The Winter's Tale
Winter's Tale, The,a play by Shakespeare written 1610 or 1611 , in which year it was performed at the Globe (recorded by Forman ). It was one of the plays put on to celebrate the marriage of Princess Elizabeth and the elector palatine in 1612 – 13 and was first printed in the folio of 1623 where it is the last play in the section of comedies. Its main source is Greene's Pandosto .
Leontes, king of Sicily, and Hermione, his virtuous wife, are visited by Leontes's childhood friend Polixenes, king of Bohemia. Leontes presently convinces himself that Hermione and Polixenes are lovers, attempts to procure the death of the latter by poison, and on his escape imprisons Hermione, who in prison gives birth to a daughter. Paulina, wife of Antigonus, a Sicilian lord, tries to move the king's compassion by bringing the baby to him, but in vain. He orders Antigonus to leave the child on a desert shore to perish. He...
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