The Winter's Tale

By William Shakespeare

The Winter's Tale is a play by William Shakespeare, first published in the First Folio in 1623. Although it was listed as a comedy when it first appeared, some modern editors have relabeled the play a romance. Some critics, among them W. W. Lawrence (Lawrence, 9-13), consider it to be one of Shakespeare's "problem plays", because the first three acts are filled with intense psychological drama, while the last two acts are comedic and supply a happy ending.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Booklassic
• Release date: Jun 17, 2015
• ISBN: 9789635236992

William Shakespeare

William Shakespeare is widely regarded as the greatest playwright the world has seen. He produced an astonishing amount of work; 37 plays, 154 sonnets, and 5 poems. He died on 23rd April 1616, aged 52, and was buried in the Holy Trinity Church, Stratford.

Book preview

978-963-523-699-2

Act I

SCENE I. Antechamber in LEONTES' palace.

Enter CAMILLO and ARCHIDAMUS

ARCHIDAMUS

If you shall chance, Camillo, to visit Bohemia, on

the like occasion whereon my services are now on

foot, you shall see, as I have said, great

difference betwixt our Bohemia and your Sicilia.

CAMILLO

I think, this coming summer, the King of Sicilia

means to pay Bohemia the visitation which he justly owes him.

ARCHIDAMUS

Wherein our entertainment shall shame us we will be

justified in our loves; for indeed—

CAMILLO

Beseech you,—

ARCHIDAMUS

Verily, I speak it in the freedom of my knowledge:

we cannot with such magnificence—in so rare—I know

not what to say. We will give you sleepy drinks,

that your senses, unintelligent of our insufficience,

may, though they cannot praise us, as little accuse

us.

CAMILLO

You pay a great deal too dear for what's given freely.

ARCHIDAMUS

Believe me, I speak as my understanding instructs me

and as mine honesty puts it to utterance.

CAMILLO

Sicilia cannot show himself over-kind to Bohemia.

They were trained together in their childhoods; and

there rooted betwixt them then such an affection,

which cannot choose but branch now. Since their

more mature dignities and royal necessities made

separation of their society, their encounters,

though not personal, have been royally attorneyed

with interchange of gifts, letters, loving

embassies; that they have seemed to be together,

though absent, shook hands, as over a vast, and

embraced, as it were, from the ends of opposed

winds. The heavens continue their loves!

ARCHIDAMUS

I think there is not in the world either malice or

matter to alter it. You have an unspeakable

comfort of your young prince Mamillius: it is a

gentleman of the greatest promise that ever came

into my note.

CAMILLO

I very well agree with you in the hopes of him: it

is a gallant child; one that indeed physics the

subject, makes old hearts fresh: they that went on

crutches ere he was born desire yet their life to

see him a man.

ARCHIDAMUS

Would they else be content to die?

CAMILLO

Yes; if there were no other excuse why they should

desire to live.

ARCHIDAMUS

If the king had no son, they would desire to live

on crutches till he had one.

Exeunt

SCENE II. A room of state in the same.

Enter LEONTES, HERMIONE, MAMILLIUS, POLIXENES, CAMILLO, and Attendants

POLIXENES

Nine changes of the watery star hath been

The shepherd's note since we have left our throne

Without a burthen: time as long again

Would be find up, my brother, with our thanks;

And yet we should, for perpetuity,

Go hence in debt: and therefore, like a cipher,

Yet standing in rich place, I multiply

With one 'We thank you' many thousands moe

That go before it.

LEONTES

Stay your thanks a while;

And pay them when you part.

POLIXENES

Sir, that's to-morrow.

I am question'd by my fears, of what may chance

Or breed upon our absence; that may blow

No sneaping winds at home, to make us say

'This is put forth too truly:' besides, I have stay'd

To tire your royalty.

LEONTES

We are tougher, brother,

Than you can put us to't.

POLIXENES

No longer stay.

LEONTES

One seven-night longer.

POLIXENES

Very sooth, to-morrow.

LEONTES

We'll part the time between's then; and in that

I'll no gainsaying.

POLIXENES

Press me not, beseech you, so.

There is no tongue that moves, none, none i' the world,

So soon as yours could win me: so it should now,

Were there necessity in your request, although

'Twere needful I denied it. My affairs

Do even drag me homeward: which to hinder

Were in your love a whip to me; my stay

To you a charge and trouble: to save both,

Farewell, our brother.

LEONTES

Tongue-tied, our queen?

speak you.

