The homeward journey, or "nostos" involves a yearning for an idealized home, an encounter with a realistic version, and subsequent growth in that journey, be it a physical journey or spiritual one. Homer's Odyssey is the epitome of the homeward journey, idealized in mythic proportions and played upon by later works of literature. Shakespeare's Cymbeline and Chekhov's Three Sisters both employ the nostos motif, essential to each work. In Cymbeline, the physical movement of characters toward Wales, the only locale not previously conquered by the Romans, is accompanied by growth in the characters until a real peace is achieved, diplomatically and of the mind. Three Sisters, on the other hand, does not involve any physical movement; the yearning for Moscow is purely unfulfilled desire. The journey is mental, in a backward and forward movement of illusions, until they are ultimately demolished and a search for home within one's own skin can be achieved. The trajectories of both plays, therefore, are ultimately forward-moving toward a certain comforting conception of home, though what that home is changes in the course of action from a nostalgic vision of the past to more mature acceptance of the present.

The initial idea of home is idealized, nostalgic, and crystallized. The very opening of Three Sisters establishes this rosy view of a childhood in Moscow, as Olga recounts the city in full bloom on the day of their departure: "It was early May [. . .] and in Moscow everything was in blossom, it was warm and there was sunshine everywhere. Eleven years ago, but I remember as it all as though weıd only left yesterday" (171). Act One serves to establish the desire to seize moments that will never be achieved again, right down to Fetodickıs repeated use of a camera, freezing in time Irina's birthday party, and giving her toys as gifts, which she cherishes (187-8). The attachment to childhood is also seen in Masha's recitation of Pushkin's fairytale: "A green oak by a curving shore, / And on that oak a chain of gold-- / And on that oak a chain of gold" (175). Here the nostalgia exudes a more adult dissatisfaction through a yearning for the simple freedom of childhood, without attachments such as Kulygin, which chain Masha to the provincial town, much like the chain of gold on the oak.

Innogen's yearning for a simple life draws on the nostalgic idea of the pastoral. "Would I were/ A neatherd's daughter, and my Leonatus / Our neighbour shepherd's son" (1.1.149-151). As Warren notes, this desire for the bucolic anticipates her journey to Wales (96); furthermore, her desire for the simple life draws on idealized notions of an uncomplicated life, one where she could have a home with her beloved Posthumous, free of courtly politics. This is a reversal of desires seen in Three Sisters, where the characters prefer the more exciting, intellectual Moscow over the dull provincial life. Both simply want the unattainable, the most human of instincts, and perhaps more innocent or immature than the acceptance (or resignation, depending on one's interpretation) seen by the end of both plays.

The crystallized visions of home are eventually smashed in the journey. The instinctual movement compelling the journey is seen through migratory motifs in both plays. In Cymbeline, Innogen wishes for a horse with wings, to expedite her trip to Milford Haven (3.2.48). This youthful, impatient exclamation is echoed by Cloten in his need to follow her there (3.5.153-4). Similarly, Masha and Irina talk of wings as a mode of transportation. This theme, however, does not manifest itself in Three Sisters until the fourth act, when what is home is no longer the yearned for Moscow. Irina speaks of new found hope in marrying Tuzenbakh, "as if Iıd grown wings," and she felt (albeit briefly) the strength to move on (226); Masha, tied to Kulygin and the provincial town, can only look on at flying birds wistfully: "the birds are already moving on [. . .] Dear, happy birds" (228). Though the metaphor of wings are used in different stages of the journeys in both plays, both elaborate on the desire to expedite the journey and achieve a certain homebound comfort. This comfort is seen in the tree imagery, to be discussed later.

Images of the home as a destination to return to are set up against alternative destinations. Moscow is an intellectual oasis, a place with a university (or two, according to Solyony) and culture, unlike the town where education is "an unwanted appendage" and where no one appreciates music (182, 212). Vershinin's more realistic view of Moscow tempers the sisters' and Andrew's polished memories, but his desire for the "real Russian climate" in the countryside simply shows he has a different idea of what is home (179). As the cliche goes, the grass is always greener on the other side. These two destinations, however, are not in complete binary opposition. Tuzenbakh's St. Petersburg offers yet another alternative, albeit altogether undesirable: a decadent, "bleak, idle place," the pinnacle of aristocratic complacency where people "never knew the meaning of work or worry" (174). Moscow, then, is the idealized combination of intellectual work and pleasure.

