Act 5 Flashcards
Posthumous: You married ones, / If each of you should take this course, how many / Must murder wives much better than themselves / For wrying but a little
- Addresses ausdience
- Characterizes an unfaithful wife as better than a husband who murders her for infidelity- sudden moral transformation/forgivenesss of Innogen, but too late to withhold original decree- reliant entirely on Pisanio’s disobedience for forgiveness to have meaning/manifest/yield significant outcome
Provides a point of correction for Leontes in WT when he accuses some of the audience of being cuckolds??
Oh Pisanio/every good servant does not all commands/no bond but to do just ones
Oh Pisanio! Good servants don’t obey every order. Their duty is just to obey the moral ones.
(i.e. allocates some degree of judgement to the servant)
Posthumous: I never / Had lived to put on this
I never should have lived…
Posthumous: You snatch some hence for little faults;/That’s love / To have them fall no more.
you kill some of us for small sins. That shows your love for those people, because you keep them from sinning worse.
Posthumous: You some permit / To second ills with ills, each elder worse, / And make them dread it, to the doers’ thrift / But Innogen is your own
You allow some to do evil after evil, each one worse than the one before, and cause them to regret their actions, to their ultimate gain But Imogen is with you now.
(Describes people who are so entangled in wrong-doings that they regret their actions, which ultimately benefits them).
Stylistic point: ‘I’ll disrobe me of these Italian weeds and suit myself/As does a Briton peasant;’
Marks a shift in affiliation (from Italian to Briton) as well as a change in social rank (from gentle to base)
Posthumous: O Innogen, even for whom my life / Is every breath a death
•I die of remorse with every breath
and thus, unknown,
Pitied nor hated, to the face of peril
Myself I’ll dedicate. Let me make men know/more valour in me than my habits show.
And so, unknown, neither pitied nor hated, I’ll face danger. Let me show more bravery in this than I usually do.
Stylistic point: Gods, put the strength o’ the Leonati in me!
Calling on his ancestors through his family name, which Posthumus’ father earned by doing battle against the Romans
Posthumous: To shame the guise o’th’world, I will begin / The fashion: less without and more within
The shame the custom of the world, I’ll turn the usual fashion around by seeming less noble on the outside, and more on the inside
i.e. contrasts appearance as peasant with internal worth
The heaviness and guilt within my bosom/takes off my manhood
The sadness and guilt in my heart make me less of a man.
Iachimo: I have belied a lady…the air on’t / Revengingly enfeebles me;
I have slandered Innogen…the atmosphere of Britain weakens me in as repayment for my prior actions
(i.e. it’s the air’s revenge, not his own)
or could this carl, / A very drudge of nature’s, have subdued me / In my profession?
or how else would peasant-Posthumous-, a slave of nature’s, have beaten me in his performance as a soldier?
Knighthoods and honours, borne
As I wear mine, are titles but of scorn.
+ context point
Knighthoods and honours like the ones I have are worth nothing except as insults to me.
n.b. this remark is particularly pertinent in light of James I’s frequent conferral of knighthoods
Iachimo: If that thy gentry, Britain, go before / This lout as he exceeds our lords, the odds / Is, that we scarce are men and you are gods
•If your nobles, Britain, surpass this peasant as much as he exceeds our Roman lords, then the Romans are barely men & the Britons are divine
Lucius: and the disorder’s such as war were hoodwinked
and it’s as much of a mess as if war itself were to be blindfolded and strike out indiscrimanately
Lucius: It is a day turned strangely. Or betimes / Lets reinforce, or fly
It is a day that has turned surprisingly. Either promptly (or betimes), let’s obtain reinforcements or flee.
Posthumous: Though you, it seems, come from the fliers?
However, you seem to have come from the Britons who fled
Posthumous: For all was lost, / But that the heavens fought. The King himself / Of his wings destitute
- The battle would have been lost for us, if the Gods had not fought for the Britons
- The King lacked his divisions on each side (i.e. alone)
Posthumous: The enemy full-hearted, / Lolling the tongue with slaught’ring
•The enemy was full of courage & confidence; with tongues hanging out, (like wild animals/hunting dogs)
Posthumous: The strait pass was / damned with dead men, hurt behind, and cowards living / To die with lengthened shame
•The narrow way was blocked with corpses, those wounded while running away, and cowards who were fleeing to die with shame extended for the rest of their lives
Posthumus: who deserved / So long a breeding as his white beard came to
Who has earned a lineage as long as his beard
Striplings
Youths passing from boyhood to manhood
lads more like to run / The country base than to commit such slaughter,
lads more likely to play a children’s game than to engage in battle
With faces fit for masks, or rather fairer / Than those for preservation cased, or shame
with faces so delicate they deserve to be protected with masks, or rather they are more fair than those who cover their faces to preserve their complexions, or for the sake of modesty
n.b. - reference to masks worn by ladies to conceal identity at balls & Masques), secured the passage
Made good the passage
Secured the passage
To darkness fleet souls that fly backwards.
