Cymbeline - eTheses Repository - University of Birmingham

ut from her recognition of
a something in the speaker from which, as
a pure woman, ahe instinctively recoils...
This mistrust grows, iu>til lachimo'a offer of love reveals
him fully, and with "Away! I do condemn mine ears that have /
So long attended thee", Imogen rejects lachimo completely -
The cloud vanishes which for a moment has
rested upon her mind; and instead of the
doubting perplexed woman, wounded in her
most sacred belief, we see the indignant
princess sweeping from her presence in
measureless scorn the man whose every v/ord
she feels to be an insult.
Prom reports of her sta^e performances, especially those at
Drury Lane in 1864, we gather that at this point .Helen Faucit
threw lachimo from her - her rendering 01 the scene in the
1 D< /!3 production seems to have been much milder, and in the
later performances the scene was conceived as working to a
crescendo wit the burst of indignation, and then returning
to the mildness of Imogen \.dth "You make amends", which,
according to Miss Faucit f s account in her letter, is murmured
half aloud.
The omission of the physical force of Imogen's reaction
to lachimo shows hcv the authoress is modifying her sta^.e
performances to produce the closest performance which her
letter represents. Later, in her description of the entrance
into the mountaineers' cave, Imogen is not represented
in the letter as starting at the sound she has made
herself - Morlev's review of her 1864 performance clai aeo
that she raised a laugh by this "point".
17
The account of
the actin;-: of this scene is fairly full:
It my first rehearsals of this scene, I
instinctively adopted a way of my own of
entering the cave which I was told was
unusual. ; y dear friend and master approved
of my conception, i-.'.r. Elton, my
Pisanio, liked it much; and Hr. riacready,
30.