The triad of major geographical representations in Three Sisters is also present in Cymbeline. Here, the three major options are the court at London, cosmopolitan Italy, and rustic Wales. The cities are where major plot complications fester. The London court is where Cymbeline banishes Posthumous; it is in Italy that Posthumous makes the wager with Giacomo and it is in Italy where he orders Innogen's death. Belarius, exile of the court, notes from his countryside haven that "the art o'th' court, / As hard to leave as keep, whose top to climb / Is certain falling, or so slipp'ry that / The fear's as bad as falling" (3.3.46-9). Belarius has made his difficult decision to prefer the honesty of Wales, where toil in the countryside cannot allow for fickle courtly intrigue.

Even worse than London, Italy is where Posthumous gives into folly, making the immature wager about his wife's chastity with Giacomo. Rome, like St. Petersburg, is considered the pinnacle of idle, cosmopolitan decadence. Warren notes the use of prose by the international characters is meant to exude gossip of a worldly tone, and that Posthumous, though resistant at first, falls into it when making the wager (102). Being farthest from Wales, he has the longest to go, though we see less of his spiritual journey than Innogen's. The contrast of before and after, then, is perhaps clearest with Posthumous precisely because we do not see his gradual progress. In Italy he is rash and immature, getting into the wager and then believing every bit of Giacomo's story, despite Philario's more mature reasoning (2.4.95-148). Giacomo's cunning note of Innogen's mole pushes Posthumous over the edge, exclaiming "O that I had here to tear her limb-meal!," bringing into question his love for Innogen (2.4.147). His ordering Pisanio to kill her is what ultimately brings her and many other characters into Wales. It is not until we see him in Wales does he express regret and forgiveness and thus a more believable love of Innogen. 

The simplicity of Wales is where the complications unravel and all is eventually revealed. It is the honesty of the rustic life that extracts from the characters the truth, the elements to grow into a peace. This honesty is first exhibited in the openness of Arviragus and Guiderius, expressing a desire for Innogen devoid of Giacomo or Cloten's ulterior motives: "Were you a woman [. . .] I should woo hard but be your groom in honesty" (3.6.66-7). Wales, in Act Five, is a place of revelation. It seems to act as a truth serum for all who enter, for all who have made the journey. Even the sly Giacomo confesses and expresses regret here:

But now my heavy conscience sinks my knee

 As then your force did. Take that life, beseech you,

 Which I so often owe; but your ring first,

And here the bracelet of the truest princess

That ever swore her faith. (5.4.414-418)

It is also here that Cornelius reveals the Queen's villainous deathbed confessions and the soothsayer interprets Posthumous's tablet (5.4.31-46; 5.4.454-9). The atmosphere of truth in the cradle of the British monarchy and the manner in which it unfolds allows the royal line to begin anew. In the truth comes acceptance, and in that acceptance, a peace of mind manifested by the peace with Rome.

Now that the points along the homeward journey have been established, the voyage itself must be examined. The two dramatic works both begin with an innocent hope. In the very beginning of the first act of Three Sisters, Olga speaks of waking up to spring: "When I woke up this morning and saw the great blaze of light and knew that spring had come--I felt so happy and excited, I felt I just had to go back home to Moscow" (171). The sense of spring first thing in the morning, two temporal dimensions filled with optimism, triggers the crystallized memory of Moscow, the desire to return to what can only be a memory. This impossible hope is also seen in Irina, holding on to a fairy tale ideal of love.  "I've been waiting for us to move to Moscow all this time, thinking I'd meet my true love there" (218).  It is in speaking of this childish hope, and giving it up in exchange for Tuzenbakh, does she advance in the journey.

The innocent hope seen in Cymbeline begins with Innogen, wishing for the idyllic life, a simple view of the countryside (1.1.149-151). Her desire to rush to Milford is another mark of youthful impatience, dappled with the childhood fancy of a horse with wings. This continues when she laments at how much farther Milford actually is: "Milford, / When from the mountain-top Pisanio showed thee, /Thou wast within a ken. O Jove, I think / Foundations fly the wretched" (3.6.4-7). This realization is one of the first trials of her journey, and certainly not the last.

