II. The Winter’s Tale

“The Winter’s Tale” is a play in two parts: one light, pastoral, and filled with loving reconciliation; one dark, tragic, and psychologically brutal.

In the first part, the King of Sicilia is in a murderous rage because he suspects that his pregnant wife, the queen, is fooling around with his best friend. Everyone tries to tell him that nothing’s going on.

Is whispering nothing?

He replies.

Is leaning cheek to cheek? is meeting noses?
Kissing with inside lip? stopping the career
Of laughter with a sigh? – a note infallible
Of breaking honesty; – horsing foot on foot?
Skulking in corners? wishing clocks more swift?
Hours, minutes? Noon, midnight? and all eyes
Blind with the pin and web but theirs, theirs only,
That would unseen be wicked? is this nothing?
Why, then the world and all that’s in ‘t is nothing;
The covering sky is nothing; …
My wife is nothing; nor nothing have these nothings,
If this be nothing.

But yeah, it’s nothing, literally nothing is going on, the queen is innocent and the king is completely delusional and paranoid, it’s nothing. Nevertheless, the queen is imprisoned; she goes into early labor, and the king orders the infant princess to be abandoned in the wilderness; soon after, the queen is reported to have died of grief.

Then the story jumps sixteen years into the future, where we find ourselves in the Bohemian countryside!

When daffodils begin to peer,
With heigh! The doxy over the dale,
Why, then comes in the sweet o' the year;
For the red blood reigns in the winter's pale.

The white sheet bleaching on the hedge,
With heigh! the sweet birds, O, how they sing!
Doth set my pugging tooth on edge;
For a quart of ale is a dish for a king.

A young prince has fallen in love with a shepherdess. But this is no ordinary shepherdess: this is the mad king’s daughter, who was abandoned sixteen years ago as a baby! The young lovers run away together, to the very kingdom the girl was born in. There, the mad king has grown repentant, and now rejoices to see his long-lost daughter. He takes her to see a statue of her dead mother, the queen. But wait – the statue is moving – it breathes – it is alive! The queen lives! She embraces her husband and daughter. The prince and princess are married, and all is well throughout the kingdom.

When daffodils begin to peer,
With heigh! The doxy over the dale,
Why, then comes in the sweet o' the year;
For the red blood reigns in the winter's pale.

The white sheet bleaching on the hedge,
With heigh! the sweet birds, O, how they sing!
Doth set my pugging tooth on edge;
For a quart of ale is a dish for a king.

But here’s the thing: if the queen was alive that whole time, what was she doing for sixteen years? How has she been living? As an exile in her own country, her husband deranged, her child lost, her life shattered? She doesn’t have any lines at the end of the play. We never get those years filled in. We just get – the happy ending.

When daffodils begin to peer,
With heigh!...
For the red blood reigns in the winter's pale.

The white sheet bleaching on the hedge,
With heigh!...
For a quart of ale is a dish for a king.

When daffodils begin to peer,
With heigh! The doxy over the dale,
Why, then comes
the blood
The white sheet bleaching on the hedge,
With heigh! the sweet birds sing
on

daffodils over-
come
in the winter's pale.

The white sheet bleaching on the hedge,
O
my
king.

begin
the
years

on
they
set

a
foe
comes
in winter

how
doth my
king?

Over, then over, then over
My blood singing for my sweet birds.
Why?

Winter’s bleaching tooth reigns.
Why? How?

The king, the king, the sweet king
Comes to the bloody edge.
My winters begin.
Heigh, heigh, my king.



- Indented text by William Shakespeare, from The Winter’s Tale, abr./adapt. Soper. Other text by Kate Soper.