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[CHAPTER SIX
THE ROMANCES
Pericles, Cymbeline,
The Winter's Tale and The Tempest]
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- - - III - - -
For his next romance, The Winter's Tale, Shakespeare derived his plot from Pandosto: The Triumph of Time by Greene, first published in 1588. 6.49 The changes made by Shakespeare to the material with which he was dealing have been listed and discussed by various critics, 6.50 and some of them are important to my study, throwing light on the playwright's use of
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disorder, conflict and violence in this play. Greene makes the principal concern of the first part of his story known at the outset:
Among al the passions wherewith humane mindes are perplexed, there is none that so galleth with restlesse despight, as the infectious soare of Jealousie .... Yea, who so is payned with this restlesse torment doubteth all, dystrusteth him-selfe, is alwayes frosen with feare, and fired with suspition, having that wherein consisteth all his joy to be the breeder of his miserie. 6.51
Having given this brief anatomy of jealousy, Greene goes on to describe the friendship of Pandosto and Egistus, and then that between Bellaria and Egistus, which gives rise to 'a certaine melancholy passion' in Pandosto, driving 'him into sundry and doubtfull thoughts'. 6.52
These and such like doubtfull thoughtes a long time smoothering in his stomacke, beganne at last to kindle in his minde a secret mistrust, which increased by suspition, grew at last to be a flaming Jealousy. 6.53
Greene is at pains to make Pandosto's jealousy credible.
Shakespeare, on the other hand, is not concerned with the credibility of Leontes' jealousy, deliberately going out of his way to lull his audience into a sense of security, so that when jealousy does appear it is all the more remarkable. 6.54 The opening scene stresses the friendship of the two kings - 'there is not in the World, either Malice or Matter, to alter it' (I.i.33-34) - and also the promise of regeneration and fertility seen in the young prince, Mamillius:
Arch.
... it is a Gentleman of the greatest Promise, that euer came into my Note.
Cam.
I very well agree with you, in the hopes of him: it is a gallant Child; one, that (indeed) Physicks the Subiect, makes old hearts fresh: they that went on Crutches ere he was borne, desire yet their life, to see him a Man.
(I.i.35-40)
The second scene starts in the same vein, with the dispute between Polixenes and Leontes, over whether Polixenes should extend his stay, creating just sufficient tension to sustain interest: having heard how deeply rooted this friendship is, the audience can now see it in action. There is no hint of animosity between the men, with Leontes being motivated by his love for Polixenes in asking him to stay, and Polixenes all courtesy and love in declining:
My Affaires
Doe euen drag me home-ward: which to hinder,
Were (in your Loue) a Whip to me; my stay,
To you a Charge, and Trouble: to saue both,
Farewell (our Brother.)
(I.ii.23-27)
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Leontes' jealousy is the major source of conflict in the first part of the romance and Shakespeare's handling of it needs careful examination. Critics have reached no consensus on the matter: Quiller-Couch is emphatic that the dramatist 'bungled it', 6.55 while Coleridge thought the early action 'well calculated to set in nascent action the jealousy of Leontes', 6.56 and Nathan went even further, seeing Shakespeare's treatment of the passion as 'another proof of his craftsmanship'. 6.57
Much of the debate hinges on when, exactly, Leontes first becomes jealous or manifests his jealousy. Pafford has remarked that 'in modern times there is a belief that Leontes should show that he is jealous from his first appearance', 6.58 and thus we have Brooke writing in 1905,
The soil in the heart of Leontes had been charged, now and for some time past, with anger, suspicion, with a kind of hypocrisy, with falseness ... 6.59
and Dover Wilson in 1931,
... the actor who plays him should display signs of jealousy from the very outset and make it clear, as he easily may, that the business of asking Polixenes to stay longer is merely the device of jealousy seeking proof. 6.60
Such interpretations at least answer Quiller-Couch's objection to the absence of preparation for Leontes' passion, which renders it 'merely frantic and - which is worse in drama - a piece of impossible improbability'; 6.61 but they ignore what I consider to be Shakespeare's clear intention, to present his audience with an emotional upheaval so sudden and violent as to make Leontes incapable of dealing with it rationally, making it a serious threat to order and harmony. The idea that Leontes should be shown as jealous from the start derives from Pandosto, but Nathan correctly warns against making this type of extrapolation:
Can we assume anything before the beginning of a play when the author has not chosen to tell us about it? Is it not the better scholarship to assume that when an author omits an explicit detail from his source he is either consciously or unconsciously departing from that source? 6.62
Coleridge is quite correct in detecting factors which could motivate jealousy early in the play, but 'the first working of the jealous fit' takes place at I.ii.108, 6.63 'Too hot, too hot'. What Coleridge suggests is that Polixenes' 'obstinate refusal' to comply with Leontes' request, 6.64 followed by the alacrity with which he is persuaded by Hermione, leads Leontes to suspect Hermione of unfaithfulness. Ellis agrees with this
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and goes further in providing a psychological basis for Leontes' 'paranoid behaviour': 6.65 the firm bond of friendship formed in boyhood, emphasised by Shakespeare, is broken when 'the adult banishes from his mind the memory of the passion and sexuality which mark the strong attachment of puberty'. 6.66 It is Leontes' own love of Polixenes which he projects on to Hermione; or, put differently, Leontes recognises that Polixenes has attracted his own friendship, and this rationalises his suspicion that Hermione is equally attracted, overstepping the bounds of mere courtesy:
To mingle friendship farre, is mingling bloods.
I haue Tremor Cordis on me: my heart daunces,
But not for ioy; not ioy. This Entertainment
May a free face put on: deriue a Libertie
From Heartinesse, from Bountie, fertile Bosome,
And well become the Agent: 't may; I graunt.
(I.ii.109-114)
Leontes' 'Tremor Cordis', his dancing heart, would have indicated to the original audiences the serious nature of his malady: whereas we are accustomed to using 'heart' figuratively of the emotions, it was more often used literally by sixteenth century physicians, as may be seen from Bright's A Treatise of Melancholy (1586):
The hart is the seate of life, and of affections, and perturbations, of love, or hate, like, or dislike; of such thinges as fall within the compasse of sense; either outward, or inward; in effect, or imagination onely. 6.67
The last words, in 'imagination onely', are of particular relevance to the case of Leontes, who, although only imagining the flirtation between Hermione and Polixenes, is nevertheless stricken at heart as if by a physical sickness. Shakespeare may have felt intuitively that Leontes' own feelings towards Polixenes could inspire this jealousy, but probability and motivation were not his chief concerns here. He was more interested in the effects of jealousy than its causes.
The most important effect is that a man subject to the passion is incapable of rational thought: he sees the world through jaundiced eyes, interpreting all events in terms of his own overriding emotions:
Of all partes of the body, in ech perturbation, two are chiefly affected: first the brayne, that both apprehendeth the offensive or pleasaunt object, & judgeth of the same in like sort, and communicateth it with the hearte, which is the second part affected: these being troubled carie with them all the rest of the partes into a simpathy, they of all the rest being in respect of affection of most importance. 6.68
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The brain and heart are equally affected by jealousy, as may be seen in Shakespeare's treatment of it in other plays: Ford, in The Merry Wives of Windsor, becomes an easy target for the games played by the wives, 6.69 and Othello is ready to believe Desdemona false once Iago has manipulated him according to his stated plan:
Or fayling so, yet that I put the Moore,
At least into a Ielouzie so strong
That iudgement cannot cure. ...