The souls of people who run away hasten to hell.
Stand, / Or we are Romans, and will give you that / Like beasts which you shun beastly
Stand your ground or we will act like Romans and attack you fiercely (like beasts is a quantifier of how they are going to attack them) which you, beast-like, shun.
And may save/but to look back in frown
and may avert merely by facing the enemy with defiance
These / three, three thousand confident, in act as many
As effective as 3000 men
For three performers are the file, when all / The rest do nothing – with this word ‘ “stand”, / stand’
for three performers constitute the entire rank or formation of soldiers, when all the rest do nothing – with this word ‘ “Stand”, they take stand’,
Section 1: Accommodated by the place,
Section 2: more charming / With their own nobleness,
Section 3: which could have turned / A distaff to a lance,
Section 4: gilded pale looks
Section 1: Given an advantage by the environment
Section 2: Working their spell on others through their great deeds
Section 3: Which could have transformed a staff used for spinning in to a military weapon (n.b. a distaff came to stand for a woman)
Section 4: restored colour to the soldiers’ faces, blanched with fear.
Posthumous: Part shame, part spirit renewed, that some turned cowards / But by example
•Some were revived by shame, some by courage, so that some of them became cowardly, but by imitating the cowardice of others
(O, a sin in war, / Damned in the first beginners)
(O, a sin in war, damned in those who first display cowardice)
‘gan to look / The way that they did and to grin like lions / Upon the pikes o’th’hunters.
began to look the way that they did and bared their teeth like lions at the weapon of those who hunted them down
Section 1: Posthumous: Then began / A stop i’th’chaser, a retire;
Section 2: anon /
Section 3: A rout,
Section 4: confusion thick; forthwith they fly/ Chickens, the way which they stooped eagles;
Section 1: Then a sudden check in the pursuers occurred, a withdrawal;
Section 2: shortly (anon)
Section 3: an act of retreating in disorder
Section 4: thick confusion; then immediately, they flee like chickens over the same path they had swooped down like eagles
the chase ended, the enemy fell back and was defeated, and there was nothing but confusion in their ranks. Immediately they ran like chickens when before they acted like eagles.
/ slaves, the strides they victors made; and now our cowards, / Like fragments in hard voyages, became / The life o’th’need
retracing like slaves the long strides they had taken as victors; and now our cowards, like scraps of food on harrowing journeys, managed to sustain life in extreme circumstances
Having found the back door / Open of the unguarded hearts, how they wound!
Having found easy access to the enemies unprotected hearts, the wounded them!
Some slain before, some dying, some their friends / O’erborne I’th former wave, ten chased by one/Are now each one the slaughterman of twenty
Some were slaughtered earlier, some dying, some knocked down by the other Britons, ten of them fleeing one Roman, were turned into men who could each slaughter 20 Romans.
Those that would die or ere resist are grown / The mortal bugs o’th’field
•Those who were willing to die before resisting became deadly, terrifying forces on the field
Lord: This was strange chance
This was an exceptional/fortuitous circumstance
Stylistic point: Posthumous: Nay, do not wonder at it. You are made / Rather to wonder at the things you hear / Than to work any.
- Disdain for Lord who probably fled battle with other Britons
- First says Lord should not wonder, then says it is all he can do given he is incapable of performing valorously himself
Will you rhyme upon’t, / And vent it for a mock’ry?
• Do you want to compose a verse about it & circulate it as source of derision?
An old man twice a boy…
Still going? (referring to the Lord who has just exited)
An old man twice the age of a young boy
Always running away?
O noble misery (to be i’th field and ask ‘what news?’ of me)
O wretched specimen of the nobility!
To-day how many would have given their honours
To have saved their carcasses! took heel to do’t,
And yet died too!
Today so many chose to give up their honour* to save their bodies! They ran to do it, but died anyway!
*giving words in exchange for preferential treatment upon surrender
I, in mine own woe charmed, / Could not find death where I did hear him groan, / Nor feel him where he struck.
I, charmed by my own wretchedness, couldn’t find death even where I heard him groaning, and couldn’t get hit by him even where he was striking people down.
