# Cymbeline — Character guide

> Key figures in Cymbeline by William Shakespeare.

- [Imogen](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/cymbeline_se/characters/imogen.md): Imogen is heir to Britain's throne, but her secret marriage to the banished Posthumus costs her father's favor and her place at court. When she flees disguised as the boy Fidele, she carries both her husband's ring and h
- [Posthumus Leonatus](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/cymbeline_se/characters/posthumus_leonatus.md): Posthumus is the king's ward, praised as a sample to the youngest and a glass to the mature, yet his virtue cracks the moment Iachimo claims to have won Imogen's bed. He orders her death, then drowns in self-loathing whe
- [Cymbeline](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/cymbeline_se/characters/cymbeline.md): Cymbeline rules a court where his new queen schemes, his stepson Cloten blusters, and his only remaining child has married against his will. He bends to Rome's demand for tribute, then musters a ragged defense of Britain
- [Cloten](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/cymbeline_se/characters/cloten.md): Cloten struts through Cymbeline's court expecting to inherit both crown and princess, and his mother's scheming encourages him. He is the play's comic villain, so crude that even the mountain-dwelling princes measure the
- [Queen](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/cymbeline_se/characters/queen.md): The queen plays the doting stepmother while keeping a cabinet of drugs and a plan for every obstacle: Imogen married off to Cloten, Posthumus discredited, the king managed. She is the play's quietest menace, her courtesy
- [Pisanio](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/cymbeline_se/characters/pisanio.md): Pisanio serves Posthumus faithfully, which is exactly why the command to murder Imogen nearly destroys him. He gives her the boy's clothes, the poison box, and the directions that send her toward Milford Haven, then stay
- [Belarius](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/cymbeline_se/characters/belarius.md): Belarius lives in a Welsh cave with the two young men he calls his sons, hunting, teaching, and hiding them from the court that wronged him. His love for them is genuine, but it is tangled with the secret that he stole t
- [Guiderius](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/cymbeline_se/characters/guiderius.md): Guiderius knows only the mountain life Belarius gave him, and he wears it proudly, hunting, wrestling, and scorning the softness of courts he has never seen. Where his brother is tender, he is quick to anger and quicker 
- [Arviragus](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/cymbeline_se/characters/arviragus.md): Arviragus grows up in the same cave as Guiderius but with a softer temperament, quick to love and to grieve. He befriends the disguised Fidele with an openness that surprises even Belarius, treating the exhausted travele
- [Iachimo](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/cymbeline_se/characters/iachimo.md): Iachimo arrives in Britain as a charming guest, all compliments and easy laughter, but his real business is a wager with Posthumus over Imogen's chastity. He is a performer who enjoys the game as much as the prize, and h
- [Caius Lucius](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/cymbeline_se/characters/caius_lucius.md): Lucius comes to Cymbeline's court as the Emperor's voice, courteous but firm, demanding tribute that the Britons refuse. He is a professional soldier and diplomat, more interested in honor and order than in the petty int
- [Philario](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/cymbeline_se/characters/philario.md): Posthumus's host in Rome, friend to Iachimo.
- [Cornelius](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/cymbeline_se/characters/cornelius.md): Court physician who gives the Queen a harmless potion instead of poison.
- [Sicilius Leonatus](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/cymbeline_se/characters/sicilius_leonatus.md): Ghost of Posthumus's father, appears in Jupiter's vision.
- [Jupiter](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/cymbeline_se/characters/jupiter.md): King of the gods, descends in a vision to comfort Posthumus.
- [First Lord](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/cymbeline_se/characters/first_lord.md): Attendant lord in Cymbeline's court, often with Cloten.
- [Second Lord](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/cymbeline_se/characters/second_lord.md): Another lord in court, critical of Cloten.

HTML index: https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/cymbeline_se/characters