Cymbeline

Cymbeline, play written by English playwright William Shakespeare around 1609, near the close of his career. The source of the main plot of Cymbeline, a husband’s wager on the virtue of his wife, goes back to a story by Italian writer Giovanni Boccaccio. Shakespeare gave the story an air of romance by promoting the heroine from a merchant’s wife to a British princess, daughter of King Cymbeline. The heroine of the story is secretly married to a noble gentleman of the court. Shakespeare set his tale against a background of legendary history and used loosely historical accounts of a war between Rome and Cunobelius, an early English king, to bring about a surprising resolution and a happy ending. The construction of Cymbeline is loose and rambling, but it is a charming story, written in beautiful poetic verse. The play has been a favorite with poets; English poet Lord Alfred Tennyson died with a copy of it open in his hand. In 1937 British dramatist George Bernard Shaw wrote a new fifth act for the play.