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About the Author ---------------- William Shakespeare was born in April 1564 in the town of Stratford-upon-Avon, on England’s Avon River. When he was eighteen, he married Anne Hathaway. The couple had three children—an older daughter Susanna and twins, Judith and Hamnet. Hamnet, Shakespeare’s only son, died in childhood. The bulk of Shakespeare’s working life was spent in the theater world of London, where he established himself professionally by the early 1590s. He enjoyed success not only as a playwright and poet, but also as an actor and shareholder in an acting company. Although some think that sometime between 1610 and 1613 Shakespeare retired from the theater and returned home to Stratford, where he died in 1616, others believe that he may have continued to work in London until close to his death. Barbara A. Mowat is Director of Research emerita at the Folger Shakespeare Library, Consulting Editor of Shakespeare Quarterly, and author of The Dramaturgy of Shakespeare’s Romances and of essays on Shakespeare’s plays and their editing. Paul Werstine is Professor of English at the Graduate School and at King’s University College at Western University. He is a general editor of the New Variorum Shakespeare and author of Early Modern Playhouse Manuscripts and the Editing of Shakespeare and of many papers and articles on the printing and editing of Shakespeare’s plays. Read more ( javascript:void(0) ) Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved. -------------------------------------------------------- Characters In the Play LEONTES, King of SICILIA HERMIONE, Queen of Sicilia MAMILLIUS, their son PERDITA, their daughter POLIXENES, King of BOHEMIA FLORIZELL, his son CAMILLO, a courtier, friend to Leontes and then to Polixenes ANTIGONUS, a Sicilian courtier PAULINA, his wife and lady-in-waiting to Hermione CLEOMENES courtier in Sicilia DION courtier in Sicilia EMILIA, a lady-in-waiting to Hermione SHEPHERD, foster her to Perdita SHEPHERD'S SON AUTOLYCUS, former servant to Florizell, now a rogue ARCHIDAMUS, a Bohemian courtier TIME, as Chorus TWO LADIES attending on Hermione LORDS, SERVANTS, and GENTLEMEN attending on Leontes An OFFICER of the court A MARINER A JAILER MOPSA shepherdess in Bohemia DORCAS shepherdess in Bohemia SERVANT to the Shepherd SHEPHERDS and SHEPHERDESSES Twelve COUNTRYMEN disguised as satyrs ACT 1 Scene 1 Enter Camillo and Archidamus. ARCHIDAMUS If you shall chance, Camillo, to visit Bohemia on the like occasion whereon my services are now on foot, you shall see, as I have said, great difference betwixt our Bohemia and your Sicilia. CAMILLO I think this coming summer the King of Sicilia means to pay Bohemia the visitation which he justly owes him. ARCHIDAMUS Wherein our entertainment shall shame us; we will be justified in our loves. For indeed -- CAMILLO Beseech you -- ARCHIDAMUS Verily, I speak it in the freedom of my knowledge. We cannot with such magnificence -- in so rare -- I know not what to say. We will give you y drinks, that your senses, unintelligent of our insufficience, may, though they cannot praise us, as little accuse us. CAMILLO You pay a great deal too dear for what's given freely. ARCHIDAMUS Believe me, I speak as my understanding instructs me and as mine honesty puts it to utterance. CAMILLO Sicilia cannot show himself over kind to Bohemia. They were trained together in their childhoods, and there rooted betwixt them then such an affection which cannot choose but branch now. Since their more mature dignities and royal necessities made separation of their society, their encounters, though not personal, hath been royally attorneyed with interchange of gifts, letters, loving embassies, that they have seemed to be together though absent, shook hands as over a vast, and embraced as it were from the ends of sed winds. The heavens continue their loves. ARCHIDAMUS I think there is not in the world either malice or matter to alter it. You have an unspeakable comfort of your young Prince Mamillius. It is a gentleman of the greatest promise that ever came into my note. CAMILLO I very well agree with you in the hopes of him. It is a gallant child -- one that indeed physics the subject, makes old hearts fresh. They that went on crutches ere he was born desire yet their life to see him a man. ARCHIDAMUS Would they else be content to die? CAMILLO Yes, if there were no other excuse why they should desire to live. ARCHIDAMUS If the King had no son, they would desire to five on crutches till he had one. They exit. Read more ( javascript:void(0) )