61 pages • 2-hour read
Cymbeline
A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Act IVChapter Summaries & Analyses
Act IV, Scene 1 Summary
Content Warning: This section of the guide includes references to violence, sexual violence, threat of death, and misogyny.
Cloten arrives at the place where he thinks he will find Posthumus and Imogen reuniting. He thinks he fits Posthumus’s clothes well, and compares himself favorably to him, indignant that Imogen has chosen Posthumus instead. He looks forward to killing Posthumus, chopping up his clothes, and raping Imogen before forcibly returning her to court. He thinks Cymbeline might be a bit annoyed at his treatment of her, but that the Queen will manipulate him into praising Cloten instead.
Act IV, Scene 2 Summary
Belarius, Guiderius, and Arviragus plan to go hunting. They leave Imogen (still disguised as Fidele) to rest in the cave, as she is not well. She decides to take Pisanio’s drugs.
Guiderius and Arviragus again note how they love “Fidele” like a brother; somehow even more than they love Belarius, who they think is their father. They note “Fidele’s” excellent cooking skills, and the noble way that he manages his grief with patience. They discuss the misfortune that must have befallen him despite his high birth.
Cloten enters, muttering that he hasn’t found the runaways. Belarius recognizes him as the Queen’s son, and assumes a party has been sent to look for him, Guiderius, and Arviragus. Belarius and Arviragus exit to scout the area, leaving Guiderius to deal with Cloten. Cloten insults him as a mountain savage. Guiderius is not impressed with Cloten’s posturing that he is the Queen’s son, deeming him unworthy. They run offstage fighting.
Belarius and Arviragus return, satisfied that there are no signs that anyone else is looking for them. Guiderius brings in Cloten’s head. Belarius is worried that this has doomed them to retribution, convinced that Cloten cannot have come alone. Guiderius points out that they are already outlaws, unprotected by the law, and Cloten would’ve killed them if he hadn’t killed him first. He goes to throw the head in the river. Belarius sends Arviragus in to the cave to prepare some food with “Fidele.” He waits outside for Guiderius, thinking about how the brothers’ inherent honor shines through despite their upbringing.
Guiderius returns. Arviragus emerges carrying “Fidele,” apparently dead. Belarius, Guiderius, and Arviragus are devastated. They resolve to perform funeral rites, and leave flowers on his grave forever. Belarius points out that Cloten was a prince and must also be given proper funeral rites, even if he was their enemy. While he fetches the body, Guiderius and Arviragus recite a song over “Fidele’s” body. They lay the two bodies together, with a few flowers on them. Belarius says they must pick more flowers that night, and the three depart.
Imogen has vivid dreams about journeying to Milford-Haven. She wakes up alone next to Cloten’s headless corpse, which is wearing Posthumus’s clothes. She is horrified, believing that Pisanio must have conspired with Cloten to kill Posthumus. She collapses on the corpse.
Lucius enters with a soothsayer and his captains. A captain explains that the legions from France have arrived, and a force of Italian gentry under the leadership of Iachimo are also on the way. The soothsayer says he dreamed that the Roman eagle flew overhead and then vanished in the sunlight, claiming this portends Roman victory.
Lucius spots Cloten and Imogen. He mistakes her for a boy because of her disguise. He questions her. She introduces herself as Fidele, and says that the corpse was her master, slain by mountaineers. She laments his passing, saying that she will never find a better master. Lucius is impressed by “Fidele’s” devotion to his master, and invites Imogen into his employ. She agrees, but asks to bury her master first. Lucius offers to help.
Act IV, Scene 3 Summary
Cymbeline is beset by problems. His wife the Queen is dangerously ill and her fever is accompanied by “madness.” With Imogen and Cloten also absent, he is deprived of those closest to him at a time when the Roman armies are gathering against him.
He is convinced Pisanio must know where Imogen is, and threatens to torture him when he denies any knowledge. The First Lord reassures him that Cloten will surely be found soon, and reports that Roman troops have landed. Pisanio privately laments the moral quandary he is in, in which he cannot be true to one person without being false to another. He wonders why he hasn’t heard from either Posthumus or Imogen, and resigns everything to fortune.
Act IV, Scene 4 Summary
As the Roman army approaches, Belarius, Guiderius, and Arviragus debate a course of action. Belarius says they cannot join the British forces, as he will be recognized and they may all be implicated in Cloten’s death and killed. He says Cymbeline does not deserve their support. Guiderius and Arviragus are desperate to prove their worth in the real world, and want to learn honor and martial skill. They are determined to join the British forces. Belarius says that if they are going, he will go too, come what may.