...
Make the Moore thanke me, loue me, and reward me,
For making him egregiously an Asse,
And practising vpon his peace, and quiet,
Euen to madnesse.
(Othello II.i.295-297 and 303-306)
Leontes has neither the natural jealousy of Ford nor the provoking agency of a Iago to mislead him, and so, because his passion seems baseless, it is the more frightening. His inner conflict as he comes to terms with what he sees as confirmation of Hermione's infidelity is conveyed in language Wilson Knight describes as being in a 'spasmodic, interjectory, explosive style', 6.70 which convinces us of Leontes' instability. He repeatedly expresses sexual revulsion, a negation of what should be a regenerative force: simple gestures are interpreted sexually, with distaste, as in 'paddling Palmes, and pinching Fingers'; 'Still Virginalling | Vpon his Palme?'; and 'How she holds vp the Neb? the Byll to him?' (I.ii.115, 125-126, and 183). 6.71 The idea of being a cuckold appals Leontes, and his thrice-repeated mention of it followed immediately by a reference to Mamillius shows us a man desperately trying to deal with the novelty of his situation. 6.72 He accepts Mamillius as his legitimate offspring, ironically juxtaposing the destructive notion of his cuckolding with 'Egges' and 'Women', both emblems of fertility and regeneration:
Thou want'st a rough pash, & the shoots that I haue
To be full, like me: yet they say we are
Almost as like as Egges; Women say so.
(I.ii.128-130)
In the face of his turmoil over Hermione, sometimes expressedin the grossest terms, the likeness of Mamillius is consoling: there is
[Leo.]
No Barricado for a Belly. Know't,
I will let in and out the enemy,
With bag and baggage: many thousand on's
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Haue the Disease, and feele't not. How now Boy?
Mam.
I am like you [they] say.
Leo.
Why, that's some comfort.
(I.ii.204-208) 6.73
The sexual innuendo in 'let in and out the Enemy, | With bag and baggage' is distasteful, but expresses Leontes' revulsion of the act which brings on him, as he imagines, the disgrace of cuckoldry. This was mentioned earlier, where it was again ironically contrasted with the presence of Mamillius, who is an emblem of Hermione's fidelity:
Ynch-thick, knee deepe; ore head and eares a fork'd one.
Goe play (Boy) play: thy Mother playes, and I
Play too; but so disgrac'd a part, whose issue
Will hisse me to by Graue: Contempt and Clamor
Will be my Knell. Goe play (Boy) play, there haue been
(Or I am much deceiu'd) Cuckolds ere now.
(I.ii.186-191)
The 'issue' referred to is not only the 'Contempt and Clamor' directly resulting from the scandal, but also the child Hermione is carrying, who will become a walking testimony to Leontes' shame.
Sometimes violent imagery reinforces the confused sense and syntax of Leontes' speech in conveying the extent of his inner conflict:
Come (sir Page)
Looke on me with your Welkin eye: sweet Villaine,
Most dear'st, my Collop: can thy Dam, may't be
Affection? thy Intention stabs the Center.
Thou do'st make possible things not so held,
Communicat'st with Dreames (how can this be?)
With what's vnreall: thou coactive art,
And fellow'st nothing.
(I.ii.135-142)
The key word in this speech, as Pafford notes, 6.74 is 'Affection', which must be taken to mean not simply friendship or liking, but passionate sexual love; 6.75 and then 'Center' also has a peculiar significance, denoting the centre of the Universe. 6.76 The word appears in a remarkably similar context in 'The Second Coming' by Yeats:
Turning and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity. 6.77
I have quoted this passage at length because it so closely follows the sense of Leontes' speech, and subsequent events in the play: the political and emotional turmoil which was Shakespeare's concern still finds its place in twentieth-century affairs. 'Affection? thy Intention stabs the Center': the violent image of stabbing conveys the enormity of the consequences of adultery, but with heightened significance here, because Hermione is the wife of the King. Her supposed 'Affection' destroys order and harmony, not only for Leontes himself, but for his whole kingdom: 'Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold' once it is obliterated by the 'blood-dimmed tide' of lust. Passion and its attendant jealousy 'make possible things not so held': Hermione is thought guilty, the 'ceremony of innocence is drowned'. 'Looke on me with your Welkin eye: sweet Villaine': Mamillius, an emblem of universal prosperity and harmony with a 'Welkin eye', gives way in Leontes' mind to 'Affection', which 'fellow'st nothing' - 'nothing' being the emptiness and darkness of chaos. Leontes' disordered state of mind is a barrier between himself and the outside world: those around do not understand him, the 'falcon cannot hear the falconer':
Pol.
What meanes Sicilia?
Her.
He something seemes vnsettled.
Pol.
How? my Lord?
Leo.
What cheere? how is't with you, best Brother?
Her.
You look
as if you held a Brow of much distraction:
Are you mou'd (my Lord?)
Leo.
No, in good earnest.
(I.ii.146-150)
Leontes hides his suspicions, and they rankle inwardly until finally emerging with an almost explosive violence during his discussion with Camillo, where there is misunderstanding once again. The violently disordered state accompanying the intense emotion associated with jealousy precludes the possibility of a concise, rational expression of thought, and this reaches its height in Hermione's trial:
Her.
Sir,
You speake a Language that I vnderstand not:
My Life stands in the leuell of your Dreames,
Which Ile lay downe.
Leo.
Your Actions are my Dreames.
You had a Bastard by Polixenes,
and I but dream'd it ....
(III.ii.79-84)
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With Leontes presiding as prosecutor and judge in his own case, and communication between opposing parties being impossible, the trial becomes a mockery of justice. 6.78
When Leontes decides to reveal his suspicion to Camillo he has already determined that Polixenes must die: the violence of his jealous passion demands violent retribution, setting in motion the series of events which will turn Sicilia's harmony into disorder and dissension. Leontes sees the sins conjured by his diseased mind so palpably that he cannot believe others do not see them as well, and this leads to a further alienation from those with whom he tries to communicate. The common ground needed for mutual understanding no longer exists:
[Leo.]
Lower Messes
Perchance are to this Businesse purblind? say.
Cam.
Businesse, my Lord? I thinke most vnderstand
Bohemia stayes here longer.
Leo.
Ha?
Cam.
Stayes here longer.
Leo.
I, but why?
Cam.
To satisfie your Highnesse, and the Entreaties
Of our most gracious Mistresse.
Leo.
Satisfie?
Th' entreaties of your Mistresse? Satisfie?
Let that suffice.