HERMIONE

I had thought, sir, to have held my peace until

You have drawn oaths from him not to stay. You, sir,

Charge him too coldly. Tell him, you are sure

All in Bohemia's well; this satisfaction

The by-gone day proclaim'd: say this to him,

He's beat from his best ward.

LEONTES

Well said, Hermione.

HERMIONE

To tell, he longs to see his son, were strong:

But let him say so then, and let him go;

But let him swear so, and he shall not stay,

We'll thwack him hence with distaffs.

Yet of your royal presence I'll adventure

The borrow of a week. When at Bohemia

You take my lord, I'll give him my commission

To let him there a month behind the gest

Prefix'd for's parting: yet, good deed, Leontes,

I love thee not a jar o' the clock behind

What lady-she her lord. You'll stay?

POLIXENES

No, madam.

HERMIONE

Nay, but you will?

POLIXENES

I may not, verily.

HERMIONE

Verily!

You put me off with limber vows; but I,

Though you would seek to unsphere the

stars with oaths,

Should yet say 'Sir, no going.' Verily,

You shall not go: a lady's 'Verily' 's

As potent as a lord's. Will you go yet?

Force me to keep you as a prisoner,

Not like a guest; so you shall pay your fees

When you depart, and save your thanks. How say you?

My prisoner? or my guest? by your dread 'Verily,'

One of them you shall be.

POLIXENES

Your guest, then, madam:

To be your prisoner should import offending;

Which is for me less easy to commit

Than you to punish.

HERMIONE

Not your gaoler, then,

But your kind hostess. Come, I'll question you

Of my lord's tricks and yours when you were boys:

You were pretty lordings then?

POLIXENES

We were, fair queen,

Two lads that thought there was no more behind

But such a day to-morrow as to-day,

And to be boy eternal.

HERMIONE

Was not my lord

The verier wag o' the two?

POLIXENES

We were as twinn'd lambs that did frisk i' the sun,

And bleat the one at the other: what we changed

Was innocence for innocence; we knew not

The doctrine of ill-doing, nor dream'd

That any did. Had we pursued that life,

And our weak spirits ne'er been higher rear'd

With stronger blood, we should have answer'd heaven

Boldly 'not guilty;' the imposition clear'd

Hereditary ours.

HERMIONE

By this we gather

You have tripp'd since.

POLIXENES

O my most sacred lady!

Temptations have since then been born to's; for

In those unfledged days was my wife a girl;

Your precious self had then not cross'd the eyes

Of my young play-fellow.

HERMIONE

Grace to boot!

Of this make no conclusion, lest you say

Your queen and I are devils: yet go on;

The offences we have made you do we'll answer,

If you first sinn'd with us and that with us

You did continue fault and that you slipp'd not

With any but with us.

LEONTES

Is he won yet?

HERMIONE

He'll stay my lord.

LEONTES

At my request he would not.

Hermione, my dearest, thou never spokest

To better purpose.

HERMIONE

Never?

LEONTES

Never, but once.

HERMIONE

What! have I twice said well? when was't before?

I prithee tell me; cram's with praise, and make's

As fat as tame things: one good deed dying tongueless

Slaughters a thousand waiting upon that.

Our praises are our wages: you may ride's

With one soft kiss a thousand furlongs ere

With spur we beat an acre. But to the goal:

My last good deed was to entreat his stay:

What was my first? it has an elder sister,

Or I mistake you: O, would her name were Grace!

But once before I spoke to the purpose: when?

Nay, let me have't; I long.

LEONTES

Why, that was when

Three crabbed months had sour'd themselves

Reviews for The Winter's Tale

[jonfaith · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

I have drunk and seen the spider.

One’s suspension of disbelief will be sorely tested here. The king of Sicily is a paranoid git. Was he always of this character or did he arrive at such by an untoward alignment of humors? Again, just go with it. The tyrant is convinced that his wife has been untrue. The king of Bohemia is the suspect. His wife is pregnant, a physical symbol of his being cuckolded. This is a comedy, right? He's allowed to fume and bellow, allowing a stage of fire and fury to persist through a trial and beyond with a flourish of Nixonian exactness .

The accused flee and then the sunny Czech coast becomes the subsequent location as sixteen years have lapsed since the previous act, the interim allowing the child to have grown to a plot pivot. There’s a bear, a clown and several royals in disguise. There is an amazing of wooing where the natural character of the garden is discussed and explored. I was hoping for something akin to The Tempest and alas it didn’t happen.

