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Chapter 4: Divineness
- University of Notre Dame Press
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57 C h a p t e r 4 Divineness Behold divineness No elder than a boy. v in Cymbeline, Shakespeare performs a series of extraordinary theatrical experiments, combining and juxtaposing genres: history, love story, the tragedy of jealousy, and pastoral elegy. here too, however, the action is dominated by death and ends in rebirth, in recognition, and in the reconstitution of philia—of affections and of love. on its primary level the play attempts to unify the flow of both roman and universal history (while Cymbeline describes a pagan world, it is set at the time of Christ’s birth and life) and to coordinate them with the Celtic beginnings of British history. encouraged (if not prompted) by the queen and by her son Cloten, Cymbeline, king of Britain, refuses to pay the tribute to rome, an action that represents a first, forceful affirmation of British national identity . For this to be confirmed, a victory must be won against the roman punitive expedition. playing a role of fundamental importance in this war, beyond the duty imposed on them by bonds of lineage and loyalty, 58 The Gospel according to Shakespeare are Cymbeline’s sons Guiderius and arviragus, their putative father Belarius, and the king’s son-in-law posthumus Leonatus. all of these characters contribute in the hour of need to laying the foundation for a new, independent Britain. the peace that follows, however, has surprising consequences. Cymbeline decides of his own accord to once again pay the tribute to rome and to accept the rule of augustus Caesar; and, more significantly ,he has the British and roman troops march together in triumph, their banners waving “friendly together” in the wind, towards the temple of Jupiter, where the newly established union will be ratified. in a harmony “tuned” by the “the fingers of the powers above,” the grand prophetic vision announced by the soothsayer before the battle is thus fulfilled, and is expanded upon in the last scene of the play: “For the roman eagle, / From south to west on wing soaring aloft, / Lessen’d herself and in the beams o’ the sun / So vanish’d; which foreshadow’d our princely eagle, / th’ imperial Casear, should again unite / his favour with the radiant Cymbeline, / Which shines here in the west” (5.5.471–77).1 this is an unexpected perspective, in the context of the increasingly deep separation between elizabethan england and the contemporary empire of Catholic rome.(Scholars have, indeed, proposed that Shakespeare is here adapting to new attitudes emerging with the rise to the throne of James i.) it is also, rather appropriately, a very enigmatic vision , if one interprets it as saying that the roman eagle flies westward towards an apotheosis which is also a sunset, and that it is precisely there in the West that the sun, which is “radiant Cymbeline,” now shines, as if the former is handing authority over to the latter, thus prefiguring an ideal continuity with Britain’s new imperium in the West. the history of the two worlds of the past, the classical roman one and the Celtic-english one, is thus prophetically taken into a vision of the present and the future. Upon this historical drama is grafted the drama of the play’s heroine , which entails an unfolding of all the principal kinds of human relation and affection: father-daughter, wife-husband, rejected loverbeloved , sister-brothers.the pure imogen, daughter of Cymbeline, has preferred marriage with posthumus Leonatus, a man of noble descent [18.232.169.110] Project MUSE (2024-03-29 00:21 GMT) Divineness 59 but poor, to marriage with Cloten, son of the king’s second wife. Cymbeline banishes posthumus and thunders in rage against imogen, with the same vehemence with which Lear lashes out against Cordelia. While in exile in rome, posthumus praises imogen’s beauty and her faithfulness, which is, however, called into question by iachimo. the two thus make a bet: if iachimo wins imogen’s honor, posthumus will give to him the ring he wears on his finger. iachimo travels to Britain, courts imogen, is rejected, and returns to rome, where he presents his adversary with a series of apparently convincing proofs of his wife’s betrayal . posthumus decides to have imogen killed by his servant pisanio, who, however, spares her.Dressed as a boy, she is then found by General Caius Lucius, leader of the roman troops against Britain. after the roman defeat, imogen finds herself at Cymbeline’s court...