The Winter’s Tale [Updated]

1/ Jealousy seems to be one of Shakespeare’s obsessions, but if Claudio and Othello are tricked and manipulated by someone else, Leontes’s jealousy is self-generated and seems to come out of nowhere. I feel thrown into the madness. 

“LEONTES [Aside] Too hot, too hot!

To mingle friendship far is mingling bloods. 

I have tremor cordis on me; my heart dances, 

But not for joy, not joy. This entertainment

May a free face put on, derive a liberty

From heartiness, from bounty, fertile bosom, 

And well become the agent—‘t may, I grant; 

But to be paddling palms and pinching fingers,

As now they are, and making practiced smiles

As in a looking glass; and then to sigh, as ‘twere 

The mort o’ th’ deer—oh, that is entertainment

My bosom likes not, nor my brows. Mamillius, 

Art thou my boy?” 

(Act 1 scene 2) 

Where does that come from? He asks his son Mamillius again “you wanton calf/ Art thou my calf?”. According to Tony Tanner, in the source Pandosto, Robert Greene writes about the friend’s visit and the closeness between him and the wife so the suspicion is partly explained, if not justified, but Shakespeare cuts all of it out and throws us into the middle of the madness, emphasising the out-of-nowhereness of Leontes’s jealousy and making it an outburst, an eruption. 

Throughout his career, Shakespeare pushes the theme of jealousy further and further: in Much Ado About Nothing, Claudio (mistakenly) thinks he sees Hero having sex with a man the night before the wedding; in Othello, Othello doesn’t see any act, any inappropriate behaviour, all he has is Iago’s words and the handkerchief as proof; and now in this late play The Winter’s Tale, there is nothing, no Iago, no Don John, nothing, and Leontes just convinces himself that Hermione cheats on him with his old friend Polixenes and that they plot to kill him, with help from Camillo (Leontes’s lord). 

Look at this conversation between Emilia and Desdemona:

“EMILIA Pray heaven it be

State matters, as you think, and no conception 

Nor no jealous toy concerning you.

DESDEMONA Alas the day! I never gave him cause.

EMILIA But jealous souls will not be answered so;

They are not ever jealous for the cause,

But jealous for they’re jealous. It is a monster

Begot upon itself, born on itself.” 

(Othello, Act 3 scene 4)

I reckon the idea has entered Leontes’s mind before the scene, but it seems to be confirmed to him when Polixenes agrees to stay longer, at Hermione’s entreaties. Tony Tanner says: 

“His next three speeches, and then his soliloquy after Hermione and Polixenes have left to walk in the garden, are among the most extraordinary Shakespeare ever wrote. I know nothing else in literature which so tellingly dramatizes a mind procuring its own unease. At times seeming to talk to his uncomprehending young son, but really talking semi-coherently to himself in what Tillyard called ‘hot and twisted words’, Leontes is diving into the unfathomable depths of self-generate jealousy, the perverse, male, masochistic relish of imagined sexual betrayal which Shakespeare has keenly eyed in previous plays.” (Introduction) 

Interestingly, I note that in fits of jealousy, both Leontes and Othello use very crude language with animal imagery. 

2/ I don’t quite like the phrase “strong woman” because of its ubiquity today and its associations, but Hermione is a strong woman. Look at her reaction when Leontes, for no reason, accuses her of adultery and sends her to prison: 

“HERMIONE […] Good my lords,

I am not prone to weeping, as our sex

Commonly are; the want of which vain dew 

Perchance shall dry your pities. But I have 

That honourable grief lodged here which burns

Worse than tears drown. Beseech you all, my lords, 

With thoughts so qualified as your charities 

Shall best instruct you, measure me; and so 

The King’s will be performed!” 

(Act 2 scene 1) 

She neither cries nor begs, and continues: 

“HERMIONE […] Do not weep, good fools; 

There is no cause; when you shall know your mistress 

Has deserved prison, then abound in tears, 

As I come out; this action I now go on 

Is for my better grace. Adieu, my lord. 

I never wished to see you sorry; now

I trust I shall. My women come, you have leave.” 

(ibid.) 

Compared to Othello, Leontes is much more irrational, he convinces himself of his wife’s infidelity without a shred of evidence and without anyone feeding him such thoughts—in fact, everyone doubts it and believes Hermione, but he listens to nobody. It is terrifying, and it’s even more terrifying because he has much more power than Othello: Leontes is a king. 

That makes it even more interesting when Paulina (wife of Antigonus, a lord) stands up against Leontes and argues with him. The scene reminds me of Emilia in Othello, but above Othello are the duke and some others, whereas there’s no one above Leontes.  

“LEONTES I’ll ha’ thee burned. 

PAULINA I care not; 

It is an heretic that makes the fire,

Not she which burns in ‘t…” 

(Act 2 scene 3) 

This exchange is funny: 

“LEONTES A gross hag! 

And lozel, thou art worthy to be hanged,

That wilt not stay her tongue.

ANTIGONUS Hang all the husbands

That cannot do that feat, you’ll leave yourself

Hardly one subject.” 

(ibid.) 