(I.ii.227-235)
Camillo has no idea what 'Businesse' Leontes means - a telling point, for the King badly needs confirmation of the sins his jaundiced mind sees so plainly. Camillo's ignorance, his inability to supply ready assent, is an indirect attack on Leontes' integrity, and so the King reacts to this with increasing impatience and downright anger. The conflict heightens and tension mounts as we see Leontes falling deeper and deeper into delusion; and so, instead of the understandable misinterpretation of friendly or polite gestures for sexual activity which we witnessed earlier, we now have wildly neurotic misconceptions. Polixenes' agreement to stay in Sicilia is seen as a sexual favour to Hermione; Camillo's unfortunate choice of the word 'satisfie' is twisted by Leontes to imply sexual gratification, and from this it is an easy step for Leontes back to his heightened sense of the obscene in the imagined relationship, expressed in increasingly forceful sexual terms: he says Camillo is
a Foole,
That seest a Game play'd home, the rich Stake drawne,
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And tak'st it all for ieast.
(I.ii.247-249)
There is an undercurrent of sexual innuendo here, if we see the 'Game' as intercourse and the 'rich Stake' as the male member, but more direct slander of Hermione is to follow:
My Wife's a [Hobby]-Horse, deserues a Name
As ranke as any Flax-Wench, that puts to
Before her troth-plight ....
(I.ii.276-278) 6.79
These accusations are met with steady denials from Camillo which spur Leontes on to greater heights of fury:
Is whispering nothing?
Is leaning Cheeke to Cheeke? is meating Noses?
Kissing with in-side Lip? stopping the Cariere
Of Laughter, with a sigh? (a Note infallible
Of breaking Honestie) horsing foot on foot?
(I.ii.284-288)
The mounting vehemence of these attacks on Hermione's chastity convinces us, as it does Camillo, that the King's 'diseas'd Opinion' is 'most dangerous' (I.ii.297 and 298), but what it culminates in perfectly conveys Leontes' inner conflict, as well as presaging the disruption and chaos it will bring upon his kingdom: after his catalogue of imagined sexual offences, he demands,
Is this nothing?
Why then the World, and all that's in't, is nothing,
The couering Skie is nothing Bohemia nothing,
My Wife is nothing, nor Nothing haue these Nothings,
If this be nothing.
(I.ii.292-296)
The repeated word 'nothing' here has the same connotations as it did earlier when Leontes spoke of the affection that 'fellow'st nothing': it evokes the idea of chaos, made universal by reference to 'the World, and all that's in't', and also to the 'couering Skie'. Ironically, Leontes is closer to the truth than he realises: although his rhetorical question, 'Is this nothing?', demands a negation, the truth is that Hermione is innocent; but the anticipated disorder ensues despite her innocence because Leontes himself is guilty of sin. Such is Leontes' frustration, pain and inner conflict that he convinces himself that his suspicions are not of his own invention, and he makes the point to
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Camillo:
Do'st thinke I am so muddy, as vnsettled,
To appoint my selfe in this vexation?
Sully the puritie and whitenesse of my Sheetes
(Which to preserue, is Sleepe; which being spotted,
Is Goades, Thornes, Nettles, Tayles of Waspes).
(I.ii.325-329)
The violence of the imagery used here conveys the chaotic state of Leontes' mind, which leads him not only to plan the murder of Polixenes, but to reject his wife and infant daughter as well - sins directly contrary to natural order, harmony, and the attendant fertility and regeneration given by 'great creating-Nature' (IV.iv.88). Bowers has observed the effects of this:
The climax of Leontes' insensate jealousy is where in his distress and passion he turns against the whole order of creation. His brutality to his pregnant wife sets an even keener edge on the attack. ... the whole process of procreation and the physical enjoyment of love is made repulsive by his cynicism. 6.80
The first act of the play shows the degradation of Sicilia as a result of Leontes' jealousy: the optimism of the first scene has been forgotten in the frantic reversal of order noted by Bowers - harmonious relationships and the restoring procreative forces provided by Nature have been rejected by the King.
Leontes' stance puts him at odds with his entire court. Camillo is the first to oppose his King, and he is openly critical in his anger, risking a royal rebuke for the discourtesy he shows:
... 'shrew my heart,
You neuer spoke what did become you lesse
Then this; which to reiterate, were sin
As deepe as that, though true.
(I.ii.281-284)
Such opposition only increases the King's anger, and to resolve the conflict Camillo agrees to carry out the command to poison Polixenes, though in a soliloquy he reveals his intention of fleeing the court: his disagreement with Leontes cannot be ended without loss of life - his own or Polixenes'. That the opposition to Leontes is general rather than confined to Camillo is made obvious by the fact that several nameless lords raise their voices in dissent, but to no avail. The tenor of their arguments is stated by Antigonus in this prophetic speech:
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Be certaine what you do (Sir) least your Iustice
Proue violence, in the which three great ones suffer,
Your Selfe, your Queene, your Sonne.
(II.i.127-129)
In response to such sensible pleadings Leontes, if he is not to accept the possibility of error, has no option but to imperiously declare himself above criticism, thus shouldering the full responsibility for his actions, and alienating himself from his subjects:
Why what neede we
Commune with you of this? but rather follow
Our forcefull instigation? ...
...
We neede no more of your aduice: the matter,
The losse, the gaine, the ord'ring on't, Is all
properly ours.
(III.i.161-163 and 168-170)
This effectively silences the opposition at the time, and what we see after the inception of Leontes' jealousy is a gradual erosion of the trust between himself and those in his court. Ironically Leontes is aware of the 'horrifying threat of disorder' posed by sexual liberty, 6.81 but, although he is intent on preserving order in punishing supposed sexual misbehaviour, his actions only intensify disorder. He sees the opposition of his subjects to his accusations as evidence of their complicity in Hermione's guilt, and conflict returns with renewed vigour when Paulina forces her way into the King's presence bearing his baby daughter.
The appearance of Paulina in the play adds a new dimension to the controversy. When she goes to see Hermione in gaol, we are at once struck by her forthright manner: her outspoken criticism and her open determination heighten expectation, promising an interesting encounter when she meets Leontes. She bristles with righteous indignation, so forceful as to verge on the comic, 6.82 and we feel that in her the King will have met his match:
These dangerous, vnsafe Lunes i' th' King, beshrew them:
He must be told on't, and he shall: the office
Becomes a woman best. Ile take't vpon me,
If I proue hony-mouth'd, let my tongue blister.
And neuer to my red-look'd Anger bee
The trumpet any more ....
(II.ii.30-35)
It is Paulina's shrewishness that makes her comic, but not in such a way
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as to provoke open laughter and ridicule - the part she plays is far too serious for that, 6.83 and as Horwitz says, 'she insists upon the therapeutic quality of her shrewish role'. 6.84 Nevertheless, we feel that we know a good deal about her as soon as Antigonus admits to having tried, and failed, to keep her from visiting the King, whose retort tells all: 'What? canst not rule her?' (II.iii.46). This brings about a subtle shifting of emphasis in the conflict between Antigonus and Leontes, since they now have a common adversary, Paulina. Indeed, Antigonus and all the lords are seen by Paulina as supporting the King in his violent pursuit of revenge, as implied in her comment on his insomnia:
'Tis such as you
That creepe like shadowes by him, and do sighe
At each his needlesse heauings: such as you
Nourish the cause of his awaking.
