The Winter’s Tale

By William Shakespeare

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Considered one of Shakespeare’s most haunting tragic-comedies, The Winter’s Tale is an in-depth analysis of the psychology of family and friendship, jealousy and love, art and nature, all illustrated in rich poetry.

Based on Robert Greene’s story Pandosto, the play tells the story of Leontes, king of Sicilia, and his childhood friend, Polixenes, king of Bohemia. In a jealous rage, Leontes mistakenly accuses Polixenes and his own his wife, Hermione, of adultery and her newborn daughter as illegitimate, casting her into the wilderness, causing their son to die of grief and Hermione to seemingly follow suit. With his family dead or believed dead, Leontes must face the tragic consequences of his actions. With unbridled honesty and the pain of love, the final act is one of Shakespeare’s most moving reconciliation scenes.

• Language: English
• Publisher: HarperCollins UK
• Release date: Sep 12, 2013
• ISBN: 9780007535231

William Shakespeare

William Shakespeare (1564–1616) is arguably the most famous playwright to ever live. Born in England, he attended grammar school but did not study at a university. In the 1590s, Shakespeare worked as partner and performer at the London-based acting company, the King’s Men. His earliest plays were Henry VI and Richard III, both based on the historical figures. During his career, Shakespeare produced nearly 40 plays that reached multiple countries and cultures. Some of his most notable titles include Hamlet, Romeo and Juliet and Julius Caesar. His acclaimed catalog earned him the title of the world’s greatest dramatist.

Book preview

THE ALEXANDER SHAKESPEARE

General Editor

R.B. Kennedy

Additional notes and editing

Mike Gould

THE WINTER’S TALE

William Shakespeare

CONTENTS

Title Page

Prefatory Note

The Theatre in Shakespeare’s Day

Shakespeare: A Timeline

Life & Times

Money in Shakespeare’s Day

Introduction

List of Characters

Act One

Scene I

Scene II

Act Two

Scene I

Scene II

Scene III

Act Three

Scene I

Scene II

Scene III

Act Four

Scene I

Scene II

Scene III

Scene IV

Act Five

Scene I

Scene II

Scene III

Shakespeare: Words and Phrases

Copyright

About the Publisher

Prefatory Note

This Shakespeare play uses the full Alexander text. By keeping in mind the fact that the language has changed considerably in four hundred years, as have customs, jokes, and stage conventions, the editors have aimed at helping the modern reader – whether English is their mother tongue or not – to grasp the full significance of the play. The Notes, intended primarily for examination candidates, are presented in a simple, direct style. The needs of those unfamiliar with British culture have been specially considered.

Since quiet study of the printed word is unlikely to bring fully to life plays that were written directly for the public theatre, attention has been drawn to dramatic effects which are important in performance. The editors see Shakespeare’s plays as living works of art which can be enjoyed today on stage, film and television in many parts of the world.

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An Elizabethan playhouse. Note the apron stage protruding into the auditorium, the space below it, the inner room at the rear of the stage, the gallery above the inner stage, the canopy over the main stage, and the absence of a roof over the audience.

The Theatre in Shakespeare’s Day

On the face of it, the conditions in the Elizabethan theatre were not such as to encourage great writers. The public playhouse itself was not very different from an ordinary inn-yard; it was open to the weather; among the spectators were often louts, pickpockets and prostitutes; some of the actors played up to the rowdy elements in the audience by inserting their own jokes into the authors’ lines, while others spoke their words loudly but unfeelingly; the presentation was often rough and noisy, with fireworks to represent storms and battles, and a table and a few chairs to represent a tavern; there were no actresses, so boys took the parts of women, even such subtle and mature ones as Cleopatra and Lady Macbeth; there was rarely any scenery at all in the modern sense. In fact, a quick inspection of the English theatre in the reign of Elizabeth I by a time-traveller from the twentieth century might well produce only one positive reaction: the costumes were often elaborate and beautiful.

Shakespeare himself makes frequent comments in his plays about the limitations of the playhouse and the actors of his time, often apologizing for them. At the beginning of Henry V the Prologue refers to the stage as ‘this unworthy scaffold’ and to the theatre building (the Globe, probably) as ‘this wooden O’, and emphasizes the urgent need for imagination in making up for all the deficiencies of presentation. In introducing Act IV the Chorus goes so far as to say:

… we shall much disgrace

With four or five most vile and ragged foils,

Right ill-dispos’d in brawl ridiculous,

The name of Agincourt, (lines 49–52)

In A Midsummer Night’s Dream (Act V, Scene i) he seems to dismiss actors with the words:

The best in this kind are but shadows.

Yet Elizabeth’s theatre, with all its faults, stimulated dramatists to a variety of achievement that has never been equalled and, in Shakespeare, produced one of the greatest writers in history. In spite of all his grumbles he seems to have been fascinated by the challenge that it presented him with. It is necessary to re-examine his theatre carefully in order to understand how he was able to achieve so much with the materials he chose to use. What sort of place was the Elizabethan playhouse in reality? What sort of people were these criticized actors? And what sort of audiences gave them their living?

