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    The Winter’s Tale
    The Winter’s Tale
    The Winter’s Tale
    Ebook164 pages1 hour

    The Winter’s Tale

    By William Shakespeare

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    About this ebook

    William Shakespeare is widely considered to have been the greatest writer in the English language and the world’s greatest dramatist.  More than 400 years after Shakespeare’s death, his plays are still performed more than any other playwright and have been translated into every major language in the world.  This edition of The Winter's Tale includes a table of contents.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherCharles River Editors
    Release dateMar 22, 2018
    ISBN9781537803289
    Author

    William Shakespeare

    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.

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      Book preview

      The Winter’s Tale - William Shakespeare

      THE WINTER’S TALE

      ..................

      William Shakespeare

      KYPROS PRESS

      Thank you for reading. If you enjoy this book, please leave a review or connect with the author.

      All rights reserved. Aside from brief quotations for media coverage and reviews, no part of this book may be reproduced or distributed in any form without the author’s permission. Thank you for supporting authors and a diverse, creative culture by purchasing this book and complying with copyright laws.

      Copyright © 2016 by William Shakespeare

      Interior design by Pronoun

      Distribution by Pronoun

      TABLE OF CONTENTS

      The Winter’s Tale

      Dramatis Personae

      Scene: Sometimes in Sicilia; sometimes in Bohemia.

      ACT I.

      SCENE I. Sicilia. An Antechamber in LEONTES’ Palace.

      SCENE II. The same. A Room of State in the Palace.

      ACT II.

      SCENE I. Sicilia. A Room in the Palace.

      SCENE II. The same. The outer Room of a Prison.

      SCENE III. The same. A Room in the Palace.

      ACT III.

      SCENE I. Sicilia. A Street in some Town.

      SCENE II. The same. A Court of Justice.

      SCENE III. Bohemia. A desert Country near the Sea.

      ACT IV.

      SCENE I.

      SCENE II. Bohemia. A Room in the palace of POLIXENES.

      SCENE III. The same. A Road near the Shepherd’s cottage.

      SCENE IV. The same. A Shepherd’s Cottage.

      ACT V.

      SCENE I. Sicilia. A Room in the palace of LEONTES.

      SCENE II. The same. Before the Palace.

      SCENE III. The same. A Room in PAULINA’s house.

      THE WINTER’S TALE

      ..................

      DRAMATIS PERSONAE

      ..................

      LEONTES, King of Sicilia

      MAMILLIUS, his son

      CAMILLO, Sicilian Lord

      ANTIGONUS, Sicilian Lord

      CLEOMENES, Sicilian Lord

      DION, Sicilian Lord

      POLIXENES, King of Bohemia

      FLORIZEL, his son

      ARCHIDAMUS, a Bohemian Lord

      An Old Shepherd, reputed father of Perdita

      CLOWN, his son

      AUTOLYCUS, a rogue

      A Mariner

      Gaoler

      Servant to the Old Shepherd

      Other Sicilian Lords

      Sicilian Gentlemen

      Officers of a Court of Judicature

      HERMIONE, Queen to Leontes

      PERDITA, daughter to Leontes and Hermione

      PAULINA, wife to Antigonus

      EMILIA, a lady attending on the Queen

      MOPSA, shepherdess

      DORCAS, shepherdess

      Other Ladies, attending on the Queen

      Lords, Ladies, and Attendants; Satyrs

      for a Dance; Shepherds,

      Shepherdesses, Guards, &c.

      TIME, as Chorus

      SCENE: SOMETIMES IN SICILIA; SOMETIMES IN BOHEMIA.

      ..................

      ACT I.

      ..................

      SCENE I. 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 overkind 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.]

      SCENE II. THE SAME. A ROOM OF STATE IN THE PALACE.

      ..................

      [Enter LEONTES, POLIXENES, HERMIONE, MAMILLIUS, CAMILLO, and Attendants.]

      POLIXENES

      Nine changes of the watery star hath been

      The shepherd’s note since we have left our throne

      Without a burden: time as long again

      Would be fill’d up, my brother, with our thanks;

      And yet we should, for perpetuity,

      Go hence in debt: and therefore, like a cipher,

      Yet standing in rich place, I multiply

      With one we-thank-you many thousands more

      That go before it.

      LEONTES

      Stay your thanks a while,

      And pay them when you part.

      POLIXENES

      Sir, that’s to-morrow.

      I am question’d by my fears, of what may chance

      Or breed upon our absence; that may blow

      No sneaping winds at home, to make us say,

      ‘This is put forth too truly.’ Besides, I have stay’d

      To tire your royalty.

      LEONTES

      We are tougher, brother,

      Than you can put us to’t.

      POLIXENES

      No longer stay.

      LEONTES

      One seven-night longer.

      POLIXENES

      Very sooth, to-morrow.

      LEONTES

      We’ll part the time between ‘s then: and in that

      I’ll no gainsaying.

      POLIXENES

      Press me not, beseech you, so,

      There is no tongue that moves, none, none i’ the world,

      So soon as yours, could win me: so it should now,

      Were there necessity in your request, although

      ‘Twere needful I denied it. My affairs

      Do even drag me homeward: which to hinder,

      Were, in your love a whip to me; my stay

      To you a charge and trouble: to save both,

      Farewell, our brother.

      LEONTES

      Tongue-tied, our queen? Speak you.

      HERMIONE

      I had thought, sir, to have held my peace until

      You had drawn oaths from him not to stay. You, sir,

      Charge him too coldly. Tell him you are sure

      All in Bohemia’s well: this satisfaction

      The by-gone day proclaimed: say this to him,

      He’s beat from his best ward.

      LEONTES

      Well said, Hermione.

      HERMIONE

      To tell he longs to see his son were strong:

      But let him say so then, and let him go;

      But let him swear so, and he shall not stay,

      We’ll thwack him hence with distaffs.—

      [To POLIXENES]

      Yet of your royal presence I’ll adventure

      The borrow of a week. When at Bohemia

      You take my lord, I’ll give him my commission

      To let him there a month behind the gest

      Prefix’d for’s parting:—yet, good deed, Leontes,

      I love thee not a jar of the clock behind

      What lady she her lord.—You’ll stay?

      POLIXENES

      No, madam.

      HERMIONE

      Nay, but you will?

      POLIXENES

      I may not, verily.

      HERMIONE

      Verily!

      You put me off with limber vows; but I,

      Though you would seek to unsphere the stars with oaths,

      Should yet say ‘Sir, no going.’ Verily,

      You shall not go; a lady’s verily is

      As potent as a lord’s. Will go yet?

      Force me to keep you as a prisoner,

      Not like a guest: so you shall pay your fees

      When you depart, and save your thanks. How say you?

      My prisoner or my guest? by your dread ‘verily,’

      One of them you shall be.

      POLIXENES

      Your guest, then, madam:

      To be your prisoner should import offending;

      Which is for me less easy to commit

      Than you to punish.

      HERMIONE

      Not your gaoler then,

      But your kind

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