(II.iii.33-36)
Nowhere are the 'dangerous, vnsafe Lunes' of Leontes more clearly seen than in this interview: throughout, Paulina vigorously attacks the King with convincing proofs of Hermione's innocence, but he totally ignores what she has to say in his neurotic replies, which consist of hysterical accusations of treachery, tiresomely repetitive gibes at her conventional role as a shrewish wife, and violent demands for her removal.
Paulina is undaunted by any of this, and her anger mounts at a pace equal to the King's; as the tension grows, so their language becomes more emphatic and violent:
Leo.
Force her hence.
Pau.
Let him that makes but trifles of his eyes
First hand me: on mine owne accord, Ile off,
But first, Ile do my errand.
(II.iii.61-64)
In a well-ordered state the King's word should be absolute, and Paulina's open defiance, together with the lords' dilatory responses to the orders to remove her, highlights the disordered state of Leontes' court, and his inability to maintain civil rule. The King himself comments on the inversion of order which Paulina has initiated in her marriage, and then proposes his solution to the greater disorder he sees in his own marriage:
A Callat
Of boundlesse tongue, who late hath beat her Husband,
And now bayts me: This Brat is none of mine,
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It is the Issue of Polixenes.
Hence with it, and together with the Dam,
Commit them to the fire.
(II.iii.90-95)
This is followed by threats of hanging directed at Antigonus and the lords because they will not remove Paulina, and finally Paulina herself is treated similarly:
Leo.
Ile ha' thee burnt.
Paul.
I care not:
It is an Heretique that makes the fire,
Not she which burnes in't.
(II.iii.113-115)
These violent threats are incompatible with the dignity and decorum of the court, sacrificed by Leontes in his wild pursuit of vengeance. He reaches his most debased state when, to counter the reluctance of his subjects to carry out his commands, he proposes to commit an act of nauseating violence on the infant:
The Bastard-braynes with these my proper hands
Shall I dash out.
(II.iii.139-140)
Brutality, here, has reached intolerable levels, and its effect is to make us accept Leontes' final judgement with some relief: Antigonus agrees, on pain of death, to expose the infant, but at least this way the child has some chance of survival.
One of the arguments used by Paulina in her confrontation with Leontes is the likeness of the baby to its father, and she associates this with the 'good Goddesse Nature' (II.iii.103). Procreation is Nature's means of regeneration, and Leontes pays tribute to the regenerative aspect of fertility by taking comfort in his likeness to Mamillius; 6.85 but this makes him all the more culpable when he ignores the same evidence in the case of Perdita. His rejection of his daughter must not be viewed in isolation: the contrast with Mamillius is important, as is the similarity in his behaviour when he condemns Hermione and defies the Oracle. The casting out of Perdita and the intended execution of Hermione place Leontes firmly in opposition to divine order and 'great creating-Nature', and his pronouncing the Oracle 'meere falsehood' (III.ii.141) simply confirms his contrary stance. In Pandosto the fact that the King's violence will be punished is emphasised:
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... unjust offences may for a time escape without danger, but never without revenge. ... Unnaturall actions offend the Gods more than men, and causelesse crueltie never scapes without revenge .... 6.86
Shakespeare is equally clear in The Winter's Tale that Leontes' crimes must be punished, and he alters his source story to make the point more obvious. When Pandosto hears the Oracle his contrition is immediate and he begs forgiveness from Bellaria; retribution is swift, however, and first Garinter and then Bellaria die. Shakespeare reverses the order of the deaths, with the death of Mamillius being reported, pointedly, directly after Leontes has pronounced the Oracle false. The renouncing of regeneration by rejecting Hermione and Perdita is aptly punished by the removal of Mamillius, who, being Leontes' first born, represents precisely the regeneration which he has refused to accept in his wife and daughter. He recognises this:
Apollo's angry, and the Heauens themselues
Doe [strike] at my Iniustice.
(III.ii.146-147) 6.87
In Pandosto Bellaria is not resurrected, and so Pandosto's punishment is more severe than Leontes'; nevertheless, when Paulina announces Hermione's death she associates it with vengeance, warning Leontes to expect further retribution:
... the Queene, the Queene,
The sweet'st, deer'st creature's dead: & vengeance for't
Not drop'd downe yet.
(III.ii.200-202)
Paulina herself plays an important role in the administration of this punishment, which takes place slowly, over the next sixteen years. When we last see her in Act III she is artfully reminding Leontes of his fresh griefs:
The loue I bore your Queene (Lo, foole againe)
Ile speake of her no more, nor of your Children:
Ile not remember you of my owne Lord,
(Who is lost too:) take your patience to you,
And Ile say nothing.
(III.ii.328-332)
When we next see her in Act V, sixteen years later, she is still keeping the memory of Hermione, Mamillius and Perdita alive by constant reminiscence, and she insists that Leontes should not remarry, so that
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the prophetic Oracle can be fulfilled: he must 'liue without an Heire, if that which is lost, be not found' (III.ii.135-136). For his denial of Nature's regeneration, Leontes must face the prospect of sterile age, leaving his throne barren. There is a most poignant reminder of this when Leontes first meets Florizel:
Your Mother was most true to Wedlock, Prince,
For she did print your Royall Father off,
Conceiuing you.
(V.i.123-125)
This is followed by some self-recrimination on Leontes' part over the loss of Perdita and Mamillius, the whole passage reiterating the earlier theme of regeneration being associated with the likeness of offspring to parents. Thus it is with intensest irony that Shakespeare does not allow Leontes even a hint of recognition that the young woman before him is his daughter - not, at least, until the dying moments of the scene, when Paulina, seeing Leontes admire Perdita, reminds him of Hermione's beauty, and elicits the response, 'I thought of her, | Euen in these Lookes I made' (V.i.226-227). This brings the audience to the height of expectation, but the anticipated άναγνώρισις, with its return to peace, order and prosperity, is cunningly postponed.
The degree of violence in The Winter's Tale is considerably reduced in its adaption from Pandosto: Leontes suffers for sixteen years in atonement for his crimes, but he is allowed ultimate happiness, whereas Pandosto commits suicide; Bellaria dies at the news of Garninter's death, but Hermione is resurrected at the end of the play. Shakespeare also avoids the distasteful incestuous episode in Pandosto in which Dorastus is imprisoned by the King, who proceeds to make advances on Fawnia. 6.88 The playwright's intention in making these changes seems to have been to emphasise the regeneration and harmony achieved at the close of his play. Nevertheless, the most extraordinary piece of violence not found in Pandosto is added by Shakespeare, and this is contained in the famous, enigmatic stage direction, 'Exit pursued by a Beare' (III.iii.58), followed by the Clown's humorously naive description of the bear dining on Antigonus. The deaths of Mamillius, Antigonus and all the mariners on the ship which carried Perdita to Bohemia bring home to the audience the suffering caused by Leontes' jealousy, and must be seen as forming part of Nature's retribution. The guilt of Antigonus and the sailors in carrying off Perdita at the King's command is not overlooked by Shakespeare, several indications being given: the Mariner says,
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... the skies looke grimly,
And threaten present blusters. In my conscience
The heauens with that we haue in hand, are angry,
And frowne vpon's.
