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Similes
Definition of Soliloquy
A soliloquy is a literary device, most often found in dramas, in which a character speaks to him or herself, relating his or her innermost thoughts and feelings as if... read full definition
A soliloquy is a literary device, most often found in dramas, in which a character speaks to him or herself, relating his or her innermost... read full definition
A soliloquy is a literary device, most often found in dramas, in which a character speaks to him or herself... read full definition
Key Examples in Cymbeline
Act 2, Scene 5
Explanation and Analysis—The Woman's Part:
Outraged by the apparent betrayal by his wife Imogen and humiliated by Iachimo, Posthumus blames all of the evils and temptations to which men are subject on women in a lengthy, misogynistic soliloquy:
Could I find out
The woman's part in me! For there's no motion
That tends to vice in man, but I affirm
It is the woman's part: be it lying, note it,
The woman's; flattering, hers; deceiving, hers;
Lust and rank thoughts, hers [...] slanders, mutability,
All faults that may be named, nay, that hell knows,
Why, hers, in part or all; but rather, all;
For even to vice
They are not constant but are changing still
One vice, but of a minute old, for one
Not half so old as that.
Related Themes:
Act 3, Scene 2
Explanation and Analysis—Good Service:
The outraged Posthumus, who believes that Imogen has conducted an affair with Iachimo, writes a letter to his former servant Pisanio requesting his assistance in his plot for revenge against her. In a private moment, Pisanio reflects upon the duties of a servant in a soliloquy:
Unlock with LitCharts A+Disloyal? No.
She’s punished for her truth and undergoes,
More goddesslike than wifelike, such assaults
As would take in some virtue. O my master,
Thy mind to her is now as low as were
Thy fortunes. How? That I should murder her,
Upon the love and truth and vows which I
Have made to thy command? I her?
Her blood? If it be so to do good service, never
Let me be counted serviceable. How look I
That I should seem to lack humanity
So much as this fact comes to?
Related Themes:
Act 3, Scene 3
Explanation and Analysis—Sparks of Nature:
After sending Arviragus and Guiderius out to catch a deer for dinner, Belarius has a private moment in which he reflects upon the difficulty of raising these two brave and noble young men in a soliloquy:
Unlock with LitCharts A+How hard it is to hide the sparks of nature!
These boys know little they are sons to th’ King,
Nor Cymbeline dreams that they are alive.
They think they are mine, and, though trained up thus meanly,
I’ th’ cave wherein they bow, their thoughts do hit
The roofs of palaces, and nature prompts them
In simple and low things to prince it much
Beyond the trick of others. [...]
When on my three-foot stool I sit and tell
The warlike feats I have done, his spirits fly out
Into my story.
Related Themes:
Act 5, Scene 3
Explanation and Analysis—Could Not Find Death:
In the midst of the war between the Romans and the Britons, Posthumus wanders aimlessly through the chaotic battleground hoping to die for his role in Imogen’s apparent death. He reflects on the nature of honor, death, and warfare in a lengthy soliloquy:
Unlock with LitCharts A+To-day how many would have given their honours
To have saved their carcasses! took heel to do't,
And yet died too! I, in mine own woe charm'd,
Could not find death where I did hear him groan,
Nor feel him where he struck: being an ugly monster,
'Tis strange he hides him in fresh cups, soft beds,
Sweet words; or hath more ministers than we
That draw his knives i' the war. Well, I will find him
For being now a favourer to the Briton,
No more a Briton.
Related Themes:
