DISCOVERY 



41 



their preservation offers a pleasant field in which to 

 study his methods of composition. 



Greene's story was called Pandoslo, the Triumph of 

 Time, and was published in 158S. In the next century 

 it was renamed by the booksellers, less appropriately, 

 as The Pleasant History of Dorastus and Faicnia. It 

 may be summarised as follows : Egistus, King of 

 Sicily, visits Pandosto, King of Bohemia (a sea-coast 

 country as in Shakespeare's play). Pandosto grows 

 suddenly jealous of his guest and of his own queen 

 Bellaria. Egistus, with the aid of the cup-bearer 

 I'ranion, escapes. But Bellaria, accused by her 

 husband and brought to trial, learns, as a climax to 

 her griefs, of the death of her only son Garinter. and 

 dies in court. Meanwhile, her new-born daughter 

 Fawnia. set adrift upon the sea, has been carried by 

 the waves to Sicily, w^here she is found and nurtured 

 by an old shepherd and his wife. Prince Dorastus 

 of Sicih', Egistus' son and heir, is presented to us as 

 a contemner of love. Revolting against his father's 

 proposal to marry him to a Danish princess, one day, 

 as he returns from hawking, he sees Fawnia ; falls in 

 love with her at once ; and, before his father can 

 learn of the attachment, escapes with her on board 

 ship — carrying along with him the old shepherd, to 

 prevent discovery. The ship is driven by storms 

 into Bohemia, and the lovers in disguise reach Pan- 

 dosto's court, where Pandosto falls grossly in love 

 with his own daughter. When at last Egistus tracks 

 his son's whereabouts, and the truth is made plain to 

 all concerned, Pandosto kills himself in despair for 

 his sins. 



If now we compare this with the events of Shake- 

 speare's play, it would appear that the divergence 

 from Greene is not remarkable till we reach the 

 second part of the story, concerning the loves of 

 the princes. In other words, the opening scene of the 

 fourth act of The Winter's Tale — the speech of Time 

 as Chorus, announcing the silent passage of sixteen 

 years — not only marks a break in the plot, but divides 

 the play conveniently for our purpose of comparing 

 it with its source. The two parts separated by this 

 scene have been differently rebuilt. 



Let us confine ourselves for the moment to the 

 first part. The impression conveyed by these three 

 acts to anyone who knew the novel well and was 

 reading the play for the first time, would naturally 

 be that Shakespeare was simply translating a piece 

 of narrative into dramatic form. The interest of the 

 •story may be more keenly felt ; the characters may 

 be presented more vividly and with surer touch, as 

 well as under new names — that was to be expected. 

 But throughout this part there is nothing to warrant 

 the expectation of a denouement other than that of 

 the novel. The storj- of Leontes' jealousy of his 



queen, Hermione, and his friend, PoHxenes ; of the 

 friend's escape and the queen's imprisonment ; of 

 Perdita's birth in prison and her abandonment to the 

 mercies of the sea ; of her mother's trial and acquittal, 

 thanks to an answer given by the Oracle of Apollo ; 

 of the death of Leontes' sole heir, Mamillius ; and of 

 Leontes' grief and repentance — all this is retold from 

 the corresponding part of Greene's novel. Incidents 

 of the original which are not actually reproduced, 

 we shall find, none the less, preserved by being men- 

 tioned in this or that speech ; if some new character 

 is added, we shall find that the requirements of a 

 drama sufficiently e.xplain the change. Thus the 

 trial scene of Hermione (III, 2) does duty for the two 

 appearances in cdint of her protot\pe Hellaria ; and 



GREEMi l.N HIS SHROUD COMPOSING. 

 {From " The English Novel in the Time of Shakespeare" by J. J. Jusserand.) 



SO Shakespeare makes Leontes send to consult the 

 Oracle on his own initiative, not (like Pandosto) at 

 the request of his queen on her first appearance before 

 her judges. Drama often needs thus to compress a 

 story which there is room in a narrative to expand. 

 Again, in the first scene of all, Archidamus — Shake- 

 speare's own creation — is introduced merely to gather 

 up in dialogue with Camillo, the opening passages of 

 the novel, to define the starting-point of the play. 

 And so of all the slight divergences from the plot 

 of the novel in these first three acts, we maj- say 

 with truth that they are due to the requirements of 

 drama, save perhaps in two instances — the additions, 

 namely, of the characters of Antigonus and of his 

 wife Paulina. 



Paulina's function in the play is really to bring 

 about a conclusion quite different from that of the 

 novel ; at her home, Hermione will be hidden to 



