Imogen, the daughter of King Cymbeline, is persecuted by her wicked stepmother, the Queen, and by Cloten, the Queen's doltish son. Disguised as a boy, she sets out to find her husband, the banished Posthumus.
King Leontes, out of jealousy of his wife Hermoine, orders her new born baby girl taken to some wild place and left to die. The child escapes death and is brought up as a shepherdess and begins a new life.