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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 Mamillius, 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.
Florizel's frequent absences from court alarmed Polixenes; and setting people to watch his son, he discovered his love for the shepherd's fair daughter. Polixenes then called for Camillo, the faithful Camillo, who had preserved his life from the fury of Leontes, and desired that he would accompany him to the house of the shepherd, the supposed father of Perdita.
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.
Polixenes then reproached his son for daring to contract himself to this low-born maiden, calling Perdita "shepherd's brat, sheep-hook," and other disrespectful names, and threatening if ever she suffered his son to see her again, he would put her, and the old shepherd her father, to a cruel death. The king then left them in great wrath, and ordered Camillo to follow him with Prince Florizel.
The next action of the king was to summon Hermione to be tried for having loved Polixenes too well.
Perdita's way of speaking charmed him much it seemed something very different to the speech of a shepherd's daughter; and, turning to Camillo, Polixenes said: "Nothing she does or seems But tastes of something greater than her self, Too noble for this place." Then he spoke to the old shepherd, asking the name of the youth who talked to his daughter.
Leontes, king of Sicily, and his queen, the beautiful and virtuous Hermione, once lived in the greatest harmony together. So happy was Leontes in the love of this excellent lady, that he had no wish ungratified, except that he sometimes desired to see again, and to present to his queen, his old companion and school-fellow, Polixenes, king of Bohemia.
The little Perdita grew up a lovely maiden; and though she had no better education than that of a shepherd's daughter, yet so did the natural graces she inherited from her royal mother shine forth in her untutored mind, that no one from her behaviour would have known she had not been brought up in her father's court. Polixenes, the king of Bohemia, had an only son, whose name was Florizel.
Leontes of Sicily, and Hermione, his lovely queen, lived together in the greatest harmony a harmony and happiness so perfect that the king said he had no wish left to gratify excepting the desire to see his old companion Polixenes, and present him to the friendship of his wife.
Polixenes took a part in the general joy; he forgave his friend Leontes the unjust jealousy he had conceived against him, and they once more loved each other with all the warmth of their first boyish friendship. And there was no fear that Polixenes would now oppose his son's marriage with Perdita. She was no "sheep-hook" now, but the heiress of the crown of Sicily.
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