The Winter’s Tale by William Shakespeare (Illustrated)

By William Shakespeare

This eBook features the unabridged text of ‘The Winter’s Tale’ from the bestselling edition of ‘The Complete Works of William Shakespeare’.

Having established their name as the leading publisher of classic literature and art, Delphi Classics produce publications that are individually crafted with superior formatting, while introducing many rare texts for the first time in digital print. The Delphi Classics edition of Shakespeare includes original annotations and illustrations relating to the life and works of the author, as well as individual tables of contents, allowing you to navigate eBooks quickly and easily.

eBook features:
* The complete unabridged text of ‘The Winter’s Tale’
* Beautifully illustrated with images related to Shakespeare’s works
* Individual contents table, allowing easy navigation around the eBook
* Excellent formatting of the textPlease visit www.delphiclassics.com to learn more about our wide range of titles

• Language: English
• Publisher: Publishdrive
• Release date: Jul 17, 2017
• ISBN: 9781786563033

William Shakespeare

William Shakespeare was born in April 1564 in the town of Stratford-upon-Avon, on England’s Avon River. When he was eighteen, he married Anne Hathaway. The couple had three children—an older daughter Susanna and twins, Judith and Hamnet. Hamnet, Shakespeare’s only son, died in childhood. The bulk of Shakespeare’s working life was spent in the theater world of London, where he established himself professionally by the early 1590s. He enjoyed success not only as a playwright and poet, but also as an actor and shareholder in an acting company. Although some think that sometime between 1610 and 1613 Shakespeare retired from the theater and returned home to Stratford, where he died in 1616, others believe that he may have continued to work in London until close to his death.

Book preview

The Complete Works of

WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

VOLUME 35 OF 74

The Winter’s Tale

Parts Edition

By Delphi Classics, 2012

Version 6

COPYRIGHT

‘The Winter’s Tale’

William Shakespeare: Parts Edition (in 74 parts)

First published in the United Kingdom in 2017 by Delphi Classics.

© Delphi Classics, 2017.

All rights reserved.  No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the prior permission in writing of the publisher, nor be otherwise circulated in any form other than that in which it is published.

ISBN: 978 1 78656 303 3

Delphi Classics

is an imprint of

Delphi Publishing Ltd

Hastings, East Sussex

United Kingdom

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www.delphiclassics.com

William Shakespeare: Parts Edition

This eBook is Part 35 of the Delphi Classics edition of William Shakespeare in 74 Parts. It features the unabridged text of The Winter’s Tale from the bestselling edition of the author’s Complete Works. Having established their name as the leading publisher of classic literature and art, Delphi Classics produce publications that are individually crafted with superior formatting, while introducing many rare texts for the first time in digital print. Our Parts Editions feature original annotations and illustrations relating to the life and works of William Shakespeare, as well as individual tables of contents, allowing you to navigate eBooks quickly and easily.

Visit here to buy the entire Parts Edition of William Shakespeare or the Complete Works of William Shakespeare in a single eBook.

Learn more about our Parts Edition, with free downloads, via this link or browse our most popular Parts here.

WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

IN 74 VOLUMES

Parts Edition Contents

The Plays

1, Henry  VI, Part 2

2, Henry  VI, Part 3

3, Henry  VI, Part 1

4, Richard  III

5, The Comedy of Errors

6, Titus Andronicus

7, Taming of the Shrew

8, The Two Gentlemen of Verona

9, Love’s Labour’s Lost

10, Romeo and Juliet

11, Richard II

12, A Midsummer Night’s Dream

13, King John

14, The Merchant of Venice

15, Henry IV, Part I

16, Henry IV, Part II

17, Much Ado About Nothing

18, Henry V

19, Julius Caesar

20, As You Like It

21, Twelfth Night

22, Hamlet

23, The Merry Wives of Windsor

24, Troilus and Cressida

25, All’s Well that Ends Well

26, Measure for Measure

27, Othello

28, King Lear

29, Macbeth

30, Antony and Cleopatra

31, Coriolanus

32, Timon of Athens

33, Pericles

34, Cymbeline

35, The Winter’s Tale

36, The Tempest

37, Henry  VIII

38, The Two Noble Kinsmen

The Lost Plays

39, The Lost Plays

The Sources

40, The Plays’ Sources

The Apocryphal Plays

41, Arden of Faversham

42, The Birth of Merlin

43, King Edward  III

44, Locrine

45, The London Prodigal

46, The Puritan

47, The Second Maiden’s Tragedy

48, Sir John Oldcastle

49, Thomas Lord Cromwell

50, A Yorkshire Tragedy

51, Sir Thomas More

52, Fair Em

53, Mucedorus

54, The Merry Devil of Edmonton

55, Edmund Ironside

56, Thomas of Woodstock

57, Vortigern and Rowena

The Adaptations

58, Tales from Shakespeare by Charles and Mary Lamb

The Poetry

59, The Sonnets

60, Venus and Adonis

61, The Rape of Lucrece

62, The Passionate Pilgrim

63, The Phoenix and the Turtle

64, A Lover’s Complaint

The Apocryphal Poetry

65, To the Queen

66, A Funeral Elegy for Master William Peter

67, Sonnets to Sundry Notes of Music

The Criticism

68, The Criticism

The Biographies

69, Some Account of the Life of Mr. William Shakespear by Nicholas Rowe

70, Shakespeare: His Life, Art, and Characters by Henry Norman Hudson

71, Life of William Shakespeare by Sir Sidney Lee

72, Shakespeare’s Lost Years in London by Arthur Acheson

73, The People for Whom Shakespeare Wrote by Charles Dudley Warner

Resources

74, Resources

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The Winter’s Tale

Regarded as being one of Shakespeare’s problem plays, the first three acts of this late play are filled with intense psychological drama, while the last two acts are comedic and culminate with a happy ending.  The play begins with the appearance of two childhood friends: Leontes, King of Sicilia, and Polixenes, the King of Bohemia. Polixenes is visiting the kingdom of Sicilia, and is enjoying catching up with his old friend. However, after nine months, Polixenes yearns to return to his own kingdom to tend to affairs and see his son. Leontes desperately attempts to get Polixenes to stay longer, but is unsuccessful. Leontes then sends his wife, Queen Hermione, to try to persuade Polixenes. Hermione agrees and with three short speeches is successful. Leontes is puzzled as to how Hermione convinced Polixenes so easily, and is suddenly consumed with an insane paranoia that his pregnant wife has been having an affair with Polixenes and that the child is a bastard. Leontes orders Camillo, a Sicilian Lord, to poison Polixenes.

The main plot of The Winter’s Tale is taken from Robert Greene’s pastoral romance Pandosto, published in 1588 and, interestingly, Shakespeare’s changes to the plot are uncharacteristically minor.  Shakespeare’s main source text for this play is available via this link.

The First Folio, 1623

CONTENTS

Dramatis Personæ

Act I. Scene I.

Act I. Scene II.

Act II. Scene I.

Act II. Scene II.

Act II. Scene III.

Act III. Scene I.

Act III. Scene II.

Act III. Scene III.

Act IV. Chorus.

Act IV. Scene I.

Act IV. Scene II.

Act IV. Scene III.

Act V. Scene I.

Act V. Scene II.

Act V. Scene III.

‘Autolycus’ by Charles Robert Leslie, 1836

Dramatis Personæ

LEONTES, King of Sicilia.

MAMILLIUS, young Prince of Sicilia.

CAMILLO, ANTIGONUS, CLEOMENES, and DION, Lords of Sicilia.

POLIXENES, King of Bohemia.

FLORIZEL, his Son.

ARCHIDAMUS, a Lord of Bohemia.

A Mariner.

A Gaoler.

An old Shepherd, reputed Father of Perdita.

Clown, his Son.

Servant to the old Shepherd.

AUTOLYCUS, a Rogue.

HERMIONE, Queen to Leontes.

PERDITA, Daughter to Leontes and Hermione.

PAULINA, Wife to Antigonus.

EMILIA, a Lady; Other Ladies: attending the Queen.

MOPSA and DORCAS, Shepherdesses.

Sicilian Lords and Ladies, Attendants, Guards, Satyrs, Shepherds, Shepherdesses, &c.

Time, as Chorus.

SCENE. — Sometimes in Sicilia, sometimes in Bohemia.

Act I. Scene I.

Sicilia.  An Antechamber in LEONTES’ Palace.

Enter CAMILLO and ARCHIDAMUS.

Arch.  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.

Cam.  I think, this coming summer, the King of Sicilia means to pay Bohemia the visitation which he justly owes him.

Arch.  Wherein our entertainment shall shame us we will be justified in our loves: for, indeed, —   5

Cam.  Beseech you, —

Arch.  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.

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

Arch.  Believe me, I speak as my understanding instructs me, and as mine honesty puts it to utterance.

Cam.  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!   10

Arch.  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.

Cam.  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.

Arch.  Would they else be content to die?

Cam.  Yes; if there were no other excuse why they should desire to live.

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