Tales from Shakespeare. Charles Lamb

      THE WINTER’S TALE

      Leontes, king of Sicily, and his queen, the beautiful and virtuous Hermione, once lived in the greatest harmony together. So happy was Leontes in the love of this excellent lady, that he had no wish ungratified, except that he sometimes desired to see again, and to present to his queen, his old companion and school-fellow, Polixenes, king of Bohemia. Leontes and Polixenes were brought up together from their infancy, but being, by the death of their fathers, called to reign over their respective kingdoms, they had not met for many years, though they frequently interchanged gifts, letters, and loving embassies.

      At length, after repeated invitations, Polixenes came from Bohemia to the Sicilian court, to make his friend Leontes a visit.

      At first this visit gave nothing but pleasure to Leontes. He recommended the friend of his youth to the queen’s particular attention, and seemed in the presence of his dear friend and old companion to have his felicity quite completed. They talked over old times; their schooldays and their youthful pranks were remembered, and recounted to Hermione, who always took a cheerful part in these conversations.

      When, after a long stay, Polixenes was preparing to depart, Hermione, at the desire of her husband, joined her entreaties to his that Polixenes would prolong his visit.

      And now began this good queen’s sorrow; for Polixenes refusing to stay at the request of Leontes, was won over by Hermione’s gentle and persuasive words to put off his departure for some weeks longer. Upon this, although Leontes had so long known the integrity and honourable principles of his friend Polixenes, as well as the excellent disposition of his virtuous queen, he was seized with an ungovernable jealousy. Every attention Hermione showed to Polixenes, though by her husband’s particular desire, and merely to please him, increased the unfortunate king’s jealousy; and from being a loving and a true friend, and the best and fondest of husbands, Leontes became suddenly a savage and inhuman monster. Sending for Camillo, one of the lords of his court, and telling him of the suspicion he entertained, he commanded him to poison Polixenes.

      Camillo was a good man; and he, well knowing that the jealousy of Leontes had not the slightest foundation in truth, instead of poisoning Polixenes, acquainted him with the king his master’s orders, and agreed to escape with him out of the Sicilian dominions; and Polixenes, with the assistance of Camillo, arrived safe in his own kingdom of Bohemia, where Camillo lived from that time in the king’s court, and became the chief friend and favourite of Polixenes.

      The flight of Polixenes enraged the jealous Leontes still more; he went to the queen’s apartment, where the good lady was sitting with her little son Mamillius, who was just beginning to tell one of his best stories to amuse his mother, when the king entered, and taking the child away, sent Hermione to prison.

      Mamillius, though but a very young child, loved his mother tenderly; and when he saw her so dishonoured, and found she was taken from him to be put into a prison, he took it deeply to heart, and drooped and pined away by slow degrees, losing his appetite and his sleep, till it was thought his grief would kill him.

      The king, when he had sent his queen to prison, commanded Cleomenes and Dion, two Sicilian lords, to go to Delphos, there to inquire of the oracle at the temple of Apollo, if his queen had been unfaithful to him. When Hermione had been a short time in prison, she was brought to bed of a daughter; and the poor lady received much comfort from the sight of her pretty baby, and she said to it: ‘My poor little prisoner, I am as innocent as you are.’

      Hermione had a kind friend in the noble-spirited Paulina, who was the wife of Antigonus, a Sicilian lord; and when the lady Paulina heard her royal mistress was brought to bed, she went to the prison where Hermione was confined; and she said to Emilia, a lady who attended upon Hermione: ‘I pray you, Emilia, tell the good queen, if her majesty dare trust me with her little babe, I will carry it to the king, its father; we do not know how he may soften at the sight of his innocent child.’ ‘Most worthy madam,’ replied Emilia, ‘I will acquaint the queen with your noble offer; she was wishing to-day that she had any friend who would venture to present the child to the king.’ ‘And tell her,’ said Paulina, ‘that I will speak boldly to Leontes in her defence.’ ‘May you be for ever blessed,’ said Emilia, ‘for your kindness to our gracious queen!’ Emilia then went to Hermione, who joyfully gave up her baby to the care of Paulina, for she had feared that no one would dare venture to present the child to its father.

      Paulina took the new-born infant, and forcing herself into the king’s presence, notwithstanding her husband, fearing the king’s anger, endeavoured to prevent her, she laid the babe at its father’s feet, and Paulina made a noble speech to the king in defence of Hermione, and she reproached him severely for his inhumanity, and implored him to have mercy on his innocent wife and child. But Paulina’s spirited remonstrances only aggravated Leontes’ displeasure, and he ordered her husband Antigonus to take her from his presence.

      When Paulina went away, she left the little baby at its father’s feet, thinking when he was alone with it, he would look upon it, and have pity on its helpless innocence.

      The good Paulina was mistaken: for no sooner was she gone than the merciless father ordered Antigonus, Paulina’s husband, to take the child, and carry it out to sea, and leave it upon some desert shore to perish.

      Antigonus, unlike the good Camillo, too well obeyed the orders of Leontes; for he immediately carried the child on ship-board, and put out to sea, intending to leave it on the first desert coast he could find.

      So firmly was the king persuaded of the guilt of Hermione, that he would not wait for the return of Cleomenes and Dion, whom he had sent to consult the oracle of Apollo at Delphos; but before the queen was recovered from her lying-in, and from her grief for the loss of her precious baby, he had her brought to a public trial before all the lords and nobles of his court. And when all the great lords, the judges, and all the nobility of the land were assembled together to try Hermione, and that unhappy queen was standing as a prisoner before her subjects to receive their judgement Cleomenes and Dion entered the assembly, and presented to the king the answer of the oracle, sealed up; and Leontes commanded the seal to be broken, and the words of the oracle to be read aloud, and these were the words: ‘Hermione is innocent, Polixenes blameless,—Camillo a true subject, Leontes a jealous tyrant, and the king shall live without an heir if that which is lost be not found.’ The king would give no credit to the words of the oracle: he said it was a falsehood invented by the queen’s friends, and he desired the judge to proceed in the trial of the queen; but while Leontes was speaking, a man entered and told him that the prince Mamillius, hearing his mother was to be tried for her life, struck with grief and shame, had suddenly died.

      Hermione, upon hearing of the death of this dear affectionate child, who had lost his life in sorrowing for her misfortune, fainted; and Leontes, pierced to the heart by the news, began to feel pity for his unhappy queen, and he ordered Paulina, and the ladies who were her attendants, to take her away, and use means for her recovery. Paulina