(III.iii.3-6)
The spirit of Hermione is clear in its condemnation:
... For this vngentle businesse
Put on thee, by my Lord, thou ne're shalt see
Thy Wife Paulina more,
(III.iii.34-36)
and Antigonus is 'most accurst' (III.iii.52) in having to perform the King's evil deed. Significantly, a reminder of culpability is given as the play moves to its resolution, where the Third Gentleman observes that 'all the Instruments which ayded to expose the Child, were euen then lost, when it was found' (V.ii.70-72).
Despite these references to guilt, and partly because of our sympathy for Paulina, we still feel that Antigonus has been treated harshly. I think we are meant to: Shakespeare wanted to make Leontes' evil passion devastating in its consequences, and so the threats of death thrown about during the height of his raging are followed by real deaths. Potential violence becomes actual. The death of Mamillius is of relatively small impact on the audience's emotions, since it takes place some time after his last appearance and is only briefly reported. It is then promptly forgotten until fifty lines after the report, when Paulina makes a passing reference to it in her lamentation over the dead Queen. Our attention is drawn rather to Leontes' volte face, Hermione's swoon, and Paulina's ministrations at this climactic moment, and a full appreciation of the loss is not possible until Hermione's death is reported. Similarly, we feel little emotion at the destruction of life on board the ship, but Antigonus' death is brought much closer to us by the soliloquy which precedes it and the dramatic exit he makes. Quiller-Couch was quite wrong in seeing the bear as 'a naughty superfluity', 6.89 and attributing its presence in the play to the use of a live animal 'to make a popular hit'. 6.90 Biggins, in an extensive study of bears in Elizabethan drama, finds that 'there is no substantial proof that a real bear ever appeared in a play on the Elizabethan public stage, or elsewhere', 6.91 in view of which Quiller-Couch's suggestion seems unlikely: Shakespeare must have had other reasons for disposing of Antigonus in this manner. It has been noted by various critics that the bear episode serves as a bridge or
dividing line between the essentially tragic, destructive, and comic, reparative parts of the play, 6.92 but it needs some careful thought to define exactly when the tragic ends and the comic begins. Hunter refers to the 'terrifying hilarity' of the bear, 6.93 while Pafford sees the account as 'semi-comic'; 6.94 but both avoid the issue of what is tragic and what is not, preferring to see the episode as a blending of the two. Wilson Knight says 'We must take the bear seriously', 6.95 and Bullough suggests that the incident is not laughable but a 'sharp and frightening climax to a scene of pity and foreboding', 6.96 views close to my own. Biggins finds that 'wild animals, especially carnivores, figure constantly in Shakespearean imagery as types of hideousness, ferocity and savage, remorseless cruelty', 6.97 and bears are no exception to this. 6.98 Furthermore, bear-baiting was a popular sport and audiences would have been well aware of the injuries a bear could inflict, making it possible for the death of the victim to be fully visualised. What Shakespeare had in mind, therefore, was a terrifying and ugly end for Antigonus, anticipated in the vision of Hermione and in the foreboding remarks by the Mariner and Antigonus himself, which I have already noted. 6.99 The violence of the sea tempest which accompanies the exposing of Perdita and the death of Antigonus is symptomatic not only of the anger of the gods, as suggested by the Mariner, but also of cosmic disorder: Leontes' evil actions have given rise to elemental chaos. The bear is Nature's means of punishment, and the death of Antigonus at 'Exit pursued by a Beare' is the precise moment at which the tragic portion of the play ends. 6.100
In addition, the storm itself marks a violent rite of passage both for Antigonus, at his death, and for Perdita, 6.101 who is transported from the evil, sterile world of Sicilia, being reborn into the regenerative Arcadian setting of Bohemia. We are reminded of Pericles, 6.102 in which a sea tempest was associated with the birth of Marina and also the death of Thaisa. In The Winter's Tale the double association is emphasised by the Shepherd's remarks:
Now blesse thy selfe: thou met'st with things dying, I with things new borne.
(III.iii.112-113)
It is at the entrance of the Shepherd that the comic part of the play begins, and during his soliloquy the storm should gradually subside, so that by the close of the scene it is gone, marking Perdita's passage from sterility and disorder into regeneration and harmony. With this achieved, we are taken into a new world, where Antigonus' death undergoes
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a sea-change similar to the supposed death of Alonso in The Tempest: Antigonus has paid with his life for the sins against Nature, and so his death is, in a sense, an act of regeneration. The violence of his passing can now become comic, and many small touches in the Clown's choice of words ensure that it does: there is the quaint 'bodkins point'; the thrusting of 'a Corke into a hogshead'; the 'Land-seruice'; the ship being 'flap-dragon'd' by the sea; and the men being 'not yet cold vnder water', and the bear 'halfe din'd on the Gentleman' (III.iii.85-86, 93-94, 94, 104 and 105) - all of which express the violent aspects of the scene in distinctly comic terms. This new perspective is introduced in the Shepherd's first lines:
I would there were no age betweene ten and three and twenty, or that youth would sleep out the reste for there is nothing (in the betweene) but getting wenches with childe, wronging the Auncientry, stealing, fighting.
(III.iii.59-63)
Here we have the conventional comic theme of the conflict between age and youth presented in typically humorous terms - 'getting wenches with childe, wronging the Auncientry' - and along with this there is the pastoral concern for lost sheep. To use Tillyard's phrase, we are in a new plane of reality, 6.103 with the neurotic, disordered, violent world of Sicilia a remote memory.
The passing of sixteen years finalises the transition, and when the action resumes we are immediately introduced to two conflicts which are reminiscent of the earlier part of the play: Polixenes is at odds with Camillo, who wants to return to Sicilia, just as Leontes was in conflict with Polixenes earlier; also, we find Polixenes questioning his son's activities disapprovingly, which recalls the Shepherd's comments on youth 'wronging the Auncientry'. In the course of the discussion we also learn that Leontes has repented his evil behaviour and it ought now to be possible for the two kings to be reconciled. Leontes' change of heart does not diminish dramatic tension, however: new conflicts, although initially somewhat muted, hold our attention. Will Camillo finally have his way in leaving Bohemia; how will the two kings be brought together; and what will be the outcome of Polixenes' investigation of Florizel's behaviour - further disorder, with the son disobeying the father? These matters are no sooner introduced than they are left in abeyance while we are presented with another agent of disorder, Autolycus.
