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For our fifth week we challenge you to interpret and share:
We’ve invited actors Kate Burton, Danaya Esperanza, Stephanie Roth to share their interpretations of this famous passage.
CYMBELINE
Act Three, Scene Two
WATCH: Check out the videos from our Public Theater family for inspiration on this page.
CREATE: Get inspired! Act, sing, rewrite, translate, paint, dance – whatever moves you!
CAPTURE: Record a video or snap a photo of your work.
SHARE: Post your interpretation and share it with us and challenge your friends! Tag @PublicTheaterNY on Twitter and Instagram or @publictheater on Facebook, and be sure to use the hashtag #BraveNewShakespeare.
BONUS POINTS: Tag a friend who you think is up for the challenge.
CYMBELINE
By William Shakespeare
Act Three, Scene Two
IMOGEN
O, for a horse with wings! Hear’st thou, Pisanio?
He is at Milford Haven. Read, and tell me ....
Read the full passage here.
CIMBELINO
Acto Tercero, Escena Segunda
Por William Shakespeare
Traduccion por Ángel-Luis Pujante
INOGENIA
¡Ah, a mí un caballo alado! ¿Has oído,
Pisanio? Está en Milford. Léelo y dime ...
Lee el pasaje completo aquí.
From James Shapiro, Shakespeare Scholar in Residence at The Public Theater
These excited lines are spoken by Imogen, the remarkable heroine of Shakespeare’s late romance, Cymbeline. She speaks these words in Act 3, scene 2 of the play, immediately after opening a letter from her exiled husband, Posthumus, which is delivered to her by their trustworthy servant Pisanio. In that letter Posthumus urges Imogen to meet him at Milford Haven, in Wales. Imogen so longs to be reunited that she wishes that a winged horse could transport her to him. But it’s a complicated and bittersweet moment, for as thrilling as it is to share in Imogen’s excitement about their reunion at Milford Haven, the audience knows from earlier in this scene that Posthumus—who has been tricked into believing Imogen has been unfaithful --has ordered Pisanio to accompany Imogen to Wales in order to kill her there. One of the defining feature of Shakespeare’s late plays is the fluidity and prose-like quality of his iambic pentameter lines, and Imogen’s excitement and her impatience are perfectly conveyed in her start-and-stop, self-interrupting and breathless style, as her questions for Pisanio quickly pile up.
Watch this lively and illuminating discussion of Cymbeline, Imogen, women in Shakespeare, performing at the Delacorte, and more, featuring this weeks’ Brave New Shakespeareans and moderated by the Director of the Mobile Unit, Karen Ann Daniels.
Better together
Journaling
Have your students write a journal entry from the perspective of Imogen, describing in their own words Imogen's feelings about seeing Posthumus again.
Resources for Arts Educators here.
Read about teaching theater online here, here, and here.
From our friends at The Folger Shakespeare Library
Read about the challenges and rewards of Shakespeare’s language in Cymbeline here.
Read the whole play and much more about Cymbeline here.
Read the entire scene from which the selection was excerpted (Cymbeline, III, ii) here.
READ ALL OF SHAKESPEARE FOR FREE AT THE FOLGER SHAKESPEARE LIBRARY ONLINE!