What happens in Cymbeline

Imogen, the only daughter of King Cymbeline of Britain, has secretly married a poor but worthy gentleman named Posthumus Leonatus. Her father wanted her to marry Cloten, the boorish son of his new wife, the wicked Queen. Furious at the marriage, Cymbeline banishes Posthumus, who exchanges love tokens with Imogen and sails for Rome. He gives her a bracelet; she gives him a ring. The Queen, meanwhile, schemes for the throne and obtains what she thinks are poisons from the doctor Cornelius, who quietly substitutes a sleeping draught instead.

In Rome, Posthumus boasts of Imogen’s perfect faithfulness. A cynical Italian named Iachimo bets ten thousand ducats against Posthumus’s ring that he can seduce her. Posthumus, certain of his wife, accepts. Iachimo travels to Britain, fails to win Imogen with flattery, and resorts to a trick: he has a trunk carried into her bedchamber, hides inside it, and emerges while she sleeps. He notes the room, steals the bracelet from her wrist, and memorizes a mole on her breast. Back in Rome he uses these details as false proof. Posthumus, enraged and believing the lie, descends into hatred of all women and sends his servant Pisanio a letter ordering him to murder Imogen.

Pisanio cannot do it. He shows Imogen the letter, and she is devastated. He proposes that she disguise herself as a boy named Fidele and seek service with the Roman general Lucius, while he reports her dead to Posthumus. He also gives her the Queen’s box, believing it to be medicine. Imogen sets out for the Welsh coast at Milford-Haven. There, lost and starving, she stumbles on a cave belonging to an old man called Belarius and two young hunters, Guiderius and Arviragus. Belarius is a banished lord who, twenty years earlier, stole Cymbeline’s two infant sons in revenge and raised them in the wilderness. The boys are Imogen’s lost brothers, though none of them knows it. They take to the gentle stranger at once.

Cloten, in pursuit of Imogen, puts on Posthumus’s clothes, meaning to kill the husband and rape the wife. Near the cave, Guiderius fights and beheads him. When Imogen, sickened, swallows the Queen’s draught and falls into a deathlike sleep, the brothers find her cold and grieve over her with a funeral song. She wakes beside Cloten’s headless body, sees the clothes, and believes it is Posthumus, dead. Lucius and the Roman army arrive, and the grieving page Fidele takes service with the general.

War breaks out between Rome and Britain. Posthumus, sorry for ordering Imogen’s death, returns disguised as a British peasant to die in penance. In the battle, he joins Belarius and the two brothers, and the four of them hold a narrow lane and turn certain Roman victory into British triumph. Posthumus then lets himself be taken prisoner. In his cell, the ghosts of his dead family appear and beg Jupiter for mercy; the god descends and leaves a riddling prophecy on his chest.

Everything resolves at Cymbeline’s court. Cornelius reports the Queen dead, confessing her plots and her hatred. Iachimo confesses the wager and the trick, and Posthumus, hearing it, reveals himself. Imogen, still dressed as Fidele, makes herself known, and husband and wife reunite. Belarius restores the King’s two lost sons, so Imogen finds her brothers. A soothsayer reads the prophecy and confirms the peace it promises. Cymbeline pardons everyone, even Iachimo, agrees to pay the old tribute, and joins Britain and Rome in friendship.