Act IV Analysis
Act IV constitutes a climax for elements of plot, building to a dramatic resolve of the storyline of Cloten’s pursuit of Imogen, and her residency with Guiderius, Arviragus, and Belarius. Scene 2 is very long to allow all this action to unfold in one go, but has several accompanying changes of tone to give the scene a dramatically sophisticated shape. Cloten arrives to kill Imogen, bringing the threat of the horrific acts of violence he has promised but also the threat of discovery for Belarius and his “sons.” However, this threat ends anti-climactically when he and Guiderius fight and Cloten is easily defeated. Shakespeare adds a dark humor to this situation: Guiderius carries Cloten’s head around, and is casually defensive of the fact that he has murdered the country’s apparent prince, asserting how rude he was.
The tone shifts abruptly when Arviragus carries out Imogen’s body, devastating the two brothers. Shakespeare creates pathos as they perform mourning rites and lay flowers on her body. Imogen also has an intense emotional journey once they’ve left, waking from a dream, seemingly finding the corpse of her beloved, and finally meeting Lucius by chance and joining him. The scene uses emotional twists and turns to create a heightened climax, ending with the presence of the Romans, which in turn sets up the military climax of the political plot in the final Act.
These events also place Cymbeline into his nadir, exploring the convergence of the personal and political in the figure of the monarch. He is surrounded by personal and political problems—because he is king, they are one and the same. His wife is sick and his children and stepson are missing. However they are also the Queen and the heirs to the kingdom respectively, and would fulfil leadership roles and offer counsel if they were present. Cymbeline forces the faithful Pisanio to lie to him and then, rightly, cannot trust him; instead, he listens to the sycophantic First Lord. Shakespeare shows how his judgement is eroded with personal and political consequences as he no longer has friends or allies around him.
Cymbeline’s isolation also connects to the theme of The Nature of British Identity. For all Cymbeline’s outward assertion of strength on the global stage, it is a meaningless façade if Britain is vulnerable to inner corruption, with no heirs or stability of leadership. This inner instability also makes Britain more vulnerable to external forces: Although the British had previously discussed their improved martial powers since Caesar’s invasion, Cymbeline’s daughter is now in the Roman camp in disguise, and his sons’ mentor tries to stop them joining the British cause.
The threat that permeates the Act is also expressed through the disintegration of The Relationship Between Appearance and Reality: In this dangerous, chaotic world characters are no longer able to trust their senses. This disintegration is exemplified in the Soothsayer’s vision and Cornelius’s potion, both of which create a false certainty about world-altering events: Death, and the outcome of a war. Imogen’s failure to recognize Cloten is noteworthy, as it is juxtaposed against Belarius’s easy identification of him despite not seeing him for years, and Guiderius’s easy identification of his true character, despite his trappings of nobility. Her certainty that he is in fact Posthumus reflects the confusing and violent world she has found herself in, as she has apparently been poisoned by a trusted confidante, and she wakes from her dreams of Milford-Haven to find a headless corpse instead of the three noble strangers. The speed with which she latches on to his clothing as a sign of his identity (See: Symbols & Motifs) suggests that she scrambles to find an anchor in this strange, rapidly shifting world.
Shakespeare uses the theme of appearance and reality to explore identity, with Cloten’s disguise in this Act making five people whose true identities are obscured on some level. However, all have defining characteristics that cannot be hidden, tying together The Influence of Nature Versus Nurture on Character and The Complexities of Honor in Love and War. Their honor, or lack of it in Cloten’s case, is presented as so fundamental that it cannot be disguised or relearned based on their surroundings. Imogen’s honor in love is presented as she weeps on the apparent corpse of a man who ordered her killed: The name “Fidele” may be technically false but actually describes her most intrinsic quality, fidelity.
Guiderius’s and Arviragus’s identities as sons of Britain and as true warriors cannot be hidden from themselves: They resolve to fight for Britain despite learning a narrative in which they do not owe Cymbeline loyalty, and despite their disconnect from a formal martial world. Despite the atmosphere of threat created in this Act, these three characters offer hope for the remaining Act, as their British identity and their sense of honor are presented as fundamental and intertwined.
Unlock all 61 pages of this Study Guide
Get in-depth, chapter-by-chapter summaries and analysis from our literary experts.
- Grasp challenging concepts with clear, comprehensive explanations
- Revisit key plot points and ideas without rereading the book
- Share impressive insights in classes and book clubs