Complications in the course of action of both plays, be it in the literal journey to Milford Haven or the psychological journey in Three Sisters, are trials that, once encountered and endured, bring the characters closer to home. Innogen's realization of betrayal is one trial she must face along the way to Milford. Her initial reaction is suicidal: "I draw the sword myself; take it,/ and hit the innocent mansion of my love, my heart. / Fear not, 'tis empty of all things but grief" (3.4.67-9). Warren points out that turning her anger away from herself and thoughts of suicide toward Pisanio, assaulting him with questions such as "Why hast thou gone so far/ To be unbent when thou hast ta'en thy stand, / Th'elected deer before thee?" indicates the first stage in recovery (3.4.107-9). This recovery is an indication of growth. This is part of the journey, another trial along the road, which in the Haven of Milford a peace of mind will be rewarded.

In Three Sisters, Irina's disillusionment with work emerges in the second act, but, reasonably enough, she is not ready to give up the idea of work: "I must find another job, because this one doesn't suit me. The things I'd hoped for and wanted so much-they're just what it doesn't give me. It's sheer drudgery with nothing romantic or intellectual about it" (195). That she thinks she can find a romantic, intellectual job shows that she is still hanging on to an illusion of work that may not be attainable. It is also in this act that Masha and Vershinin's affair is revealed, an attempt at gaining a bit of Moscow and her youth back (194). Her illusions are still intact, stating "People don't notice whether its winter of summer when they're happy. If I lived in Moscow I don't think I'd care what the weather was like" (199). Natasha's appropriation begins in the second act as well, when she asks Irina to move into Olga's room, the first step in pushing the sisters out of their family estate and into a search for a stable place within themselves (205). This first nudge from the antagonist reignites Irina's desire for Moscow, ending the act on a note of "intense longing" (207).

Further trials, the climactic portions of the journey, usher the characters home, sloughing off geographic attachments. Innogen, thinking Posthumous is dead ultimately gives up on Britain and joins the Roman army, losing all attachment to Britain: "I may wander/ From east to occident, cry out for service, / Try many, all, good; serve truly; never/ Find such another master" (4.2.372-5) In the pain of losing Posthumous (however false), Innogen is able to grow. It is not until the culmination of characters and revelations of truth and reunions, however, that peace will be achieved. This is but one (large) stride toward that point.

Similarly, the encroachment of the sisters' territory by Natasha pushes them out of their complacent hopes of Moscow into finding more viable options; the fire of Act Three serves as a climax in the expedition. During the fire, Fetodick's wholesale loss triggers a bizarre, delirious reaction. He dances about, laughing, as he says "Burnt to a cinder. Not a thing left!" (214). Included in his loss is photography equipment, what in Act One served to freeze moments in time. This loss exhibits freedom more than anything else, and symbolically, it allows the characters to free themselves of the past and move on in the final act. In encountering the fire and Fetodick, Irina comes to an important realization, that "life is slipping away, it will never, never come back again, and we shall never go to Moscow either" (217). This realization allows her to drop her childish ideals of true love (218). She returns to a hope for Moscow, however, when she gives up the hope of true love and resigns herself to Tuzenbakh, ending the act with one final plea to return to Moscow (221). It seems she must make peace with each loss of illusion individually.

Other characters on the homeward bound passage do not reach their destination.

Cloten, in Wales, cannot deal with the Guiderius's candor: "Those that I reverence, those I fear, the wise. / At fools I laugh, not fear them" (4.2.98-9). Cloten is used to flattering lords, lying about his success in duels, "His body's a passable carcass if he be/ not hurt" (1.2.7-8). He cannot, therefore, handle this irreverence; he threatens Guiderius's life and in return, Cloten is beheaded. Thus, Cloten's voyage is cut short.

Andrew, in denial, plays the violin while the town burns like Nero as Rome went up in flames. He allows his childish empire of illusions to fly away, becoming more engulfed in the reality of his life with Natasha, though not yet fully acknowledging it: "And when everyone rushed off to the fire just now, there he was sitting in his room not taking the slightest notice and just playing his violin" (217). This is not acceptance of life but a passive existence within it, a feigned obliviousness; he allows Natasha to appropriate the home and though seemingly oblivious at first, his outburst at the end of Act Three shows his discontent: "Natasha's a fine, decent woman, I tell you [. . .] When we got married I thought we were going to be happy, all of us. But oh my God! [Cries.] My dear sisters [. . .] don't believe what I've been saying, don't believe a word of it" (220). By the end, the three sisters each find a home of their own. Andrew is left with Natasha and the house, but no real home.

