Cymbeline, the Roman Empire's vassal king of Britain, once had two sons, Guiderius and Arvirargus, but they were stolen twenty years earlier as infants by an exiled traitor named Belarius. Cymbeline now discovers that his only child left, his daughter Imogen (or Innogen), has secretly married her lover Posthumus Leonatus, an otherwise honourable man of Cymbeline's court. The lovers have exchanged jewellery as tokens: Imogen now with a bracelet, and Posthumus with a ring. Cymbeline dismisses the marriage and banishes Posthumus, since Imogen, as Cymbeline's only child, must produce a fully royal-blooded heir to succeed to the British throne.
