THE WORKS OF WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE VOLUME X CYMBELINE PERICLES VENUS AND ADONIS LUCRECE SONNETS A LOVER'S COMPLAINT THE PASSIONATE PILGRIM METHUEN & CO. 36 ESSEX STREET W.C. LONDON PREFATORY NOTE1 CYMBELINE 'CYMBELINE,' as far as we know, was never printed during the lifetime of its author, and did not see the light till it appeared in the first Folio (1623), where it stands eleventh, and last, among the tragedies, and the last play in the volume (for Pericles was not printed in either the first or the second Folio [1632]). A tragedy, however, Cymbeline is not, no more than The Winter's Tale (which stands last among the thirteen comedies in that volume) can be rightly called a comedy. Both of these plays belong to a class of drama which has been well called 'dramatic romance.' The exact date of the play cannot be set down with certainty. Dr. Simon Forman saw it acted at the Globe Theatre either in 1610 or 1611. We know this from an interesting manuscript now in the Bodleian by that noted astrologer and quack. His strange title for it is, The Booke of Plaies and Notes thereof per formans for Common Pollicie, and for a reprint of it see The Transactions of the New Shakspere Society, 1875-76, Appendix ii. pp. 415-419. Forman describes how he saw 'Richard the 2 at the Glob, 1611, the 30 of April' (this from the description of it is clearly not Shakespeare's Richard II.). The next note is this: "In the Winters Talle at the Glob, 1611, the 15 of Maye' (this is clearly The Winter's Tale of Shakespeare). Then comes this note of 'Cimbalin king of England' (certainly Shakespeare's play), but to this Forman 1 A brief sketch of Shakespeare's career is prefixed to the first volume of this 326649 edition. V |