صور الصفحة
PDF
النشر الإلكتروني
[graphic][subsumed][merged small][merged small]

INTRODUCTORY REMARKS.

We have no edition of the 'Winter's Tale' prior to that of the folio of 1623; nor was it entered upon the registers of the Stationers' Company previous to the entry by the proprietors of the folio. The original text, which is divided into acts and scenes, is remarkably correct.

The novel of Robert Greene, called 'Pandosto,' which Shakspere undoubtedly followed, with very few important deviations, in the construction of the plot of his 'Winter's Tale,' was a work of extraordinary popularity, there being fourteen editions known to exist. "In the country of Bohemia," says the novel, "there reigned a king called Pandosto." The Leontes of Shakspere is the Pandosto of Greene. The Polixenes of the play is Egistus in the novel :-"It so happened that Egistus, King of Sicilia, who in his youth had been brought up with Pandosto, desirous to show that neither tract of time nor distance of place could diminish their former friendship, provided a navy of ships and sailed into Bohemia to visit his old friend and companion." Here, then, we have the scene of the action reversed. The jealous king is of Bohemia-his injured friend of Sicilia. But the visitor sails into Bohemia. The most accomplished scholars of Shakspere's period purposely committed such apparent violations of propriety, when dealing with the legendary and romantic. The wife of Pandosto is Bellaria; and they have a young son called Garinter. Pandosto becomes jealous, slowly, and by degrees; and there is at least some want of caution in the queen to justify it. The great author of 'Othello' would not deal with jealousy after this fashion. He had already produced that immortal portrait

"Of one, not easily jealous, but, being wrought, Perplex'd in the extreme."

He had now to exhibit the distractions of a mind to which jealousy was native; to depict the terrible access of passion, uprooting in a moment all deliberation, all reason, all gentleness. The instant the idea enters the mind of Leontes the passion is at its height. The action of the novel and that of the

| drama continue in a pretty equal course. Pandosto tampers with his cupbearer, Franion, to poison Egistus; and the cupbearer, terrified at the fearful commission, reveals the design to the object of his master's hatred. Eventually they escape together. Bellaria is committed to prison, where she gives birth to a daughter. The guard "carried the child to the king, who, quite devoid of pity, commanded that without delay it should be put in the boat, having neither sail nor rudder to guide it, and so to be carried into the midst of the sea, and there left to the wind and wave as the destinies please to appoint.” The queen appeals to the oracle of Apollo; and certain lords are sent to Delphos, where they receive this decree:-"Suspicion is no proof: jealousy is an unequal judge : Bellaria is chaste; Egistus blameless: Franion a true subject; Pandosto treacherous: his babe innocent; and the king shall live without an heir, if that which is lost be not found." On their return, upon an appointed day, the queen was "brought in before the judgmentseat." Shakspere has followed a part of the tragical ending of this scene; but he preserves his injured Hermione, to be re-united to her daughter after years of solitude and suffering.

The story of the preservation of the deserted infant is prettily told in the novel. The infant is taken to the shepherd's home, and is brought up by his wife and himself under the name of Fawnia. In a narrative the lapse of sixteen years may occur without any violation of propriety. The changes are gradual. But in a drama, whose action depends upon a manifest lapse of time, there must be a sudden transition. Shakspere is perfectly aware of the difficulty; and he diminishes it by the introduction of Time as a Chorus :

"Impute it not a crime
To me, or my swift passage, that I slide
O'er sixteen years, and leave the growth untried
Of that wide gap; since it is in my power
To o'erthrow law, and in one self-born hour
To plant and o'erwhelm custom."