To go back to my earlier point about Leontes’s power and tyranny: of course in the play we have the oracle and that solves the case, but I can’t help thinking that Shakespeare is also forcing us to think about what would happen if not for the oracle—Leontes has immense power and listens to nobody, even though everyone is on Hermione’s side and on his side there is nothing.  

3/ Hermione is so dignified at the trial.

“HERMIONE Sir, spare your threats:

The bug which you would fright me with, I seek.

To me can life be no commodity.

[…] Now, my liege,

Tell me, what blessings I have here alive, 

That I should fear to die? Therefore proceed.

But yet hear this—mistake me not: for life,

I prize it not a straw, but for mine honor,

Which I would free—if I shall be condemned

Upon surmises, all proofs sleeping else

But what your jealousies awake, I tell you

‘Tis rigor, and not law. Your honors all, 

I do refer me to the oracle:

Apollo be my judge!” 

(Act 3 scene 2)

Hermione is clearly angry, but she’s so proud and dignified and just admirable. She dominates the trial scene whereas Leontes barely speaks, probably exhausted from lack of sleep. 

Interesting, I note that from the time of the accusation to the time of the character’s death, Shakespeare doesn’t give Mamillius a single line. Mamillius is mostly kept off-stage, and the last time we see him, he’s beginning a winter’s tale. 

4/ At the end of Act 3, Antigonus, unaware of the oracle, follows Leontes’s orders and leaves Perdita, the baby of Leontes and Hermione, in a desert place in Bohemia. Antigonus himself is eaten by a bear (yep, that’s him, “exit, pursued by a bear”), but the baby is saved and brought up by a shepherd. 

16 years later, in Act 4, Perdita and Florizel are in love, and he is the son of Polixenes. Having some suspicions, Polixenes, together with Camillo, appears in disguise among the shepherds and shepherdesses to see what his son is up to. Florizel, under the name Doricles, has been courting Perdita and now wants to marry her without the slightest intention of telling his own father. In anger, Polixenes removes his own disguise, and wants to punish them all—he wants to disinherit Florizel, execute the shepherd, and destroy Perdita’s looks. 

Here’s a moving speech from the shepherd: 

“SHEPHERD […] You have undone a man of fourscore three,

That thought to fill his grave in quiet, yea,

To die upon the bed my father died,

To lie close by his honest bones; but now

Some hangman must put on my shroud, and lay me

Where no priest shovels in dust…” 

(Act 4 scene 4) 

What a speech. 

Whilst Polixenes’s disapproval and anger is understandable, his reaction, or rather eruption, makes me think that he and Leontes are not that different: they are hot-tempered and tyrannical and immature. Camillo is more sensible. 

5/ Hermione and Paulina must be among Shakespeare’s greatest female characters. But if Hermione has a source (Bellaria in Robert Greene’s story), Paulina is Shakespeare’s creation. Tony Tanner says: 

“She is the deliberately tactless and abrasive of accusation and reproach and even ‘vengeance’. […] Paulina effectively stands in for the Queen during her long absence.” (Introduction) 

She is “the uncompromising voice of conscience and the sleepless guardian of memory”, whilst the male lords encourage him to marry again and get an heir. 

Regarding Perdita, Tony Tanner notes and I agree that her most important quality seems to be her beauty—“she has none of the wit and sparkle and intelligence of Beatrice, Viola and Rosalind”. 

Interestingly, if you wonder why Shakespeare switches the two places Sicily and Bohemia (it’s the opposite in the source), Tony Tanner’s guess is that Shakespeare probably wants to reinforce the Perdita-Proserpina comparison. Proserpina’s born and abducted in Sicily. 

6/ The first 3 acts of the play are intense psychological drama, then in the last 2 acts, it changes to pastoral mode. 16 years have passed. To steal from Himadri of Argumentative Old Git, “An irrational wave of terror sweeps through, destroying all in its path, till it subsides as mysteriously as it had appeared” and “It's as if Othello has suddenly become As You Like It”. 

To me, it seems that Shakespeare revisits the main theme of Othello and wants to go beyond the tragic: The Winter’s Tale is almost like Othello with both the jealous man and the accused woman surviving, Othello with repentance, atonement, and reconciliation, Othello with a “happy ending”. The final scene is magnificent—whether you read it in the realistic way or the fairy tale way, it is a vision of resurrection. The joy is subdued however—Hermione addresses her speech to only Perdita, Mamillius is still dead, the 16 years cannot be restored, the suffering and the sorrow cannot be undone, and I don’t think the relationships can be the same as before. 

This is a magnificent play, and you should also read Tony Tanner’s essay, especially for his commentary on Paulina and the final scene. 

Update on 25/1/2022: I sometimes wondered what’s the point of Autolycus. Scott Newstok wrote something I found interesting, in How to Think Like Shakespeare: Lessons from a Renaissance Education. 

You know about Robert Greene, who called Shakespeare an upstart crow? 

“… for there is an upstart Crow, beautified with our feathers, that with his Tygers hart wrapt in a Players hyde, supposes he is as well able to bombast out a blanke verse as the best of you: and being an absolute Johannes fac totum, is in his owne conceit the onely Shake-scene in a countrey.” (source) 

Later in his career, Shakespeare based The Winter’s Tale on Robert Greene’s Pandosto, then added the character of an unrepentant thief. 

As a joke.