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: Gérald Gallas
• Release date: Sep 16, 2017
• ISBN: 9788826402857

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.

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The Winter's Tale

William Shakespeare

Published: 1611

Categorie(s): Fiction, Drama, Romance

About Shakespeare:

William Shakespeare (baptised 26 April 1564 – died 23 April 1616) was an English poet and playwright, widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and the world's pre-eminent dramatist. He is often called England's national poet and the Bard of Avon (or simply The Bard). His surviving works consist of 38 plays, 154 sonnets, two long narrative poems, and several other poems. His plays have been translated into every major living language, and are performed more often than those of any other playwright. Shakespeare was born and raised in Stratford-upon-Avon. At the age of 18 he married Anne Hathaway, who bore him three children: Susanna, and twins Hamnet and Judith. Between 1585 and 1592 he began a successful career in London as an actor, writer, and part owner of the playing company the Lord Chamberlain's Men, later known as the King's Men. He appears to have retired to Stratford around 1613, where he died three years later. Few records of Shakespeare's private life survive, and there has been considerable speculation about such matters as his sexuality, religious beliefs, and whether the works attributed to him were written by others. Shakespeare produced most of his known work between 1590 and 1613. His early plays were mainly comedies and histories, genres he raised to the peak of sophistication and artistry by the end of the sixteenth century. Next he wrote mainly tragedies until about 1608, including Hamlet, King Lear, and Macbeth, considered some of the finest examples in the English language. In his last phase, he wrote tragicomedies, also known as romances, and collaborated with other playwrights. Many of his plays were published in editions of varying quality and accuracy during his lifetime, and in 1623 two of his former theatrical colleagues published the First Folio, a collected edition of his dramatic works that included all but two of the plays now recognised as Shakespeare's. Shakespeare was a respected poet and playwright in his own day, but his reputation did not rise to its present heights until the nineteenth century. The Romantics, in particular, acclaimed Shakespeare's genius, and the Victorians hero-worshipped Shakespeare with a reverence that George Bernard Shaw called bardolatry. In the twentieth century, his work was repeatedly adopted and rediscovered by new movements in scholarship and performance. His plays remain highly popular today and are consistently performed and reinterpreted in diverse cultural and political contexts throughout the world. 

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,'

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