s
clear. The repentant King then besought his nobles to intercede with
the Queen in his behalf, at the same time confessing how he had tried
to compass the death of Egistus; and while he was doing this word came
that the young Prince was suddenly dead; at the hearing of which the
Queen fell down, and could never be revived: the King also sank down
senseless, and lay in that state three days; and there was nothing but
mourning in Bohemia. Upon reviving, the King was so frenzied with
grief and remorse that he would have killed himself, but that his
peers being present stayed his hand, entreating him to spare his life
for the people's sake. He had the Queen and Prince very richly and
piously entombed; and from that time repaired daily to the tomb to
bewail his loss.

Up to this point, the play, so far as the mere incidents are
concerned, is little else than a dramatized version of the tale:
henceforth the former diverges more widely from the latter, though
many of the incidents are still the same in both.

The boat with its innocent freight was carried by wind and tide to the
coast of Sicilia, where it stuck in the sand. A poor shepherd, missing
one of his sheep, wandered to the seaside in search of it. As he was
about to return he heard a cry, and, there being no house near, he
thought it might be the bleating of his sheep; and going to look more
narrowly he spied a little boat from which the cry seemed to come.
Wondering what it might be, he waded to the boat, and found the babe
lying there ready to die of cold and hunger, wrapped in an embroidered
mantle, and having a chain about the neck. Touched with pity he took
the infant in his arms, and as he was fixing the mantle there fell at
his feet a very fair rich purse containing a great sum of gold. To
secure the benefit of this wealth, he carried the babe home as
secretly as he could, and gave her in charge to his wife, telling her
the process of the discovery. The shepherd's name was Porrus, his
wife's Mopsa; the precious foundling they named Fawnia. Being
themselves childless, they brought her up tenderly as their own
daughter. With the gold Porrus bought a farm and a flock of sheep,
which Fawnia at the age of ten was set to watch; and, as she was
likely to be his only heir, many rich farmers' sons came to his house
as wooers; for she was of singular beauty and excellent wit, and at
sixteen grew to such perfection of mind and person that her praises
were spoken at th