About the Author
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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.
Barbara A. Mowat is Director of Research emerita at the Folger
Shakespeare Library, Consulting Editor of Shakespeare Quarterly,
and author of The Dramaturgy of Shakespeare’s Romances and of
essays on Shakespeare’s plays and their editing.
Paul Werstine is Professor of English at the Graduate School and
at King’s University College at Western University. He is a
general editor of the New Variorum Shakespeare and author
of Early Modern Playhouse Manuscripts and the Editing of
Shakespeare and of many papers and articles on the printing and
editing of Shakespeare’s plays.
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Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.
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Characters In the Play
LEONTES, King of SICILIA
HERMIONE, Queen of Sicilia
MAMILLIUS, their son
PERDITA, their daughter
POLIXENES, King of BOHEMIA
FLORIZELL, his son
CAMILLO, a courtier, friend to Leontes and then to Polixenes
ANTIGONUS, a Sicilian courtier
PAULINA, his wife and lady-in-waiting to Hermione
CLEOMENES courtier in Sicilia
DION courtier in Sicilia
EMILIA, a lady-in-waiting to Hermione
SHEPHERD, foster her to Perdita
SHEPHERD'S SON
AUTOLYCUS, former servant to Florizell, now a rogue
ARCHIDAMUS, a Bohemian courtier
TIME, as Chorus
TWO LADIES attending on Hermione
LORDS, SERVANTS, and GENTLEMEN attending on Leontes
An OFFICER of the court
A MARINER
A JAILER
MOPSA shepherdess in Bohemia
DORCAS shepherdess in Bohemia
SERVANT to the Shepherd
SHEPHERDS and SHEPHERDESSES
Twelve COUNTRYMEN disguised as satyrs
ACT 1
Scene 1
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 y 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, hath 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 sed 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 five on
crutches till he had one.
They exit.
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