Abstract
Macbeth, Hamlet, King Lear, we have all heard of, but Fidele? Who’s he? Well, he’s in the Shakespeare play Cymbeline, and his name suggests that we are to read him as an aptronym, that is, aptly named. Like Clown or Fool or Prince, Fidele is self-evidently what he seems, faithful. The name derives from the Italian, Fedele, meaning “observant,” “faithful,” or “devoted”; the Italian is, in turn, based on the Latin, Fidelis, meaning “of the faith.” We might, therefore, say that the word carries other languages, other meanings within, and that many of those meanings clash with each other. To