CYMBELINE

Summary

INTRODUCTION

LITERARY HISTORY

Cymbeline was first printed in the Folio, but our earliest mention of the play occurs in the MS. of Dr. Simon Forman, the astrologer, already quoted by Mr. Symons in his Introduction to Macbeth. Forman witnessed a performance of Macbeth on April 20th, 1610, and one of The Winter's Tale (the only other Shakespearian drama mentioned by him) on May 15th, 1611, both at the Globe Theatre, but he gives no date for the performance of Cymbeline; it cannot, however, be later than September, 1611, the date of his death. The following is his account:—“Of Cimbalin King of England.—Remember also the storri of Cymbalin, King of England in Lucius tyme; howe Lucius cam from Octavus Cesar for tribut, and being denied, after sent Lucius with a greate armi of souldiars, who landed at Milford Haven, and affter wer vanquished by Cimbalin, and Lucius taken prisoner; and all by means of three outlawes, of the which two of them were the sonns of Cimbalin, stolen from him when they were but two yers old by an old man whom Cymbalin banished, and he kept them as his own sonns twenty yers with him in a cave; and howe of [? one] of them slewe Clotan, that was the quens sonn, goinge to Milford Haven to sek the love of Innogen, the kinges daughter, whom [sic] he had banished also for lovinge his daughter; and howe the Italian that cam from her love conveied himself into a cheste, and said yt was a chest of plate sent from her love and others to be presented to the kinge.