Shakspere has exhibited his consummate art in opening the fourth Act with Polixenes

and Camillo, of whom we have lost sight | ruption by the father of the princely lover since the end of the first. Had it been in the disguise of a guest at the shepotherwise, had he brought Autolycus, and herd's cottage. Dorastus and Fawnia flee Florizel, and Perdita, at once upon the scene, from the country without the knowledge of -the continuity of action would have been the king. The ship in which they embark destroyed; and the commencement of the is thrown by a storm upon the coast of Bofourth Act would have appeared as the com- hemia. Messengers are despatched in search mencement of a new play. Shakspere made of the lovers; and they arrive in Bohemia the difficulties of his plot bend to his art; with the request of Egistus that the cominstead of wanting art, as Ben Jonson says. panions in the flight of Dorastus shall be Autolycus and the Clown prepare us for put to death. The secret of Fawnia's birth Perdita; and when the third scene opens, is discovered by the shepherd; and her what a beautiful vision lights upon this father recognises her. But the previous cirearth! There perhaps never was such a cumstances exhibit as much grossness of conunion of perfect simplicity and perfect grace ception on the part of the novelist, as the as in the character of Perdita. What an different management of the catastrophe exquisite idea of her mere personal appear- shows the matchless skill and taste of the ance is presented in Florizel's rapturous ex- dramatist. We forgive Leontes for his early clamation,folly and wickedness; for during sixteen years has his remorse been bitter and his affection constant.

"When you do dance, I wish you A wave o' the sea, that you might ever do Nothing but that."

In the novel we have no trace of the inter

[graphic][subsumed][merged small][merged small][merged small]

PERSONS REPRESENTED.

LEONTES, King of Sicilia.

Appears, Act I. sc. 2. Act II. sc. 1; sc. 3. Act III. sc. 2.

Act V. sc. 1; sc. 3.

MAMILLIUS, son to Leontes.
Appears, Act I. sc. 2. Act II. sc. 1.

CAMILLO, a Sicilian lord.

Appears, Act I. sc. 1; sc. 2. Act IV. sc. 1; sc. 3.
Act V. sc. 3.

ANTIGONUS, a Sicilian lord.
Appears, Act II. sc. 1; sc. 3. Act III. sc. 3.

CLEOMENES, a Sicilian lord.
Appears, Act III. sc. 1; sc. 2. Act V. sc. 1.
DION, a Sicilian lord.

Appears, Act III. sc. 1; sc. 2. Act V. sc. 1.
A Sicilian Lord.

Appears, Act II. sc. 1; sc. 3. Act III. sc. 2.
ROGERO, a Sicilian gentleman.
Appears, Act V. sc. 1.

An Attendant on the young Prince Ma

millius.

Appears, Act II. sc. 3.

Officers of a Court of Judicature.
Appear, Act III. sc. 2.

POLIXENES, King of Bohemia.

Appears, Act I. sc. 2. Act IV. sc. 1; sc. 3. Act V. sc. 3.
FLORIZEL, 8on to Polixenes.

Appears, Act IV. sc. 3. Act V. sc. 1; sc. 3.
ARCHIDAMUS, a Bohemian lord.

Appears, Act I. sc. 1.

A Mariner.

Appears, Act III. sc. 3.

Gaoler.

Appears, Act II. sc. 2.

An old Shepherd, reputed father of Perdita.
Appears, Act III. sc. 3. Act IV. sc. 3. Act V. sc. 2.
Clown, son to the old Shepherd.
Appears, Act III. sc. 3. Act IV. sc. 2; sc. 3. Act V. sc. 2.
AUTOLYCUS, a rogue.

Appears, Act IV. sc. 2; sc. 3. Act V. sc. 2.
Time, as Chorus.

Appears, Act IV.

HERMIONE, Queen to Leontes.

Appears, Act I. sc. 2. Act II. sc. 1. Act III. sc. 2. Act V. sc. 3.

PERDITA, daughter to Leontes and Her

mione.

Appears, Act IV. sc. 3. Act V. sc. 1; sc. 3.

PAULINA, wife to Antigonus.
Appears, Act II. sc. 2; sc. 3. Act III. sc. 2. Act IV. sc. 1.
Act V. sc. 3.

EMILIA, a lady attending on the Queen.
Appears, Act II. sc. 2.

Two Ladies attending on the Queen.

Appear, Act II. sc. 1.
MOPSA, a shepherdess.

Appears, Act IV. sc. 3.
DORCAS, a shepherdess.

Appears, Act IV. sc. 3.

Lords, Ladies, and Attendants; Satyrs for a Dance; Shepherds, Shepherdesses, Guards, &c.

SCENE,- -SOMETIMES IN SICILIA; SOMETIMES IN BOHEMIA.

« السابقةمتابعة »