Being an ugly monster, ‘Tis strange he hides him in fresh cups, soft beds, / Sweet words, or hath moe ministers than we / That draws his knives I’th’ war
Since death’s an ugly monster, it’s strange that he hides in refreshing drinks, comfortable beds, and flattering language, and has at his disposal more agents than there are soldiers on the field
For being now a favourer to the Briton/no more a Briton
Since death now favours the Britons (because Romans are dying), I will no longer be a Briton
Posthumus: Yield me to the veriest hind that shall / Once touch my shoulder
•I surrender myself to the merest peasant that shall arrest me (once touch my shoulder)
- happy submit to a low-ranking soldier rather than receive privileged treatment of elite soldiers
‘I yield myself’- establishes binding contract between captive & captor
Great the slaughter is here made by th’Roman; great the answer be
Britons must take.
The Romans killed a lot of people here, and the Britons will punish them for it.
On either side I come to spend my breath, / Which neither here I’ll keep nor bear again
•On one side or the other I come to give up my life, which I will not keep here or carry away to continue elsewhere
2 Captain: in a silly habit
in a simple outfit
Posthumous: Who had not now been drooping here if seconds / Had answered him
•Who wouldn’t have been faltering here if reinforcements had backed him up
A leg of Rome shall not return to tell
One who fled on their legs shall not go back to Rome to tell…
1 Jailer: You shall not now be stolen…graze as you find pasture
+ stylistic point
You won’t be rescued… so you can eat whatever you find…
Intends to keep Posthumous imprisoned for ransom
•Chained in open field to prevent escape- debased like animal
2 Jailer: Ay, or a stomach
Or an appetite
Posthumous: Yet am I better / Than one that’s sick o’th’ gout
•Yet I am greater than one who is stricken with gout-
disease of painful inflammation of small joints- assumes sufferer would rather live with pain than be relieved of it through death
Stylistic point:
Posthumous: You good gods, / give me the penitent instrument to pick that bolt (of my conscience)
•Pentinence symbolized as key to unlocking bolt of Posthumous’ conscience, fettered by guilt
Posthumous: So children temporal fathers do appease
•Children pacify their earthly fathers with apologies
Gyves
fetters/shackles
Posthumous: To satisfy, / If of my freedom ‘tis the main part, take / No stricter render of me than my all
•If giving up my freedom is the most important component of my atonement, take no more precise portion from me than life itself
Posthumous: I know you are more clement than vile men…letting them thrive again / On their abatement
•I know you are more compassionate rather than creditors/usurers (who seize a portion of money or goods belonging to their people who owe them money)… letting them thrive on the remaining capital
Tween man and man they weigh not every stamp
Humans don’t weigh every coin we exchange (in order to ascertain that it definitely contains the full quantity of metal)
Though light, take pieces for the figure’s sake,
•Although the coin is underweight, it is valuable due to the image stamped upon it
- essentially Posthumus is begging the God’s to accept him anyway because he was made in their image
You rather, mine being yours
Hence you, Gods, may accept my life since I was created in your image
If you will make this audit, take this life and cancel these cold bonds
*has three possible meanings
If you will examine this financial record and void this legal contract/unlock these shackles/release me from this life
Sicilius: With Mars fall out, with Juno chide, that thy adulteries / Rates and revenges
apostrophizes to Jupiter to sever himself from Mars as god of war & to forego wife Juno who rebukes/scolds & takes vengeance on his adulterous affairs
(whilst in the womb he stayed) attending nature’s law
awaiting the natural course of his birth
Whose father then, as men report
Thou orphans’ father art,
Thou shouldst have been
people say you’re a father to orphans, and you should have been a father to him
Sicilius: Earth-vexing smart
•The suffering & grief that afflict mortals
Mother: Lucina lent me not her aid, but took me in my throes
Lucina, the Roman Goddess of childbirth did not help me, but allowed me to die whilst experiencing the pangs of labour
Sicilius: Great nature, like his ancestry, moulded the stuff so fair
Nature, combined with his ancestors, contributed to his development as esteemed nobleman.
1 brother: When once he was mature for man,
In Britain where was he
That could stand up his parallel;
When he had grown into a man, who else in Britain was equal to him
Or fruitful object be
In eye of Imogen, that best
Could deem his dignity?
or who else could compete with him in Imogen’s affection, she who more than anyone could see how virtuous he was?
Leonati seat
Literally, the ancestral home of the leonati family
And to become the geck and scorn
O’ th’ other’s villany?
+ stylistic point
And let him be the dupe of Iachimo’s trickery?