The nostos in Cymbeline is closer to the clean ending of Homer's Odyssey, where Odysseus vanquishes Penelope's suitors and may return to a quiet life with her. As discussed earlier, it is here in Wales that the plot unravels, confessions are made, and truths revealed. The Roman soothsayer elaborates on the dues ex machina of 5.3, interpreting exactly how the return of the princes to the king and Posthumous to Innogen will bring peace. Cymbeline's final note, "Never was a war did cease, /Ere bloody hands were washed, with such a peace" is bang on; indeed, what war could end so tidily (5.4.485-6). The resolution is too calm and satisfying. The characters have undergone trials, have grown, and have achieved reunion with home, in a new sense, and everything is neatly tied together and set on the right path.

The modernity of Chekhov does not allow for this type of resolution. By the final act of Three Sisters, everyone has accepted the fact that they will not be going to Moscow. Irina makes plans with Tuzenbakh to work elsewhere; though he dies in the end, her plans are independent of him and she must move on to that place and find peace with herself. "I'll go off alone tomorrow to teach at a school and spend my whole life serving those who may need me" (237); Masha, bidding farewell to Vershinin, accepts her life with Kulygin as home. "Our friends are leaving. Oh well, may they have a happy journey. [To her husband.] We'd better go home" (236). Olga, with a new flat and providing Anifsa "a little place of [her] own in [her] old age" sums it up in the final act: "Yes, now we can all go off home. Itıs high time" (232, 236). She, too, has found a place. The peace acquired at the end of Three Sisters is not so neat as the end of Cymbeline, the yearning for the nostalgic home shifting to the more existential question of "what our lives and sufferings are for." Though the characters are closer to that home of the mind in the loss of illusion, they have acquired new questions about their place in the world.

The root imagery, in opposition with images of flight, is an important element in the nostos motif; the shift in imagery enriches both dramatic works. For one, the most central part of Odysseus's home is the olive tree that forms his and Penelope's bed. The imagery is important in Shakespeare and Chekhov's works as well. The soothsayer at the end of Cymbeline interprets Jupiter's tablet thusly:   

The lofty cedar, royal Cymbeline,

            Personates thee, and thy lopped branches point

            Thy two sons forth, who Belarius stol'n,

            For many years thought dead, are now revived,

            To the majestic cedar joined, whose issue

            Promises Britain peace and plenty. (5.4.454-9)
Figuring Cymbeline as a cedar renders him, as a royal figure, rooted to the royal blood line, and connects him and his sons to Britain and British ancestry. The reunion and its earthy imagery, along with the prophecy of "peace and plenty" brings the homeward bound journey to a close.

The imagery of lopping off parts of trees, or cutting them down, rather, is also present (and glaring) in Chekhov. It begins with Masha's repeated chanting of Pushkin's, "a green oak by a curving shore" in Act One (175,188). In Act Four, Natasha gleefully states, "The first thing I'll do is have that avenue of firs cut down and that maple-tree. It looks so hideous in the evening" (235). As the antagonist and appropriator of the Prozorov home, it is a rather appropriate act. The grounded nature of trees, and the obvious metaphor of roots and ancestors, is an apt vision for achieving a home within the mind. That is, maintaining some connection to one's roots, yet growing a certain distance away from them, achieving something grand as a tree. The connection of trees to royalty in Cymbeline and the general significance of trees in Chekhov's work (with the villainous Natasha in Three Sisters providing a specific example), both occur in the latter parts of the plays, shifting away from the flightiness of the migratory imagery, into the more grounded, stable arboreal imagery.

Thus the nostos theme in Cymbeline and Three Sisters encompasses multiple evolutions in the characters, as well as shifts in emotional landscapes and supporting metaphorical imagery. While the journey in Cymbeline is manifested in the physical movement of characters, climaxing in violence and resolving in a satisfying peace, the journey in Three Sisters is physically static while containing cerebral and emotional shifts also seen in Shakespeare's work. The lack of major action on the stage, however, allows Chekhov's work to linger on these less tangible dynamics. Where Shakespeare's resolution holds promise for the future, Chekhov's leaves the reader with an existential uncertainty. That the characters have shed their dependence on the past, however, is ultimately a positive thing.

Work Cited

Chekhov, Anton. Three Sisters, in Five Plays. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998. pp. 169-237.

Shakespeare, William. Cymbeline . Ed. Roger Warren. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998.