ABSTRACT
One primary indication of this ambivalence is in Shakespeare's carefully manipulated depiction of Guiderius's temporary home in Wales. All quotations from Cymbeline come from Martin Butler's New Cambridge Shakespeare edn. As John Curran has compellingly argued, the queen's rhetoric here borrows heavily from the Galfridian mythology of ancient British autonomy and resistance. The puzzle of the queen's politics appears resolutely solved when, following her death, she is proclaimed a 'most delicate fiend' by the husband who followed her rhetoric into war with the Romans. The myth of the ancient past is, in Cymbeline, exposed as a dangerous threat to the nation's future. Critics have rightly noted that Cymbeline seems desperate to exploit the symbolism of Milford Haven, the famed landing spot of Henry Tudor in his march toward overthrowing Richard III, and, within the play, it is the planned meeting spot between Posthumus and Innogen.
