Cymbeline 2nd Thought
Just an addendum to this.
A really good performance stays with me, like movies in popular culture. The stuff that sticks, historically, at the end of Cymbeline, spoiler alert, the namesake for the play, the titular character, based on the History of English Kings, he pays tribute to Rome.
Turns out it was all his wife’s fault. He was paying his taxes, then decided not to, based upon her influence, then discovered that she didn’t love him but she did love his title.
2nd wife, at that.
So if the King owes/gives fealty to Rome, ‘Roman Empire’ Rome, then the message is the bureaucrat wins. The structure is only sound if we follow the rules, and pay taxes.
Consider the time – King James is said to have loved The Scottish Play. Although some history has been unkind, a certain professor preached that, “King James was the wisest fool in all Christendom,” historically he might have been a bit better than that.
“Better a witty fool than a foolish wit.”
Feste in 12th Night, 1.5.36
There’s an inherent happy ending, two sons returned to their father, daughter’s chastity intact, and Rome gets paid its “tribute.”
Follow the rules.
Still, an excellent performance. Worth renting as the video makes the words clear.
This was half of a thought process, not quite completed, wherein the direction was clear, but required a bit of delving in historical notes. I recall one recent college teacher, “Looking something up on Wikipedia is not research!”
Just wanted some background. Cymbeline is dated at 1611, and there’s a love-interest, long-lost sons, and paying homage to established hierarchy of state. It’s that last element that stuck with me after the movie version I saw, “Paying homage to established hierarchy of state.”
Two things we can all count on? Death and Taxes? The pagan King pays Rome. Even better when it’s Ed Harris and the payment is a briefcse full of stacks of American Dollars. Really illustrates the point. If Shakespeare’s “The King’s Men” were, indeed, a favored company of the King, then was that play, part of its conclusion, written for an era, benefitting a patron?
Useless sidebar note, Henry 6 was also mislead by his Queen, although, she might’ve had more cojones than Cymbeline’s 2nd wife.
