Synopsis: The Winter’s Tale

William Shakespeare

All is well in the kingdom of Sicilia. King Leontes and Queen Hermione have a bright, endearing young son, Mamillius, and are expecting a second child. Leontes’s best friend since boyhood, King Polixenes of Bohemia, is concluding a long visit.

Then, in an instant, Leontes inexplicably comes to believe that Hermione’s child was fathered by Polixenes and that the two of them are plotting to murder him. He tries to coerce his courtier Camillo into poisoning Polixenes, and Camillo seems to agree, but secretly he warns Polixenes and the two of them escape Sicilia together.

Their flight confirms Leontes’s worst fears, and he has Hermione taken to prison. There she gives birth to their daughter, whom Leontes believes is a bastard. To save the baby from death by fire, the courtier Antigonus agrees to take the baby to a foreign land and there expose her to the elements. Antigonus’s wife, Paulina, denounces Leontes as a tyrant and his courtiers as weak flatterers. These horrible events cause Prince Mamillius to fall sick and then die.

Still weak from childbirth, Hermione is forced to stand public trial for her life. Although Leontes has sent to Apollo’s oracle at Delphos for the god’s judgment, he has already condemned Hermione. She defends herself nobly, even though, having lost her children, the love of her husband and her reputation, she has little to live for. When Apollo’s oracle proclaims her innocence, however, it seems for an instant that life will again be worth living. But Leontes is so far gone in his paranoia that he denounces even the god. Hermione collapses and is carried away.

Too late, Leontes realizes the magnitude of his atrocities. Paulina brings words that Hermione is dead. Leontes swears that each day for the rest of his life he will make a grieving pilgrimage to the tomb of his wife and son.

Antigonus, meanwhile, has landed on the seashore of Bohemia (the land of Polixenes). As a storm rages, he abandons the baby girl, now named Perdita (“the lost girl”), along with a box containing papers and tokens that will reveal her identity. A bear kills and devours Antigonus, while the ship that brought him sinks with all hands. As the storm abates, an Old Shepherd, searching for lost sheep, discovers the baby, shows her the mercy her own father denied her and takes her home with him.

Sixteen years pass. Perdita has become a lovely young woman, nurtured by Nature, noble (unknown to her) by birth. She and Prince Florizel, the son of King Polixenes, have met and fallen in love. He pretends to be a shepherd named Doricles (“golden glory”), although Perdita knows his true identity. Unfortunately, Polixenes has discovered his son’s masquerade, and he and Camillo go, disguised, to a country festival to see for themselves if the prince has indeed disgraced himself by his attachment to a country girl.

They cannot help but be impressed by Perdita, but still, she is far below Florizel’s station. Polixenes, with a mad fury uncomfortably reminiscent of that which caused Leontes to destroy everything he loved, orders his son to renounce his love and threatens Perdita and her adopted family with torture and death. Florizel decides to run away with Perdita and, with the assistance of Camillo, sets sail for Sicilia. The Old Shepherd and his son, aided by an engaging rogue named Autolycus, who once was a courtier in the service of Prince Florizel and now is a con man working country fairs, go to King Polixenes with the tokens that will show who Perdita is. The King and the Shepherd’s family sail for Sicilia.

There Leontes maintains his never-ending vigil of grief and repentance, refusing to take a new queen, even though his country needs an heir. When he might lapse from this hard course, Paulina holds him to it.

In rapid order, the young people from Bohemia and then their elders arrive in Sicilia. The kings are reconciled. The father is united with his lost daughter. The marriage of Perdita and Florizel is blessed. The only sorrow hanging over this love-feast is the loss of Hermione. Fortunately, a newly completed statue of the late queen stands at Paulina’s house, and there everyone goes. So lifelike is this work of art that the company is amazed. Then Paulina offers to show them a greater wonder. As music plays, she conjures the statue to “Be stone no more.” The statue moves and holds out her warm hand to Leontes. Hermione lives, and all is joyous reunion.

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