and Posthumus, which is nearly destroyed because neither of them could fully see Iachimo for the villainous trickster he really is. Yet from Iachimo’s perspective, the real problem is that Posthumus is overrated. He observes that everyone bases Posthumus’s worth on the fact that the peerless Imogen has chosen him, which leads them to think he’s better than he really is. Iachimo’s words have some truth to them, as we see when Posthumus overreacts to the evidence of Imogen’s betrayal and orders her death. Posthumus acknowledges his own overvaluation when he reappears in act 5 and commits to proving the worthiness that as yet remains unearned: “Let me make men know / More valor in me than my habits show” (5.1.29–30).
Just as the major events in the play may be attributed to improper valuation, many of the plot’s more minor incidents relate to characters’ failure to see through appearances. Perhaps the most obvious example of this relates to the use of disguise in the play. When Imogen transforms herself into “Fidele,” her performance is good enough to fool Belarius and his adoptive sons as well as Lucius Caius. It’s a testament to their inherent nobility that Imogen and her brothers have an instant feeling of kinship with each other. Even so, mutual recognition is deferred both because of Imogen’s disguise and because Guiderius and Arviragus remain in the dark about their own heritage. Added to these concealed identities are the play’s many instances of feints and counterfeits. Characters in Cymbeline are always lying to each other, and objects frequently turn out to be other than what they seem to be. A trunk supposedly filled with jewels turns out to conceal an enterprising Italian. A box apparently carrying medicine secretly contain a sleeping draught that was supposed to be a deadly poison. All these feints and counterfeits make proper valuation difficult and create dangerous traps the characters of this play can—and do—fall into.