The Development of the Theatre up to Shakespeare’s Time

For centuries in England noblemen had employed groups of skilled people to entertain them when required. Under Tudor rule, as England became more secure and united, actors such as these were given more freedom, and they often performed in public, while still acknowledging their ‘overlords’ (in the 1570s, for example, when Shakespeare was still a schoolboy at Stratford, one famous company was called ‘Lord Leicester’s Men’). London was rapidly becoming larger and more important in the second half of the sixteenth century, and many of the companies of actors took the opportunities offered to establish themselves at inns on the main roads leading to the City (for example, the Boar’s Head in Whitechapel and the Tabard in South-wark) or in the City itself. These groups of actors would come to an agreement with the inn-keeper which would give them the use of the yard for their performances after people had eaten and drunk well in the middle of the day. Before long, some inns were taken over completely by companies of players and thus became the first public theatres. In 1574 the officials of the City of London issued an order which shows clearly that these theatres were both popular and also offensive to some respectable people, because the order complains about ‘the inordinate haunting of great multitudes of people, specially youth, to plays interludes and shows; namely occasion of frays and quarrels, evil practices of incontinency in great inns …’ There is evidence that, on public holidays, the theatres on the banks of the Thames were crowded with noisy apprentices and tradesmen, but it would be wrong to think that audiences were always undiscriminating and loudmouthed. In spite of the disapproval of Puritans and the more staid members of society, by the 1590s, when Shakespeare’s plays were beginning to be performed, audiences consisted of a good cross-section of English society, nobility as well as workers, intellectuals as well as simple people out for a laugh; also (and in this respect English theatres were unique in Europe), it was quite normal for respectable women to attend plays. So Shakespeare had to write plays which would appeal to people of widely different kinds. He had to provide ‘something for everyone’ but at the same time to take care to unify the material so that it would not seem to fall into separate pieces as they watched it. A speech like that of the drunken porter in Macbeth could provide the ‘groundlings’ with a belly-laugh, but also held a deeper significance for those who could appreciate it. The audience he wrote for was one of a number of apparent drawbacks which Shakespeare was able to turn to his and our advantage.

Shakespeare’s Actors

Nor were all the actors of the time mere ‘rogues, vagabonds and sturdy beggars’ as some were described in a Statute of 1572. It is true that many of them had a hard life and earned very little money, but leading actors could become partners in the ownership of the theatres in which they acted: Shakespeare was a shareholder in the Globe and the Blackfriars theatres when he was an actor as well as a playwright. In any case, the attacks made on Elizabethan actors were usually directed at their morals and not at their acting ability; it is clear that many of them must have been good at their trade if they were able to interpret complex works like the great tragedies in such a way as to attract enthusiastic audiences. Undoubtedly some of the boys took the women’s parts with skill and confidence, since a man called Coryate, visiting Venice in 1611, expressed surprise that women could act as well as they: ‘I saw women act, a thing that I never saw before … and they performed it with as good a grace, action, gesture … as ever I saw any masculine actor.’ The quality of most of the actors who first presented Shakespeare’s plays is probably accurately summed up by Fynes Moryson, who wrote, ‘… as there be, in my opinion, more plays in London than in all the parts of the world I have seen, so do these players or comedians excel all other in the world.’

The Structure of the Public Theatre

Although the ‘purpose-built’ theatres were based on the inn-yards which had been used for play-acting, most of them were circular. The walls contained galleries on three storeys from which the wealthier patrons watched, they must have been something like the ‘boxes’ in a modern theatre, except that they held much larger numbers – as many as 1500. The ‘groundlings’ stood on the floor of the building, facing a raised stage which projected from the ‘stage-wall’, the main features of which were:

a small room opening on to the back of the main stage and on the same level as it (rear stage),

a gallery above this inner stage (upper stage),

canopy projecting from above the gallery over the main stage, to protect the actors from the weather (the 700 or 800 members of the audience who occupied the yard, or ‘pit’ as we call it today, had the sky above them).

In addition to these features there were dressing-rooms behind the stage and a space underneath it from which entrances could be made through trap-doors. All the acting areas – main stage, rear stage, upper stage and under stage – could be entered by actors directly from their dressing rooms, and all of them were used in productions of Shakespeare’s plays. For example, the inner stage, an almost cavelike structure, would have been where Ferdinand and Miranda are ‘discovered’ playing chess in the last act of The Tempest, while the upper stage was certainly the balcony from which Romeo climbs down in Act III of Romeo and Juliet.

It can be seen that such a building, simple but adaptable, was not really unsuited to the presentation of plays like Shakespeare’s. On the contrary, its simplicity guaranteed the minimum of distraction, while its shape and construction must have produced a sense of involvement on the part of the audience that modern producers would envy.

Other Resources of the Elizabethan Theatre

Although there were few attempts at scenery in the public theatre (painted backcloths were occasionally used in court performances), Shakespeare and his fellow playwrights were able to make use of a fair variety of ‘properties’, lists of such articles have survived: they include beds, tables, thrones, and also trees, walls, a gallows, a Trojan horse and a ‘Mouth of Hell’; in a list of properties belonging to the manager, Philip Henslowe, the curious item ‘two mossy banks’ appears. Possibly one of them was used for the

bank whereon the wild thyme blows,

Where oxlips and the nodding violet grows

in A Midsummer Night’s Dream (Act II, Scene i). Once again, imagination must have been required of the audience.

Costumes were the one aspect of stage production in which trouble and expense were hardly ever spared to obtain a magnificent effect. Only occasionally did they attempt any historical accuracy (almost all Elizabethan productions were what we should call ‘modern-dress’ ones), but they were appropriate to the characters who wore them: kings were seen to be kings and beggars were similarly unmistakable. It is an odd fact that there was usually no attempt at illusion in the costuming: if a costume looked fine and rich it probably was. Indeed, some of the costumes were almost unbelievably expensive. Henslowe lent his company £19 to buy a cloak, and the Alleyn brothers, well-known actors, gave £20 for a ‘black velvet cloak, with sleeves embroidered all with silver and gold, lined with black satin striped with gold’.

With the one exception of the costumes, the ‘machinery’ of the playhouse was economical and uncomplicated rather than crude and rough, as we can see from this second and more leisurely look at it. This meant that playwrights were stimulated to produce the imaginative effects that they wanted from the

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!).

[deckla_1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

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

[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.

[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.