[jfoster_sf · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Classic Shakespeare romance.

[meditationesmartini · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

We weep, we dance, we shiver, we bake, we live, we die. This is the Ecclesiastes of the dramatic canon and I want it played at my funeral.

[eyejaybee · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

It was more than thirty years since I had read this, one of the slightly less will-known of Shakespeare's plays. back then I was reading it slightly under duress as it was one of the set texts in my BA English course, and in my petulant way I took against it. That, I now appreciate, was a demonstration of poor judgement, though I take some comfort from knowing that I was not alone in this.Perhaps fittingly, the earliest surviving text for this play in the 1623 Folio edition, though we know from other contemporary records that it was performed in 1611. The point about the Folio edition is that that collection represented the first attempt to classify Shakespeare's plays, and within the Folio this play was placed at the end of the more obviously comic plays. For, although there are some amusing scenes, and although the last two acts are much lighter in tone, there are some very dark undertones throughout the play.Now best known for the legendary stage direction, "Exit, pursued by a bear", the play displays some very bleak themes, certainly very far removed from those that one would associate with comedy, even Shakespearean comedy!The play opens with Leontes, King of Sicilia, expounding upon how marvellous it has been for Polixenes, King of Bohemia, to be visiting, and beseeching him to stay a bit longer. Polixenes declines, pleading responsibilities of state. Leontes then asks Hermione, his wife, to help to persuade the reluctant Polixenes. As a true gentleman, Polixenes feels unable to deny Hermione, and agrees to stay for a little longer. At some point a hitherto hidden canker [the "green-eyed monster" from Othello (probably written some eight years previously)] erupts and Leontes's mind is contorted with a sudden jealousy, seeing Polixenes's decision to stay as proof of an affair with Hermione. Although his courtiers (including Camillo , his lifelong counsellor) argue on her behalf, Leontes becomes increasingly convinced of his wife's infidelity. So, not too many laughs there, then!Shakespeare tended to respect the Aristotlean unities (time, place and action) but here he really cuts loose. Not only does he allow sixteen years to pass in the blinking of an eye between acts; he also allows for a complete transformation of Leontes's character. But so what? The play works - as always, the richness of the language allows the reader completely to suspend their disbelief. Not his finest work, but far from his weakest (which isn't exactly weak anyway!).

[ncgraham_1 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Exit, pursued by a bear.This is the most famous stage direction not only in Shakespeare, but probably in all of theater. Indeed, it is likely all that most people are familiar with from The Winter’s Tale. That was the case with me prior to this spring. This was the last play we read for my Shakespeare course, and the only romance (or serio-comedy). It was also the one I was the least familiar with, except for maybe Richard II.Some Scholars read The Winter’s Tale as Othello in reverse, or Othello with a happy ending, which makes sense given the theme of jealousy and how it destroys Othello and Desdemona’s and Leontes and Hermione’s marriages. But I also see it as being a bit like King Lear in reverse, especially in regards to how Shakespeare used his source material. King Lear was a historical romance that he turned into a tragedy; The Winter's Tale, a tragedy he turned into a romance. Lear is tragic nearly from the beginning, although the appearance of Lear with Cordelia’s body would have been a grisly twist for Renaissance audiences. The transformation of The Winter's Tale into a romance involves a more marked change of tone. The first three and a half acts are entirely in the tragic mode, but with the removal of the action to the countryside, comic elements begin impinging on the plot, with the appearances of the rustic clown figure and of the bear, which is both an instrument of divine justice and a hilariously random plot device.The Winter's Tale is not Shakespeare’s shortest play, but it felt very brief to me, partially because I was speed-reading it for class, partially because it covers such an extended period of time: seventeen years! There are also so many characters that some of them are frighteningly underdeveloped; Florizel in particular is little more than a cipher, just a necessary link between Perdita and Polixines. But all the female characters are strong and feisty, Paulina in particular.Parts of this play are very, very silly—I didn’t find the comic characters (such as the clownish shepherd’s son and the knavish Autolycus) funny at all—but there are some good things here. The opening scene, in which Leontes begins suspecting his wife of adultery, caused me to start thinking like a director. How should Hermione and Polixines's interactions be staged? Make them too affectionate and the audience might believe them lovers, too; make them too reserved and there won’’t be anything at all for Leontes to base his suspicion on. I didn’t get around to watching the BBC video of this play, as I had planned, so I’m not sure yet how they handled this.Later, the play develops into a discourse on art vs. nature and the relative value of hybrids. In Act IV scene 4, Perdita expresses disdain for carnations and gillyvors because they are “nature's bastards,” aka hybrids. This is ironic, because Perdita is (seemingly) engaging in an act of social hybridization via her romance with Folorizel. At the same time, she is herself a hybrid, though she does not know it: she was born in the court and has been raised in the country. Polixines counters that hybrids are not unnatural, but rather the marrying of natural and artificial means to create something beautiful and new. This idea is borne out by the least scene when Hermione comes to life: she is presented as being at once a statue and a living, breathing person.If Stephen Orgel’s hack job on Macbeth is the worst introduction in The Complete Pelican Shakespeare, France E. Dolan’s take on The Winter's Tale is unquestionably the best. I’d like to close this review with a quote from her:Many striking elements of The Winter's Tale are unique to Shakespeare’s vision: the bear, the appearance of Time as a character, Hermione’s sixteen-year absence, the sea sickness that prevents Autolycus from making the shepherd (and his story) known to Florizel, a statue that comes to life, Paulina’s sudden remarriage. These improbabilities, which might be summed up in the notorious stage direction ‘Exit, pursued by a bear’ (III.3.57 s.d.), make it hard for some people to take this play seriously. But perhaps what is most unlikely, but also most moving, is not that a bear will turn up out of nowhere and eat you—which is one way of dramatizing the unexpected assaults of daily life—but that the bear does not eat the baby on whom hope depends; not that one is betrayed or aggrieved, but that one goes on; not that we grow wrinkled, but that love can be renewed and sustained, and that forgiveness can attend a process of loss.Mmm. That’s lovely, both in phrasing and in meaning. The Bard himself might be pleased to put his name to it.

