Page:Cymbeline (1924) Yale.djvu/161

The Tragedy of Cymbeline rivalry. The story of Belarius and the kidnapped princes, as well as the final solution of the complicated plot, seems to have been Shakespeare's own invention.

Cimbeline, or Kymbeline, was, according to Holinshed, a descendant of King Lear, and reigned in Britain from 33 B. C. to 2 A. D. He had been educated in Rome and 'knighted' by Cæsar Augustus. His sons were Guiderius and Arviragus. 'Our histories do affirme' that Cymbeline, and his father Tenantius (cf. Cymbeline I. i. 31) before him, lived at peace with the Romans, 'and continuallie to them paied the tributes which the Britaines had couenanted with Julius Cæsar to paie, yet we find in the Romane writers that after Julius Caesar's death the Britaines refused to paie that tribute: whereat Augustus, being otherwise occupied, was content to winke; howbeit  at length  Augustus made prouision to passe with an armie ouer into Britaine, & was come forward vpon his iournie into Gallia Celtica. But here receiuing aduertisements that the Pannonians and the Dalmatians  had rebelled (cf. Cymbeline III. i. 73–75), he thought it best first to subdue those rebells neere home.' Holinshed is at a loss to know whether to believe 'our histories' or 'the Romane writers,' but he records presently the arrival of an ambassador from Augustus at the court of Cymbeline, who came to bring to the British king the thanks of the emperor 'for that he had kept his allegiance toward the Romane empire.' Later, Guiderius, after his accession, refused to pay a yearly tribute of three thousand crowns. Shakespeare, by attributing this refusal to Cymbeline, hoped to heighten the dramatic and emotional appeal of this singularly mild and uneventful portion of Holinshed's Chronicle.