In Greek mythology Autolycus was one of Hermes' sons, noted as a thief who used his magical powers to forward his thefts; 6.104 Shakespeare's
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Autolycus lacks his Greek forebear's supernatural powers, but not his roguery. In addition to his function as a comic source of disorder, Autolycus, by means of his songs, helps to create the pastoral setting needed for the sheep-shearing feast. 6.105 His first song celebrates the return of summer after winter, and abounds in images of fertility, all of this being particularly suited to the transition Shakespeare wishes to emphasise - from the sterility and wintry brooding of the first half of the play to the summery fecundity of the second. The 'Daffadils' and 'the sweet o' the yeere' (IV.iii.1 and 3) are suggestive of spring and Nature's plenty, while 'the Doxy ouer the dale' and 'the red blood' (IV.iii.2 and 4) are associated with human sexuality, made explicit in the
... Summer song for me and my Aunts
While we lye tumbling in the hay.
(IV.iii.11-12)
In keeping with his role as an agent of disorder Autolycus advocates sexual licence in his first song, and there are reminders of his irresponsible attitude to sex whenever he appears: it was an aspect Shakespeare wished to keep prominent to act as a foil to the purity of Perdita and the rural company. When he next appears, his songs are described as 'the prettiest Loue-songs for Maids, so without bawdrie (Which is strange,) with such delicate burthens' (IV.iv.195-196), but as Pafford observes, the 'delicate burthens' 'which follow are all from indelicate songs', 6.106 and so Autolycus serves to emphasise not only the purity of the rural gathering, but also their simplicity. He sees even his thieving in sexual terms, confirming the association of sexual licence with other aspects of disorder:
... you might haue pinch'd a Placket, it was sencelesse; 'twas nothing to gueld a Cod-peece of a Purse.
(IV.iv.610-612)
There is, in the idea of gelding, a touch of sadism which can be detected elsewhere in Autolycus' dealings with the rural folk. He takes mischievous delight in his thefts, giving no thought at all to the consequences these might have for his victims. His sadistic streak is seen most sharply when he adopts the role of courtier terrifying the Clown and Shepherd with threats of dire punishments:
Hee ha's a Sonne: who shall be flayd aliue, then 'noynted ouer with Honey, set on
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the head of a Waspes Nest, then stand till he be three quarters and a dram dead: then recouer'd againe with Aquavite, or some other hot Infusion: then, raw as he is (and in the hotest day Prognostication proclaymes) shall he be set against a Brick-wall, (the sunne looking with a South-ward eye vpon him; where hee is to behold him, with Flyes blown to death.)
(IV.iv.785-793)
Autolycus plays on the credulity of his audience, and the excessive detail which he lavishes on his description, no doubt accompanied by gasps of horror from the two listeners, points to his enjoyment in gulling simple folk. Cruel though it may be, this comic violence is not disturbing for the audience, who share to some extent in Autolycus' amusement and exuberance when his plots succeed.
Like Feste in Twelfth Night, Autolycus also has his serious side, and there seems to be some concern on the part of the playwright over the fate of these itinerant singers. Feste is left in the wind and the rain at the end of the play, and Autolycus has an uncertain future dependent on his preferment at court by favour of the Clown, an unpromising patron. Autolycus' remark,
Gallowes, and Knocke, are too powerfull on the Highway. Beating and hanging are terrors to mee: For the life to come, I sleepe out the thought of it
(IV.iii.28-30)
is reminiscent of Feste's
Many a good hanging preuents a bad marriage: and for turning away, let summer beare it out.
(Twelfth Night I.v.19-20)
In the harsh treatment of his jesters and clowns Shakespeare was following a convention found also in Armin's The Two Maids of More-clacke, where Tutch, the clown, is dismissed, and like Feste and Autolycus, he associates this with hanging and exposure to the elements:
Gang is the word, and hang is the worst, wee are euen, I owe you no seruice, and you owe me no wages, short tale to make,
the sommers daie is long
the winter nights be short,
and brickill beds
dos hide our heds,
as spittell fields report.
(Two Maids D1v)
The constant threat of violence under which clowns like Tutch, Feste and Autolycus live could account for the sadistic tendencies we observe in
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the pedlar. He has served in the court under Florizel, he has sat in the stocks, and seems to have been violently dismissed with a whipping on leaving Florizel's service (IV.iii.13-14, 21-22 and 87). His pretence of having been beaten is therefore based on personal experience, though comically exaggerated: 'stripes I haue receiued, which are mightie ones and millions' (IV.iii.57-58). We may smile at Autolycus in his extremity, but the threat of death was very real to him:
Aut.
If they haue ouer-heard me now: why hanging.
Cam.
How now (good Fellow) Why shak'st thou so? Feare not (man) Here's no harme intended to thee.
(IV.iv.628-630)
This helps to explain why Autolycus enjoys inducing the fear of death in others, and we are amused watching him taking advantage of his good fortune.
Without Autolycus a good deal of the humour of the Bohemia scenes would fall away. The Shepherd and Clown are amusing in their own right, but they act principally as vehicles for the comedy associated with the pedlar. Of course they have their part to play in the serious plot as well, which, as Quiller-Couch has noted, Autolycus does not. 6.107 Although there are some subsidiary clashes, two central conflicts hold our attention in the main plot - that between youth and age; and closely woven into the texture of this is the conflict between Art and Nature. When we first see Florizel and Perdita together they are at odds over the parts they are to play in the sheep-shearing festival: Perdita is uncomfortable 'Most Goddesse-like prank'd vp' (IV.iv.10), and she fears the consequence should the King see his son 'Vildely bound vp' (IV.iv.22) in shepherd's clothing. Her reasons for concern, while not directly stated, may be deduced from what she says: she does not like anything contrived and unnatural - she is firmly opposed to Art, and she also finds Florizel's behaviour contrary to good order, 'Oppos'd (as it must be) by th' powre of the King' (IV.iv.37). For similar reasons, we may suppose, she is reluctant to take charge of the feast: her blushes (IV.iv.67) betray her discomfort at assuming a position she feels does not naturally become her, and there is a minor conflict with the Shepherd over this - an instance of the clash between youth and age being linked with that between Art and Nature.
The two are also closely related in the confrontation Perdita has with Polixenes over hybrids and sports, 'Natures bastards' (IV.iv.83). The disagreement arises when Perdita decides to start the ceremony by
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handing out flowers, here emblems of beauty and fertility, but appropriately chosen to suit the age of the recipient according to the season of the year: the rosemary and rue given to Polixenes and Camillo keep their 'Seeming, and sauour all the Winter long' (IV.iv.75), and so even in old age productivity may continue. 6.108 Although they are winter flowers, Perdita rejects 'Carnations, and streak'd Gilly-vors' (IV.iv.82) because they are not considered pure strains: they are not of Nature but of Art. This serves to reveal the purity and chastity of Perdita, for even though Polixenes' argument wins the day, she still flatly refuses to have anything to do with these flowers, and Polixenes, showing the tolerance of age towards impetuous youth, does not pursue the matter. Apart from drawing attention to the contrast between youth and age, the debate provides dramatic irony - a point widely noted. 6.109 The irony is two-fold: Perdita, arguing against 'Natures bastards', has herself been rejected by Leontes as a bastard; and Polixenes, in advocating the marrying of 'A gentler Sien, to the wildest Stocke' (IV.iv.93) is taking a stand directly contrary to his clandestine purpose of intervening in the affair between Florizel and a humble shepherd's daughter.
