Cloten

Play

Cymbeline

Summary

The Queen's son by a previous marriage, an arrogant, thick-witted suitor who pursues Imogen with crass persistence and is universally mocked by those who attend him. He combines genuine menace — he plans to kill Posthumus and rape Imogen — with broad comic stupidity, and his decapitation by Guiderius is at once a removal of a threat and a darkly comic episode when Imogen wakes beside his headless body wearing Posthumus's clothes.

Notable Quotations

"I am not vexed more at any thing in the earth. A pox on't! I had rather not be so noble as I am." *(II.iii)*

Cross-references

• Cymbeline — the play
• Romances (Late Plays)
• character_queen_cymbeline — his scheming mother
• character_imogen — the princess he pursues
• character_guiderius — who kills him