King Cymbeline had plans to arrange the marriage between his daughter Imogen and his son-in-law Cloten. Instead, she secretly marries Posthumus Leonatus, a poor gentleman. Before Cymbeline banishes Posthumus, Imogen is gifted a beautiful bracelet that she vows never to remove, while Posthumus is given an expensive ring.
While on his way to Rome, Posthumus meets Iachimo, who is heading to Britain, and the two make a bet: If Iachimo can seduce Imogen and provide proof of her adultery, Posthumus must hand over his ring.
Cymbeline is set in pre-Roman Britain during the 1st century AD. The plot is inspired by the story of King Cunobeline, most likely sourced from Holinshed's Chronicles. Shakespeare also drew from other sources; Boccaccio's Decameron tells of a similar wager involving hiding in a trunk.
This Standard Ebooks edition is based on William George Clark and William Aldis Wright's 1887 Victoria edition, which is taken from the Globe edition.
Perfect for readers who love Shakespeare's complex blend of romance, betrayal, and redemption, this masterful tragicomedy weaves together themes of jealousy, loyalty, and forgiveness against the backdrop of ancient Britain. With its intricate plot of deception, cross-dressing, and ultimate reconciliation, Cymbeline offers all the dramatic intensity and poetic beauty that make Shakespeare's works timeless treasures.
The source for this public-domain ebook is Standard Ebooks (standardebooks.org). Ebooks from other sources often have typos, inconsistent spelling, missing accent marks, and missing punctuation. Ebooks from Standard Ebooks are proofread line by line against a scan of the original printed pages, then proofread again from cover to cover. They are also formatted and typeset following a professional-grade style manual, resulting in new editions supporting state-of-the-art ereader technology: automatic hyphenation, popup footnotes, complete and consistent metadata, high-resolution and scalable vector graphics, and ereader-compatible tables of contents. All of this makes the finished ebooks accurate, functional, and beautiful, a pleasure to read. (Waking Lion Press is not affiliated with or endorsed by Standard Ebooks.)
