There is little that is precious in the play. The scenes in the brothel at Mitylene (in Act IV) have power. Many find their unpleasantness an excuse for saying that Shakespeare never wrote them. They are certainly by Shakespeare. Cant would always persuade itself that the power to see clearly ought not to be turned upon evil. Those who can read—
Bawd. ... they are so pitifully sodden.
Pandar. ... The poor Transylvanian is dead, that lay with the little baggage.
Boult. Ay ... she made him roast-meat for worms—
with disgust at Shakespeare's foulness, yet without horror of heart that the evil still goes on among human beings, must be strangely made. These scenes, the very vigorous sea scenes, including the account of the storm at sea, put into the mouth of Marina—
"My father, as nurse said, did never fear,
But cried 'Good seamen!' to the sailors, galling
His kingly hands, haling ropes;
And, clasping to the mast, endured a sea
That almost burst the deck....
Never was waves nor wind more violent:
And from the ladder-tackle washes off
A canvas-climber. 'Ha,' says one, 'wilt out?'
And with a dropping industry they skip
From stem to stern; the boatswain whistles, and
The master calls and trebles their confusion"—
and the scene in which Cerimon, the man withdrawn from the world to study the bettering of man, revives the body of Thaisa, are the most lovely things in the play.
Cymbeline.
Written. (?)
Published, in the folio, 1623.