+ hendiadys
2 Brother: From stiller seats we came…Our fealty and Tenantius’ right with honour to maintain
From the Elysian Fields we came… to maintain our loyalty (fealty) and the right (to rule?) of Tenantius (Cym’s father)
Like hardiment Posthumus hath to Cymbeline performed
Posthumus performed deeds of similar valour
like hardiment = deeds of similar valour
1 Brother: Why hast thou adjourned/the graces for his merits due
• Asks Jupiter why he has deferred the joy that Posthumous deserves for his virtue
Sicilius: Thy crystal window ope, look out, no longer exercise / Upon a valiant race
imperative command: open your crystal window, look out, no longer abuse a worthy race
marble mansion
the heavens
Sicilius: (cry to the) shining synod of the rest
•Assembly of all gods
Jupiter: whose bolt, you know, sky-planted, batters all rebelling coasts
when you know my lightning bolt, originating in the heavens, shoots at all rebelling countries
Be not with mortal accidents oppressed
Do not be oppressed by human events
Whom best I love I cross; to make my gift, The more delay’d, delighted.
I thwart (cross) the people I love best, because postponing my grace (gift) makes people appreciate it more.
godhead
powers
In our temple was he married
Reference to Posthumus and Innogen having married in Jupiter’s temple
Our pleasure his full fortune doth confine
Where I’ve set down the full pleasure of his destiny (?)
Scilius: (the holy eagle) stooped, as to foot us
Swooped down as if to seize us with its talons
Sicilius: his ascension is
More sweet than our blest fields
Seeing him fly away is more beautiful than the blessed (Elysian) fields we live in
his royal bird
Prunes the immortal wing and claws his beak,
As when his god is pleased.
His royal bird is tends its wing feathers and scratches (his beak? with his talons, as he does when his god is pleased.
Stylistic point: the marble pavement closes
After Jupiter’s ascent, the trapdoor in the false ceiling above the stage would have closed behind him to conceal the stage machinery.
Perform his great behest
Perform his great command
Sleep, thou hast been a grandsire, and begot
A father to me; and thou hast created
A mother and two brothers
Sleep, you were like a grandfather: you engendered a father for me, and you created a mother and two brothers.
Posthumus: Poor wretches that depend / On greatness’ favour dream as I have done,/ wake, and ifnd nothing
•Poor wretches that rely on the good will of great men dream as I have just dreamt and wake up to find that they have nothing
I swerve
I err/go astray
Many dream not to find, neither deserve,
And yet are steep’d in favours
Many don’t hope to find anything and do not deserve to do so but are drowned in good fortune.
Posthumous: Be not, as is our fangled world, a garment / Nobler than that it covers
Don’t be like novelty-obsessed world and have a cover that looks more noble than what it’s covering.
(let thy effects
So follow, to be most unlike our courtiers,)
As good as promise.
living up to its external appearance through its internal worth
Prophecy: When as a lion’s whelp shall, to himself unknown,
without seeking find, and be embraced by a piece of
tender air;
“When a lion’s cub, not knowing himself, finds and is embraced by a piece of soft air without looking for it…
n.b. Leonatus = the lion’s cub (Leo-natus)
tender air = Cymbeline’s daugher (Innogen) = from mollis aer/mulier (latin for tender air/daugher respectively)
…and when from a stately cedar shall be
lopped branches, which, being dead many years,
shall after revive, be jointed to the old stock and
freshly grow;
and when branches are cut from a noble cedar tree and, after being dead many years, come back to life and are re-attached to the old trunk and grow again,
n.b. cedar tree = Cymbeline
lopped branches = his two offspring
jointed to the old stock= reunited with the majestic cedar (Cymbeline)
then shall Posthumus end his miseries,
Britain be fortunate and flourish in peace and plenty.’
then Posthumus’s sorrows will end, and Britain will be fortunate, prosperous, and peaceful.”
Posthumous: ‘Tis still a dream, or else such stuff as madmen / Tongue and brain not; either both
I’m still dreaming, or this is the senseless chatter of madmen; either both of those things, or neither of them
Or senseless speaking, or a speaking such / As sense cannot untie
It’s either meaningless words or words that reason cannot untie
Posthumous: The action of my life is like it, which I’ll keep, / If but for sympathy
Whatever this writing is, my life is like it in that it’s also mysteriously unintelligible, so I’ll keep it because we’re alike.
(Posthumus: over-roasted…)
Jailer: ‘hanging is the word, sir’
• Punning of meaning ‘to suspend/tie up (bacon/beef) in air to mature/dry or for preservation- continues Posthumous’ comic culinary idiom/metaphor
Posthumous: So if I prove a good repast to the spectators, / The dish pays the shot
So if my hanging is good food/entertainment for the spectators, then it is worth what it costs and my death settles the account
n.b. plays off the idea that public hangings fed the appetite of early modern audiences
shot = the tavern bill, reckoning
Jailer: A heavy reckoning
A sad account
Jailer: sorry that you have paid too much, and sorry that you are paid too much
economic pun vs that you are drunk
he brain the heavier for being too
light, the purse too light, being drawn of
heaviness:
Your head is worse off for feeling light and your wallet that used to be heavier is too light.
puns off: a heavy purse makes a light heart