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The Winter's Tale

by William Shakespeare

King Leontes becomes convinced — without evidence — that his wife is cheating. He destroys his marriage and his family before he realizes what he's done. Sixteen years later, the play moves to a pastoral world, a sheep-shearing feast, and the most famous stage direction in literature: Exit, pursued by a bear.

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Chapters
  1. Chapter 1Act 1, Scene 1 — Sicilia. An Antechamber in Leontes’ Palace
  2. Chapter 2Act 1, Scene 2 — The same. A Room of State in the Palace
  3. Chapter 3Act 2, Scene 1 — Sicilia. A Room in the Palace
  4. Chapter 4Act 2, Scene 2 — The same. The outer Room of a Prison
  5. Chapter 5Act 2, Scene 3 — The same. A Room in the Palace
  6. Chapter 6Act 3, Scene 1 — Sicilia. A Street in some Town
  7. Chapter 7Act 3, Scene 2 — The same. A Court of Justice
  8. Chapter 8Act 3, Scene 3 — Bohemia. A desert Country near the Sea
  9. Chapter 9Act 4, Scene 1
  10. Chapter 10Act 4, Scene 2 — Bohemia. A Room in the palace of Polixenes
  11. Chapter 11Act 4, Scene 3 — The same. A Road near the Shepherd’s cottage
  12. Chapter 12Act 4, Scene 4 — The same. A Shepherd’s Cottage
  13. Chapter 13Act 5, Scene 1 — Sicilia. A Room in the palace of Leontes
  14. Chapter 14Act 5, Scene 2 — The same. Before the Palace
  15. Chapter 15Act 5, Scene 3 — The same. A Room in Paulina’s house

Act 1, Scene 1 — Sicilia. An 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._]