Imogen (Cymbeline)

Imogen reveals her true nature to the Doctor and Iachimo. (PROSE: Cymbeline)

Imogen was a character in William Shakespeare's play Cymbeline.

She was the daughter of King Cymbeline and the wife of Posthumus. In one scene of the play, Imogen was asked by Iachimo in Lud's Town to guard a trunk of valuables and she later took the trunk into her chamber. However, Iachimo had concealed himself inside and planned to fabricate evidence Imogen had not been loyal in order to win a drunken bet with her husband. This included taking notes on the furnishings of the room and stealing the bracelet she always wore, a love token from Posthumus. She read for three hours before going to sleep and spoke with her attending lady, Helen, before doing so.

In an early draft of the play, she awoke to find both Iachimo and the Queen's Doctor in her room just as the former removed her bracelet. She asked who was there to which the Doctor replied the other man was Iachimo from Rome. She then asked why they stood in her private rooms. Iachimo apologised profusely by claiming he and the Doctor had "left [their] manners at the door" but the Doctor cut in and accused Imogen of doing the same. Although Iachimo tried to calm him down, telling him "this lady holds us both within her power", this did not work and the Doctor continued by proclaiming she was "no lady". He explained she was not from Earth but a "torrid world of seas and lakes and swamps wherein which dwelt great milky worms they called the Skarasen". He also said they were all "boiled like eels when stellar blasts screamed through her tract of space". Imogen sadly confirmed the "bitter truth" and, as the bracelet had been robbed from her person, regretted that she was "obliged to cast this form into the air and bid adieu to honest Imogen", thus revealing her true nature to the Doctor and Iachimo. Iachimo told the Doctor to release him from his delusions but, when informed he was not dreaming, instead chose to beg for his life. In response to this, Imogen called him a "paltry human thing" and declared the "fortune that [she] conjure[d] for his world" by speaking of "Italy drowned, the world a brackish lake, rank weeds splitting the stones of old Lud's Town, hot steam above the Thames" and "the fatal body of the Skarasen answering its mistress' royal call". The Doctor suggested to Iachimo that he secrete himself in the trunk, an invitation he eagerly took. Imogen told the Doctor it was best Iachimo did not see the "final act" as the next scene was their own. She threatened that by its conclusion, Britain would be her realm. (PROSE: Cymbeline)