[seraphinac.b4 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

King Leontes of Sicilia orders that his newborn female child be killed because he fears it is not his. However, Lord Antigonus takes her and abandons her in on the Bohemian coast. When King Leontes's wife is found innocent, he will have no other heir unless the daughter is found. Hermione, Leontes wife, is reported dead to her heartbroken husband. Sixteen years passed, while Perdita, the lost daughter, is being taken care of by a shepherd. News gets to the king that there is a girl with no parents. The relationship is confirmed and everyone rejoices. I found this book very hard to follow. Because this is fiction, it is hard to tell whether things are figurative or not. It is a quick read. The plot is good if you can understand it. I would only recommend this book to someone who likes reading.

[amerynth · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

"The Winter's Tale" has to be the best Shakespeare play that I'd never heard of... it was only thanks to trying to read his complete works that I stumbled across it.The play is one of his last and it shows, the story is tight and well-paced. It centers on the aftermath created by an extremely jealous king, who accuses his wife of sleeping with his childhood friend, a fellow king. Antics ensure (and of course disguises) and they are well-done in this play.This is definitely among by favorites by Shakespeare.

[lyzadanger · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

The weakest Shakespeare I've read to date.

[deckla_1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

It's the binding and illustrations that make this edition of The Winter's Tale special.

[john257hopper · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

This is another Shakespeare play I have read in anticipation of seeing it next weekend at The Globe, as I did a fortnight ago with Othello. However, I found this play to be nowhere near as enjoyable. The plot seems too thin and insubstantial in practice for five acts, and the atmosphere of fantasy does not work for me - this is considered one of the Bard's "problem plays", neither a true tragedy nor a comedy, though containing elements of both. Like Othello, it is marked by themes of jealousy and remorse, but nowhere near as vividly and convincingly for me.

[lizpatanders · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

I enjoyed this play enough, but it certainly wasn't my favorite. I thought the plot was good. I thought the book raised interesting questions about faith and taking things at face value. I only really thought the writing was especially good in a couple of places, I found some of the characters a bit difficult to relate to. Thre's also one speculation about the title which I find interesting. At one point Hermione asks her son to tell a story and some people believe that this would be the story he'd have told. I also thought the play was a bit similar to Beauty and the Beast in that there seems to be points whre Leontes trusts no one yet by the end of the play it's everyone else, not himself, who have led to the play's conclusion. Overall, I enjoyed reading this play and I'm glad I did, it's just not one that stuck with me as much.

[wealhtheowwylfing · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

exit, pursued by a bear!