Perdita's attention to sexual purity and her respect for civil order are set off by comparison with Autolycus, and although the two never meet in confrontation, the tension between them is apparent in her admonition, 'Forewarne him, that he vse no scurrilous words in's tunes' (IV.iv.215-216). Despite this tension, both Perdita in her purity and Autolycus in his licence contribute to the sexual significance of the sheep-shearing, which is a celebration of Nature's bounty, while the 'Daunce of Shepheards and Shephearddesses' (IV.iv.167) and the 'Dance of twelue Satyres' (IV.iv.343) are statements of harmony and fecundity. 6.110 Apart from their wider significance in the sheep-shearing celebration, these dances specifically recall the harmony and potential for regeneration in procreation which the union of Perdita and Florizel represents. In the play's most beautiful tribute to Perdita, Florizel makes use of both song and dance imagery to depict his harmony with her, and hers with the vast expanse of Nature reflected in the sea image:
When you speake (Sweet)
I'ld haue you do it euer: When you sing,
I'ld haue you buy, and sell so: so giue Almes,
Pray so: and for the ord'ring your Affayres,
To sing them too. When you dance, I wish you
A waue o'th Sea, that you might euer do
Nothing but that: moue still, still so:
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And owne no other Function.
(IV.iv.136-143)
The intense harmony evoked in this passage is shattered when the scene reaches its sexually most explicit point, the 'Dance of twelue Satyres'. These sensuous and lascivious creatures were associated with the vintage and floral festivals of Dionysus in Greek mythology, 6.111 and so here they represent fertility in Nature. We may surmise that Polixenes is prompted by the sexual character of the dance to make his move to separate the young couple, but whatever initiates his action, his timing is significant: his opposition to the marriage of Florizel and Perdita is a negation of the fertility celebrated in the dance. In this his course runs parallel with that of Leontes sixteen years earlier, and there is a similarity in the degree of violence they threaten in order to attain their ends:
Thou, old Traitor
I am sorry, that by hanging thee, I can
but shorten thy life one weeke.
(IV.iv.421-423)
To Perdita he is equally brutal:
Ile haue thy beauty scratcht with briers & made
More homely then thy state,
(IV.iv.426-427)
and again:
I will deuise a death, as cruell for thee
As thou art tender to't.
(IV.iv.441-442)
Like Leontes', Polixenes' denial of 'great creating-Nature' manifests itself in his disowning his offspring:
Marke your diuorce (yong sir)
Whom sonne I dare not call: Thou art too base
To be [acknowledg'd]. Thou a Scepters heire,
That thus affects a sheepe-hooke?
(IV.iv.418-421) 6.112
and similarly:
... wee'l barre thee from succession,
Not hold thee of our blood, no not our Kin,
Farre then Deucalion off ...
(IV.iv.430-432)
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Florizel's behaviour is disordered in two respects, and both are factors contributing to Polixenes' rage. The point made most forcefully, once the King reveals his identity, is the discrepancy in stations between the Prince and Perdita: her state is 'homely'; she is scornfully likened to a 'sheepe-hooke'; she is 'Worthy enough a Heardsman'; and finally, even the detail of her humble gate, which has 'rurall Latches', is mentioned (IV.iv.427, 421, 436 and 439). Florizel also offends his father when he refuses to confide in him over his choice of wife, and the interest in the argument he has with the disguised King lies not so much in the conflict itself, but in the mounting tension created as Polixenes is further and further provoked. Perdita's unease at the outset now has substantial foundations, and she can cry in her sorrow,
I told you what would come of this: Beseech you
Of your owne state take care: This dreame of mine
Being now awake, Ile Queene it no inch farther,
But milke my Ewes, and weepe.
(IV.iv.443-451)
This carefully constructed scene, with its promise of joy and fertility rising to a height and being suddenly dashed, does not end in despair. When Perdita is lowered from her elevated status as queen of the feast Florizel takes over her function as the central image of fertility. Perdita's feminine grace is crushed by Polixenes, but Florizel's virility sustains him in his defiance, and so the conflict between age and youth is intensified. That Florizel is aware of his role in ensuring that the forces of regeneration are not defeated emerges in his violent declaration of love:
It cannot faile, but by
The violation of my faith, and then
Let Nature crush the sides o'th earth together,
And marre the seeds within. Lift vp thy lookes:
From my succession wipe me (Father) I
Am heyre to my affection.
(IV.iv.477-482)
As the rift between old and young intensifies, so the prospects for final harmony become brighter: Florizel, with the help of Camillo, flees to Sicilia with Perdita, setting the scene for the reunion of Leontes, Hermione and their daughter.
The final act brings us back to Sicilia, where tension quickly develops in the conflict between Paulina on one side and Cleomenes and Dion on the other: she maintains that Leontes cannot marry if the Oracle
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is to be fulfilled, while they urge the necessity of procuring an heir to the throne. The arrival of Florizel and Perdita adds further interest, for now we are sure the άναγνώρισις is imminent - but, quite naturally, Leontes does not recognise his daughter. The admiration which Perdita's beauty attracts is used by Paulina to fuel the conflict over Leontes' remarriage, and finally our hopes for the marriage of Florizel and Perdita diminish yet again with the reported arrival of Polixenes and Camillo, while Leontes ominously makes the points previously stated about filial duty and social rank:
I am sorry
(Most sorry) you haue broken from his liking,
Where you were ty'd in dutie: and as sorry,
Your choise is not so rich in Worth, as Beautie,
That you might well enioy her.
(V.i.210-214)
Wonderfully, 'Like an old Tale' (V.ii.62), these impedimenta all fall away just when they are most threatening. In somewhat stilted courtly language we hear of the emotional reunion of Leontes with Perdita, Polixenes and Camillo; but the emotion is not conveyed to the audience, and the sense of anti-climax is enhanced when the Shepherd, the Clown and Autolycus close the scene with a parody of court conventions. This is deliberate on Shakespeare's part: the emotional climax of the play comes in the final scene, with its totally unexpected resurrection of Hermione. As in Pericles and Cymbeline, the final state of harmony is achieved, the 'heauens directing' (V.iii.150). Hermione singles out Perdita, the Sicilian hope of harmony and regeneration, for her benediction:
You Gods looke downe,
And from your sacred Viols poure your graces
Vpon my daughters head ....
