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Updated: June 24, 2025
When Leontes heard that Perdita was his daughter, the great sorrow that he felt that Hermione was not living to behold her child, made him that he could say nothing for a long time, but 'O thy mother, thy mother!
Already he had had recourse to an oracle; and the answer, sealed up, was brought into court and opened in the presence of the much-injured queen: "Hermione is innocent; Polixenes blameless; Camillo a true subject; Leontes a jealous tyrant; and the king shall live without an heir, if that which is lost be not found."
He therefore proposed to Florizel and Perdita that they should accompany him to the Sicilian court, where he would engage Leontes should protect them till, through his mediation, they could obtain pardon from Polixenes and his consent to their marriage.
Upon this, although Leontes had so long known the integrity and honourable principles of his friend Polixenes, as well as the excellent disposition of his virtuous queen, he was seized with an ungovernable jealousy.
The old shepherd was allowed to be of the party, and he took with him the clothes and jewels which had been found with Perdita, and also the paper on which her name had been written. On their arrival, Leontes received Camillo with kindness, and welcomed Prince Florizel; but it was Perdita who engrossed all his thoughts.
When Polixenes first missed his son and Camillo, knowing that Camillo had long wished to return to Sicily, he conjectured he should find the fugitives here; and, following them with all speed, he happened to arrive just at this, the happiest moment of Leontes' life.
At this, Leontes was still more angry and, rushing to the room where his wife was engaged with her little son Mamillius took the child away, and ordered poor Hermione to prison.
The flight of Polixenes enraged the jealous Leontes still more; he went to the queen's apartment, where the good lady was sitting with her little son Mamillus, who was just beginning to tell one of his best stories to amuse his mother, when the king entered, and taking the child away, sent Hermione to prison.
But Perdita, whom Florizel introduced as his princess, seemed to engross all Leontes' attention: perceiving a resemblance between her and his dead queen Hermione, his grief broke out afresh, and he said, such a lovely creature might his own daughter have been, if he had not so cruelly destroyed her.
But he had not patience to wait till they came back, and so it happened that they arrived in the middle of the trial. The Oracle said "Hermione is innocent, Polixenes blameless, Camillo a true subject, Leontes a jealous tyrant, and the King shall live without an heir, if that which is lost be not found." Then a man came and told them that the little Prince was dead.
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