[doondeck · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

One of his most accessible works

[clif_1 · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

I listened to the audio version of this Shakespeare play a year ago and just now noticed that I didn't add it to my Library Thing list of books. So I'm adding it belatedly. Because of the passage of time, it's plot isn't so fresh in my mind. I do recall that it is unique for Shakespeare in that the audience is misled into believing something that is later shown to not be true. The story contains an example of irrational jealousy which is certainly not unique. The story includes an incredible...more I listened to the audio version of this Shakespeare play a year ago and just now noticed that I didn't add it to my Goodreads list of books. So I'm adding it belatedly. Because of the passage of time, it's plot isn't so fresh in my mind. I do recall that it is unique for Shakespeare in that the audience is misled into believing something that is later shown to not be true. The story contains an example of irrational jealousy which is certainly not unique. The story includes an incredible second chance to correct old wrongs. The story even includes a bear (that makes a brief appearance on stage) and a ship wreck (not on stage). The closing act has to be a significant experience to witness in a live production.. Read in December, 2007

[cbl_tn · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

This is not one of Shakespeare's best plays. It seems like a mashup of Othello (insane jealously) and Much Ado about Nothing (characters running around in disguises). The beginning feels like it's started in the middle. Some important revelations take place off-stage, described by minor characters instead of enacted by the central characters. Shakespeare's finest works seem to drip with cliches because they're the source of those cliches. This one does not. The most famous line from this play may be the stage direction “Exit pursued by a bear.” Recommended only for completists.

[jhudsui_1 · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

Let's be real here. You're a typical nerd on the internet and you only know of this play as the "exit, pursued by a bear" play. To be honest, after reading the whole thing, that's not really an unfair conception of it. It's just not very interesting outside that one detail. What with the prevalence of bear-baiting in Shakespeare's time they probably used a real bear and I'm envisioning this play basically being a set-piece spectacle revolving around getting to see a bear chase a dude on stage. No need for the rest of the play to be any good, you're going to sell tickets just based on that. So clearly that's the real reason for the bear thing. I read some nerd on tumblr proclaiming that this was an example of laziness or recklessness audacity on Shakespeare's part because he needed to get rid of Antigonus to set up his ending and couldn't think of any other way to remove the character from the story. But that's bullshit. Paulina and Camillo's marriage is like the third-most important marriage in the ending sequence. It's an off-hand matter covered in a couple of lines, that pays off nothing because we never gave a shit about either of those two characters' love lives up until that point. No, Shakespeare put that bear in there because he damn well wanted a bear.

[coach_of_alva · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

I think this is as bipolar a play as I've ever read and I feel that I must give it two reviews to do it justice. I found Leontes in his green-eyed frenzy more disturbing than Othello. The Moor was an honest soldier subtly deceived. Leontes was an absolute monarch who went mad, roaring his diseased fancies in public, crushing dissent in those who knew better (with one exception), curable in the end only by the gods. (A regular Henry VIII, now that I think about it. ) The only person who stands up to him while he is in frenzy is the noblewoman Paulina, a great and unheralded creation, a role for Kathy Bates or Renee Zellweger.I liked the second half well enough with its bumpkins and moonstruck lovers. I loved Autolycus the vagabond, pickpocket, sharper, the last in Shakespeare's long line of sharp rogues and clever clowns. I've never read a more preposterous happy ending. I didn't mind too much. I wanted this play to end happily.

[aliceanna-1 · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

A tragedy that wanted to be a comedy. The Deus ex Machina of the ending (a statue coming to life -- that of a woman who died of grief and mortification at the hands of her husband) was a little absurd. And Hermione (reincarnated) embraces the bastard. What is up with that? A highly implausible story -- it would have made a much better tragedy. Leonates should have gotten his comeuppance.

[therebelprince · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

The Penguin editors' sensibilities really match "The Winter's Tale".

[mstrust · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Deeply paranoid, Leontes, the King of Sicilia, decides that his wife has been having an affair with the visiting King of Bohemia, and that the baby she carries has been fathered by the visitor. Leontes demands that his friend Camillo murder King Polixenes, but instead, Camillo flees Sicilia with the King. Since he can't take revenge on the man, Leontes punishes the Queen and the newborn child, who is taken to Bohemia and left to the elements. She is rescued by a poor shepherd, who raises and loves her as a daughter, and the local prince falls in love with her, which causes problems with his father.This play is a twofer- you get both a intense tragedy, along the lines of "Othello", then a romance. It's weird, because it's hard to transition from a king demanding that a newborn be burned alive to young love. For me, the first half, with the King's madness, was way more compelling.