Posthumus. This was never wrought
out. The play advances and halts. As in all unfinished works of art one
sees in it something fine trying to get free but failing.

The lyric "Fear no more the heat o' the sun" is the most lovely thing in
the play. The most powerful moment is that which exposes the poisoning
of a generous mind by false report. Posthumus believes Iachimo's lie and
breaks out railing against women.

"For there's no motion
That tends to vice in man but I affirm
It is the woman's part."

Noble instants are marked in the lines--

"Be not, as in our fangled world, a garment
Nobler than that it covers,"

and in the symbol of the eagle--

"the Roman eagle,
From south to west on wing soaring aloft,
Lessen'd herself and in the beams o' the sun
So vanished."

_The Winter's Tale._

_Written._ 1610-11.

_Published_, in the first folio, 1623.

_Source of the Plot._ The story appears in Robert Greene's romance
of _Pandosto_. Shakespeare greatly improves the fable by completing
it. Greene ends it. Greene makes the story an accident with an
unhappy end. Shakespeare makes it a vision of the working of fate
with the tools of human passion.

_The Fable._ Leontes, King of Sicilia, suspecting that his wife
Hermione is guilty of adultery with Polixenes, King of Bohemia,
tries her on that count. He causes her daughter to be carried to a
desert place and there exposed.

The oracle of Apollo declares to him that Hermione is innocent,
that he himself is a jealous tyrant, and that he will die without
an heir should he fail to recover the daughter lost. The truth of
the oracle is confirmed by the (apparent) death of Hermione and the
real death of Mamillius, his son. Repenting bitterly of his
obsession of jealousy he goes into mourning.

The little daughter is found by country people who nourish and
cherish her. She grows up to beautiful and gracious girlhood.
Florizel, the son of Polixenes, falls in love with her, and seeks
to marry her without his father's knowledge. Being discovered by
Polixenes, he flies with her to the sea. Taking ship, the couple
come to Leontes' court, where it is proved that the girl is the
lost princess. She is married to Florizel. Leontes is reconciled to
Polixenes. Hermione completes the ge