Cymbeline Quiz for Experts | Shakespeare

Answer: 1610-11

The well-known astrologer of the period, Simon Forman, records having attended a performance of the new play in 1611. Unfortunately for scholars, he gives no details, not even mentioning the name of the theatre in which the performance occurred (it was probably either the Globe or the new indoor Blackfriars Theatre).

Answer: both Boccaccio and Holinshed

He took some historical background from Holinshed's "Chronicles", and part of the plot from Boccaccio's "Decameron". Other parts of the plot were apparently taken from an anonymous play of 1589.

Answer: as a tragedy

Presumably the editors - Shakespeare's old friends Heminge and Condell - had either never seen "Cymbeline" performed, or had never stayed to the end. The play is a glorious mixture of comedy, history, tragedy and romance, with a blissfully happy ending. It could best be described, perhaps, as a dramatised fairy-tale.

Answer: Octavius

The play is set in the uneasy period between the two Roman invasions of Britain, when the Celtic chiefs were supposed to be sending tribute money to Rome in order to keep the Caesars quiet.

Answer: the British King

Truculent and ineffective in his personal life, Cymbeline is neither a hero nor a villain, but rather a kind of flawed figurehead: a fairy-tale king.

Answer: for both of these reasons

"Posthumus" seems a slightly unlikely name for a hero, but his second name -"Leonatus" - makes him sound more heroic.

Answer: Imogen

Imogen is one of Shakespeare's most admirable women characters - honest, loyal, brave, resilient, practical, adventurous, lyrical - and beautiful, too. She has attracted the attention of some of Britain's leading actresses over the centuries: perhaps the most celebrated Imogen of all was Ellen Terry in London in the 1890s, of whom it was memorably recalled by the playwright and critic Harley Granville-Barker that her voice "seemed to fill the Lyceum Theatre with dancing sunbeams".

Answer: he wants to win a bet with Posthumus

Iachimo wants to prove to Posthumus, by fair means or foul, that his wife has been unfaithful to him.

Answer: hiding in a trunk

When, with Imogen asleep in her bed, Iachimo slowly levers open the lid of the trunk and looks around him, it can be a stunning "coup de theatre". I saw the late Emrys James do it brilliantly at Stratford-upon-Avon in the 1970s.

Answer: blue

"White and azure lac'd with Heaven's own tinct", rhapsodises Iachimo. A wee problem, perhaps, for aspiring Shakespearean actresses with brown eyes.

Answer: there is a sculpture of a pair of Cupids in the room

He saves this bit of extra information for later, when he is describing the bedchamber to the shocked Posthumus.

Answer: his musicians

Cloten's crude sexual innuendo only emphasises what a hopeless suitor he is.

Answer: Hark! hark! the lark at Heaven's gate sings

The original musical setting for this song, by Robert Johnson, has survived, and it is a delight. (The words were set to music again 200-odd years later by Franz Schubert. Lucky song.)

Answer: Cloten

Cloten's quite impressive bravado here helps to make him a slightly more rounded character. His days are numbered, though: he is presently to be beheaded outside Belarius's cave in Wales while wearing Posthumus's clothes, and to be mistaken for the corpse of Posthumus by the distraught Imogen.

Answer: Milford Haven

I read somewhere that Milford Haven claims to have the second deepest harbour in Europe, but if Shakespeare had heard about this bit of folklore, he decided not to use it.

Answer: the long-lost sons of Cymbeline

They think they are Belarius's sons, but they are really royal princes all the time (Guiderius and Arviragus are their real names).

Answer: Imogen

It reminds us once again of the versatility of those Shakespearean boy-actors who played the women's parts. A boy playing a girl playing a boy...

Polydore and Cadwal, who have fallen in love with the "youth" who is really - unbeknownst to them all - their long-lost sister, cannot contain their grief when "he" is found apparently dead. The eighteenth-century poet William Collins, inspired by Shakespeare's play, wrote a lyrical dirge lamenting the supposed death of "Fidele", which captures the fairy-tale elegiac note quite well.

Answer: Posthumus's dream-vision in gaol

The dream-vision of his dead relations that Posthumus experiences in prison is written in a strange kind of doggerel completely unlike Shakespeare's usual late style. The authenticity of the other three options given above has never been questioned.

Answer: O, for a Muse of fire!

These are the opening words of "Henry V".

Answer: Samuel Johnson

Various influential critics have been more positive than Johnson: Leavis, for example, believes that "Cymbeline" "contains a great variety of life and interest...out of the interplay of contrasting themes and modes we have an effect as...of an odd and distinctive music".