(V.iii.121-123)
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- - - NOTES: CHAPTER SIX - - -
6.49 Bullough, VIII, 118; Pafford, p.xxvii. return
6.50 Ibid., pp.xxviii-xxxiii; Bullough, VIII, 123-125 and 136-125; William Shakespeare, The Winter's Tale, ed. Arthur Quiller-Couch and John Dover Wilson (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1968), pp.xvi-xviii (hereafter cited as N.C. Wint.); Charles Frey, Shakespeare's Vast Romance: A Study of 'The Winter's Tale (Columbia:
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University of Missouri Press, 1980), pp.55-60. return
6.51 The edition cited it that of Bullough, VII, 156. return
6.54 Frey detects conflict and tension even in the opening scene, which he finds extending a welcome 'quiet, kind, yet uneasy and even ominous' (p.119), largely because of the comparison made between Bohemia and Sicilia. I do not think this is Shakespeare's intention, and, as Frey admits, tension here is unlikely to be noticed without the aid of 'costumes, makeup, gesture, movement, setting, lighting' (p.118). return
6.55 Quiller-Couch, Workmanship, p.290. return
6.57 Norman Nathan, 'Leontes' Provocation', Shakespeare Quarterly, 19 (1968), 24. return
6.60 N.C. Wint., p.131. return
6.65 John Ellis, 'Rooted Affection: The Genesis of Jealousy in The Winter's Tale', College English, 25 (1964), 546. return
6.67 The edition cited is that of Winny, p.61. return
6.69 See pp.122-123. return
6.70 Wilson Knight, Crown, p.82. return
6.71 Frey, p.130, has also noted that for Leontes, 'sex has become horribly repulsive', but he associates this specifically with misogyny. return
6.72 The passages I refer to are I.ii.128-135, 186-191 and 205-208. They are quoted in part in the text. return
6.73 Folio has 'I am like you say' in line 208, and F2 inserts the necessary 'they'. return
6.75 Ibid., pp.166-167; N.C. Wint., pp.134-135. return
6.76 O.E.D., II, 1035: 'centre, center ... sb. and a. ... I. ... 2. ellipt. a. The centre of the earth. 138 ... b. The earth itself, as the supposed centre of the universe. 1606'. See also Wilson Knight, Crown, p.82 and Pafford, p.166. Jonson uses the word with the same sense in Volpone's comparison of his gold with bright day,
Strooke out of chaos, when all darknesse fled
Vnto the center.
(Volpone I.i)
(The edition of Volpone cited is the Folio of 1616.) return
6.77 William Butler Yeats, The Collected Poems of W.B. Yeats, 2nd ed. (London: Macmillan, 1978), pp.210-211. return
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6.78 Hermione's 'You speake a Language that I vnderstand not' is reminiscent of the lack of communication at a similarly climactic moment in Love's Labour's Lost: on the news of the death of France, Navarre tactlessly persists in his overtures to the Princess, who responds, 'I vnderstand you not, my greefs are double' (Love's Labour's Lost V.i.744). Such breakdowns signify basic conflicts difficult to resolve because of lack of common ground. [return to note 6.126] return
6.79 Folio has 'Holy-Horse' in line 276; Rowe's emendation is certainly correct. See Pafford, pp.20-21 col. and n. return
6.80 R.G. Howarth, A.G. Woodward and J.L. Bowers, Shakespeare at 400: A Series of Public Lectures Given in May and June 1964 (Cape Town: Editorial Board of the University of Cape Town, 1965), p.61. return
6.81 Eve Horwitz, '"The truth of your own seeming": Women and Language in The Winter's Tale', Unisa English Studies, 26 (1988), 10. return
6.82 Bullough sees 'a good deal of humour in the altercation' (VIII, 139); but see my following comment on the comic aspect of Paulina. return
6.83 Summers goes even further than Bullough: 'There is no limit to the violence of Leontes' language; but we laugh because the violence has none of its intended effects: no one moves to obey Leontes' orders, and Paulina comically desacralizes the fatal language of royal power and civil judgement by refusing to take it seriously' (Joseph Summers, Dreams of Love and Power: On Shakespeare's Plays (Oxford: Clarendon, 1984), p.32). I agree that we are amused by Paulina's shrewishness, but not to the extent of laughter: we are intrigued by her power over Leontes and Antigonus - her open defiance - and we find it diverting that this is attributed to her character as a shrew. If we are moved to laughter by this, the producer is to be blamed, not Shakespeare. Professor Ferguson adds that the courtiers may register 'silent disapproval' of Leontes' reaction to Paulina's criticism, a matter for the producer to decide. return
6.85 I.ii.122, 128-135, 153-160 and 208. return
6.86 Bullough, VIII, 160 and 171. return
6.87 Folio has an inverted 'r' in 'strike'. return
6.88 Leontes is impressed by Perdita's beauty, but this must not be misconstrued as sexual attraction; neither should the following lines (probably inspired by Pandosto), which are meant to be comic:
[ Flo.]
My Father will graunt precious things, as Trifles.
Leo.
Would he doe so, I'ld beg your precious Mistris,
Which he counts but a Trifle.
(V.i.221-223) return
6.89 Quiller-Couch, Workmanship, p.292. return
6.91 Dennis Biggins, '"Exit pursued by a Beare": A Problem in The Winter's Tale', Shakespeare Quarterly, 13 (1962), 3. return
6.92 Hunter, Comedy, p.196; Tillyard, Last Plays, pp.77-78; Wilson Knight, Crown, p.98; Bullough, VIII, 141; Biggins, p.13; and Andrew Gurr, 'The Bear, the Statue, and Hysteria in The Winter's Tale', Shakespeare Quarterly, 34 (1983), 424. return
6.93 Hunter, Comedy, p.196. return
6.95 Wilson Knight, Crown, p.98. return
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6.96 Bullough, VIII, 141. return
6.98 Of the fifty-five references to bears in Shakespeare listed by Spevack (pp.94-96), only one does not associate the bear directly or indirectly, seriously or humorously, with savageness and ferocity:
... he loues to heare,
That Vnicornes may be betray'd with Trees,
And Beares with Glasses ....
(Julius Caesar II.i.203-205) return
6.99 Biggins, p.8, finds other references to Antigonus' death as far back as II.iii. return
6.100 Bullough, VIII, 141; Pafford, p.69 n.; and Biggins, p.12, have all remarked, apparently independently, on the use of bears as 'instruments of divine retribution' (Biggins' words, loc.cit.) in the story of Elisha, 2 Kings 2:23-24. return
6.102 Wilson Knight, Crown, p.98. return
6.103 Tillyard, Last Plays, pp.76-78. return
6.106 Pafford, p.100 n. return
6.107 Quiller-Couch, Workmanship, pp.293-294. Quiller-Couch's point is that Autolycus is not essential to the main plot. He overlooks the fact that Autolycus helps in the absconding of Florizel and Perdita to Sicilia, but it could be argued that he is not essential there either. return
6.108 Horwitz has observed the similarity between Perdita's floral ceremony and Ophelia's use of flowers in Hamlet, but notes that 'There is none of the destructive ambiguity that undermines Ophelia's use of the same flower symbolism in Denmark's ambivalent court' (p.12). return
6.109 See, for example, Pafford, p.94 n.; Bullough, VIII, 145 and 154; Wilson Knight, Crown, p.105; and Adrien Bonjour, 'Polixenes and the Winter of His Discontent', English Studies, 50 (1969), 212. return
6.111 Guirand, pp.155-161. return
6.112 Folio has 'acknowledge' in line 420; F2 provides the correct reading. return
Proceed to The Tempest